Street Fighter 6 review for Nintendo Switch 2
System: Switch 2
Release date: June 5, 2025
Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom
When Nintendo revealed Switch 2 earlier this year, of all the games announced to be releasing alongside the system on launch day, it was Street Fighter 6 that had me the most excited. The original Nintendo Switch missed out on so many major releases in the fighting game genre; outside of Smash Bros. Ultimate and some iffy Mortal Kombat ports, the pickings were slim for those seeking a big, modern, flashy fighting game (although we did get what felt like roughly a thousand retro fighting game collections.) These titles have always felt like such a natural fit for handheld play to me, so when Street Fighter 6 released to near universal critical acclaim on other platforms a few years ago, I was eager to someday play it on a console where I could hone my skills at home or on the go. Fortunately, while Street Fighter 6 had to make a few compromises to make it onto Nintendo Switch 2, for the most part this is an excellent way to enjoy Capcom’s premier current-gen fighting game.
As a fairly casual fan of Street Fighter up to this point – the last game in the series I recall sinking considerable time into was Street Figher IV 3D Edition – I’ve longed for years to really “get into” the series. I’ve always enjoyed playing fighting games casually for when seeking something fun to play with friends, or for a quick match or two when I’m in between other games, but it’s been a good while since I’ve managed to dive deep into the mechanics of a game like this. It’s not for lack of trying, necessarily, but rather the fact that in my experience, there’s a pretty major skill gap between being good enough to make it through Arcade mode and being good enough to not get demolished while playing online. Typically, the first place I go when getting invested in a game like this is the Tutorial mode, so that I can at least develop a fighting chance of holding my own in a match.
The great thing about Street Fighter 6 for people like me is that the onboarding experience for new or out-of-practice players is incredible. If you choose to play through the tutorials first, you’ll find an experience that does an excellent job explaining the nuances of combat without being overwhelming, splitting up the learning experience into different difficulties depending on how fresh you are as a player. It’s excellently paced, well-written, and I would say in under an hour I felt I had learned enough about the fundamentals of the game that I wouldn’t need to resort to button-mashing. There’s still quite a rabbit hole of depth for me to explore here, but I’ve been picking up more nuances here and there as I go simply by playing naturally, and that’s a great feeling.
Street Fighter 6 also benefits from having multiple control schemes depending on the level of granular control you wish to have, and how much time you want to spend learning combos. If you prefer something traditional you can stick with the Classic controls, but the Modern control scheme is also a great choice for more casual players. It lets you execute most of the combos you would need with less memorization required, while still granting you the room to play strategically depending on who your opponent is. You still have to learn the fundamentals, and it’s far from a free pass to the podium – you’ll still get trounced online if you don’t know what you’re doing. There’s even an AI-assisted control scheme if you want even more guardrails, although I think for most players that may be overkill, and that’s for local play only. But Capcom has put in a lot of work to make Street Fighter 6 a fighting game that anyone can learn and enjoy, and I think that’s fantastic. The Switch 2’s Joy-Con controllers’ small-ish buttons (compared to other current-gen consoles) can make certain maneuvers difficult, but that’s not the game’s fault, really.
It helps that some of the new mechanics are just a blast to execute. The new Drive Gauge lets players pull off some very flashy attacks, and is also used for parrying, but there’s an element of risk/reward in its use. Overusing it can lead to Burnout, putting your fighter in a vulnerable state where they can get obliterated if you aren’t careful, so learning how to benefit from techniques like Drive Impact and Drive Rush combos is a huge boon. There are countless other ways the fighting in Street Fighter 6 has been changed and tuned compared to previous games in the series, and I’ll be frank that a lot of that nuance is well beyond my current knowledge as a player, but it simply feels great to play.
Street Fighter 6 is also a hell of a game to witness in motion, with a style unlike any other fighting game I’ve played. Setting aside the top-notch and meticulously smooth animations that are beyond impressive, when attacks land, they do so with a blast of graffiti-pop-art flair. It makes every special attack feel like a small event in of itself, and stringing these moments together in a fight feels rewarding if only because I get to witness the might of Capcom’s art team by doing so. The game runs at a rock solid 60 FPS in these modes, and looks sharp and detailed in both docked and handheld play. It’s not as good-looking as other platforms, but I think most players will be really impressed by what Capcom was able to achieve here. (There’s a big asterisk here regarding the game’s World Tour mode, unfortunately.)
With Street Fighter 6, you’ll be greeted with what’s one of the most robust suite of modes in a fighting game in recent memory. I’ll start with World Tour mode, as it’s the type of robust single-player focused experience that we don’t often see in fighting games. The premise here is that the player creates their own custom character, and then takes that character through a lighthearted, open-world story about getting stronger and learning to master their preferred style of fighting. It almost plays like a very stripped-down Yakuza game: you explore a few different hub cities, get into street brawls with random troublemakers, complete some bizarre side quests here and there, and unlock new moves and fighting styles for your character as you level up and progress.
