Street Fighter 6 is about to celebrate seven months since its release back in June, and despite a flourishing start and consistent interest you needn’t look all that hard to find complaints on social media paired with wishes that the days of the previous Street Fighter 5 would come back.
Whether or not anyone likes Street Fighter 5 or Street Fighter 6 more is wholly up to the individual, but we’ve started seeing specific claims about Street Fighter 5 being a better setting for footsie-based play, and that’s something Dreamking, Catalyst and I just couldn’t swallow. In a segment from our latest episode of Talk and Block, we chime in.
Street Fighter 6 isn’t perfect, of course, and one can rapidly and accurately point to Drive Rush being both overpowered (in certain cases, at least) and a direct detriment to the general Street Fighter footsie standard.
That said, it’s this elusive “footsie standard” that I’d like to put under the microscope for a bit, because it’s something that exists more in theory than anything else.
There isn’t a dictionary definition of the term “footsies” but here’s with Infil’s Fighting Game Glossary has to say:
“A complicated, often nebulous term that refers to the battle for controlling the space in front of you, often by using good pokes. In essence, you are trying to get to a range you like, while trying to deny your opponent getting to a range that they like. How you do this varies wildly based on the game, but it often involves using strong crouching kick attacks to pester your opponent as they are trying to walk around. This dance of playing mind games with your feet is the source of the term’s name.”
It’s easy to start splitting hairs about whether or not footsies refers only to grounded or physical or other kinds of attacks, but I’d rather offer a definition of what exactly I imagine the Street Fighter community means when it indirectly refers to that theoretical standard aforementioned.
I’d argue that what people want is strategic, thoughtful maneuvering paired with reactions to showcase raw skill between two players, and when they feel like a game’s mechanics or a character’s abilities too greatly cheapen that process, that’s when they get mad.
Of course, they also get mad when they lose, and it’s oh so easy to conflate frustrated emotions stemming from actual lack of justice in game balance and those that stem from the sting of defeat.
We expand on this and more as we compare the gameplay of Street Fighter 5 and Street Fighter 6 in the clip below. Check out what we have to say and then chime into the comments with your own thoughts and reactions, and please consider liking, commenting, and subscribing directly on YouTube to help us grow our channel.