^Where is the like button for the above comments?
So the consensus is that Yun is toptier, and Daigo was afraid of Zangief in particular. I haven’t played third strike, but i do know a little about it, but did Yun have good reversals? If he doesn’t, does he have anything in 3S that could ruin vortex? Because tatsu sweep usually means a lot in matches where it’s possible. I’d think Daigo wouldn’t like the akuma matchup too if Yun had bad options on wakeup. This is speculation from my side, but i dont think we’ll be able to tatsu sweep Yun.
I’m not sure whether it was Yun or Yang, but I saw one of them pull off an ex move reversal on wakeup that moves 'em far away, kinda like Fuerte’s ex leg grab move , those are kind of annoying to deal with, hope it has a good amount of recovery so you’d sweep it on reaction if the move has lots of invincibility frames.
Daigo?s First Impressions on SSFIV AE (1/2) ? Blog
hoping they’re tatsu sweepable, can get raped by far roundhouse and have bad reversals to vortex 'em till death lol
I can honestly say I couldn’t care less about Daigo’s opinion on the tiers. He thought CVP was high tier in Super too, which is pretty biased, based on his matches against Uryo.
I trust Mago’s judgement on that way more. The dude was always on point regarding tierlisting. If he states that Akuma is now “weak”, and gives his reasons, I’ll prolly believe him.
Akuma barely uses fireball game against characters he can rush down. He’s not Ryu, nor is he Guile.
Akuma is a very versatile character, with great okizeme, mixups, and and gigantic amount of tools and damage output. Most of which aren’t fireball related (though, those who are, insert those said fireballs in-between combos and fadcs… not as zoning tools…).
His fireball game is there, and very important. But even if that portion is majorly affected, he still has his other 75%.
Akuma ain’t just air fireballs and shakunetsus. He’s so much more.
Well tokido said Sweep after lk tatsu on Yun/Yang unfortunately doesn’t work.
Ok, I spent the day playing AE. Some notes for you lads:
- Tatsu sweep doesn’t work on Yun and Yang
- fs.hk whiffs the second hit on both on block (think Ryu)
- Tatsu escape nerf sucks. Its actually funny how often I used this without thinking. You’ll immediately notice and miss it. You will need to adjust your game accordingly. I’d recommend dropping it right now if you plan to play AE a lot.
- Teleport recovers slightly faster
- EX tatsu nerf isn’t massively noticeable. I think maybe the damage is down to 150~180
- Cross-up tatsu/vortex options using cross-up tatsu remain the same. For a while I felt it was perhaps altered by way of the escape tatsu nerf, but I’m certain it was just me fluffing it as I got used to the cabinets.
- Shaku looks unchanged
- EX SRK seems unchanged
- I felt that HP srk might do a little less damage. I’m unsure on this, but I remember slugging someone with an AA hp srk as an opening attack and thinking it didn’t do as much damage as in Super
- U2 hits crouch block. I tested a couple of times (also on Yun and Yang who are quite small) with folks crouch blocking and it indeed connected ala CPU Akuma in Super. Unfortunately I didn’t land it as an attack on someone crouching and sticking out a normal as the situation didn’t come up. I did however use it as usual in combos and so on. It functions much the same. It seemed a little more lenient, perhaps attributable to the speed change? Of which I didn’t really notice, but its difficult to take in small details in an arcade
- Demon flip options all remain unchanged. Palm is fine, including intentional whiffs.
- Walk speed is the same (yay!)
- Mp SRK buff is really fucking nice. Not once did I have my AA broken.
- Akuma’s redballs (2, 3 hit versions) cannot be wholly absorbed by Yun and Yang’s palm strike.
In short, Akuma is the same. The only thing you will notice is the escape tatsu. The rest of him is intact, with a couple of nice buffs (the srk, the U2 that might prove more useful, and slightly better tele). No disappointments here at all.
Now, Yun and Yang are fucking bad asses. My god they have some damaging combos and build meter like crazy. They have insane hit confirms and can deal big damage. They are easily high tier and its actually kind of striking just how viable they are. Akuma seems to do OK against them, but they can really smash us around once they sink their teeth in. I noticed fs.hp is a good way to stuff their dive kicks if spaced properly. Think dealing with Rufus jump-ins using fs.hp - similar deal. I managed to work the vortex on these bastards well but its a real bummer we can’t tatsu sweep them. Odd how this applies to all third strike characters.
Ryu’s c.mk is noticeably poorer. It extends and retracts very fast. I saw a few trade Ultras, though interesting I actually saw a few miss outright. It seems you need to ‘aim’ the Ultra a little better unlike in vanilla.
