Does he really need it with his standing heavy?
There is definitely a similarity there but to the O.P shoto has ALWAYS been fireball + dp + karate based normals glued together, the Ryu archetype. Technically Dan is a shoto, he’s just shit. A few people have been throwing it around of late to refer to any character that spends half the game throwing fireballs though.
I thought Ryu did kyokushin karate?
While having definite differences, there are similarities in Sagat’s gameplay and Shotokan style - FBs, DPs. Shoto players will easily feel at home while controlling Sagat. While playing against him, my mindset would pretty much be to play just as I do against a Ryu or Ken but that thinking has since changed. That slow walk speed limits his mobility and therefore the approach to playing Sagat is much different than playing as a Shoto character.
I don’t recognize the emphasis en standing low kicks from kyokushin.