Originally posted by SaTsuJiN
@ JustFrame - thats really interesting (about the Metsu-Shoryuken thing).. so apparently ryu does have quite an evil seed in him if he's willing throw out such wicked energy in order to secure a win.. hmm..
Yeah, well, this occured with a younger Ryu, he was around 24 yrs old at the time of the very first Street Fighter tournament. During this time frame, Ryu wanted to win so badly, that for that slight moment, he was consumed by Satsu-No-Hadou, and thus unleashed the Metsu-Shoryuken to defeat Sagat.
However, Ryu has since then been trying to subdue, or else conquer the Satsu-No-Hadou. In Alpha 3, he seems like he has actually conquered it, however in SFIII and SF:IV he does utilize a bit of the Satsu-No-Hadou within the forms of his Ultra as seen in SF:IV and his Denjin-Hadouken in SFIII.
All of these are based with a presence of Satsu-No-Hadou, but more on the lines of a tamed version, not the form in which Gouki uses, which is the purest form.
Originally posted by Man of...
Okay, Sagat is NO.1 but there is nothin' broken right cuz I don't want no whinnin when I pick Sagat.
Sagat is just strong, but not broken, in fact, Sagat is strong along the lines of the likes of Hyper Fighting Ryu. Yes, Sagat does fight either even, or else has the advantage over other characters, however he doesn't have super overpowered tactics.
Actually in comparison, to other Top-Tier versions like CvS2 Sagat, CE. and O. Sagat, he's a puppy in comparison. So no worries, he's strong, but not overpowered.
Originally posted by Man of...
I don't wanna sound like a fanboi but how is Ryu better than Ken? Has their styles really changed that much? Nearly er SF I played, Ken was always the better of the 2. That's the plan
No your not being a fanboy, however, I'll explain it right here again, since the last time I did it was like...4-5 months ago, lmao.
Prepare for a Long explained Post
Within the real SF series (excluding all the vs and what not), Ryu has actually been the better character overall, let me list it, and by the real series I'm talking SFII series, Alpha series and III series.
Street Fighter II : WW : Tie...both Ryu and Ken where really bad in this game, only Blanka was worse in here. Both of them had a poor Hadouken, a Shoryuken that doesn't knock an opponent down when they are standing, and a hurricane kick that was even unsafe on hit...yes, they where that bad.
Street Fighter II: Champion Edition : Ryu>Ken, in here, Ryu was without a doubt, the better character overall, only Guile, Bison, and Sagat where better then Ryu in here. The reason being is that Ryu had a faster Hadouken, and a better recovery on his Hadouken, giving him a much more powerful positioning game along with his powerful shoto footsie game that pushed him above Ken. I would also like to add that Ken was arguably #5 in this game, he was incredibly powerful as well, CE. Ken has the Mother of all Shoryuken's, the FP version of this baby did like nearly 40% damage alone, no joke there. Ken also had crazy glitches with his hurricane kick too.
Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting : Ryu>Ken, this was Ryu's game without a question, with the nerfing of CE. Bison, Guile's Sonic Boom slightly, and the tone down of Sagat's Tiger Shots. Ryu instantly became the best character in the game, he is basically everything CE. Ryu was, but now he has the aerial hurricane kick, and does far better with the faster speed of pace for the game. He also still has his invincible start up hurricane kick from CE, which when used right can punish all other forms of attacks other then invincible ones. Ken actually is still around #5 or #6 in this game respectively, he's really no different from CE. Ken other then the fact that he now has the aerial hurricane kick which can do some more crazy combos with it.
Super Street Fighter II : Tie...Both of them where ranked together, since Ryu was obviously nerfed from his HF version, and Ken didn't really improve to say the least either (He lost his Mother of all Shoryuken in place of the Flaming Shoryuken). However, they where still solid in this game, Wats was beastly with Ken, and Tomo the Legend Ohira the greatest SF player of all time, won his last tournament using Ryu.
Super Street Fighter II Turbo : Ryu>Ken, again, Ryu is Upper-Tier in here, while Ken is Middle-Tier. Huge differences here is that Ryu still has the better Hadouken spacing game (one of the absolute biggest reasons why he has been better then Ken throughout SFII), Ryu also has one of the Top 5 best Super's, if not the Top 3 best supers in the game with Shinkuu-Hadouken, Dashing FP allows him to move across the stage much faster then Ken, thus allowing for better advantages with positioning.
