Essential Tips and Tricks - Street Fighter 6 Guide - IGN (2024)

It doesn’t matter how many fighting games you’ve played: starting a new one is always hard and requires a lot of practice. Street Fighter 6 is no different, with all its intricate systems and vastly different characters. This SF6 Guide will provide eight essential tips and tricks for all your battles, training, and time in World Tour. Learning how to master Street Fighter 6 is a long journey, so take all the help that you can.

Below you have the shortcuts to the different sections of this guide:

• Forget About Combos (For Now)
• Be One With the Drive System
• Exploring the Training Mode
• Knowing Your Character
• About Buffing And Motion Inputs
• Try Out Your Master Actions Everywhere
• Use Pressure Time
• Avoid Certain Locations in Metro City

Forget About Combos (For Now)

Sometimes, players start a new fighting game and they want to start learning how to do long combos with a character. Perhaps even going straight to the Trials mode, trying to memorize the routes there. This is one of the worst things you can do as a new player.

Learning how to perform long combos with your favorite character can be important, there’s no doubt about it. But you’re skipping a few important steps that you should do before.

For example, you should first start to learn about how to control the space between you and your opponent. This is incredibly difficult, and perhaps one of the things that you’ll be discovering through all your hours in Street Fighter 6.

But it’s also essential. It makes no sense to learn a long combo if then you can’t repeat it in a real match because you don’t know when to do it, or you just don’t remember it because you’re paying attention to a lot of other things while in battle.

One of the best ways of learning this is just by playing matches against other human players. If you can play against friends with similar skill sets, this will be as enjoyable as possible. You can even jump into Training mode together.

Be One With the Drive System

Another thing that you should be trying to master before even bothering to learn long combo routes should be the Drive System. This system is found in all the playable characters, and it features an important variety of offensive and defensive resources.

For instance, using a Drive Impact can be a great call when your opponent is in the corner and performing a move with few hits. You’ll go through their move and leave them vulnerable for a follow-up. However, if you start spamming Drive Impact in any situation, it’s more likely that you will be left exposed to counter-attacks. Plus, if your rival performs a Drive Impact right after you do, they will always win.

Drive Parries are useful when you already have a good understanding of the combat’s dynamic and most characters, so you can predict when an enemy is about to attack you. Some common scenarios for this are when your rival is knocked down and about to wake up with an attack, like a Shoryuken, or when they are jumping toward you, ready to hit.

You can also use it to repel projectiles and recharge your Drive Gauge, although you should beware of getting grabbed.

On the other hand, Drive Rush will be one of your main tools once you have a good idea of your character and Street Fighter 6 in general. Learning how to extend combos or simply surprise your enemy with inventive routes is a wild card that should be up your sleeve.

One thing that you should discover about Drive Rush is how to optimize it. For example, you can find combo possibilities in which you have enough time to perform a Drive Rush from a Drive Parry instead of canceling a common attack into a Drive Rush. This will save you two bars, which is incredibly valuable.

Exploring the Training Mode

The Training mode, usually called “The Lab” in the fighting games community, should be your second home when learning any fighting game. Here you come to learn what is your character capable of doing, and when you’re more advanced, how far you can go with certain routes and possibilities.

This mode has a good chunk of options, which you can customize to replicate different scenarios from a real fight. For instance, you make your enemy jump endlessly so you can test anti-airs or aerial attacks. Or you can make them throw a projectile at you, learning which ones of your moves are better to counter this.

Knowing Your Character

Street Fighter 6 has 18 playable characters and they are little universes to get lost into. Even if they don’t have an endless list of moves like other characters in other games, such as Tekken, you’ll spend hours and hours just learning their best hit confirms and what you should do in any situation.

For that reason, it’s important that you give every fighter a chance. While it’s common to learn in-depth only one or two characters (what is usually called “having a main”), playing a bit with each is the best way to know what you would like. Try out a few battles against the CPU or complete their Arcade mode once to have a feeling about them.

Generally speaking, if you’re looking for well-balanced characters, Ryu and Ken are solid picks. For grabbers, Zangief and Manon take the crown. If you prefer more gimmicky fighters, Dhalsim, JP, and Jamie might be for you. Blanka, Guile, and Dee Jay have a nice chunk of options to control space.

The game has a useful Character Guide mode that teaches you some essential things about the fighters available. We suggest you check that mode and also our own articles for each character.

About Buffing And Motion Inputs

When you’re already getting the hand of a specific character and the combat system at large, it’s time to learn about how the game registers inputs.

This entry is mostly focused on players using the Classic Control.

If you do the aforementioned command slowly, you can perform both moves (the low punch and the Hadoken), but it’s most likely that the enemy will block the Hadoken. The trick here is to learn how the game registers and saves inputs.

In this case, you could press Down + Light Punch -> Down Forward, Forward, and Light Punch and the combo will turn out better. That’s because you already pressed Down before, and you just need the other two motion inputs. You don’t even need to wait for the animation of the first punch to end to start doing the second input.

This is a hard concept and something that varies significantly from character to character and even from move to move, so don’t expect to learn it any time soon.

Try Out Your Master Actions Everywhere

World Tour presents an open world of its own; you’ll find routes and areas to explore while you level up your character. As you meet new Masters, you’ll learn their Master Actions, which you can use outside of battles.

These moves are pretty important for three reasons: they let you hit enemies before starting a fight, which gives you an advantage in damage, you can break objects around you, and you can use them with traversal purposes in mind.

For example, you can use Chun-Li’s flying kick to move from one elevated space to another one without the need for a ladder or anything.

Signs and objects with yellow auras can be destroyed, often revealing an item or a new route to use.

Use Pressure Time

As you make progress in World Tour, you’ll start seeing regular enemies flashing white before or after doing certain moves. This is called Pressure Time, and the game will tell you that this is when you should attack your enemy because they are at their most vulnerable. Plus, if you perform a special move during that window, you’ll stun them.

What Street Fighter 6 might not tell you so directly is that this is how you learn to play the game in real matches. Knowing when to punish your opponent is key to becoming a better player. And most of the moves you will see in the story mode are taken from the main roster, so you’ll be learning how to counter-attack them in some situations if you pay attention.

Avoid Certain Locations in Metro City

Much like in an RPG, in World Tour, you’ll walk through the streets of Metro City while battling or escaping from NPCs that will be looking for you. You’ll recognize them for wearing card boxes in their heads and having a name written in red.

When you’re at night, you’ll find out that these types of enemies are more common to be found. Also, you can find certain locations, like tight streets or alleys where they won’t stop coming out. You should avoid some of these places whenever you can, as they will try to exhaust you.

Don’t forget to carry healing items in your inventory at all times, which you can use in and outside of battles.

Also, you can unlock a skill that reduces the frequency in which you’ll have these encounters. For more info about skills, please visit our specific guide.