(Download Street Fighter X Tekken Mobile from iTunes)
Capcom’s track record with porting their fighting games to mobile devices are hit-and-miss. While their work with the Street Fighter IV series set the standard, their ports of classic fighters have been mediocre to poor. What sets those apart is that Capcom really took the time to optimize Street Fighter IV for mobile, while the rest are simply shoehorned in. Thankfully, Street Fighter X Tekken Mobile is not an example of the latter.
Right away, I was taken aback by its visual quality. Unlike Street Fighter IV, which used static backgrounds and character sprites, this features fully-polygonal graphics with dynamic backgrounds. I was expecting the game to take a performance hit with this transition, but it consistently ran smooth for me, even on my now-dinosaur iPhone 4. Kudos to Capcom for pushing their presentation to the next level. Granted, if you have a phone older than the iPhone 4, this isn’t going to work for you at all, so keep that in mind when you consider purchasing.
If you have played virtually any other fighting game on a mobile device in the last few years, the control setup should be instantly recognizable. You get access to one punch button, one kick button, one special move button, and a launcher button for boost combos. Supers and Cross Arts can be triggered by touching the top health bars and character icons. These controls are as responsive as those found in Street Fighter IV, and do a great job preserving the Street Fighter X Tekken gameplay. A point worth noting: leveraging the special move button is a must, as inputting special moves the old fashioned way is more trouble than it’s worth on a touch screen.
This port from a gameplay perspective is very faithful to its console counterparts, with some fundamental revisions. Most notably, only your first character gets a life bar. In its place, the second character gets a tag meter. This character can take infinite damage, but they can only be on the screen as long as you have the available meter. This meter dwindles while this second character is on screen and when they get hit, so you’ll want to use them wisely. Because of this change to mechanics, you may want to reconsider how you normally would arrange your team from the console version.
The controversial gems are still here, though they’re implemented differently. You get access to one gem per team. Outside of the matches, you can upgrade these gems using SP, which is earned by playing the game, or through the gold, which can be purchased with real money. I find it kind of scummy that Capcom gives you the option to buy upwards of $100(!) of in-game gold to spend on gem upgrades, and it raises some genuine concerns about how powerful upgraded gems can be. It would suck to face off against someone who paid for a crazy overpowered gem, and lose solely because of the power-up they purchased. As of writing, I have not run into this situation, though it’s currently too early to tell the overall impact gems will have in the world of online play. Speaking of which, the online play works great. Most of my matches went really smoothly, which is not something I expect from an iPhone fighting game online.
The only real bummer for me was the game’s roster size. At launch, it featured 10 characters, which is rather small for a 2 vs. 2 game. In particular, my main man Rolento is absent, though more popular characters such as Ken and Jin also got snubbed. It’s safe to assume that Capcom will update the game with a number of characters down the road, and hopefully they’ll be free. As it stands, it’s a decent cross-section of characters from both sides, though its likely not going to please everyone in its current state.
Street Fighter X Tekken Mobile is one of the best iPhone fighting game ports to-date. It stays true to the source material while pushing some aspects of the genre on mobile forward. I do have concerns about roster size, and the long-term impact of gems, but it’s too early to pass final judgment on those. Unless you were greatly turned off by its console counterpart, there isn’t much reason for fighting game fans to let this one slip past.
In Third Person 
Meh. Outside of pretty graphics, I didn’t find anything about this game that was better than Volt. In fact, a lot of things about it were worse. The coin system (which makes it difficult to get better at the game) and the fact that you have to unlock other game modes by playing Ranked (which,artificially increases play time) were big factors here. But Online being bad is the biggest, and I think the pretty graphics are partially to blame. The big sell on this game was the online multiplayer and for that to be the main game mode that you HAVE to play and yet be as bad as it is is just lazy. It’s a shame because it looks fantastic and with the system changes is actually a BETTER SFxT than the console version.
But all the nickel & diming with IAP, the need to get to level 40 to even unlock friendly battle, and the laggy-as-hell online you have to deal with to do that, it’s like Capcom is almost TRYING to make the mobile version as hated as the console version.
Thanks for the comment!
I do prefer Volt over SFxT, but I did enjoy my time with it for what it is. I’ve read a lot of people hate on the online performance, but I never had any issues with it. All my matches ran great. Maybe things have changed since. I do think the coin system is scummy though.
Online being bad was another reason I didn’t give it a lot of playtime. It was wayyy too laggy too often. The update fixed it a little but not enough to be considered playable IMO.
With a game like KoF out there that has much better net code and is a much better translation with more characters I can’t see the appeal of SFxT.
KoF is fantastic on iOS. With that said, I’m terrible at it. I get a lot more out of SFxT because it’s a game that I can play with some semblance of skill, even if it is inferior to KoF and Volt.