Tune up the defense at your own risk…
If there’s one component of Street Fighter 6’s Drive System you’d be forgiven for remembering existed, it would have to be Drive Reversal. While we expect to see rush, parry, impact, and overdrive at least once or twice in every round, Drive Reversal feels like a much more specialized tool that, if you don’t well understand it, can feel like it’s simply not worth the two bars of Drive Gauge it costs to use it.
Drive Reversal is the subject of MC Mura’s latest video as he tries to determine whether or not the SF6 sub-mechanic is more “meh” or misunderstood. Some people feel like DRs are garbage while others fear their potential if Capcom were to buff them even a little bit; let’s Drive Reversals under the microscope with Mura and see if we can’t come up with an answer.
It’s not hard to see why Drive Reversals might garner a bad rap in a short period. Using them costs two previous bars of Drive Gauge to begin with, and they’re not guaranteed hits. At best Drive Reversal (DR) will get you out of a defensive situation (often in the corner) and give you both a quick breath and a second chance at life, but when they don’t work they leave you feeling terrible.
Many times have we spent two bars only to have our DR blocked and receive a Punish Counter combo that leaves us either knocked out or right back in the same situation with significantly less health and gauge.
Characters that have no invincible reversals lean on DR in an obvious way, but those who can spend that same two bars for close to the same risk and usually better reward may elect to permanently shelve DR in favor of always using invincible reversals.
In a game that’s so about offense, shouldn’t the obvious, global defensive move be relatively strong to keep things fair?
Street Fighter 6 naturally leans toward offense, and it might not even be hyperbole to say that DR stands as a bastion that stops the game from becoming fatally imbalanced, but MC Mura points out the dangers of improving the mechanic by even small amounts.
You might argue that developers should make Drive Reversal a little safer on block by tuning their recovery down by a frame or two, but such a change could quickly make the maneuver overly powerful in burnout situations.
Mura puts everything in better perspective in the full video below, and we’d love to hear your thoughts on the current state of Drive Reversals after you’ve had a chance to watch.