Here are some tips to get as much Fight Money in as little time as possible in Street Fighter 5
There's a ton of new content in Street Fighter 5 right now, and if you aren't a Season Pass holder, you're probably scrambling to build up enough of the title's in-game currency, Fight Money, to purchase Balrog and Ibuki.
What's more, Guile and Alex were free to the public until Friday, and so now you'll have to purchase them as well to continue having access. Each character will set you back 100,000 FM, and there are five new stages ranging from 40k-70k a piece.
Obviously, you're going to pretty easily rack up quite the tab if you want the new content now, and don't want to spend real cash on it. The single player modes of SF5 offer some quick methods to nab big piles of FM, and some of them are not as blatant as others.
You can play online for a measly 50 FM per Ranked win, but you'll want to hit these other avenues first to get the content you're most fervently after.
Demonstrations
With each new character that drops, you get a new opportunity for some quick Fight Money. By far the easiest method is via "Demonstrations." We've given Demos their own highlight here because they're very easy to miss.
From the "Challenges" menu, you can either pick "Trials" or "Demonstrations", the latter of which offers in-depth guides about the game's mechanics, basic situations and individual character guides.
You can learn a lot from these, but you don't have to watch them. The game allows you to skip through these lessons very quickly, but still awards you a few thousand FM for each segment you complete. You can probably cycle through all the content in about 10 minutes time, and come out with a hefty payload.
Single Player Modes
Each character in the game can grow in experience and level as you use them, and you'll gain FM by the thousands as you level each fighter up. Winning online is one way to garner experience, but playing through single player modes should be your first stop.
Prelude Story Modes are simple to get through, and should probably be the first thing you do. After that, complete each 10-trial session for all fighters. Next, head to the dreaded Survival Mode, but just cruise through on the Easy setting.
Playing through Easy Survival will also get you a new color for each fighter you take through. You can play through the quick, 10-level gauntlet with each fighter's alternate attire to get colors for each and every costume while you build experience.
You can probably take a few characters through Normal Mode (30 levels) with minimal practice. We were able to breeze through with Nash by simply spamming heavy punch into EX Tragedy Assault.
Cinematic Story
Street Fighter 5's Cinematic Story Mode was just released, and you'll get a whopping 30,000 FM for playing through it. Once you do so, you can play through a second time on "Extra" for another 50,000 FM.
You have the option to skip all cut scenes, and you should be able to finish the whole thing in about an hour if you can overcome the slightly more difficult AI battles.
To give you a little perspective, the 80,000 FM you'll net from doing this is equivalent to winning 1,600 Ranked matches online.
If you go through and grind out the above approaches, you'll find yourself with enough FM to purchase your first choices in the way of characters, stages or alternate costumes.
You'll be able to squeeze a little more from each fighter by taking them online and leveling them up, but it takes more and more experience as you get higher in level, so keep that in mind for efficiency's sake.
Short of playing months of Ranked Mode, there's no way that you'll be able to grind out enough FM to purchase all the game's current content... at least not until Capcom releases the proposed Daily Challenges.
The best approach is to figure out what you want most before you blindly start using your FM to grab colors and/or costumes for characters you rarely use. If you have any other tips on quickly accumulating Fight Money, please feel free to share in the comments section.