Street Fighter X Tekken Review

Capcom is no stranger to competition in the fighting game arena. Major franchises like SNK, Marvel, and Tatsunoko have done battle against the Capcom roster but this time, a new challenger enters the ring, in Street Fighter X Tekken (read: Street Fighter cross Tekken).  Namco's famed 3D fighter makes its 2D debut in the first of two titles in the Capcom - Namco co-venture.  All throughout the development of Street Fighter X Tekken, two major questions have piqued  gamers' curiosity; "How well do Tekken characters work in 2D" and "How do the mysterious  gems work?" The answer to both of those questions are pretty positive. 

Capcom's representation of Tekken characters remain true to their Namco roots in terms of general feel.  Not only do the Tekken characters have quite a few more moves in comparison to the Street Fighter characters but in some cases, as with King's Shoulder Tackle and Rolling Elbow, even the inputs are the same.  There are,  however, some creative liberties taken to keep Tekken characters competitive against the Street Fighter cast.  Several Tekken characters such as Jin and Steve were given projectile moves they don't have any iteration of in Tekken.

Hands on With: The Hitbox

The Hitbox features an eight button layout similar to the Madcatz and high end Hori arcade sticks. Unlike those sticks, or any other stick for that matter, the Hitbox features four direction buttons rather than an actual stick.

The placement of the directional buttons are quite unique also. On the upper left are the "left"," down", and "right" buttons. The "up" button is towards the bottom of the stick and is considerably bigger than all of the other buttons. The placement of the" down" button alongside the" left" and "right" buttons shows some serious thought from the stick's designers as most fighting games use a quarter circle or half circle motion that runs along the bottom of the stick.

Playing Tekken 6 on this stick felt really fresh. Usually I have trouble landing the Electric Wind God Fist , a difficult yet vital move for Kazuya, Heihachi, Jin and Devil Jin, but the Hitbox made doing it simple. There is an initial learning curve but after you get used to it, you'll be amazed at how easy it becomes to perform more advance movements.

Now for the big question. Is it worth the $150 price tag? Not so much for the casual fighting game enthusiast but for those that want to shave some travel time off of their standing 720's it's definitely worth considering.