New defensive mechanic using V-meter
The Street Fighter 5 community has known for about six months now that their game would undergo a relatively major change as the developers promised a new combat mechanic in August 2020, and that mechanic was revealed during today’s Winter Update stream as V -Shift.
This new mechanic allows players to escape tricky situations. Similar to V-Skill, this maneuver is used to counter attacks, but the unique thing is that it can be used freely and does not require block paralysis to activate.
This new technician pumps out one bar of V-meter per use. During the animation, V-Shift makes the player invincible to throws, attacks and projectiles.
When this maneuver is used while an incoming attack is about to land, the fighters go into a slow motion state and the character that used V-Shift becomes temporarily invincible. This turns it into a sort of parry-like technique, although a bit more complicated than what we saw in Street Fighter 3.
The slow motion V-Shifting player can alternatively perform a “V-Shift-Break” where they shoot forward with an invincible attack. The idea here seems to be that if the V-Shift is used to thwart an incoming attack with a lot of recovery, the defending player can issue a penalty if they don’t have an attack in their default arsenal that reaches far enough forward.
This looks like it will add a lot of depth to a lot of interactions as it provides a new way of defending in this offensive game. Players will have to pay more attention to how they want to use their V-Gauge, and V-Shift interactions have multiple possible routes and outcomes as players will have to make choices immediately after hiring this new mechanic.
Below are a handful of screenshots of V-Shift and its different applications:
Click on images for larger versions