Street Fighter X Tekken

Street Fighter X Tekken is a crossover that brought together the two biggest fighting franchises of its time, and on PlayStation Vita it offered the most content-rich take on this clash. The foundation is two-on-two team battles where you can switch between your pair at any point during a combo and chain attacks seamlessly, so matches feel like a constant stream of pressure and counterattacks. Tekken characters were adapted into two-dimensional combat while keeping their signature strike chains, while Street Fighter contributed its precise special-move system. A special chapter of its own were the so-called gems, boosts that adjust a character's traits before the match, which split the community into a camp enjoying the experimentation and a camp of purists.

The Vita version arrived with the complete set of additional fighters included right in the base package, including guest characters from other gaming worlds, making it the most content-rich variant of the game. Technically the port succeeded: the resolution is lower, but the style with bold outlines and colorful effects looks good on the Vita's screen, and the controls stay precise enough even on the small directional pad. The game was rounded out with an online mode and the ability to play against owners of the home console, which felt like a nice bonus at a time when cross-platform connectivity wasn't common.

Reception was mixed but leaned positive: reviewers praised the pacing, the team system and the generous amount of content, while criticism was aimed mainly at the gem system and at the fact that the game never built as strong a competitive scene as classic Street Fighter IV. Today it gets a surprising rehabilitation: team fighting with character switching has become a standard part of modern fighters, and on Vita it's still one of the most nimbly playable fighting games you can pick up anywhere. Watching icons from two completely different gaming worlds face off also has a charm that hasn't aged a bit.