I've never gotten into Street Fighter, or any fighting game aside from Smash, really. But I tried the demo for this, and it's fun! It seems like if there's any fighting game worth really learning, it's the one that will always have an active online community. The modern controls made it way more approachable. I'm not sold on the idea that complex command inputs actually add "depth" to fighting games in an interesting way... who knows, maybe a year from now I'll be doing half-circles on a fight stick, ha.

I might pick this one up soon. Anyone else playing it? Reminds me of SF4 coming out as a launch title on 3DS.

I have it on PS5. I'm pretty sure it's cross-play, so I'd be happy to spar with you. I'll likely pick up the Switch 2 version once I officially get that platform.

@GameDadGrant

I ended up picking it up! I started with Ryu since I wanted the canonical experience, had some fun, didn't get much better, and then tried out Dhalsim (because he reminded me of Luffy). After picking him up, I immediately ascended to Silver rank online. I then learned that he's the least played character due to his bizarre playstyle, and no one knows how to counter him.

It's interesting to think about traditional vs. open-ended design here. I appreciate the fundamentals, but don't want to spend a thousand hours learning them. Engaging with the game via lateral thinking lets me stay competitive by exploiting the orthodoxy's blind spots, but if every character was unique, none of them would be, and there'd be no fun in this (or at least, it'd be a different kind of fun, more sandboxy).