The RPS Advent Calendar 2023, December 12th

You'll need to limber up and do some warm-up stretches before attempting to open today's door on the RPS Advent Calendar, otherwise you'll risk getting an instant KO from the burly brawlers waiting inside.

That's right, today's finalist in the Advent Calendar knockout is... Ready? Street Fighter 6!

Jeremy: Street Fighter 6 is the best Street Fighter in years, and leagues ahead of the two entries that preceded it. SFIV may have resurrected fighting games among mainstream audiences in 2008, but it played things safe with an extreme reliance on Street Fighter II nostalgia. SFV, in contrast, launched in 2015 with a minimal roster and an extreme focus on esports at the expense of everything else. Street Fighter 6 does not commit these same mistakes. The game is big, bold, and brash in all the best ways, from its plethora of playable modes to a hip-hop-inspired flair that infuses everything from the soundtrack to the graffiti-esque effects that accompany every character's special moves. It's all wonderfully reminiscent of Street Fighter 3: Third Strike and Street Fighter Alpha/Zero 3, the ultimate kings of the series in my eyes.

SF6 isn't quite as superb as those two classics, but it's up there, mostly because it gives us such a wonderful sense of newness. While old favourites like Ryu, Ken, and Chun-Li are present and accounted for, they're experienced veterans now standing alongside a fresh cast that includes the likes of Luke (the loveable doofus posterboy of this game), Jamie (his much cooler rival, a drunken kung fu b-boy with fresh sneakers), and Kimberly (the first female Black American character in any Street Fighter game). The new cast oozes staying power in a way that the newbie combatants in Street Fighter 3 were tragically never able to, and the sheer quantity of fanart that's spread online since SF6 was released no doubt proves that they'll be around for multiple games to come.

Then there are all the ways to play SF6. Capcom may have ignored singleplayer campaigns in previous SF games, but here, they finally offer up something beyond its competitive Arcade mode with a truly hefty singleplayer excursion dubbed World Tour, and honestly, it's a riot. Something like a modern version of Final Fight, World Tour tasks you with designing an avatar of your own and exploring an open world Metro City where everyone settles their problems by whooping ass. Thanks to the ability to meet all characters in the game's roster and learn their movesets, you can create a Frankenstein's Monster fighter of your own who dances like Dee Jay but also shoots Yoga Fire from across the screen like Dhalsim. The plot of World Tour is mildly nonsensical, complete with shōnen manga dialogue about what it means to be the world's strongest, but the sheer fact that you level up by stomping random NPCs to a pulp makes it great.

On the multiplayer side of things, SF6 offers up the best online matchups that the franchise has ever seen, with reliable netcode and crossplay that lets me challenge a Playstation 5 player in Japan without my internet suffering a thousand points of damage, Shun Goku Satsu-style. And when I'm tired of getting my face beaten by Hadouken-tossing mooks, I can dive into SF6's intentionally goofy Extreme Battle mode, which lets you duel an opponent while dodging random gimmicks like charging bulls and Megaman Mets. It's chuckle-inducing stuff, and proof that Street Fighter 6 is neither playing it safe nor taking itself entirely seriously.

At its best, this franchise has always been about innovative and fun battles carried out between outrageous characters who are often stereotypical but somehow still cool. (Shoutout to Blanka, who continues to represent Brazil despite being a green wildman with electrical eel powers). Street Fighter 6 brings this vibe back to the forefront after the last two entries minimised it, and the final result is wonderful to behold. Here's to the next several years of SF6, and the inevitable, eventual release of Street Fighter 6: Turbo Champion Remix VI.