Street Fighter 5's Alex and changes detailed ahead of March update

Alex will be made available as part of Street Fighter 5's March update, and Capcom dropped information on what to expect later this month.

Alex will once again use grappler moves which "inflict big damage" in close range with his Power Bomb command grab. He is also skilled at midrange fighting and he has special attacks which can "cover a large portion of the screen."

If you head over to the Capcom Unity blog you will find out more information on his Critical Art dubbed Heavy Hammer, the Overhaul V-Skill and his V-Trigger, Rage Shift.

Alex will become available later this month and if you play through all the Character Story Mode content you should have enough Fight Money in your bank to pay for the fighter.

The update also comes new modes, content, bug fixes and overall gameplay improvements. You can read the notes below.

Challenge Mode

Demonstrations

• Learn the ins and outs of Street Fighter Vthrough helpful demonstration and tutorial content. Contains content for each of the 16 characters, as well as advice geared towards players of all skill levels:
• Beginner Tutorials: 12 lessons covering, movement, normal attacks, special attacks, V-System, throws, counter hits, chip/recoverable damage, etc.
• Intermediate Tutorials: 11 lessons covering projectiles, invincibility frames, armor and armor break, recovery, cross-up attacks, anti-air options, etc.
• Advanced Tutorials: 4 lessons covering back dashing, frame advantage/disadvantage, combo potential, button priority, etc.
• Character Tutorials: 16 lessons covering each individual character.

Trials: Put your skills to the ultimate test with combo trials for all 16 characters, ranging from basic to pro combos. Completing Trials will also earn you some extra Fight Money.

In-Game Shop: Fight Money Expenditure - Spend your hard earned Fight Money to purchase extra game content, such as DLC characters and the Story Mode Costumes.

Online Rematch Option: Players can now play a 2/3 set in Ranked Match, provided both players accept the rematch.

Battle Lounge Improvements: Enjoy up to 8 person lobbies, complete with match spectating.

Bug fixes

• Sometimes you don’t get EXP from casual matches
• On a rare occurrence, if you restart the game after you unlock colors, the colors you unlocked will disappear

Gameplay related bug fixes and balance changes

• Vega: If you hit V-Trigger Bloody Kiss (anti-air) in certain situations, Vega will no longer continue to rise off the top of the screen.
• M. Bison: If he is interrupted by an opponent’s V-Trigger or Critical Art during his invisible frames of Double Knee Press in V-Trigger mode, M. Bison will no longer remain invisible until his next move.
• Rashid: Will no longer float in the air for a moment if you perform his V-Trigger after he touches the ground upon a missed Eagle Spike.
• Chun-Li: During V-Trigger activation, the hit stop and block stop has been made the same for multi-hitting moves (medium or heavy attacks for both normal and special moves). She was previously able to perform option selects involving standing HP into Houyokusen, so this has been removed.

Vertical and Back Jump Frames

• All characters except Birdie and Zangief: Vertical jump and back jump frames have changed from 3f->4f.
• Birdie: Vertical jump and back jump frames have changed from 4f->5f.
• Zangief: No changes to jump frames.
• These changes reduce the effectiveness of throw tech option selects involving jumping (also known as “jump grab”). Changing forward jump frames would affect the game balance too much so those remain unchanged.

Throw Escape Change

• If you push buttons during the normal throw delayed tech window you are unable to escape throws for 2 frames.
• Prevents using light attacks to option select with throw escapes.
• If you execute specific special moves during the normal throw delayed tech window you are unable to immediately escape throws. Each characters V-skills, V-triggers, V-reversals, critical arts, and moves have been set individually.
• Prevents throw escape option selects involving specific moves such as Shoryuken, etc.

An exact date for the March update to Street Fighter 5 will be announced soon.