With the Tekken 7 competitive scene, Akuma had the advantage of being the only guy with an air game, since tekken characters don’t do a lot of jumping. And he rose very fast because he had a very alien play style that Tekken players were unfamiliar with. But time has moved on and people have “learned the match up” so the gap between the other S-tiers have equalized.
Akuma gained his Raging Demon when he was a guest fighter in X-Men: Children of the Atom, making him even better due to a guest stint in another franchise.
I know it's a joke, but the logic falls flat as soon as you realize that Ryu would then have to be 2nd or 3rd best, if not tied with Akuma in terms of power. 😅 This is despite that Ryu historically has hovered between lower-mid to high-mid and barely ever scraped top-tier status throughout the 30+ years. Oro in lore is stronger than Akuma (Or at least tied if Akuma fully embraces the Satsui no Hado becomes Shin Akuma), and G is likely in a complete league of his own given his connection to the earth.
Akuma is still beloved as a character even after being OP for most of his existence. That says something. I don't think most people want him to be game breaking but he should be right at the edge. Give us Akuma, Capcom.
I forget where this first got brought up, I think in a dev interview about sf4 ae, but basically developers found that if a character was presented as super OP and supposed to be broken players actually accept them as such. But when random average dude characters (like yun) are OP people bitch and complain. Basically, should be coined The Akuma Effect.
@@Near_Pluto_ I mean, it's natural for people to like it when a character's strength in the game is somewhat proportionate to their lore strength. I don't think it's anything new or deep lol
Honestly, he’s good but not broken. Without the bar usage, Akuma sucks. Leroy at release was way worse. Literally 6 Leroys in final 8 for EVO Japan 2020.
Honestly I'm waiting to see Akuma for "World Tour" more than anything else, just to see _why_ he takes on the character's avatar as a student. Does he recognize the Satsui no Hado within them? _"If Ryu won't be a worthy rival, then I'll just train my own!"_ (Heck, Akuma won't live forever regardless; maybe he wants to pass on his knowledge of "True Ansatsuken" as Goutetsu had to him.)
I don't think he'd recognize the Hado in us, but he'll instead see the POTENTIAL in our character to be both a worthy opponent and successor to the Satsui no Hado.
@@ΚρανίΩDan is one of the FEW who can do Hadoukens whit a single hand. Lorewise characters who can do Hadoukens whit one hand are EXTREMELLY powerful and natural. So Dan could unironically become stronger than Ryu if he actually got trained properly.
I think it's really important to note that he's never been *the* problem character in any of the games you mentioned other than Super Turbo. Maybe Tekken, but in any version of Street Fighter past Super Turbo that was played competitively for a long period of time there was usually characters better than him. Third strike Chun, AE Yun, Ultra Elena and SF5 Luke especially come to mind.
I'd push back and say Akuma in SF5 before the final season was pretty damn silly. Not ban-worthy, but he made the game not fun for a lot of other characters.
Also some noteworthy fact : whenever Gouki isn't top tier, that's just because every other character in that game (or the game itself) are stupidly broken
@@EventHubs yeah. Akuma pre-season 5 was not fun to fight at all. You had to play very conservatively partly because of the Crush Counter mechanic. It's meant to be a comeback mechanism, but more often than not Crush Counters shut down any counterattack that wasn't a V-Reversal or V-Shift. With Akuma so dominant in the neutral game either with safe nornals or far ranging ones, he's basically designed around baiting you into pressing buttons and eating Crush Counters, or facing a 50/50 mixup.
@@EventHubs The issues akuma had in SFV were the free safe trigger activation from red fireball at full screen and the free side switch. Aside from that I think he was fine. People whined about him because they didnt take the time to learn the matchup, if he was broken, everyone wouldve had a pocket akuma for competitive play. Not a soul did. But everyone had a pocket Luke. But this was by design, capcom made him busted on purpose to advertise SF6.
I think Akuma's identity is about him being broken. Conversely, Dan had been consistently bad by design. Because he's intended to be a joke character, and it's only in SFV where he isn't in the absolute bottom of the tier list.
@@dark_nightwing_xl2797 Dan is fun to use (especially since I use Ryo a lot in KOF). But he is intentionally worse than other characters. In the original Alpha, he at least made up for it with high damage but in subsequent games his damage output has been gradually nerfed. And he was a downright a handicap character in Puzzle and Pocket Fighter.
@@FridaysJanKenPon Nope, never. SFIV Akuma was already an attempt at balancing him, but even so, he's still largely superior to Ryu, Ken or Gouken. The only things Ryu did better than him in Vanilla SFIV were having a really good punish in his Metsu Hadouken and a better Focus Attack. But otherwise Akuma was just more dominant in every aspect.
I didn't watch much SF5, but isn't he doing a neutral jump air fireball at 7:38? Or is that with V-Trigger active? Again, I'm not super familiar with SF5 mechanics.
yep, thats what was great, everyone was going on about how busted akuma was in sfv but with his low health only tokido was solid enough fundamentally to do elite level work with him consistently, then they somewhat inadvertently nerfed tokido near the end of sfv pretty much for nothing lol
I always liked Akuma, but didn't play as him much until 2019 when I won an event with Akuma in a card game (of which he was equally as strong as he is in the video games). The success with Akuma brought a new found appreciation for him, resulting in Akuma becoming one of my mains in 3rd Strike. I look forward to what he has to offer with Street Fighter 6's mechanics.
Imagine the card game is Yu Gi Oh and you defeat Exodia with Akuma "I summon Exodia! You lost, boy!" "Here takes Akuma and leave the card battle for adults"
@@longlostcoder6322 yeah there’s even a good argument that st and alpha are the only times he was actually dominant. And he’s always been hard to master and fun to play and watch as long as you aren’t the one getting worked. Although I’ll admit his air fb and sometimes his sweep or tatsu have been op/annoying depending on the game. Sf3 his tatsu and sf4 his sweep were very tough to deal with or frustrating
@@stolensentience Yeah mvsf, cvs2, svc, xvsf he wasn't top tier and alpha 3 you had to be real good to do the unblockable set ups, sf4 you either destroy your opponent or get destroyed from poor health shin akuma in cvs2 was way worse
@@mrsurprise2294 yes in a3 he was top tier but didn’t hold the game hostage by any means. a1 and a2 is what I really meant but he was a bit op in a3, but then again a ton of characters were.
to me what makes akuma so strong no matter how many times they nerf him is the tools he has access to. Especially if no other character has access to the same stuff. The air fireball, for example, is so good at screen control and mix ups in general that even with good counter play its still hard to predict and therefore still useful.
Akuma was never supposed to be balanced at the first place. It is just him and goes with him flawlessly. Capcom tried to balance him in SFV but gained world wide criticism.
I think SF 6 has enough defensive tools that he won't be as oppressive as he normally is.... but he just inherently comes with too many offensive tools for me to ever envision a timeline where he isn't at least A tier. I can't wait to see how he's translated, with Ed coming in February I'm hoping for a late March/early April launch for Akuma.
Akuma is a great example of how fighting games don't need to be completely balanced. If using the strongest character is either extremely technical or fragile, than it makes the character seem less of an auto win button due to the skill required to play them at their best, and reduces the amount of players who shame those who use top tiers.
"Akuma is a great example of how fighting games don't need to be completely balanced. If using the strongest character is either extremely technical or fragile, than it makes the character seem less of an auto win button due to the skill required to play them at their best" that's, what balancing is? lmao
@@whiskizyo2067 sort of, a truly balanced akuma game would've had 50-50 mu's across the board, but akuma has a lot more favorable ones. The risk to reward is balanced but the characters themselves aren't... But I consider that a good thing.
Can’t agree more, Akuma is also a lot of players first knowledge check for newer players- checking DP’s, watching out for his stance throw or mix up, etc. I feel like Akuma is the easiest opponent to do this with as opposed to someone who has a more focused kit and doesn’t dominate every facet of the game like Akuma
Akuma is going to be what next year's rebalancing will be centered around. They will use Akuma as the measuring stick. Unless they somehow bring him out with certain things within his kit that limit his power until a certain condition is met.
@@BlueLightningSky well...the way SF6 mechanics are heading...the majority of the cast will be working with some type of mechanic that is along that path. Wouldn't be surprised if Akuma gets something where he is stronger than everyone else while being exhausted. He will have some type limitation or he will be too insane with the drive system. 🤷🏼♂️
@@KaitouKaiju who knows. But, I know he won't come out without some type of passive mechanic or unlocking full power mechanic. The Raging Demon will be CA only, that's for sure.
Glass canon is such a funny term. It’s supposed to mean super high offense with super low defense but you couldn’t even really fire a glass cannon because it would just shatter if you tried.
One thing he forgot to say is this was just Akuma in his NORMAL state. He has a transformation into his full power, as Shin Akuma. Therefore, he was HOLDING BACK.
Let's be real, he's always OP because he's one of if not the most popular and coveted fighting game character there is. People will pay for him, especially if he's OP.
He's top tier because he is nothing more than a marketing gimmick, a tool to manipulate the lowest common denominator of shoto fans. He's popular because he's badass/strong and he's strong/badass because he's popular. Balance be damned.
I agree with the circular reasoning, but I also don't think it's necessarily fair to describe him as appealing to the lowest common denominator. Yes, a purposefully broken character will attract scrubs, but all that means is that in a competitive setting the character can be banned. It is far worse to go down the Blizzard route of fearing that any character be a standout so you are constantly--and purposefully--buffing and nerfing the entire roster so every player can have their time to shine regardless of how much effort or attention they put into the game. An Akuma type is fun for people who don't want to practice, awesome for lore enjoyers, and even better for the skilled players who want either a particularly challenging opponent, or a tool to see exactly how broken the game can get
The thing about Akuma is ... that he is a check on if players deserve to play as him at all. He's quickly punished if players make a mistake, his recovery is slow if he gets shotted in open play and his most powerful move, Raging Demon, historically required very specific mechanics to enact. So basically, as Akuma, you as the player have to play as Akuma would: practically perfectly to deploy his arsenal and unload the punishment on your opponents. It's a great choice in game design: he is the absolute pinnacle of mastery in the hands of the best players but in another average joe's, he is just another Shoto.
coming back to this, akuma is yet again busted but has an interesting trait where he is a total glass cannon, meaning its like his sf3 ts appearance where he is like mid tier or debatably high tier according to some players I met. He gels super well with the game mechanics but drive rushes and the combo system of 6 means he cant afford too too many mistakes or get deleted, reason being is this game is much more offense focused than previous games. He by design is impossible to balance out of being good, generally the best way to make him balanced is to beef up everyone else to a point he struggles to get stuff done easily.
This is why I hope Cammy's level 3 doesn't get touched or nerfed because i can see it being very handy to punish a fullscreen Akuma fireball or raging demon.
Kinda surprised how you glossed over SF3's super move system, where Akuma would always have three super moves when other characters only had one. Oh, and in SVC Chaos where the 2x2 arcade button layout made it MUCH easier and quicker pull off a Raging Demon following a jump-in attack.
