Well...the long answer is no it does not, but the short answer is yes it does. If you are the kind of person who is willing to spend hours creating a team, practicing combo's and honing your defenses you will get a lot more out of this game than if you want to casually beat the crap out of a friend every now and then but more on that.
Much like the release of Vanilla Street Fighter 4 back in 2008 this game is extremely bare bones. The modes in this game are confined to a 7 match arcade mode (6 fights then boss) offline 2P versus, Trials mode and training mode. Add in the gallery full of Japanese/English voices, musical tracks and loads of art to round off the offline modes which leaves anyone who cares for fighting game single player modes very disappointed. Even though Capcom promised a robust story mode, all that they gave us was 2 frame endings for every character and a continuity smashing comic for those who bought the collectors edition.
Meanwhile on the online side of things...well there isn't much here either. Ranked matches with very poor match finding, player matches and that is about it. Made all the more underwhelming when you find out that player match lobbies can have up to 8 people playing in the same room! this would be fantastic if not for the fact that only 2 people can play at any given time with absolutely no spectate mode for the other 1-6 players. With each match with loading times and syncing taken into account winding up at about 2.5 to 3 minutes, it can get extremely boring for masses of waiting players.
Not to harp any more than I need to, but the lack of current Fighting game convention replay saving is another thing that really takes away from this game. Though Wanting a replay feature is a good thing, it means that the matches are insane right? well, thankfully this is where the game shines.
With 38 different characters and thus far fairly good balance, the varying amount of effective 3 character teams is immense. Admittedly it is early on into the games life, but the fact that so many teams are used, really take away from the drag of fighting the same characters every single match, and makes the game even better for hardcore fans due to the fact you essentially have to know strategies around 38 characters, which is a blast.
The most controversial aspect of the game is however simply the new mechanic of X-factor. A three stage temporary power up that grants character specific stat boosts, negates block damage and allows some healing...this would all be fine at level 1 at all times. However, this game is completely dictated by this feature. Depending on how many characters you have left, your X-factor gets stronger, not slightly, but significantly! By the time you have one character and activate X-factor you boost in power, speed and god only knows what else so much, that touch of death combo's aren't impressive, but expected! This new feature gets so ridiculous that level 3 X-factor can and will save matches left and right, with some characters, skill goes out the window and mashing will win the day. In a game that is so competitively backed is absurd.
Yes, both players have it, but it does not make it the best feature in the world, it is almost universally dispised, and with Rumors of an update title coming out similar to Super Street Fighter 4 the one constant hope is that X-factor is balanced.
Aside from that, the game looks fantastic, the game sounds fantastic and if this game was an arcade game, it would be a much better rated by me. Though seeing as it is a home console game the lack of any interesting single player modes really sadden me, especially since Capcom promised to knock it out of the park in terms of story. I think this is a fantastic fighter only bare bones as they come.
I rate this game a 6/10 Great gameplay in a fighter, but many flaws elsewhere.
an attempt at a review, just honing my reviewing style.
