Alternatively, the V-Rivals can be set to learn from online opponents
Alongside Terry Bogard, the next update for Street Fighter 6 will add a couple of interesting features to the game — the Replay Review and V-Rival systems. Capcom has already provided us with a sneak peek at the Replay Review functionality, but what exactly is a V-Rival, or “Virtual Rival”?
As it turns out, 4Gamer, a Japanese website, recently had the opportunity to explore Street Fighter 6’s new V-Rival system and report their findings. A special thanks goes out to our very own Nicholas ‘MajinTenshinhan’ Taylor for providing us with translations.
“You can access the V Rival function from the Battle Hub, and if you look to the left when you enter the Battle Hub, you’ll see Li-Fen and Manemon-kun and if you talk to them you can use it. Manemon-kun will be looking at Street Fighter 6 replays and learn from them to employ the V Rival system,” wrote 4Gamer.
“You can try fighting against V-Rival opponents which have learned from online matches, have V-Rivals fight against each other to observe their learned tactics or even fight against a V-Rival who exclusively watches your own replays to learn from you so you can fight against your own habits.”
Overall, the V-Rival feature is being described as being a very versatile tool to help players develop their skills in Street Fighter 6. It can apparently be set to learn from online opponents you run into or even from your own play.
Based on what 4Gamer has outlined, you can even have two different type of V-Rivals play against each other. This will be an interesting feature to test out fighting game theories before practicing the execution.
However, it seems that there might be some limitations, at least in the build that 4Gamer tried out. It would seem that the V-Rival system has a difficult time simulating higher level players.
“I’m sure you’re most curious about the capabilities of the V-Rival, and in this test session there wasn’t enough data for them to go on yet so even the highest version (Master Rank) didn’t feel like it was accurately displaying combo capabilities or anti-air levels of a Master rank player,” continued 4Gamer.
“This isn’t really aimed at top players but rather a new way to include lower level players who are nervous about making their rank match debut, so it should be a good point of practice.”
Perhaps the V-Rival functionality will capable of more precise imitation of Master ranked players after viewing more replays to serve as data. Additionally, it’s possible that Capcom could update V-Rivals with future patches.
Regardless, 4Gamer would then go on to mention another use case for the V-Rival. Players will be able to practice new characters before jumping into ranked matches.
“It might be useful for when you want to train your sub characters or get more practice against characters you rarely fight in ranked as well,” said 4Gamer.
Indeed, the V-Rival feature sounds like an incredibly interesting and useful tool to help players in a variety of ways.