I happened to really like Akuma a lot and he's once a main that I use back in SF2 Turbo. My only main issue is that when he does comes out and is seemingly top tier broken, players are gonna be way too co-dependent using him,not because Akuma's gameplay will be amazing but as soon as players drop their mains they're gonna be switching towards Akuma and we have ourselves another Luke & Ken situation all over again where will feature 30 or moreso Akuma players in the next CPT tournament. And as much how cool Akuma is that's gonna the same repetitive problem all over again.
balancing is a concept. Its true that no game will ever be 100% balanced, but the basic idea is a trade off. ANY character needs to have tools to do damage, but they cannot be so good as to OFFBALANCE other characters tools to defend against said damage. IT ISNT a subjetctive thing, quite the opposite, its very obvious and measurable for anyone who plays the game and understand it from differnt points of view (aka plays more than one character). A character that isnt balanced will not be fun in the long run, simply because everyone will recognize that is much harder to play against that characeter as well as much easier to play with it. So everyone will do it, making the game a race to the bottom. The game will become stale , predictable and boring, the very opposite of fun, and its no wonder that people have banned akuma at tournaments .
Ah it would be weird for Akuma to EVER be “mid” or “low” tier….like, he’s one of those fighting games characters, I wouldn’t care if he had to be banned is nearly every single game….i personally think it makes fighting games interesting when there’s those fighters that are just broken lol…..I also like low tier characters too (the little yellow Bot character from Marvel VS Capcom 2 comes to mind lol)
honestly, despite folks clearly wanting as much for Ryu for obvious reasons, i want to see Akuma's moveset move even closer towards Gouken's. we've already seen this happen in both sf4, considering Oni and the shit there, and sf5 and to see Gouki come full circle to end up more like his brother than he'd clearly ever want would be poetic to say the least.
He's more broken than he's in SF. Has the same health as everyone. Fkin 2D jumps that harder to deal with since Anti-air isn't a Tekken thing. And if he has both full meters and rage? Just a single jab and you're dead.
It's April. Idk how literally everyone seemed to miss the original Character trailer for Season 1 showing EVERY characters's release month but it said April for Akuma.
Its impossible for him to be more OP than Luke and Ken right now. Capcoms planned nerfs for them will be Akuma's benchmark. I think they will release him weak like the grapplers and A.K.I. out of fear.
My concept for balancing is amplifying the risk vs reward. So, lore wise, we know that Satsui no Hado is destroying his body for power, hence the low health. However, what if instead of low health, what if the Satsui no Hado is a mechanic exclusive to him like, Manon’s medals or Jamie’s drinks. What if he was given full access to the V trigger ability that lets Akuma cancel specials into other specials or enhance his OD moves with additional meter, BUT at the cost of taking recoverable health damage. Or, maybe consider Nagoriyuki’s blood mechanic from GGstrive. Basically, Akuma can enter his demon state at the cost of draining health.
Does anyone else remember that way old Gamepro gag, where someone managed to put an Akuma sprite into Resident Evil 2, and then the rumor spread that he was an unlockable character? Man, the 2000s were a great time.
Street Fighter Alpha Akuma's air fireball was the best! Akuma could throw his air fireball and follow behind it like an assist character from a versus game. This attack could lead to all kinds of combos!😎
His balance should be on the stamina side. If you make a mistake as Akuma you lose. He is the epitome of a glass cannon character he requires skill and perfection to use him as intended. You can't win with luck with Akuma
If SF incorporated KOF roll mechanics Akuma would be "mid". His dominance is built around players being unable to evade attacks. Players are forced to only block or get hit.
It would be interesting to see a pre-Alpha setting in which Akuma hasn't yet reached his demonic form, that gives you an easy way to make him a less oppressive fighter, explore his relationship with Gouken and Goutetsu and have a tangible reason for Ryu being absent, or at least much younger, plus we could get younger versions of some of the older characters, maybe a few that haven't been seen since SF1.
in sf 4 he had crappy hps and was extremly prone to stuns like seth, imho his strongest tool was his 0hk(the forward 2 fast kicks guard safe). Also most players, let's be honest were unable to fadc combo on tight confirms meaning that if you were playing the fundamentals game without a phd in arcade stick, a vanilla ryu or even a rush down ken(which had decent low intensity bnbs) were probably better overall.
3 Fun facts about T7 Akuma: 1. His broken quatilies are not from his character specifics but from the game(SF) mechanics, so any SF character would've been broken. 2. One of his worst matchups is against Noctis from Final Fantasy XV 3. One of his best matchups is against Negan from Walking Dead because he had single reliable option against neutral demon flip that dealt 4-5% dmg and was punishable on block.
He wasn't overpowered in SSF4 or USF4. He was at a pretty good place, but most players would pass him up due to his low health pool (especially post df nerf.)
He was definitely top tier early SFIV until Gouken came along. There was a very small percentage of players that could fw me running Gouken vs Akuma, but the good Akuma’s were crazy. Especially back when Capcom and Madcatz made good fightpads. And we speak about Oni lol. Hopefully this will breathe some life back into SF6. It’s arguably the least liked Vanilla SF next to 5 which I thought wasn’t bad. Dope vid
Its almost like having a lot of options usually leads to a character being good Also capcom, if your low health and stun character doesnt also have low damage, it doesnt matter because now both players are deleting each other off a single hit. I consider Chipp Zanuff to be the fixed version of the Akuma archetype (has every tool, but has low life AND damage)
Something I’ve always liked with street fighter is their weird fireball power scaling. Usually being able to throw a fireball with one hand means that fighter has immense skill. Akuma throws one handed fireballs, as does Gouken, Nash, and Oro to name a few. I think Dan does as well lmao.
I haven’t watched this yet 0:08 , but I absolutely cannot wait for Akuma, he’s always been one of my top characters I use. But then Capcom shows us a character who I absolutely hated and sucked in 5, and they actually make this guy looks cool in the gameplay trailer.😅
I feel like the devs will give him 4 supers. The regular 1-3 bars like everyone else and in modern mode the one button inputs but his 4th, the raging demon, will always have to be inputted the old fashion way, modern mode or not. His raging demon will also be his critical art as well. His 3 regular supers could be the super fire ball lv1, triple shoryuken lv2 and the misogi drop lv3.
My fix for Akuma would be to change his Shoryuken into a command grab. It would make him no longer just a better Ryu and Ken while also adding to his mixup options. He would lose a universally good defensive option and be more in flavor of how aggressive he is both in lore and gameplay. As a command grab, you can do a lot more with it. For instance : you could have a weak version do less damage and allow for a juggle, medium give better vortex placement, and fierce do the most damage with no other benefit. As a grapple, you can make it look as strong as you want without also turning it into a much better anti-air in the process. They have been making Ken less like Ryu and more his own character with his own moveset with each game, and they made Gouken have a completely unique fighting style altogether.
Gouki is fair & balanced no idea what you guys are talking about.
Gouki always benefits from the mechanics or himself
Sure as hell wasn't in SFV lmao 💀
Lmao tell me the Akuma vortex wasnt the most stupidly busted thing ever
@@GinkgoPete nah. Especially in sf4 where Yun and Yang existed, it was amazingly strong but wasn't the best
@@Dhampire1976 Yun and Yang only appeared in AE. Akuma's vortex was pretty oppressive for the vast majority of SFIV
Akuma is so good that he will appear as a guest fighter in other games and be broken there too.
Tekken 7 experience in a nutshell 🤣🤣
With the Tekken 7 competitive scene, Akuma had the advantage of being the only guy with an air game, since tekken characters don’t do a lot of jumping. And he rose very fast because he had a very alien play style that Tekken players were unfamiliar with. But time has moved on and people have “learned the match up” so the gap between the other S-tiers have equalized.
Akuma gained his Raging Demon when he was a guest fighter in X-Men: Children of the Atom, making him even better due to a guest stint in another franchise.
Yea like smash
Akuma vs Asura is one of the most greatest battle ever.
He doesn’t need to be balanced, this is lore accurate.
Sure, until we have a 6-Akuma Top 8 for the third time in a row.
Ah yes the vergil treatment
I know it's a joke, but the logic falls flat as soon as you realize that Ryu would then have to be 2nd or 3rd best, if not tied with Akuma in terms of power. 😅 This is despite that Ryu historically has hovered between lower-mid to high-mid and barely ever scraped top-tier status throughout the 30+ years. Oro in lore is stronger than Akuma (Or at least tied if Akuma fully embraces the Satsui no Hado becomes Shin Akuma), and G is likely in a complete league of his own given his connection to the earth.
@@brianwilliams4832 still canon accurate
Lore accurate ... Ryu would like to talk to you on that.
Akuma is still beloved as a character even after being OP for most of his existence. That says something. I don't think most people want him to be game breaking but he should be right at the edge. Give us Akuma, Capcom.
Yeah I think at edge is great so that gives the player an opportunity to sort of become as dominant as the Akuma character.
Agreed. He IS a playable BOSS character.
I forget where this first got brought up, I think in a dev interview about sf4 ae, but basically developers found that if a character was presented as super OP and supposed to be broken players actually accept them as such. But when random average dude characters (like yun) are OP people bitch and complain.
Basically, should be coined The Akuma Effect.
@@Near_Pluto_ I mean, it's natural for people to like it when a character's strength in the game is somewhat proportionate to their lore strength. I don't think it's anything new or deep lol
@@metsu-satsu4280 adding to your comment, guilty gear already have their resident most powerful character (Sol) that the fans have accepted.
He's so broken, he broke the balance of a game from another franchise 😂😂 (Tekken 7)
I'm sure Akuma would find that very amusing.
A single jab into death combo if he has both full meter and rage.
He's that broken. Also he has the same health as everyone unlike in SF.
Just bring Orochi Iori in Tekken and you'll understand the real meaning of the word broken 😂
@@MLBlue30 the way he sees it is he isn't too strong, everyone else just isn't strong enough
Honestly, he’s good but not broken. Without the bar usage, Akuma sucks. Leroy at release was way worse. Literally 6 Leroys in final 8 for EVO Japan 2020.
No matter what happens to him, I know his Raging Demon is going to look sick as hell in SF6 and I'm all here for it.
Can't wait to get modern demon'd
I'm creaming just thinking about it.
@@DioDCynicI refuse to believe that the SF5 Demon can be topped. Then again I’m sure it’ll happen
@@DioDCynicIt will probably be like marvel 3 rather than one button
Critical Art Version
Severe psychic damage to the player!
Honestly I'm waiting to see Akuma for "World Tour" more than anything else, just to see _why_ he takes on the character's avatar as a student. Does he recognize the Satsui no Hado within them? _"If Ryu won't be a worthy rival, then I'll just train my own!"_
(Heck, Akuma won't live forever regardless; maybe he wants to pass on his knowledge of "True Ansatsuken" as Goutetsu had to him.)
