I’m not a hardcore fighting game player. In fact, far from it. I’ve put hundreds of hours into Super Smash Bros. but outside of that, the early Tekken and Soul Calibur games are where my history lies. I’ve definitely dabbled with the likes of Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, but these were in short spells with friends and never for a long enough period for me to get good.

Because of this, I’ve found it hard to get excited by upcoming fighting titles. I’d just never played them enough and realistically, I'm just not very good. That was until Capcom’s big reveal of Street Fighter 6 took place during PlayStation’s State of Play at Summer Game Fest.

The trailer showcased an impressive new art style, some new modes, returning favourites and, most importantly for me, “a new control mode to play without the need to remember difficult command inputs.” Suddenly, I found myself paying attention.

Fast forward a few days and I was lucky enough to get hands-on with the game at Summer Game Fest this year and let me tell you, I can see myself getting hooked.

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One of the first things that became apparent, in both the trailers and the hands-on time that I had, is just how much style the game oozes. The art direction is beautiful and everything pops.

During combat, Street Fighter 6's vivid colours are accentuated by powerful attacks that splash paint around the stage and the thought and detail in the backgrounds of the two stages I got to fight on are great. All of this style extends past the fighting too, with the menus, loading screens and character select screens all looking flashy.

The game's music also understands the assignment. Funky hip-hop beats litter the menus and more understated tracks are there as you do battle.

As I said, I don't play many fighting games and Street Fighter 2 was probably the last in the series that I played, so I don't have much of a modern frame of reference. That being said, I can tell you Street Fighter 6 feels good.

I heard the term "heavy" thrown around on more than one occasion, but I don't think that was a bad thing. Having not played too much of the franchise before, it made the characters feel powerful and the attacks almost visceral. Every character had this "heavy" feeling, so it wasn't that some were disadvantaged by it, but it's just something to get used to.

Speaking of characters, I got to spend a decent chunk of time with four of the five that have been confirmed so far - Ryu, Chun-Li, Luke and Jamie - and I enjoyed all of them.

Naturally, I gravitated towards the more familiar Ryu and Chun-Li at first, spending time going 1v1 with the computer (and getting my ass kicked once or twice by a fellow attendee), however, after I "mastered" my play with those two, I moved on to Luke and Jamie.

Coming from a Smash Bros. background, I like my characters to feel very different from each other and while they don't quite feel as different as say, Pikachu and Link, all four of the characters I got to try out will definitely be suited to different playstyles.

If you're a Street Fighter veteran, this will come as no surprise to you but Ryu hit the hardest, Chun-Li was rapid, as was Jamie and Luke was a solid all-rounder.

At this early point, I'm probably a Chun-Li main, but I imagine the roster still has quite a bit of growing to do before its 2023 release and then even more after that.

As I previously mentioned, my biggest gripe with fighting games is that they're just as much as a test of your ability to memorise long button combinations as they are being skilled at the game. Street Fighter 6's new "modern" control scheme definitely rectifies this and makes the whole experience way more approachable for novice players.

The modern control scheme is much more akin to that of Nintendo's brawler, and that's why this demo vibed with me so much.

Much like Smash Bros, you have your standard attacks, however, the special attacks are now mapped to a single button. This means, rather than having to remember the button combination required to pull off a special attack, you just press the special button, accompanied by a direction on the stick. This made things way easier to grasp.

Of course, this does limit players using the modern control scheme to only using a handful of specials, but it's a handful more than someone like me would usually be able to pull off, so I count it as a win.

It also means that those players who use the original control scheme and take the time to remember the combos will still have the advantage over those of us using the modern control scheme as they have a bigger movepool at their disposal.

Although it wasn't available to preview during Summer Game Fest, I think the brand new World Tour mode is going to help draw people like myself into Street Fighter 6.

Having an easier control scheme is great, having a mode that offers me the chance to get stuck in and do more than just fighting. Giving the game an "immersive single-player story mode" that "defies genre labels" really excites me.

Overall, my time with Street Fighter 6, the footage that has been shown and the promise of what's to come has me genuinely believing that this could be the first "proper" fighting game that I get into.

There's still a long way to go until the game releases next year, but the early signs are really really promising. The fact that Capcom is so willing to show the game off this early means they are clearly confident with how the product is shaping up.