It’s been nearly 14 years since Street Fighter X Tekken was released. Needless to say, it was such a flop that Bandai Namco ended up delaying their plans for Tekken X Street Fighter indefinitely, though former Tekken boss Katsuhiro Harada last reported to fans everywhere that Tekken X Street Fighter was only 30% complete.
There were many controversies surrounding Street Fighter X Tekken that caused it to flop. One of these controversies included the Gems System, which some might argue as being the worst fighting game mechanic of all time.
This is really saying something considering that Street Fighter X Tekken also featured the Pandora Mode. Khanage recently released a video that covered the topic.
The idea of this system was fairly simple on paper. Gems typically featured a condition that allowed characters to power themselves up. After the duration of this powerup fully elapsed, they’d then be given a drawback while the effect was on cooldown.
However, the Gems System was not properly balanced. As highlighted in the video, there were versions of gems that gave the same powerup as other choices, but with zero drawback effects. In other words, some gems were just blatantly better than others.
This problem escalated thanks to DLC gems. Due to this, this system quite literally turned into a “pay-to-win” mechanic that rewarded players for simply paying money.
With there being over 200 different gems (many of which shared the same names, adding to the confusion), this system also presented various problems for the tournament scene. Hear about it all in the video below: