A much better look at Ultra Street Fighter II’s first-person mode

Surprise surprise, it doesn’t look very deep

Capcom is bringing Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers to Nintendo Switch and it’ll surely draw in some players simply as an early game for the system with nostalgia and multiplayer also going for it. One of the title’s most curious features is an eyebrow-raising bonus mode, “Way of the Hado,” in which you duke it out as Ryu from a first-person perspective. What’s up with that? Here’s what’s up with that.

We’ve heard about the mode and seen snippets, but this archived stream offers an extended look:

Note: This is a three-hour-long video so, uh, just skip to 2:56:45 for the first-person mode footage.

As you can see, players take out and hold the two Joy-Con controllers, one for each hand, and perform motions with their arms to pull off hadokens and other familiar moves against slow-moving Shadaloo troops. If that sounds like a shallow arcade-type experience, that’s how it comes across to me, too.

I’m somewhat curious about how this stuff might feel with HD Rumble, but the way the player’s motions are translated to on-screen actions seems imprecise. And, even just conceptually speaking, this mode looks like a novelty that’ll grow old after a few introductory play sessions. I’d say I was disappointed by the effort, but I wasn’t expecting much from Way of the Hado to begin with.