That’s likely it
I don't think he'd recognize the Hado in us, but he'll instead see the POTENTIAL in our character to be both a worthy opponent and successor to the Satsui no Hado.
It'd be hilarious if he denies taking a student, and then some Dan equivalent of a dark hadou user takes you in instead.
@@shoukaiserdan is still a fireball user that is extremely strong just not serious
@@ΚρανίΩDan is one of the FEW who can do Hadoukens whit a single hand.
Lorewise characters who can do Hadoukens whit one hand are EXTREMELLY powerful and natural.
So Dan could unironically become stronger than Ryu if he actually got trained properly.
I think it's really important to note that he's never been *the* problem character in any of the games you mentioned other than Super Turbo. Maybe Tekken, but in any version of Street Fighter past Super Turbo that was played competitively for a long period of time there was usually characters better than him. Third strike Chun, AE Yun, Ultra Elena and SF5 Luke especially come to mind.
Yeah the only really problematic versions of akuma were ST and 2nd impact, and debatebly tekken.
I'd push back and say Akuma in SF5 before the final season was pretty damn silly. Not ban-worthy, but he made the game not fun for a lot of other characters.
Also some noteworthy fact : whenever Gouki isn't top tier, that's just because every other character in that game (or the game itself) are stupidly broken
@@EventHubs yeah. Akuma pre-season 5 was not fun to fight at all. You had to play very conservatively partly because of the Crush Counter mechanic. It's meant to be a comeback mechanism, but more often than not Crush Counters shut down any counterattack that wasn't a V-Reversal or V-Shift. With Akuma so dominant in the neutral game either with safe nornals or far ranging ones, he's basically designed around baiting you into pressing buttons and eating Crush Counters, or facing a 50/50 mixup.
@@EventHubs The issues akuma had in SFV were the free safe trigger activation from red fireball at full screen and the free side switch. Aside from that I think he was fine. People whined about him because they didnt take the time to learn the matchup, if he was broken, everyone wouldve had a pocket akuma for competitive play. Not a soul did. But everyone had a pocket Luke. But this was by design, capcom made him busted on purpose to advertise SF6.
His appearance as Oni and in Asuras Wrath deserves honourable mentions...they were awesome.
I think Akuma's identity is about him being broken. Conversely, Dan had been consistently bad by design. Because he's intended to be a joke character, and it's only in SFV where he isn't in the absolute bottom of the tier list.
A lot of the issues, balances, or etc in these games im convinced now that Capcom did it all on purpose. Akuma has never sucked in any game ever.
Dan is dope!!!!!
@@dark_nightwing_xl2797 Dan is fun to use (especially since I use Ryo a lot in KOF). But he is intentionally worse than other characters. In the original Alpha, he at least made up for it with high damage but in subsequent games his damage output has been gradually nerfed. And he was a downright a handicap character in Puzzle and Pocket Fighter.
@@tcchip oh isnt he strong in street fighter 5?
@@FridaysJanKenPon Nope, never. SFIV Akuma was already an attempt at balancing him, but even so, he's still largely superior to Ryu, Ken or Gouken. The only things Ryu did better than him in Vanilla SFIV were having a really good punish in his Metsu Hadouken and a better Focus Attack. But otherwise Akuma was just more dominant in every aspect.
I still miss jump back air fireball.
And neutral jump air fireball
I didn't watch much SF5, but isn't he doing a neutral jump air fireball at 7:38? Or is that with V-Trigger active? Again, I'm not super familiar with SF5 mechanics.
@@DanmakuMaster In SFV you only have jump back & neutral jump air fireball when you do ex or V-Trigger so yeah it was a V-trigger jump fireball
Tiger Knee Air Fireball
sfv akuma is fine when Tokido uses him, only Tokido won tourneys with akuma while today luke is everywhere
yep, thats what was great, everyone was going on about how busted akuma was in sfv but with his low health only tokido was solid enough fundamentally to do elite level work with him consistently, then they somewhat inadvertently nerfed tokido near the end of sfv pretty much for nothing lol
@@thebonuslvlakuma looked slow to me in street fighter 5
@@thebonuslvlIt’s like Xian’s Gen in IV. That character was only top tier in his hands and nowhere else.
@@SwoleTommyPickles Also, who else did anything with Ryu apart from Daigo?
There's a lot of Lukes cheating. Search Luke sf6 cheaters.
It's suspicious because the input on watching replays.
I always liked Akuma, but didn't play as him much until 2019 when I won an event with Akuma in a card game (of which he was equally as strong as he is in the video games). The success with Akuma brought a new found appreciation for him, resulting in Akuma becoming one of my mains in 3rd Strike. I look forward to what he has to offer with Street Fighter 6's mechanics.
which card game?
Imagine the card game is Yu Gi Oh and you defeat Exodia with Akuma
"I summon Exodia! You lost, boy!"
"Here takes Akuma and leave the card battle for adults"
Akuma casually Messatsu's exodia
Akuma hasn’t been “overly dominant” since like 2008 tbh. Just top tier and only in the right hands
This. Sometimes his kit is too much for new players. As I've aged I've started tobsuck at fighting games. Me reaction time and memory are declining
@@longlostcoder6322 yeah there’s even a good argument that st and alpha are the only times he was actually dominant. And he’s always been hard to master and fun to play and watch as long as you aren’t the one getting worked. Although I’ll admit his air fb and sometimes his sweep or tatsu have been op/annoying depending on the game. Sf3 his tatsu and sf4 his sweep were very tough to deal with or frustrating
@@stolensentience Yeah mvsf, cvs2, svc, xvsf he wasn't top tier and alpha 3 you had to be real good to do the unblockable set ups, sf4 you either destroy your opponent or get destroyed from poor health shin akuma in cvs2 was way worse
@@mrsurprise2294 yes in a3 he was top tier but didn’t hold the game hostage by any means. a1 and a2 is what I really meant but he was a bit op in a3, but then again a ton of characters were.
Zangief player: This is fine (all in fire around)
During SF4 I played Akuma and my friend played Gief. Many a rages I have witnessed.
@@EgzvorgAkuma and zangief are my two top players
@@Egzvorg I mean I played Akuma and I think my friend played Zangief and all I did was spam controls and he did his Spinning Move XD
to me what makes akuma so strong no matter how many times they nerf him is the tools he has access to. Especially if no other character has access to the same stuff. The air fireball, for example, is so good at screen control and mix ups in general that even with good counter play its still hard to predict and therefore still useful.
Akuma was never supposed to be balanced at the first place. It is just him and goes with him flawlessly. Capcom tried to balance him in SFV but gained world wide criticism.
Akuma is such badass not even Capcom can stop him.
I think SF 6 has enough defensive tools that he won't be as oppressive as he normally is.... but he just inherently comes with too many offensive tools for me to ever envision a timeline where he isn't at least A tier. I can't wait to see how he's translated, with Ed coming in February I'm hoping for a late March/early April launch for Akuma.
Akuma is a great example of how fighting games don't need to be completely balanced. If using the strongest character is either extremely technical or fragile, than it makes the character seem less of an auto win button due to the skill required to play them at their best, and reduces the amount of players who shame those who use top tiers.
Ok to continue your point can we just completely remove luke sullivan from every street fighter game from now on,
"Akuma is a great example of how fighting games don't need to be completely balanced. If using the strongest character is either extremely technical or fragile, than it makes the character seem less of an auto win button due to the skill required to play them at their best" that's, what balancing is? lmao
@@whiskizyo2067 sort of, a truly balanced akuma game would've had 50-50 mu's across the board, but akuma has a lot more favorable ones. The risk to reward is balanced but the characters themselves aren't... But I consider that a good thing.
Actually they do otherwise the game is less enjoyable
Can’t agree more, Akuma is also a lot of players first knowledge check for newer players- checking DP’s, watching out for his stance throw or mix up, etc. I feel like Akuma is the easiest opponent to do this with as opposed to someone who has a more focused kit and doesn’t dominate every facet of the game like Akuma
Akuma is going to be what next year's rebalancing will be centered around. They will use Akuma as the measuring stick. Unless they somehow bring him out with certain things within his kit that limit his power until a certain condition is met.
You mean turn him into a chore character? No thank you. You can save that trash mechanic for Jamie.
@@BlueLightningSky well...the way SF6 mechanics are heading...the majority of the cast will be working with some type of mechanic that is along that path. Wouldn't be surprised if Akuma gets something where he is stronger than everyone else while being exhausted. He will have some type limitation or he will be too insane with the drive system. 🤷🏼♂️
@@Yin_Strider something like how in 3rd Strike he didn't have EX moves but had two additional Super Arts beyond his selected one?
Maybe you cam unlock the satsui no hado mid match
@@KaitouKaiju who knows. But, I know he won't come out without some type of passive mechanic or unlocking full power mechanic. The Raging Demon will be CA only, that's for sure.
Air Fireball with drive rush about to go crazy 😂😂😂
Bruh, akuma is the true definition of unstoppable, despite being nerf so much by the dev, he's still rise to the top😂
Akuma is a glass canon
And what a CANNON!
Glass canon is such a funny term. It’s supposed to mean super high offense with super low defense but you couldn’t even really fire a glass cannon because it would just shatter if you tried.
@@ddespairthats the idea
Underrated Comment right here.
Shin Akuma is a Glass Cannon, he's the one with less health.
Unimaginably hyped to see the atrocities people commit with sf6 akuma
One thing he forgot to say is this was just Akuma in his NORMAL state. He has a transformation into his full power, as Shin Akuma. Therefore, he was HOLDING BACK.
A short note saying that I appreciate your writing. Your scripts are well thought out, and you aren't afraid to use an expansive vocabulary.
Haha, thank you. A personal friend of mine chastised me a little for this same thing after watching the Necalli video. I'll have to show him this.
@@EventHubs anytime!
Let's be real, he's always OP because he's one of if not the most popular and coveted fighting game character there is. People will pay for him, especially if he's OP.
He's top tier because he is nothing more than a marketing gimmick, a tool to manipulate the lowest common denominator of shoto fans. He's popular because he's badass/strong and he's strong/badass because he's popular. Balance be damned.
SF5 was the only game to get him right at the end.
I agree with the circular reasoning, but I also don't think it's necessarily fair to describe him as appealing to the lowest common denominator. Yes, a purposefully broken character will attract scrubs, but all that means is that in a competitive setting the character can be banned. It is far worse to go down the Blizzard route of fearing that any character be a standout so you are constantly--and purposefully--buffing and nerfing the entire roster so every player can have their time to shine regardless of how much effort or attention they put into the game. An Akuma type is fun for people who don't want to practice, awesome for lore enjoyers, and even better for the skilled players who want either a particularly challenging opponent, or a tool to see exactly how broken the game can get
The thing about Akuma is ... that he is a check on if players deserve to play as him at all. He's quickly punished if players make a mistake, his recovery is slow if he gets shotted in open play and his most powerful move, Raging Demon, historically required very specific mechanics to enact. So basically, as Akuma, you as the player have to play as Akuma would: practically perfectly to deploy his arsenal and unload the punishment on your opponents. It's a great choice in game design: he is the absolute pinnacle of mastery in the hands of the best players but in another average joe's, he is just another Shoto.
