I’ve been a huge Street Fighter fan ever since the first time I played SF2 on my friend’s SNES. Despite playing many early versions, my love for the game truly came to fruition during the Street Fighter Alpha run on the original Playstation console. I played the hell out of SFA3… to the point where anyone that had come to my house and played against me for a while ended up not wanting to play the next time they came around. Honestly, I probably wasn’t that good at the game, but I think I just played it more often than my opponents. With newer iterations of the game though, gone are the days that you actually need to know people who want to play, no you don’t even have to get someone to come over to your house. The Internet truly is a magically thing.

So it’s been a couple of years since the release of Street Fighter V, which is the newest entry in the main series and though I pre-ordered the title, it didn’t release with a whole lot to do. It wasn’t a complete and total disappointment, but it wasn’t what fans were expecting. A couple of months after release, the Story mode was added and then throughout 2016 there was a “season” of characters that were added to the game. Another DLC package dubbed “season 2” added more characters to the game. Fast forward to this year, and we now have Street Fighter Arcade Edition. I recall something similar happening with Street Fighter IV, and though we live in the age of DLC and yearly game entries I’m glad that Capcom has charged minimally for these DLC packages and has avoided turning a title like this into a yearly affair.

This new packaging of the game includes the free updates that have dropped over the past couple of years and bundles in the first two season’s worth of characters at a lower entry rate than the original title. There is already the option to pick up the 3rd season of characters as well, but that will cost you. The Arcade edition patch was free for owners of the base game, which is a nice gesture except that I paid for both the other seasons not so long ago (both within the last year, but the 2nd season was over the holidays). From what I have read this was free for those who owned the base game, but in-game it kind of seems like you still have to pay for those characters, so I’m not really sure which is the case, but nonetheless I am current to this point.

Outside of the obvious logo change I posted above, the menus have changed around a bit as well, with some new game modes being added with this patch. Extra Battle is one of the new features, and in it you’ll receive a quest of sorts to finish a fight against a special character (currently there’s one to face off against Shin Akuma) or a round of fights that give special rewards. I have yet to beat one, but it’s a nice addition. These cost Fight Points (FP) to join though, and apparently these points can be used for other things but I haven’t figured that out yet.

Arcade mode is the other big addition. It gives you a number of different battles to fight though and you can choose the character you use from a predetermined list. Then each level you get to choose from two opponents who you want to face next.

These story lines are supposed to be reflective of the story that is congruous throughout the 5 main series titles, and only include characters from those games (as far as I can tell). I played through the Street Fighter storyline with Ken, but there were others I could have played and I suppose this gives you a similar experience as if you were playing said title, having only those characters involved. I’m not going to pretend to be an expert on the storyline though, nor should I imply that I care. It’s a fighting game, you’re only out to kick some ass.

And ass kicking will happen. Sometimes you do it, sometimes you receive it.

After checking out the new content in the game, I jumped online for some fights against random internet denizens. Let’s just say I got my ass handed to me by this little lady:

I rematched and lost again to boot. I did rectify my loss by twice pummeling a Ryu player shortly thereafter before calling it a night. I will agree with the critics here when I say that this is the game as it should have been upon release, and I’m glad it’s finally here despite being a now two year old title. Still, there’s something to be said about having plenty of modes to hone your skills before jumping online to be beaten by a kid living in his mother’s basement.