Good list.
I don’t play Ken, but I think throw loops were fine on him. Never really saw a problem with them. Let him be the 50/50 into 50/50 shoto? Not really sure what to do with him. VT2 buff maybe?
Akuma and Ibuki have clear weaknesses and bad matchups. Rashid gonna do ignorant shit no matter what. He’s just designed that way.
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I just wish more characters had the tools and flexibility of characters like Ibuki and season 1 Chun Li. After they nerfed Chun hard in s2 (and I’m still sort of mad about it because I’m not even convinced she’d be that great today if they hadn’t) the game became pretty boring to me.
Akuma should be a jack of all trades master of non
air fire ball, teleport and raging demon should be what set him apart from other shoto’s. (red fire ball is debatable)
Ken in sf5 is actually a great representation of the character archetype imo.
Ryu should be a watered down akuma with more emphasis on strong dp’s and solid fireballs with shorter hard hitting combo’s but not quite as mobile as ken or akuma… and his parry should be more a focus of his gameplay… SF5 actually has him really close to what he should be too.
Sagat should have great fireballs and dp’s and AA but terrible movement outside of tiger knee
Sakura should be a gimped version of all those but together but with great normals and walk speed and more combo oriented
Right now akuma is a catch all of those characters he can pretty much do what all the shoto and shoto like characters can but better… and much better at that, from pressure, to neutral, zoning and playing defense… akuma does it all.
The question is how much does this matter… casually people play the shoto they like. Ryu is constantly the #1 played character online.
competitively people are just gonna pick whats best, if akuma was nerfed you probably wouldn’t see any shoto’s playing in top 16, and even now. For as good as akuma is there aren’t many players that win consistently with him.
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Akuma should be a jack of all trades master of non
Eh, I think plenty of people would argue that Akuma should be a master of all, but be made of glass to make up for it.
I feel strongly that Akuma is and always has been sort of a bad idea. A super shoto that does everything super well with several extra tricks of his own is not good design, it’s boring.
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Akuma was a mistake, nothing but trash.
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A good SF game has a strong Akuma that doesn’t need any man.
After I stopped playing Sakura, I stopped giving a shit bout Akuma. Mika/boxer make that fucker bleed and god forbid if I got trigger up.
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Let’s see…In general guidelines as far as differentiation should go:
Ryu:
Have the best fireball, best anti air DP, strong set of normals for controlling midscreen.
Ken:
Have more combo pathways, stronger on the inside than Ryu, weak fireball.
Sakura:
Weakest firebal, consistent conversions from lights, normals for her to play footsies more actively (not trying to keep you away or get all up in you, just sort of scrap and jockey with normals).
Akuma:
Lol health. Worse normals than ryu, inbetween Ken’s upclose and Sakura’s scrappiness, gets demon flip shenanigans and demon, better fireball than Ken and Sakura but not Ryu. Gets the tatsu xx DP link. Zones better with Air Fireball than ground ones.
Kage:
Throw him in the trash with Ed.
Think as far as general ideas you want to get across with gameplay, that’s where the shotos should be in general guidelines.
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I dunno, it’s very telling that in later games, characters in the Akuma archetype (alternate shoto designs) have come with significant compromises. Gouken has no anti air DP and is very susceptible to pressure, plus his pokes lead nowhere. Evil Ryu in sf4, despite being very strong, only has one poke that goes anywhere and it’s very slow both to come out and recover, giving him both a clear weakness and strength at the same time that can be played around. Kage doesn’t even have a regular fireball, his buttons are stubby. Oni has a suss ground game and his fireballs are pitiful.
Akuma was designed before Capcom knew what they were doing and now they’re stuck with it. He has everything and doesn’t have significant weaknesses and without that paradigm he’s not Akuma
Akuma has matchup specific weaknesses in this game that certain characters can exploit so that alone is enough to keep him in check. On top of that only one guy really ever wins anything with him.
I find Akumas very beatable. He doesn’t bother me.
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Is this a stealth Falke shilling post?
Even with Ibuki the matchup is basically whoever touches the other person first goes for a ride and I just have to start the ride first.
I’m not saying that’s not true. Don’t misinterpret my sentiment.
I’m saying that in a general sense, most characters come with weaknesses that are more globally mechanical than that. Sagat’s defensive choices are bad. G’s defensive choices are bad. Sakura’s best poke is a light button in a game with a priority system. Karin doesn’t have the best anti airs out there. Guile and Urien are more susceptible to frame traps and meaties because they don’t have a 3f button.
Akuma has none of these clear mechanical weaknesses.
He doesn’t, but still has problems any way because he has just enough holes in how his shit works that it can be exploited. Like how his regular fireball not travelling full screen is a legit issue in some matchups.
Hot take but i hate heavy handed huge weaknesses. It’s the laziest way to balance games.
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Hot take but i hate heavy handed huge weaknesses. It’s the laziest way to balance games.
I actually think this is a fair point, and if more characters were designed like Akuma, Ibuki or s1 Chun Li I think SF5 would be a better game.
But they aren’t, so here we are 
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More characters should be designed like G. Crippling weaknesses but if you power them up they go Super Saiyan God on you. Can’t be worse than mid tier that way.
I love G’s design too, but he has the extremes on both ends that make it work. What kind of extreme does like, Cody have on his side to make up for his bad defense? heh
Hot take but the way SF works is you have a lot of middle ground and then you have designs present that tread specialised archetypes.
So we have shit like Ryu/Ken/Akuma/Chun/Karin/Cody/Ibuki/Urien/Rashid/Sakura/Birdie list goes on, of characters with very middle ground kits.
And then it introduces some very unique designs like Gief and Sim who have heavy handed weaknesses but also incredible strengths.
You heavily choke yourself making every character capable of dealing with multiple scenarios, and it ends up becoming cookie cutter. It’s a worse way to design a roster, IMO.
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