Now stop, hating is bad.
Lately there has been an outburst of hate for Street Fighter x Tekken (SFxT), especially from me. From the DLC policy to how the game is played, and just in general hating. Well I would like to remind people of the good this game does if one puts the time in to see past all the hate. That reminder is the main selling point of the game, which is ... you can play all the modes online with your friends.
When has there been something as simple as that little addition been so looked over? You can get salty over ranked games with your friends there to tell you that you should have switched in. Who wouldn't want all that pressure and rage-filled excitement? But on a serious note, it is indeed a fun endeavor if you so happen to have friends who play. It's a very nice switch from the usual go it alone route many other fighting games take (except DoA 4 which was also awesome).
You can get advice from your friend on what you should do better to handle a certain character, see how your partner handles different characters, and probably the most important mechanic to this game ... combos. A briefing room is available to work on combos and switch-ins, pretty much everything you can ask for. So the partner system can be seen as a great tool to help players learn from each more hands-on than before.
Scramble mode is amazing if you can get a full lobby of people really into it. Again this is a great job on Capcom's part of integrating a better co-op multiplayer system that is new, invigorating, and honestly needed. Go out of a salty, scrubby match and play some scramble mode with your friends to see how many times you can charge up a super and catch someone off guard. It's probably the best feeling in the world when you get the other team stuck in the middle where your team is on both sides of the opponent and you just start tapping a jab.
Priceless comedy.
The next feature is one that is underutilized, which is the replay viewer. Not only can you see replays of yourself, but you can make a lobby and show them to everyone in it. I only recently found out about this so I may just be behind the curve, but that is a kick ass function. Again the value is in being able to see and understand your match, but here's where you can do scramble mode replays.
So if you've ever got the urge to setup your friend, you can always make a lobby, invite him and some other players to pump him up. Maybe show a clip or two about how skilled he is or how he beat you. Then show the lobby your friend getting the Shinku Hadoken from across the screen while he was attacking someone else and listen to the hilarity.
For all the hate that's been on Capcom, they really did make this game with a good sense of the multiplayer aspect that I think more games (besides fighting games) need to tap into. Why not make games utilize the function the Xbox 360 was really meant for? To play with or against people from across the world! I really do think that if every game at least had an option (single-player gamers can have the option to play alone) to play with someone else in some capacity revolving around the main story, main mode, or really polished mulitplayer mode most games would reach higher levels than they currently are at now.
Look at the Halo series, probably the most renowned title besides Street Fighter. It incorporates a very enthralling story with the ability to play with some locally, and then later online with three other players. It also gave a deep multiplayer experience with vehicles and the really huge team battles. Who doesn't remember the long nights spent playing against 20-plus people in Halo 3 big team battles? SFxT really has taken a similar model and gone to the award winning formula for this game, which will keep people playing long after the over priced DLC arrives.
But the DLC is for another post. Just saying, sometimes you've got to find the good things in games to drown out all the rage in the community or from writers (wink, wink).