While World Tour mode hasn’t blown me away, it’s a great introduction to Street Fighter 6 and a fun place to start. There isn’t a ton to do other than get into fights with thugs and interact with characters from the main roster – excluding a few reflex-based mini-games that let you earn in-game currency to buy clothes for your avatar – but it’s all a lot of fun. It’s hard not to crack a smile when my custom character, dressed like a Starbucks barista, is beating up police officers, college students, and gangsters who wear cardboard boxes over their heads while using Chun-Li’s moveset. There’s a fairly robust photo mode here that is also amusing to play around with, and I enjoyed the loop of completing fights, leveling up, and unlocking new skills and techniques. There’s a great sense of energy to the whole experience, and the funky soundtrack does a lot to enhance that feeling, too.
The two hubs you get to really explore are Metro City and Nayshall, and they have a decent amount of tucked-away alleys and rooftops that I enjoyed poking around in for collectibles and such. They aren’t huge places to explore, and it was a bit of a bummer that the other destinations you can fly to in World Tour mode are little more than standard battle stages with some added depth. I also don’t think World Tour mode looks or runs as well as the rest of Street Fighter 6, which is a bummer. There is a somewhat surprising amount of low-resolution textures, dithering and pop-in, and lighting that can be downright ugly at times, especially in handheld mode. Because you can initiate a fight with just about any NPC in any part of the city, I often found myself getting into brawls against less-than-flattering backdrops that don’t paint the game in a great light. Additionally, both the player avatar and NPC models (excluding the roster of playable fighters, mind you) are pretty noticeably downgraded from the other versions, and hair in particular suffers from what looks like a total lack of aliasing of any kind. The frame rate for fights also is cut in half to 30 in this mode. It’s not unplayable by any means – and at night, it generally looks very good – but considering how well other big, open-world games are running on Nintendo Switch 2 even this close to launch, I was a bit disappointed by this. Still, I had a fun time with World Tour mode despite these issues.
The rest of the Street Fighter 6 package is more in line with what players might expect from a fighting game like this. In terms of single player offerings, there’s a straightforward but thrilling Arcade mode that lets players pick any fighter and take them through a series of battles of increasing difficulty. This is a great way for new players to introduce themselves to the roster, which is varied and truly has something for everyone, whether you’re looking for heavier characters who charge up attacks like Blanka, or more agile, fist-focused fighters like Luke. Each character has their own suite of special moves to learn and master, as you’d expect, but it’s the newcomers that really stood out to me, like Dee Jay and Lily. I’m still enjoying bouncing around between all of them and exploring their different fighting styles, and I expect that will continue to be the case for a while.
You’ve got your other standard offline modes located in the Fighting Ground menu, like Versus fights, local multiplayer, and a robust practice mode, to name a few. You can also enter quick online matches here, which I had no issues with whatsoever from a technical perspective. Interestingly, the Switch 2 version has a few very silly, very casual exclusive modes that integrate motion controls, which I found fun albeit not something I’m likely to revisit.
Jumping online, Street Fighter 6 combines most of its various modes into one place: the Battle Hub. As it implies on the tin, this is a place where players take control of their avatar in a hub-like space and interact with other players, arrange matches, and more. Here, to enter a standard fight, you actually walk up to an arcade machine and sit down, while waiting for another player to come up and sit across from you. It’s cute and creative, although if the lobby you enter is sparsely populated, you may have a hard time getting into a round. In my mind, the appeal here is more of the general interaction with others, like battling one another’s avatars, and participating in tournaments and such.
You can even, much to my delight, sit down and enjoy a smattering of retro Capcom arcade games. This includes some classic Street Fighter games like Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo, but also more random titles like Vulgus and Final Fight. Currently there seem to be about fifteen games in total, and they rotate in and out of the Battle Hub. It looks like it’s possible to unlock some of these games to play freely, too, although it’s all a little opaque about how that works and seems to be tied to the battle pass in some way. Still, it’s a great bonus that adds some real value to the game.
With this port of Street Fighter 6 to Nintendo Switch 2, the game launches in two versions: a $40 USD version that includes solely the base game, and a $60 USD version that bundles the base game with the first two years of DLC characters, costumes and stages previously released on other platforms. If you have any interest in that extra content, I strongly recommend just shelling out the extra 20 bucks for the “Years 1-2 Fighters Edition” as otherwise, you’re looking at $100 in DLC to pick up that stuff later down the road. I offer the caveat that I’m sure Capcom will continue to release DLC for this game, and I’m sure in a few years they’ll likely release a revised “Ultimate” edition of the game for $60-$70 with all that DLC included, and that that will annoy the people buying this game now. But, as of this moment, this package represents a great value in my eyes.
While it’s disappointing that World Tour mode doesn’t look or run very well, overall, the Nintendo Switch 2 version of Street Fighter 6 is a great port that brings the entire suite of single player and multiplayer game modes to the console. It’s an excellent fighting game wit a ton of style that, despite some visual compromises, overall sacrifices very little on the hybrid console in terms of playability. Whether you’re learning the ropes for the first time or jumping right into online competitive play, there’s a staggering amount of content in this package, and Street Fighter 6 truly feels like a fighting game in which just about anyone can find something to love.
A copy of this game was provided to Nintendo Everything by Capcom for the purposes of this review.