Gouken’s changes are interesting (I used to main Gouken, and still alt him). He has a couple of neat hit confirms now (lp into palm, cs.mp > c.hp) and the jump mp > tatsu juggle is kinda cool. The nj.hp smash-down effect is pretty cool, as is the j.hp effect (air to air) though I didn’t spend a great amount of time with him as my focus was with Akuma. I wouldn’t say Gouken is massively ‘better’ he’s just a little different. He has some new stuff that ought to help him and give him mroe offensive power. He has four counters now: lp, mp, hp all perform counters - lp low, mp mid/high and hp has the animation from his EX counter where he kinda crosses his arms. Fourth counter is the EX version. I couldn’t figure out what is happening with the HP version as I never got a chance to use it. EX functions as usual - covers both high and low. Back toss into ultra does noticeably less damage now, especially if you don’t connect the full animation. EX tatsu locks in opponents for all hits now. Demon flip parry is much more useful due to its reduced recovery. lp palm remains stationary and he shoves his hand out. I combod this from a crouching light punch. Its very fast.
One cool thing - Rufus’ U2. I ‘fell’ out of this a couple of times when he caught me from the air. Seems the vacuum effect has been scaled back significantly.
Gief’s EX hand takes some getting used to.
Honda’s damage seemed a little tamer.
Chun is still solid.
Cammy’s uppercut has less pushback on block.
I could punish blocked Blanka balls with a fireball, lol.
If you have any questions I’ll do my best to answer. I have a tourney tomorrow though will be playing AE again at the venue. If you have anything you’d like me to try specifically, sing out. Keep in mind that I only used Akuma today and Gouken a couple times so character details outside of those guys I can only comment on what I saw (or fought against).
We gotta develop a Yun and yang strategy. Those bastards are deadly, seriously.
Ok, so the teleport is definitely improved? If that is the case then escape tatsu nerf isn’t such a big deal.
Ever so slightly. I actually felt much more confident in using it to move about.
Escape tatsu you will miss. I was quick to say it wasn’t a big loss before I played, but you really notice it when playing, particularly when cornered. You’ll be happy with Akuma though, he’s still the same character 
None of that nightmarish vanilla > Super nonsense to be found here.
Escape tatsu will be missed but with an improved teleport your opponent won’t be able to over commit their pressure, which is nice.
Did you notice if Ryu’s cr MK is better, same or worse than Akuma’s?
With the improvment on U2’s hitbox, is it easier to land it after a crossup tatsu ?
Difficult to say. It comes out, is active and then retracts much quicker. Capcom cited less active frames, which is a nerf. I’m curious as to how this will impact our footsies with Ryu, as I’ve tagged many a c.mk from Ryu with my sweep.
When we were discussing it I was saying that I felt it was perhaps the same as Akuma’s, but I felt it still had better reach. Others were saying they felt the two were the same. Hard to say man, I’d really need to choose Ryu and test it myself. A definite nerf in my opinion though.
But you want to know whats funny? Hardly anyone used Ryu. I was the only person using a shoto after maybe an hour. Yun and Yang got a lot of attention and we had guys who had just got back from an arcade in Tokyo playing who had them at a good level already.
Daigo’s comments re: projectile characters being weaker rings kinda true. I feel its true when a projectile character is against a non-projectile character, as the chars without fireballs are well tooled in other areas. My argument to the guys tonight is that Akuma differs as he has so many other tools anyway.
Sagat seemed much better, I had some great Sagat matches today and the guys using him were pleased with how he’s transitioned to arcade. Dudley also seemed much better. His sweep is a lot faster too.
Unfortunately I did not test this as I use U2 in standing combos. I’ll test it tomorrow and see if I can try it against someone we can’t cross-up tatsu > U2 right now, such as Ryu.
oni akuma
Has anyone heard any news of Oni Akuma? shees! I can’t believe noone has commented on him already.
It’s alreayd been said that any new characters that may or may not be in despite Yun and Yang are on a time lock. So the arcades (shouldn’t take long in Japan) have to grind them out for some time to see if anyone else is in.
What I’m curious about is that they haven’t been seen on a player vs. CPU basis in arcade mode yet.
Thanks DK. Yeah I thought we might at leat see Oni Akuma in some cpu vs player mode by now> Where did you get the time lock info?
It was a side note on an Eventhubs nugget, I think. I can’t remember clearly.
I just read a theory that suggests Akuma is really Ryu from the future because in the SF storyline he beat seth and got a time machine which is why he goes back in time to insure that Ryu embraces the dark hadou. Also seth killian made a darth vader/ anakin skywalker comparison that might support that theory.
What if instead of them being two new characters in AE, they are really one character and you can use a command to switch between evil ryu and oni akuma as if ryu is fighting against the dark hadou. This would work similar to Gen’s two fighting styles.
So U2’s hitbox has improved only from a teleport cancel? Do you feel any change in its startup too? I’m really hoping it’ll connect more consistently after a crossup tatsu.