Street Fighter 5 Ibuki Review

June was supposed to be Street Fighter 5’s big comeback. However, a July push was worrying but intriguing. Did introducing a surprise character like Balrog mean that Capcom was going put less focus on what they had originally promised all along? It was a first case scenario for a DLC screwup like this, and while we’ll reveal our thoughts on the end results in the coming days, we thought it was important to cover the original center of July’s release first.

Gameplay:

In terms of variety, Street Fighter 5’s body types don’t really change when placed to the opposite gender. (Take notes from Overwatch, Capcom!) Because of this, Ibuki is another one of the quick and fast additions to the roster. However, when major gameplay additions are introduced that take a left turn to Ibuki’s style, the character starts to feel off.

Story & Design:

For the past two Street Fighter 5 character add-ons, I’ve commented on how the story packs introduce nothing but a couple substantial cool fights on top of a petty plot backdrop. This continues with Ibuki, but it feels even weaker due the unevenness of her style. The V trigger takes a long time to properly implement, and because of this you’re forced to take a majority of damage you wouldn’t otherwise be dealing with.

Presentation/ Visuals & Audio:

In terms of pure design, Ibuki is more than a graphical step up from Street Fighter 3 and 4, but not as divisive as seen with Ken. New details like a new color scheme and bomb support help keep the character fresh and exciting, even though it doesn’t translate to the gameplay. Overall, it’s a good example wrought by the character’s other issues.

Conclusion:

Ibuki may be one of the more inadequate characters to enter Street Fighter 5’s post-release ring so far, but it’s more or less how long the character takes to get used too. I still don’t think her style mashes well with some of her opposites, but there have been some times where I caught glimpses of what could have been. In other words, Ibuki isn’t a complete lost cause, but it’ll take more than a simple patch to fix this one.

Street Fighter 5’s Ibuki gets a 6/10 (Limited Appeal)

We’d like to thank Capcom for giving us a code!

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