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On the PlayStation 4 it takes a minute or more to actually start the game from the moment that title appears. The first fight in Street Fighter V Champion Edition is with the title screen and you will always lose. And even though Street Fighter V finally knows who it is, it now has a different identity problem: it’s still not clear who this game is for. It’s all included in the new Street Fighter V Champion Edition, which is a major improvement over the original 2016 game. What once felt light on content is now bursting at the seams, between the cinematic story, short cut-scene based individual stories for each character, multiple arcade modes patterned after the history of the franchise, and an online suite laden with options and alternatives. Capcom released a full story mode within a few months of launch, and has added 24 more fighters, both new and familiar, through DLC. It felt like a game that didn’t really have any reason to exist, outside of Capcom’s financial interest in continually making new Street Fighter games.
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Its impact at the time was muted, and not just because it was (and remains) exclusive to the PlayStation 4 and PC. The actual fighting was fine-although the new V-Gauge system felt a bit confused, as it tried to simplify some parts of the game in a way that’s a little complicated and confusing. When it came out in 2016, it felt unfinished it had a relatively small pool of fighters, and lacked some of the basic options usually found in fighting games, including a story mode. Street Fighter V launched with an identity problem.
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