Isn't A-Ken cool?

Classic Fighting Games Capcom VS SNK 2
1

I just tried picking up A-Ken a little while ago, and I must say I love this character! Custom combo-wise, he plays just like A-Iori… only not ambiguously gay. Here’s what I have so far… the general stuff:

Juggle CC:
[dp+LP, HP, LP+LK] x n, start improvising when you get to the corner.

It’s the exact same pattern that Iori uses. Only in Ken’s case, the spacing is always perfect for another deep DP. And with no ever accidentally going under the opponent either, this pattern is repeatable indefinately (just stop at 8 hits for damage sake). At hit 8, I like dp+LP, whiff d.LK, super jump forward HK’s, corner juggle.

Corner juggle pattern:

[d.MP xx hcf+MK] x n
Really fun to do. Feels just like Akuma’s pattern, only not hard. The MK funny kick leaves you in the perfect position for a really deep shinryuken super.

dp+MP x n
Also leaves you in perfect position.

jumping jabs
A staple for all A-groove characters.

Ground CC:

Boots to the gut, corner pattern or ender
It’s a bunch of s.HK’s and f+HK’s. Anybody can do this. What I like is that you can double tap each and every single HK. When 2x tapped, there’s not way you can possibly mess up ever :). I’m even happier when the opponent blocks. You can start going nuts with random d.MK xx hadoken, overheads then. By making the opponent block the hadoken, there’s no way they can jab out of the overhead kick afterwards (too good). Also you decide when Ken’s attacks combo or not either by speeding up or slowing down your attacks. It’s a lot of fun.

Random guard crush pattern:
dp+HP x 3, f+HK…
A little shou, shou, shou thrown in there just for fun :).

Corner ender:

d.HK, s.HP, rdp+LK, qcb+K, (land) shinryuken
I love this CC ender! If you do it from the repeated F+HK ground pattern, Ken will throw his far s.HP (the haymaker). Cancel that into flip kick, flip kick canceled into hurricane, which pops the opponent up for a nasty super. If there’s a prettier CC ender in the game (besides Iori’s jump back, freeze ender) I’ve yet to see it. A-Akuma reminiscent.

d.HK, qcb+HK, shinryuken
For boring people… Still works great though.

d.HK, qcb+LK, s.LP into jumping jabs OR d.MP xx funny kick pattern
Light hurricane kicks are good too :).

A-Ken is the a button presser’s dream. In fact, I just creamed my pants a few minutes ago using him in practice mode. Anyway, now I know why the stinkin’ japs like using him so much. Does anybody in this forums play A-Ken for real? I could use some effective damaging CC’s and/tricks if anybody could share.

2

or you can start the cc from cr.short, cr.jab, activate, cr.forward, forward hkxn

not as much damage but its a guaranteed combo

and all the tricks i use for ken, you posted already :smiley:

3

I do. Something that I’d like to add, only cuz I thought it was neat the first time I saw it. After a blocked forward jumping RH with Ken activate and immediately press f+mk. Almost everyone I play ducks low to guard against a CC since a lot of people start ground CC’s with c. mk and the such. This catches em off guard and will very often get you a CC if you’re facing a tough nut to crack.

If I actually do flub a ground CC and someone starts blocking, I immediately start 2 RH’s and rdp+lk. The 2 RH’s usually get you far enough away so that they can’t jab you out of them. After They’re knocked down, I’ll throw out c. lk’s like mad and then roll to bait some wakeup move. If they don’t have one, I go for a f+mk again when they wakeup.

Although the hadouken is certainly an idea that I’ll play with.

4

Wow, I had no idea how lienient the timing is on this CC link. I got it on my first try, and after 10 minutes of practice I can say this is even easier than Sakura’s CC link (d.LP, CC, d.MK).

Playing Ken —> powerful mix between Sakura, Akuma, and Iori

I like this character. I’m going to start using him from now on. Thanks for the tips guys. I really aprreciate it. BTW, what’s the prefered mix between s.HK’s and f+HK’s for his ground custom. I know one attack does more damage than the other, and the other you need for spacing purposes etc…

Also how should Ken try to fight against Cammy and/or Vega? Right now I’m stuck in the scrub phase of doing nothing but RC short funny kicks all day.

