Street Fighter X Tekken - PSV

Street Fighter X Tekken is coming to the PlayStation Vita later this year, although Capcom wants you to know that it isn’t just a simple port of the console game. The development team has supported the Vita hardware with the inclusion of touchscreen combo inputs, and they’ve added an intuitive color customization option. Turn your Vita sideways on your character selection screen, and you’ll be able to customize each different piece of their costume and their skin via the touchscreen. Don’t like your choices? Shake the Vita, and the colors will be randomized.

Other than that, Street Fighter X Tekken on the Vita is…Street Fighter X Tekken. The game is identical to its console counterpart, but with the addition of 12 new playable characters: Blanka, Cody, Dudley, Elena, Guy, and Sakura from the Street Fighter side, and Alisa Bosconovitch, Bryan Fury, Christie Monteiro, Jack, Lars Alexandersson, and Lei Wulong from the Tekken side. As a bonus, if you own both the PS3 and the Vita versions of the game, you’ll get those 12 new characters on your PS3 version as well.

But that’s not the only way the PS3 and Vita are interacting with this title. You’ll be able to cross-platform play between the PS3 and the Vita, allowing you to play against your console counterparts. Just don’t go crying when you realize you can’t hook up a fight stick to your handheld. The two units can additionally share any DLC you might have already purchased. While it might feel redundant to have two different versions of the same game, if you’re on the go often, it might be worth picking up the Vita edition.

We got some hands-on time with SFXT Vita (and won, woot!), and can report that it controls the same as the console edition, with the sticks possibly being a bit more forgiving on the Vita version. Playing against the PS3 with a Vita looks impressive on both screens, with no noticeable lag on either system as they both show the exact same screens.

But don’t think that Capcom is done with the console version yet. The development team has been closely monitoring the Capcom Unity site, as well as the official Japanese SFXT blog, and have heard your cries. On April 10, a free patch will be issued that adds a tournament support mode, addresses the sound issues, adds a replay analyzer, and gives you additional gem save loadouts along with over 60 new gems like Pandora Extend (extends it by 10 to 20 seconds), Ultimate Guard (combines auto block, auto throw escape, and chip damage negation), and so on.

Additionally, another patch is planned for later in the year that will be addressing battle-related bugs like infinite combos. There is also a new set of DLC coming in May with additional colors, an assist gem pack, and booster packs. So if you’ve been playing on the consoles, rest assured that Capcom hasn’t forgotten about you.

The console patch drops today, new DLC in May, another patch coming in May, and with Street Fighter X Tekken Vita coming this Fall, with additional support for the digital compass, augmented reality, and the PS Vita’s Near function, there’s a lot of fighting on the horizon. Will you cross the line?