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What strength!! But don’t forget there are many babies like you all over the world.

Depending on exactly which semi-sequels and spinoffs you’re counting, you could argue that the recently released Street fighter V is actually the 17th chapter in Capcom’s long-running video game series. But despite being the culmination of several decades of fine-tuning of the industry’s premiere fighting system, Street Fighter V has so far turned out to be a surprisingly mixed bag in terms of its gameplay elements and overall polish.

While the fighting engine itself has received widespread praise, there’s been plenty of grumbling about the game’s character designs, and players have run into glitches both graphics-related and match-ending. But perhaps the loudest complaints have been those about the game’s almost complete lack of single-player content.

In its present form, Street Fighter V doesn’t have any sort of arcade mode of one-player versus mode where you can square off against a computer-controlled opponent. If you’re not online and don’t have someone else in the room, pretty much all you can do is play the game’s extremely truncated story mode, which consists of three single-round fights. The whole thing is so laughably short that it won’t provide more than a few minutes of entertainment unless you’ve got the gaming skills of a baby.

Actually, it looks like even the babies would appreciate a stiffer challenge.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTdQ7Xx4Q34

YouTube user Papapaint uploaded this video of his six-month-old baby playing Street fighter V’s story mode. Controlling plus-sized character Birdie, the child begins his first match against newly introduced villain F.A.N.G., using the style favored by Street Fighter newcomers and babies alike: randomly slapping attack buttons.

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But even though the child doesn’t seem to have any concept of the on-screen competition, he easily dominates the fight. F.A.N.G. repeatedly walks straight into Birdie’s fists and feet while offering only a lukewarm counter offensive of his own, and Papapaint’s son emerges as the victor of the first fight with nearly half his energy bar still remaining.

At this point, you could call it a fluke, but he pulls off a similarly decisive win in the second match against Chun-Li.

▼ As a side note, Dad’s tummy looks like a pretty comfy gamer couch.

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From there, it’s on to the final match against debutante martial artist Karin. But by this point, even the baby seems to be getting bored by the lack of challenge. One blow away from completing Birdie’s story mode, he abruptly loses interest and moves both of his hands away from the controller in the middle of the fight.

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After several seconds, he decides to make his parents proud by finishing off Karin, and the fact that Birdie wasn’t knocked out during his break proves that not only is Street Fighter V’s story mode so impotent that it literally can’t defeat a defenseless infant, it’s also over so soon that he didn’t even need his diaper changed before reaching the end of it.

▼ K.O.!

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Some have pointed out that a few of Birdie’s on-screen attacks don’t synch up exactly with the baby’s button presses, but Papapaint addresses this seeming abnormality by explaining that some of Birdie’s attacks only manifest when the button is released. And even if the game were being played by a second, off-screen controller, enough of Birdie’s successful strikes exactly match the timing of the baby’s button slaps, as does the character’s lack of movement or blocking when the child isn’t yanking on the joystick placed in front of him, to make the video a convincing statement of how easy the AI is to overcome.

A few online commenters have dismissed the demonstration of the story mode’s lack of challenge as being unimportant, as the real draw of contemporary console fighting games is online play versus another human being. Still, a one-player mode that isn’t so toothless it can be beaten by someone who’s not even aware he’s playing a game (and who no doubt still poops himself multiple times a day) doesn’t seem like too much to include in a full-priced game from one of the industry’s largest developers.

Source: Hachima Kiko
Images: YouTube/Papapaint