5

There’s more Ken CC’s at namanaki.com

6

c.strong is godly against Cammy

7

The video is pretty good. Combo into CC from dp’s are nice. Some questions:

-What’s with the anti-air CC? Gunter does dp+LP, (land), then [d.HP, roll] x n, some jumping attacks when he gets to corner. Is doing the combo like this just for ease of execution? Or is there something secret I don’t know about? For me, I don’t care how hard a combo is execution-wise. What people dismiss as impractical, I’m the kind of person that’ll embrace it instead. Is this the most effective/damaging AA CC? d.HP has more range then I thought scratches head.

-Why would I use [dp+LP, jab roll] as opposed to just [dp+LP, s.HP, roll] as juggle CC pattern? It looks like you HAVE to use [dp+LP, jab roll]'s for some combos to work. Is that true? I’m guessing it’s only for when you do dp+LP, activate… The Iori-style pattern as straight up anti-air is probably better right?

-Why [dp+LP, LK hurricane] for the CC from trade combo? Again is that just to look cool, ease of execution, or is there some practical reason?

Speaking in general, and no offense to any video makers, but a lot of combo videos are horrendously out of date nowadays. Nevermind the impractical, stupid, or just plain useless ones that seem to pop up every now and then. I’ve gotten rid of at least half a gig of videos from my hard drive after I became a better player and realized what’s useful and what’s not. Combo/strategy “videos” that consist of 5 minutes of anime before anything actually starts for example, are not. On the flip side, Gunter and BAS are two of the few that always do a great job everytime they make something. Their contributions are like the only CvS2 videos I realized weren’t a waste of space and didn’t trash as of late. :lol:

Is the namonaki Ken combo guide up to date for real though? I’ve never seen any high level A-Ken at a tourney before so I seriously don’t know what’s good or not. (It’s always better to ask somebody who knows when you’re not sure yourself rather than just make up random stuff and say it works :smiley: ).

8

i love to play ken in this game but [dp+j,jabroll] is hella hard so i gave up in this groove, is this absolutely essential to playing ken well in this groove; if not maybe i’ll give him another try, if so i guess i’ll wait till i get bored with N and K groove.

9

That’s a beginner’s CC. During the series, I tried to put combos for various levels of players. A lot of people can’t do DP-cancel CCs when they first start using A-Groove, so I put that combo to show a high-damage CC without a single DP cancel.

**

Personal preference. IIRC, you get more damage with Jab DP-jab roll, and then switching to j.rh after a few (forget the #)… but I myself felt better doing Jab DP-s.fierce-roll going to the left corner (my hands work weird that way)… one drawback to using the s.fierce is that you may not get the s.fierce to be the close up version from a certain distance. Jab DP-jab roll is pretty braindead. If you get too far you can use strong roll or universal roll.

**

Nothing practical… just a personal preference. For people that use A-Ryu, this combo can be used for both Ryu and Ken… I find sometimes that I accidentally go into the wrong character’s CC if I’m just messing around with a character… like when I messed around with Yamazaki, and went back to King, I was doing Yamazaki’s CC button sequence WITH King. With Short Hurricanes, you can basically go back and forth between Ryu and Ken using the same combo for both characters.

**

For the most part, yes. Nothing new has come out for A-Ken to my knowledge, but I also haven’t seen many A-Kens around.

10

Again, thanks for the replies guys :). I’ll post up more once I stop getting my ass horrendously beat by Blanka, Sagat, and Cammy everytime I attempt to play Ken.

11

A-Ken is my best A-Groove character, such an easy CC!!!:smiley: I especially love doing it after a blocked Blanka ball.

BTW why does Kyo’s df.HK x N into QCFx2 super do such little damage? It only did as much as his S.HK, QCF.MK, DP.MK combo!!! :lame:

BTW I use team easy CCs: Eagle/Kyo Might replace cuz of too little damage :(/ Ken2. Yay!!!:smiley: