He is better than Liu Lame in every way. Ryu is a bullet-timer, strong enough to lift a boulder, and can go Satsui no Hadou to make himself more powerful (and bullet proof). His Shoryuken knocked down a 7 footer and his Hadouken stopped a waterfall from flowing for a seconds, his Shinku Hadouken can make raging fires disappear instantly, and other feats.
Liu Kang can rip off body parts? Right, and Ryu can't? Liu can become a dragon? Too bad it's only effective when the opponent is near death otherwise, it would get its ass kicked.
That's why I said it depends on how you look at things. If you to look at all those things you just said, then of course it seems like Ryu wins.
However, there's also another way to look at things. Ryu lacks the impressive victories he has in his career and there are really nothing compared to Liu Kang's. Liu has beaten and knocked out Goro (an 8 footer who's been the previous champ for 500 years), Shang Tsung, (who knows numerous different fighting styles and was the previous champ before Goro), Shao Kahn (plenty of years of fighting experience and has strength that also grows as he merges each realm) and Shinnok (though he was weaker than he was before).
Ryu, on the otherhand, cheapshotted Sagat with a Shoryuken, fought against holding back Akuma, had Bison run away after a simple Shoryuken, beat his rival Ken (even though they were probably equal), and fought Hugo and unable to put him down with his strongest attack.
Liu Kang was killed easily. Shang Tsung doesn't appear to be that great when it comes to martial arts and was even beaten by a Shaolin monk before the 1st MK. Goro is a better physical fighter.
Let's not forget that Shang Tsung was an old man in MK1 and was only threatening because of his sorcery (as seen in the MK1 boss fight and Shaolin Monks intro)
The Deception intro shows how weak Shang Tsung is. He's a pushover to Rayden and is easily beaten by Quan Chi.
Losing to Great Kung Lao ain't no shame, as he's one of the best fighters in the series (same with Raiden). Regardless, Tsung won several Mortal Kombat tournaments before that happened and as Bro SMASH pointed out, knows numerous different fighting styles. He wouldn't of gotten as far as he did if sorcery was his only strong suit. You're right though about Goro being a better physical fighter.
... and he got his youth and strength back afterward.
Likewise, he easily beats Quan Chi back in the Armageddon intro (as well as Shujinko and others), and displayed good reacting timing in dodging Shao Khan's hammer & counter-attacking.
Lemme guess, because Liu Kang is repeatedly shown to beat his opponents?
Ryu does that too. Hell, he's one-shotted a very powerful version of Bison.
PIS and all, but then again, some of Liu's more notable victories are PIS as well.
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KMC Community Forums
Jun 26th, 2005 08:31 AM
