We’re already a third of the way through March, and the radio silence regarding Alex and the March update for Street Fighter V has been deafening. That is to say, until now.
Capcom has just released information on Alex, the character with perhaps the most fervid niche of fans among the Street Fighter Pantheon.
For the uninitiated, Alex is the protagonist of the Street Fighter III series and most recent winner of the World Warrior tournament. In-game, he functioned as a charge-based grappler/striker with a move set that played particularly well in the mid-range for a character of his type. According to Capcom, Alex has tools to cover large portions of the screen; whether this means he will be retaining his tool set or getting new special moves has yet to be seen. If you’re looking for a grappler with a threatening presence both in and out of grab range, Alex might just be the man for you.
Not much in terms of gameplay is known about Alex, save for his V-skill, V-trigger, and Critical art. With that said, let’s go over what we’ve been given.
V-Skill : Overhaul
For those of you who are new to Street Fighter (or the Street Fighter III series at least), Street Fighter III‘s taunts actually served a purpose: some of them would boost stats, some would throw weak projectiles. Alex’s taunt boosted his damage output by winding up his arm and that taunt is what would become his current V-Skill.
Alex winds up his arm and gets ready to bring the pain. After using this V-skill, Alex’s next hit countS as a hard hit and will do damage as if it were landed as a counter hit. There is no word as to whether being hit removes this buff (ala Mika V-skill), but it will be lost if his attack misses or is blocked.
V-Trigger: Rage Shift
Alex gets access to a new chargeable clothesline attack. It affords one hit of armor while charging, and breaks the opponent’s guard if charged to its maximum. It sounds very much like a focus attack in Street Fighter IV, but we’ll see if it has similar applications here when the time comes.
Critical Art: Heavy Hammer
Alex delivers his signature flash chop to turn the opponent around, proceeding to take them up into a crucifix hold to then drop them down at break-neck speeds (probably literally).
Other moves such as his power bomb, flash chop, and some type of adaptation of his stungun headbutt have returned, but nothing else is confirmed at the moment.
Of course, the March update is more than just Alex. Here are all the extra features offered in the update straight from the horse’s mouth.
- Challenge Mode
- Demonstrations: Learn the ins and outs of Street Fighter V through helpful demonstration and tutorial content. Contains content for each of the 16 characters, as well as advice geared towards players of all skill levels:
- Beginner Tutorials: 12 lessons covering, movement, normal attacks, special attacks, V-System, throws, counter hits, chip/recoverable damage, etc.
- Intermediate Tutorials: 11 lessons covering projectiles, invincibility frames, armor and armor break, recovery, cross-up attacks, anti-air options, etc.
- Advanced Tutorials: 4 lessons covering back dashing, frame advantage/disadvantage, combo potential, button priority, etc.
- Character Tutorials: 16 lessons covering each individual character.
- Trials: Put your skills to the ultimate test with combo trials for all 16 characters, ranging from basic to pro combos. Completing Trials will also earn you some extra Fight Money.
- In-Game Shop
- Fight Money Expenditure: Spend your hard earned Fight Money to purchase extra game content, such as DLC characters and the Story Mode Costumes.
- Online Rematch Option
- Salty from a close loss online? Want revenge? Players can now play a 2/3 set in Ranked Match, provided both players accept the rematch.
- Battle Lounge Improvements
- Enjoy up to 8 person lobbies, complete with match spectating.
In addition to all of this new content, the following bugs will be fixed in the update:
- Bug: Sometimes you don’t get EXP from casual matches
- Bug: On a rare occurrence, if you restart the game after you unlock colors, the colors you unlocked will disappear
There are a few gameplay related bug fixes and balance changes as well:
- Vega:
- If you hit V-Trigger Bloody Kiss (anti-air) in certain situations, Vega will no longer continue to rise off the top of the screen.
- M. Bison:
- If M. Bison is interrupted by an opponent’s V-Trigger or Critical Art during his invisible frames of Double Knee Press in V-Trigger mode, M. Bison will no longer remain invisible until his next move.
- Rashid:
- Rashid will no longer float in the air for a moment if you perform his V-Trigger after he touches the ground upon a missed Eagle Spike.
- Chun-Li:
- During V-Trigger activation, the hit stop and block stop has been made the same for multi-hitting moves (medium or heavy attacks for both normal and special moves).
- She was previously able to perform option selects involving standing HP into Houyokusen, so this has been removed.
- Vertical and Back Jump Frames:
- All characters except Birdie and Zangief: Vertical jump and back jump frames have changed from 3f->4f.
- Birdie: Vertical jump and back jump frames have changed from 4f->5f.
- Zangief: No changes to jump frames.
- These changes reduce the effectiveness of throw tech option selects involving jumping (also known as “jump grab”). Changing forward jump frames would affect the game balance too much so those remain unchanged.
- Throw Escape Change:
- If you push buttons during the normal throw delayed tech window you are unable to escape throws for 2 frames.
- Prevents using light attacks to option select with throw escapes.
- If you execute specific special moves during the normal throw delayed tech window you are unable to immediately escape throws. Each characters V-skills, V-triggers, V-reversals, critical arts, and moves have been set individually.
- Prevents throw escape option selects involving specific moves such as Shoryuken, etc.
Unfortunately, there are no details as to the exact date that this patch will be deployed, however; Capcom seems insistent that it will indeed make its way to us this month.
