Street Fighter The Miniatures Game

So here it finally is.

After almost 3 years, the Street Fighter miniatures game is finally upon us. After the much discussed delays from Jasco’s Kickstarter campaign, backers now to get to see what all the fuss is about. But was it worth the wait? Is the game a good addition in the light skirmish game space? And should you add it to your library? Read on my intrepid gamer friends to find out.

In full disclosure, i wasn’t a backer for this game. I missed out on it and the subsequent late pledge. I was lucky enough to win this as part of his monthly give away program for Patreon supporters from Gaming Geek.

Initial Impressions

After receiving the game from Gaming Geek (I won the $140 pledge), i quickly opened it to find 3 very large boxes inside. The base game, the “boss” expansion and a stretch goal character expansion box, that included some 21 extra playable characters for the game.

The two main game boxes are well crafted. The box art and design are a nice throwback to the original video game and fit well here. The stretch goal box as you can see is somewhat of an afterthought, but I’m okay with that as I wouldn’t look to add something like a stretch goal box to my library for display anyhow.

The packaging for the most part is well done, however the packaging in the Boss expansion is a huge waste of space. The box itself is the same size as the main box, however it only comes with 2 figures (M. Bison and Akuma) and the majority of the box is wasted with a molded plastic insert. In my opinion this was a wasted opportunity for Jasco as I am always looking to consolidate game pieces into a single box with expansions. Oh well, not the end of the world.

The components are pretty standard 3D cardboard pieces for games, although the instructions for constructing a few of the 3D objects are a little confusing (looking at you missle rack/truck/thing). It was a little surprising to find the character counter dial for meter doesn’t have a “0” on it. Making it a tad awkward to properly set it when you begin play, but this is a minor gripe at best.

But let’s talk about the minis.

The Minis (it’s why we’re here right?)

If you know me (odds are you don’t), you know that I’m a sucker for great minis. Whether it’s RPG, Board or any version of a Tabletop game, I always appreciate great miniatures. Great miniatures can help elevate a game (not discounting gameplay and mechanics mind you) and push it over the top in terms of replayability and enjoyment. And you can see where Jasco focused its attention for this game.

The pre-painted miniatures in Street Fighter are some of the best I’ve seen, ever!

Not only did Jasco do a fantastic job on the minis themselves, but the varied poses, effects and size of the minis really makes them stand out against other games with minis on the market.

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The detail with these mass produced figures is really impressive, and they are great for your display case or otherwise showing them off in your gaming area. You can see in the third photo the size comparison against a standard 28mm miniature. These SF figures loom large.

Gameplay

Street Fighter has several different gameplay modes, beyond the standard 1v1 format. Which is a nice official add here. I’m sure players could have created their houseruled game formats to include more than 1v1, but it’s nice that Jasco included them. The additional formats also adds to the replayability value.

So how does the game work?

Players choose a character, take that characters accompanying 40 card deck, a health and meter dial to keep track of both during the game, select which board to play on (the base game comes with a double sided “location” board), setup the 3D terrain, shuffle their deck, and they’re ready to FIGHT!

Gameplay is pretty straight forward, players take turns running through 3 phases on their turn, Draw, Move and Action. From a design standpoint, Jasco appears to have attempted to recreate the experience of video game that you get while moving it to the tabletop. There are some required variations from the video game (characters can move more than just in a straight line, and all characters have some type of ranged attack, unlike the video game), but for the most part, the gameplay here feels like you’re back in that arcade as a kid, mashing buttons furiously. I would say overall from a gameplay/mechanic perspective, Jasco was successful in pulling this translation off.

There are other things in the game like combos, building your meter to perform Super or Ultra attacks, and a really clever defensive ability, counter-attacking. Also you can “bait” your opponent to open them up to taking damage. Needless to say, it’s some fairly clever mechanic work here that helps keep the meat of SF from drifting too far into “been there, seen this” territory and helps Street Fighter stand out a bit.

As one would expect, Players go until someone reaches “0” on their health dial.

Final Thoughts

So the big question, is Street Fighter worth adding to your library?

Short answer, yes. But with some caveats….

If you’re a fan of the original video game, enjoy light (very) skirmish games with some good enough built-in variation for a good replay value, then i would say you shouldn’t be disappointed here.

But…the game itself isn’t cheap. I honestly don’t know if I would’ve back it at the $140 pledge level? The base game only comes with 6 characters, the boss expansion adds another 2 and the stretch goal box I received adds another 21 or so characters. In a game like this, having the ability to choose from a larger selection of characters is somewhat of what makes the Street Fighter miniatures game appealing. I would think with having a smaller list of characters available to play, the game might grow stale at a faster pace.

To my understanding Street Fighter will have a retail release? But I could be wrong about this. If it does, it might be best to wait and see if your FLGS gets a demo copy for you to put your hands on first before looking to add it to your collection.

Overall Score

8 out of 10