But he still looks cool as heck at least
It only took nearly three years, but Alex is almost finally here in Street Fighter 6 — and players are pretty jazzed to take him for a drive.
That includes me too, however, I also feel as though I’ve been dealt the monkey’s paw with Alex’s evolution in Street Fighter 6.
Personally, the big brawler has been one of my favorite Street Fighter characters for a long time.
Alex holds a special place in my heart as the character that taught me how to use charge moves when trying to learn Street Fighter 3: Third Strike.
The dude was also probably my third-most used character in Street Fighter 5 behind Nash and Rose.
Where I first hopped on the Alex hype train, though, was seeing him grapple the huge enemies in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom.
So I was pretty pumped when he was revealed for Season 3 along with Sagat, C. Viper and Ingrid.
I like the direction Capcom is taking the wrestler in Street Fighter 6 visually and by expanding his moveset, but now that we’re getting close to his release, I’m growing a bit worried that I’m not going to actually like playing him as much here.
There’s really only one big thing that’s giving me pause, which is also technically like a dozen things.
That is of course the new Prowler Stance.
Capcom has seemingly been moving more away from charge moves in Street Fighter 6 with Alex being no exception, and on one hand, I’m mostly fine with that considering I still don’t really like using charge specials, especially in combos.
But then on the flipside, they’re giving us something I dislike as much as charge moves if not more — stances.
Lars has been one of my go-to’s since Tekken 6, and I feel as though I need to relearn his stance mechanics again and again every time I get back into the series.
Now, Alex can use a stance that has basically a dozen different options he can do, which is going to be a huge part of his SF6 gameplan.
I probably would be more accepting of the change if they didn’t lock some of his old moves behind the mechanic.
Not being able to use lariat, Slash Elbow or stomp without going into Prowler Stance first is a little bit of a bummer to me at least.
What drew me to Alex was hitting fools with big buttons and then grabbing or headbutting them when they weren’t looking.
As a realist, though, I know that wouldn’t really work out for Street Fighter 6 where the name of the game is Drive Rush pressure.
In that regard, Alex could be actually really strong considering he now has a meterless way to lunge at the opponent while also mixing them up with different options.
That’s like a dozen things I’d need to keep in my head at all times too, which is a lot since Alex players like me don’t want to think that much — just kidding (mostly).
Like I said above, I do think Alex looks cool and could be strong in Street Fighter 6, but there’s a good chance he may not jive with my preferred playstyles anymore.
And if that ends up being the case, it’s just how things go sometimes.
Part of what makes fighting games interesting are character evolutions over time, and sometimes those evolutions move them in a direction that a portion of prior players won’t find as appealing.
Just ask Guilty Gear Strive and BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle players what they think about the changes made to their favorite fighters.
And Street Fighter 6 has of course changed up its cast over previous iterations too to various degrees like Ed, who’s almost a totally different character, so there’s always going to be adjustment time needed to try and get used to how they are now.
At least Maximilian Dood says that Alex isn’t that hard to use in SF6 since he’s no longer a hybrid input character (besides the Prowler Stance stuff), so maybe it won’t be as bad as I fear.
I’m not mad or complaining that Capcom changed my character, but I will be a little disappointed if I don’t enjoy playing him as much as I hope to.
And that’s ultimately a me problem, and the world doesn’t revolve around me.
I’ll still be putting a lot of time into and am excited to play Alex again in Street Fighter 6, and we’ll see how things go when he releases on March 17.
Let us know in the comments what you think of Alex’s Prowler Stance and which fighting game character evolutions pushed you away from one of your old favorites?