What’s so hard about Ryu?
Ryu’s neutral is not exceptional. He can’t zone because 3rd Strike. He’s minus on every special and punishable because of it. He relies on hard situational hit confirms and a firm belief in Allah, Jesus and the Buddha every time you do an empty cancel that the opponent got hit. His Denjin setups change depending on range and knockdown type. His aerial game is dominated by 1 button and he doesn’t really have much defensive options.
Ryu plays around his opponent, and only the best Ryus can make their opponents play to their tune. It’s too much effort for too little reward.
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You vastly overstate Ryu’s weaknesses. Like VASTLY overstate them.
He is minus on every normal special. Which is why you stick to EX FB. In a game where you can build meter by whiffing buttons you’ll rarely be without EX FB on SA1, and it’s one of the better EX moves in the entire game.
He does not rely on his hit confirms. I mean if you’re good at them it’s a big help, but it’s sure as fuck not necessary to play him. You do need to have your parry game down though, but when you do he makes opponent’s pay for far less meter than most of the cast do.
If you’re on SA1 Ryu you have basic things that can carry you. Your EX FB game, and the only empty cancel you should be rocking is c.MK xx SA1 which even MY ass can one hig confirm. And my reactions are trash and I’m not good at 3S but I could do that shit. Then you work the parry game in for your big EX Donkey Kick punishes.
If you’re on Denjin Ryu, you have to master your throw game, be able to manage your meter very well as you’re still going to need EX FB periodically to gain momentum, and the right cajones to know when it’s right to do a Denjin setup outside of knockdown setups.
He’s not as absurdly easy as fucking Chun, but there’s nowhere near the doom and gloom you think. You’re just prioritizing the wrong things.
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That’s why to have a better Ryu in the future SF games, is for Akuma to lose Ryu projectile game. To make Ryu still a essential character.
Okay I’ve always found this reasoning to be complete crap. There are multitudes of games where the two exist and Ryu is not only on the level of Akuma but sometimes better. Not every game is “Why play Ryu when you can play Akuma?”.
Ryu doesn’t suddenly become good if Akuma doesn’t exist. It’s like in 3S. Yes, there’s no reason to play Elena because Chun exists…but remove Chun and Elena still isn’t very good because of her c.MP quirk. Like, congrats, you’ll feel less bad picking her but you still aren’t picking a good character.
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It’s boils in the over all mechanics or just because Ryu was made to have automatically better and reliable projectile in that game than Akuma. Like Mahvel but not in most SF.
If Akuma or Evil Ryu had near as close to Ryu’s “game plan” thats when they either pick others than Ryu. People stay on Ryu for other stuff like vitality but when the offensive gameplan is priority and others can offer it nearly they just go on and pick either evil ryu or akuma.
Yeah, as bad as “low health as balance” is, when Akuma actually has low enough health, as is the case in 3S, you can make Ryu a more footsie-oriented and defensive character and he will have a niche because Akuma not really having the HP to be trading blows at neutral makes him harder to play defensively.
And by low health in 3S, I mean it. Akuma has 985 Stamina. Ryu has 1200. That’s not “lol -50HP” as SFV tends to do to differentiate squishier chars. (I know Akuma has less.)
Both can coexist fairly well.
If anything, Ken is the trickier character to give a niche to.
Ken had never been effective as a Ryu alternative in modern games, Ken is Ken already since SF4. Ken never made Ryu obsolete in modern titles because he can’t play with Ryu’s gameplan, If people is choosing Ken is because they are choosing Ken in modern titles and not because they are choosing a better Ryu…
The thing is Akuma had been a we’ll rounded character in-terms of offense that’s why they need to minus the Ryu stuff in Akuma which is his ground projectile game. IMHO
People mostly pick characters because of there offensive options and that’s probably why people pick E.Ryu and Akuma over Ryu.
Akuma got air hadouken that is unique to him already, so keeping him rellying on that to deal with projectile situation makes him play differently.
Akuma is straight up better at offense than any other shoto.
Ken is supposed to be the offensive, flashy counterpart to Ryu.
Explain to me how Akuma doesn’t make Ken irrelevant.
Also, completely off-topic, but apparently a channel here is now showing WWE Raw or whatever.
Do people like this stuff? It’s bombing hard here and after watching it myself, I see nothing but hot garbage. 
Ryu actually has several areas where he’s flat out better than Ken in 3S though:
- EX hado is insanely good, making Ryu good at midrange bullying people who can’t red parry well
- has a good kara throw, unlike Ken. Quite big deal
- more AA-options. s.HP - s.HK TC is hard to punish even if you parry both hits iirc
- meterless specials are better, and you can buffer them from mediums in the mid range to check dashes
- s.MK is great and cancelable s.MP is great, so his pokes are better at beating low parry guesses at poke range
- c.MK is only -1 instead of Kens which is -2 on block, so Ken and Chun can’t punish it with reversal super
- stun output is waaaay above Ken. Ryu can actually stun people, even without denjin
- EX donkey kick is dope
- Denjin is dumb, and lets you rob people. Especially people who can’t parry well, or try to parry online :V
Problem really is that Ken has SA3, which makes up for everything above since it allows him to get good damage without putting himself at much risk, while Ryu sort of needs a parry, a punish or a jump-in to get big rewards. And in those situations, Ken does good damage anyway, which diminishes a lot of the reason to pick Ryu for competitive reasons.
Ryu’s still a good character, but SA1 Ryu IS somewhat redundant since Ken plays similarly but is stronger. Denjin’s terrifying but inconsistent. Great at beating people who can’t parry well though, and the strength difference between Ken and Ryu doesn’t matter before people get really good at 3S so w/e
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Having an online tournament gives people something to look forward to.
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If your accustomed to playing Ken your not picking Akuma because of being better in what can Ken exclusively do besides from normals and neutral the whole gameplan is different, but in terms of Ryu, Akuma can offer his gameplan plus the projectile game with other stuff included.
Yes but that’s why he need to lose the gameplan of Ryu ti make him distinct and to force others that like that gameplan to stay with Ryu, while if people want whats exclusive with akuma like air hado then they stay with akuma.
Again…gimping another character does not make other characters good. Akuma is a super shoto but does mean all shotos kits overlap to the point where others can’t be viable when he exists.
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It’s just to diverse things up and make Akuma be dependent on something exclusive to his character, his air fireball, His the last remaining character that makes Ryu obsolete since Evil Ryu was replace by Kage.
I know people would say just make Ryu better in this and that but it only moves Ryu away as a basic character to another, while Akuma stays the same.
Capcom’s keep changing Ken but it’s not really Ken, it’s always the edge lord shoto’s because of the ground projectile game they can do.
I play Chun in 3S, cause it’s the only way I can hang, and I like to poke. She is pretty boring tho. I like using Hugo when I wanna have fun
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Games with different health values for characters should have different length health bars.
They did it with the super bar, why can’t they do it with the health bars?
You could put a % of orginal HP remaining so you know who wins if a time out
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People think ryu is better than akuma in sfxt at least lol
It’s not even about being better or not, it’s about niches. As long as the shotos play differently, the tier list can suck a nut.
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Yo I’m just bad at Ryu!