Ken however had an insanely good throw with his multi-knee bash, and his slower Hadoukens did come in handy sometimes, however his Super wasn't all that great, and worst yet, you couldn't even reversal with it, which was plainly stupid.
Note: ST:HD Remix, Ryu is still considered better then Ken, because Ryu was not toned down at all in HD:Remix while having a Fake Hadouken now, which actually has improved his Hadouken trap games up a notch. Ken has improved a whole lot, however Ryu is still considered Upper-Tier once more.
Street Fighter Alpha 1 : Ken>Ryu, in this, Ken edges out Ryu, for both of them where incredibly powerful, I really forgot why Ken was better, since it's been so long, however all the shoto's in here where Top (besides Dan of course), however...Guy still owned this game.
Street Fighter Alpha 2 : Ken>Ryu... now Ken is supposed to be better, because he has one of the greatest Custom Combos in the game, only Chunli is better, great Hadouken game, and the single best Alpha Counter in the game (when Alpha Counters where super good!). Ryu was still top-tier, however Viscant who is one of the Top Street Fighter players in the US back then, and even today has stated that Alpha 2 Ryu within the right hands is the single best character in the game. I asked him why, since I was confused, because it has always been noted that Ken, Chunli, and Rose where better then Ryu.
However Viscant states that only four people in the world could make Ryu the elite monster that he's capable of. I'm quite confident 2 out of those 4 people are John Choi, and the Alpha 2 Emperor himself, Alex Valle who did infact play a monster Ryu (btw, Alex Valle destroyed all comers in the game of Alpha 2, yes, he even went to Japan and mopped the floor with ALL of Japan's best, in fact, in Alpha 2 it was USA>>>>Japan).
Street Fighter Alpha 3 : Ryu>Ken, without a question, since Ryu was at the lower end of Top, and definitely no worse then Upper-Tier. V-Ism Ryu was wrecking machine, with tons of damage potential, even off of his regular combo sets. Ken on the other hand did not have any of these potential and thus was set to Middle-Tier.
Street Fighter III : New Generation : Tie...both of them where as good as one another, Ken could obtain crazy damage with Shinryuken and more importantly it had 2-stocks, while Ryu was an absolute monster with Shin-Shoryuken, and might I add, this is Shin-Shoryuken was a very small bar in comparison to his Godzilla 3S ShinSho bar, plus I remember Ryu having 100% damage dealing combos at the corner too with it...everyone still got destroyed by Ibuki in here anyhow.
Street Fighter III : 2nd Impact : Ryu>Ken, without a doubt, this was the strongest version of Ryu throughout the III series. Why? Huge combobility off of regulars and ex's. Much faster and more potent Shinkuu-Hadouken Super Art, however the most deadly of all was the 2-Stock Denjin-Hadouken with a bar that was only as big as Yun's Genei-Jin bar...yes, it was that small and 2 stocks at that. This allowed Ryu humongous damage potential, because it allowed him better versatility due to the fact that he could use Ex-Hadouken's and still be capable of launching a Denjin-Hadouken to stun and cause greater damage. Basically a fully two stocked Denjin Ryu usually means a near free round.
Ken on the other hand was actually very, very strong as well, in fact, 2I Ken is exactly that of 3S Ken, except some slight differences. 2I Ken didn't have Kara-Shoryukens, and his s.fk was unsafe on block and hit, however 2I Ken had far more options of landing his SAIII then 3S Ken did actually. However, Ryu was #5 in this game, while Ken settled somewhere in Middle-Tier...still everyone got foot stomped by Ibuki (Ibuki was without a doubt the most powerful SFIII character ever in-game wise...yes, she would mop the floor against 3S Yun, and Chun).
Street Fighter III : 3rd Strike : Ken>Ryu, this shouldn't be debated, Ken basically stayed the same from 2I going into 3S, however now is safe from his s.fk, and can Kara-Shoryuken, but with less combobility into his SAIII. While Ryu got completely shafted going into 3S with the removal of 2-Stock Denjin, the bar made literally 3x as big, his Shinkuu-Hadouken or SAI got shafted as well...and his Shinshoryuken bar was made even bigger.
Ken is without a doubt #3 in this game, while Ryu is like #8 or #9.
So if you look at it all the differential is this...
Ryu - 5 (CE, HF, ST, A3, 2I)
Ken - 3 (A1, A2, and 3S)
While the rest they where equal, so overall, Ryu has been the better overall character. What has always made Ryu better in most games was simply because he could space better then Ken, and he usually had greater versatility over Ken.
Hope this helps...whew, I'm beat 😆