Even in tekken, a 3D based fighting game this demon is a menace
SF6 Akuma with Modern Controls is going to insane
He's top tier in Tekken too :D
AKUMA/Gouki can't be balanced, HE IS the one THAT does balancing. And he's lore accurate!
I saw that title and immediately went, "but... 3rd Strike?"
And then I finished the video and went "Oh, they just glossed over 3rd Strike"
Yea they definitely glossed over 3s,but this is events hubs lmao
Think of him every day. See you soon my boy
I feel the same about Sagat.
I th8bk every day about Chun-Li
At least in SF4, Demon Flip oki is still strike/throw at the end of the day. Same as a grounded strike/throw 50/50
He was dope there
But he also had left right up down mixups and unblockables. It was too much
@@Un1234l he was broken in street fighter 4?
@@dark_nightwing_xl2797
Yes, he was pretty much broken. Also had the heavy kick loops until they patched those out.
@@Un1234l damn was he more broken than evil ryu?
coming back to this, akuma is yet again busted but has an interesting trait where he is a total glass cannon, meaning its like his sf3 ts appearance where he is like mid tier or debatably high tier according to some players I met. He gels super well with the game mechanics but drive rushes and the combo system of 6 means he cant afford too too many mistakes or get deleted, reason being is this game is much more offense focused than previous games. He by design is impossible to balance out of being good, generally the best way to make him balanced is to beef up everyone else to a point he struggles to get stuff done easily.
This is why I hope Cammy's level 3 doesn't get touched or nerfed because i can see it being very handy to punish a fullscreen Akuma fireball or raging demon.
He's like Lu Bu in the dynasty warrior games people just expect it.
Kinda surprised how you glossed over SF3's super move system, where Akuma would always have three super moves when other characters only had one. Oh, and in SVC Chaos where the 2x2 arcade button layout made it MUCH easier and quicker pull off a Raging Demon following a jump-in attack.
Even with all of that he was still mid tier in sf3
I'm terrified of an Akuma with Demon Flip, DI, DR, and raging demon all at the same time
Aye just subbed. Keep up the good SF content!
Many thanks!
I happened to really like Akuma a lot and he's once a main that I use back in SF2 Turbo. My only main issue is that when he does comes out and is seemingly top tier broken, players are gonna be way too co-dependent using him,not because Akuma's gameplay will be amazing but as soon as players drop their mains they're gonna be switching towards Akuma and we have ourselves another Luke & Ken situation all over again where will feature 30 or moreso Akuma players in the next CPT tournament.
And as much how cool Akuma is that's gonna the same repetitive problem all over again.
Everyone: akuma has too many tools and can’t be bad
Mvc2 devs: hold my beer
Loved watching Tokido, and I believe Infiltration before he moved on to a different character play as him in SF4. Akuma is badass.
We need VIOLENT KEN .. after Akuma 💪🏽
Japanese Capcom chan hinted about violent/satsu inohadou Sean/Dan
Meaning: Violent Sean, satsu inohadou Dan
I am so looking forward to play Akuma in SF6 man, and also watching Tokido plays him in tournaments.
He is going to be top 3 and I'm ready.
He’s the sukuna of street fighter so you can’t nerf or balance him
Capcom: Soooo more buffs?
Akuma so strong, he's not out yet, and some already want him nerfed 😂
Balance is just a buzz word & often subjective per individual. Make him fun as hell, make an amazing game & it won't matter.
You say this, and I know you don’t leave your house to play 😅! Nothing wrong with that but tourney players will suffer!
balancing is a concept. Its true that no game will ever be 100% balanced, but the basic idea is a trade off. ANY character needs to have tools to do damage, but they cannot be so good as to OFFBALANCE other characters tools to defend against said damage. IT ISNT a subjetctive thing, quite the opposite, its very obvious and measurable for anyone who plays the game and understand it from differnt points of view (aka plays more than one character). A character that isnt balanced will not be fun in the long run, simply because everyone will recognize that is much harder to play against that characeter as well as much easier to play with it. So everyone will do it, making the game a race to the bottom. The game will become stale , predictable and boring, the very opposite of fun, and its no wonder that people have banned akuma at tournaments .
@@sediqsmith7233 and?
I don't think you know of a game called SF3 Third Strike...@@supern0is349
Fun for akuma players, awful for pretty much anyone else.
That Akuma in your thumbnail looks awesome!
Reminds me of mad god for some reason
You seen the new trailer? Dude has become Oni
@@mystr0696 i did see it, it looks awesome
Was not a fan of that movie lol
@@Accountfella8267 that's okay, the movie was disgusting
Uh, Akuma was mid-tier *at best* in the final patch of SF5.
Ah it would be weird for Akuma to EVER be “mid” or “low” tier….like, he’s one of those fighting games characters, I wouldn’t care if he had to be banned is nearly every single game….i personally think it makes fighting games interesting when there’s those fighters that are just broken lol…..I also like low tier characters too (the little yellow Bot character from Marvel VS Capcom 2 comes to mind lol)
akuma does reality breaking stuff
Akuma is a broken character done right imo..he's just so damn cool that i'd actually think him being balanced would kill his character
It's hard to make a character who lorewise is supposed to be OP as fuck into a balanced fighter. I mean that makes sense
honestly, despite folks clearly wanting as much for Ryu for obvious reasons, i want to see Akuma's moveset move even closer towards Gouken's. we've already seen this happen in both sf4, considering Oni and the shit there, and sf5 and to see Gouki come full circle to end up more like his brother than he'd clearly ever want would be poetic to say the least.
