My main disappointment is that he only has 2 colors. Seriously, wtf. With the game being delayed for a year, you’d thought Udon could have thrown in 7 more schemes, but whatever.
As for actual gameplay, I’m not sure what to think. I have to remind myself that he’s “new” and I’m not as familiar with him as I am with other characters so I shouldn’t be too hasty (…don’t be hasty…) in judging him.
Bad stuff:
Air fireball barely goes forward at all.
Takes damage like a puss, which we knew coming in.
Good stuff:
Blue fireballs are a little better than Ryu’s.
BnB combo off of low forward does big damage (low forward, forward HK, jab DP)…
This means he is excellent at punishing as long as he can land a deep low forward or close fierce.
Air fireball is really good about canceling out other fireballs.
Air hurricane kicks lead to juggles.
Jury is out:
Raging Demon/Shungokusatsu (SGS) set-ups. How easy is it to tick into the SGS? This will make a big difference in how dangerous Akuma is. Because, as it stands, he has nothing up close compared to Ryu and Ken. Ryu has the overhead and fake FB for close range pressure. Ken has knee bash and the best cross-up jump kick of the shotos
Fireball recovery. Red fireball feels like it has a lot of recovery. I’m still not 100% sure how blue fireball compares with Ryu, Ken, or Sagat’s fireballs.
As far as his juggles go. The rule seems simple. Short HK can not start a juggle nor will the move juggle itself. Otherwise, use your forward and roundhouse HK and all DPs for juggles.
Edit: Corrected my mistake about Akuma’s fireballs
j.HK, land, close MK, qcb HK [3 hits] or qcb MK, SRK.
the close mk moves you in a good distance for the tatsumaki to hit consistently. By the way, the damage difference between 3-hit tatsumaki or 2-hit tatsu, SRK is marginal or even nonexistent.
J.Hk / S.Hp XX Hadouken is a pretty good combo that doesn’t require juggles (i.e you can do it if your opponent is cornered).
Also, something interesting about Raging Demon: Just like in 3S, you can kara cancel it off of any normal on the ground, at any point during the move’s animation. If you became a beast at this, I bet blocked C.Hk XX Raging Demon could be pretty good.
I tried for all of four minutes this morning to see if there was any (good) way to cancel a normal into a Raging Demon… nothing yet, but I’m sure there’s something useful.
How viable of a stategy is it to jump in on an opponent and hit them out of their dp with the air fb?
–win pose grunt is the same noise as hawk’s 360
–seems to only have 2 colors
–best fireball game in the game outside of Ryu with super ready
–hurricane kicks knock down and juggle and do great damage both on the ground and in the air
–dragon punch is fully invincible, does huge damage
–air fireball leads to very difficult lockdown for some characters; can throw fireballs right behind the opponent’s head as he wakes up and fly right over most reversal dragon punches
–need to do chip damage? air fireball, crouching fierce, fierce fireball.
–stun the opponent? do air fireball, forward hurricane kick, jab dragon punch, set up for meaty air fireball
–raging demon is awesome.
–demon goes through all attacks, even from max range (ie max range demon beat someone who was trying to normal me out of it),
–demon goes through air attacks so it’s a great antiair, can antiair people with it from half a screen away
–throw an air fireball over someone’s head and demon to almost guarantee damage (if they jump they hit the fireball, stand they get hit by demon, only an invincible move gets them out), whiff short hurricane into demon, etc
–hurricane kick has kinda crappy priority, loses cleanly to a bunch of things on startup
It sucks that he takes as much damage as he does, but frankly I expected him to take more, so it’s not as horrible as I thought it would be.
Edit: I’m honestly not sure they nerfed him enough…
I was practicing Kara demon today and it can be beastly, especially if they block the initial string. I was doing j.HP into s.lp into Demon. If they block the hits he’ll grab them almost instantly.
Akuma does really good damage, plus some of his combos are insane. If you space your air fireballs correctly, you can do stuff like using it to go over their head and follow up with a throw if they block the fireball…or use the Demon if can get it off. I’m suspecting that initial thoughts of Akuma being low tier will go out the window as soon as some nice Demon setups are found.
yeah, got a few mins with akuma earlier today. Looks like if you allow for the start up, the demon is actually a bit of a beast. Live UD said, it flys straight through fireballs and is a stupidly good anti-air (we were arguing this before the game dropped). You’re not going to be landing it off any sneaky kara set up’s because you can easily jump out but looks like you might not even need to, lol.
Something random I did that may or may not be useful is this… another akuma did a hurricane kick from sweep range, so I did it from crouch and it just flew though the last hit and grabbed when he landed.
It’s looking like, when he has meter, you can’t do any special moves, lol.
I had that input problem at first, it’s mostly due to the speed between pressing forward on the stick and then short -> fierce. At first I thought I was doing it fine just like in 3S, doing jab jab, forward+short, fierce but it almost never came out. You actually have to separate every inputs, but you can do it as fast as you like. Fastest I got is just seeing the two jabs then cancel straight into demon or one blocked jab into demon.
Anyone tried the viability of meaty close MK into demon and meaty cr.MP? Seems like that shit is inescapable outside of a reversal super but maybe my buddies are shit.
I’d like to test and see if you can still jump out of a tick, if you were crouching when the Demon activates. Some good news for demons is that you can do it from a crouching position. down+jab, jab, d/f+short, fierce activates it. That’s huge for anti-air. Which Akuma has the most punishing anti-air with the possible exception of Sagat.
Using an air fireball after the apex of a jump is the only way I can use it to land combos, or use it to have any sort of advantage after recovering. Akuma is probably the best character to escape corner fireball traps with. Air fireballs are very good at canceling projectiles so you don’t land on them. This, combined with his teleport, his fast ground fireballs, and potentially having a super to use gives him more escape options than most characters who are locked down in the corner.
Yeah, after getting some sleep, and playing with it some more. I was wrong about the fireballs, they are pretty damn fast. Looking at his good fireballs, punishing anti-air, weak hit points, not having an overhead, and not having dive kick or demon flip, I believe the best gameplan with Akuma is to play at range.
I’m also curious about what Iceman was talking about: Ticks that force your opponent to crouch. I’m thinking cheap shit like C.Hk XX Demon, or something like J.Hp (buffer Lpx2) / DF+Lk XX Demon. I wanna know if this kind of shit is unescapable in certain circumstances by anything but a reversal attack.
Also, does anyone have any opinions about Akuma matchups? No one is talking about their matchup opinions for anyone yet, but Akuma is a pretty big deal, since we’ve never had Akuma matchups to discuss!
As a Chun player, I’ve played a little of this match. The startup time on Akuma’s fireballs make him much easier to rush down than other fireball characters, but the invincible DP still hurts, and Chun doesn’t have a good reversal to escape meaty air FB pressure. So, I think Chun starts the match with the advantage, but either one can lay on the hurt.
That’s true, but with a good kara set up and good timing, the demon comes out wicked fast. There’s probably never going to be a true demon combo…it’s probably going to be more like a mixup game. For instance, if you do a block string and the last move is could either be a fireball or kara demon. Even then, someone could jump out in reaction to the super flash…but we all know the difference between knowing you should do something and actually doing it.
