Despite a clean and beautiful presentation, unfortunately SF6 (mechanically) is just a huge step back for fighting games. I can definitely respect wanting to introduce more casual and new players to the genre but I also believe there is a way to do that, that still allows you to make the genre fun and rewarding to play.

Rewarding is the key difference here, as SF6 follows the ideals of a casino more than a traditional fighting game. On the surface all of the things you expect to be there exist, like movement and spacing and some traditional fighting game techniques are applicable. But only once you realize that this game is quite precision engineered to introduce (frankly excessive and unnecessary) levels of risk and explosiveness to every interaction (even those that don't make much sense) you start to realize that SF6 isn't trying to be a good fighting game, but is trying to give you an experience that's a bit of a facade for "what being good at a fighting game might be like"

To this end, interactions are built with a lot of the more ill-advised modern fighting game philosophy in mind. Don't be patient, don't reward fundamentals and deeper understanding, and don't make players develop a novel game plan to express their version of a character. Always be gambling and pressing something, never allow the game to slow down, remove nuance from systems and mechanics so that players don't have friction that might stop them from mashing buttons, and only allow players to play characters the way they are designed, with the built in rock paper scissors they are packaged with.

This is the core philosophy of SF6 and while it's a fine game in many ways, it's not a good fighting game. It lacks sauce and nuance, grime and tech, strategy and deliberate play. It is a Pavlovian machine that doles out seemingly random explosive hits of dopamine for those with not enough time or interest in diving deep into something meaningful. What seems at first like several layers of offense and defense, circles back to really only a handful of limited, curated interactions, by virtue of system mechanics so strong that playing on a layer below 2 is simply less effective and leaving things up to cosmic chance rather than skill or technique. This is what I mean by rewarding. I've grown to love fighting games because the lessons I took away from learning to play them have stuck with me and benefited me in nearly every aspect of my life. That journey and experience of self-improvement was so rewarding to me that I've always valued fighting games over any other type of hobby let alone genre of video game. So to deliberately design a game that removes the rewarding parts of the genre, practically defeats the entire purpose. I can probably recommend SF6 to someone who has never played a fighting game as an introduction to the genre, but I cannot recommend it to anyone who is interested in learning lifelong skills through a rewarding hobby. Because if you really want to get into playing a fighting game for that purpose it is inherently a long-term commitment. And for that, there are just so many other, better, fighting games that you can play - where you will have so much more fun throughout that journey.

Despite a clean and beautiful presentation, unfortunately SF6 (mechanically) is just a huge step back for fighting games. I can definitely respect wanting to introduce more casual and new players to the genre but I also believe there is a way to do that, that still allows you to make the genre fun and rewarding to play. Rewarding is the key difference here, as SF6 follows the ideals of a casino more than a traditional fighting game. On the surface all of the things you expect to be there exist, like movement and spacing and some traditional fighting game techniques are applicable. But only once you realize that this game is quite precision engineered to introduce (frankly excessive and unnecessary) levels of risk and explosiveness to every interaction (even those that don't make much sense) you start to realize that SF6 isn't trying to be a good fighting game, but is trying to give you an experience that's a bit of a facade for "what being good at a fighting game might be like" To this end, interactions are built with a lot of the more ill-advised modern fighting game philosophy in mind. Don't be patient, don't reward fundamentals and deeper understanding, and don't make players develop a novel game plan to express their version of a character. Always be gambling and pressing something, never allow the game to slow down, remove nuance from systems and mechanics so that players don't have friction that might stop them from mashing buttons, and only allow players to play characters the way they are designed, with the built in rock paper scissors they are packaged with. This is the core philosophy of SF6 and while it's a fine game in many ways, it's not a good fighting game. It lacks sauce and nuance, grime and tech, strategy and deliberate play. It is a Pavlovian machine that doles out seemingly random explosive hits of dopamine for those with not enough time or interest in diving deep into something meaningful. What seems at first like several layers of offense and defense, circles back to really only a handful of limited, curated interactions, by virtue of system mechanics so strong that playing on a layer below 2 is simply less effective and leaving things up to cosmic chance rather than skill or technique. This is what I mean by rewarding. I've grown to love fighting games because the lessons I took away from learning to play them have stuck with me and benefited me in nearly every aspect of my life. That journey and experience of self-improvement was so rewarding to me that I've always valued fighting games over any other type of hobby let alone genre of video game. So to deliberately design a game that removes the rewarding parts of the genre, practically defeats the entire purpose. I can probably recommend SF6 to someone who has never played a fighting game as an introduction to the genre, but I cannot recommend it to anyone who is interested in learning lifelong skills through a rewarding hobby. Because if you really want to get into playing a fighting game for that purpose it is inherently a long-term commitment. And for that, there are just so many other, better, fighting games that you can play - where you will have so much more fun throughout that journey.