The fact that Akuma was ALSO top tier in Tekken is funny.
He's more broken than he's in SF.
Has the same health as everyone. Fkin 2D jumps that harder to deal with since Anti-air isn't a Tekken thing.
And if he has both full meters and rage? Just a single jab and you're dead.
Hahahaha HE WAS
I don’t think he was top top tier in SF5 but he definitely is in all others
He's not unbalanced, he's lore accurate :D
In my opinion, him & Gouken can almost be allowed to be overpowered in my eyes. Sounds weird but feels right
i get it, just feels right, would feel wrong if the absolute masters were weak
Bring Paul over from tekken. 1 phoniex smasher will take down Akuma.
I would love to see Akuma's SFXT super come back. That super looked so sick
give AKUMA half the health of the character with THE LOWEST HEALTH
he’s gonna die in one cash out combo 😭
@@realchezboiI'm down with that just make him OP
@@MS-ql8ekthat would be so chaotically fun, if you suck at akuma you die instantly but a master akuma is one of the most terrifying things in the game
@realchezboi tokido said in SFV make akumas fireball recovery as fast as guiles and give him 600 health and he will be happy
@@MS-ql8ek 400 health
Great and thoughtful video on Akuma.
Akuma comes out in two months if you use the first two characters as a pattern
So around end of march/beginning of april ?
@@z3us_81yeah that's the expected projection. That gives 2 months before they will get the next one out for a similar time to rashid
@@yugimumoto1 Thanx for the info, hyped for my main's return
It's April. Idk how literally everyone seemed to miss the original Character trailer for Season 1 showing EVERY characters's release month but it said April for Akuma.
@@Saxandfifths never had months only seasons, akuma is spring 2024 which starts in march
Yoooo Velociraptor narrated this?
Your Gouken was sick to watch back in the day!
Its impossible for him to be more OP than Luke and Ken right now. Capcoms planned nerfs for them will be Akuma's benchmark. I think they will release him weak like the grapplers and A.K.I. out of fear.
I hope they make him good but not so good that it obsucres the rest of the roster
you forgot JP being hugely overpowered and Jamie being made weak on purpose out of fear of him steamrolling every match, like the grapplers
My concept for balancing is amplifying the risk vs reward. So, lore wise, we know that Satsui no Hado is destroying his body for power, hence the low health. However, what if instead of low health, what if the Satsui no Hado is a mechanic exclusive to him like, Manon’s medals or Jamie’s drinks. What if he was given full access to the V trigger ability that lets Akuma cancel specials into other specials or enhance his OD moves with additional meter, BUT at the cost of taking recoverable health damage. Or, maybe consider Nagoriyuki’s blood mechanic from GGstrive. Basically, Akuma can enter his demon state at the cost of draining health.
He doesn't need to be balanced. He is the balance.
Does anyone else remember that way old Gamepro gag, where someone managed to put an Akuma sprite into Resident Evil 2, and then the rumor spread that he was an unlockable character?
Man, the 2000s were a great time.
What if Akuma become charge character? What if 90% of his special moves become charge inputs?
It would be pretty stupid to do that
raging demon but the forward input is a back charge input
I honestly wished they made akuma into a guess for mk1.
What kind of Akuma fatalities do you think he would have
I like him broken.
Street Fighter Alpha Akuma's air fireball was the best! Akuma could throw his air fireball and follow behind it like an assist character from a versus game. This attack could lead to all kinds of combos!😎
His balance should be on the stamina side. If you make a mistake as Akuma you lose. He is the epitome of a glass cannon character he requires skill and perfection to use him as intended. You can't win with luck with Akuma
Shin Akuma even worse
If SF incorporated KOF roll mechanics Akuma would be "mid". His dominance is built around players being unable to evade attacks. Players are forced to only block or get hit.
It would be interesting to see a pre-Alpha setting in which Akuma hasn't yet reached his demonic form, that gives you an easy way to make him a less oppressive fighter, explore his relationship with Gouken and Goutetsu and have a tangible reason for Ryu being absent, or at least much younger, plus we could get younger versions of some of the older characters, maybe a few that haven't been seen since SF1.
in sf 4 he had crappy hps and was extremly prone to stuns like seth, imho his strongest tool was his 0hk(the forward 2 fast kicks guard safe). Also most players, let's be honest were unable to fadc combo on tight confirms meaning that if you were playing the fundamentals game without a phd in arcade stick, a vanilla ryu or even a rush down ken(which had decent low intensity bnbs) were probably better overall.
3 Fun facts about T7 Akuma:
1. His broken quatilies are not from his character specifics but from the game(SF) mechanics, so any SF character would've been broken.
2. One of his worst matchups is against Noctis from Final Fantasy XV
3. One of his best matchups is against Negan from Walking Dead because he had single reliable option against neutral demon flip that dealt 4-5% dmg and was punishable on block.
He wasn't overpowered in SSF4 or USF4. He was at a pretty good place, but most players would pass him up due to his low health pool (especially post df nerf.)
He was definitely top tier early SFIV until Gouken came along. There was a very small percentage of players that could fw me running Gouken vs Akuma, but the good Akuma’s were crazy. Especially back when Capcom and Madcatz made good fightpads. And we speak about Oni lol. Hopefully this will breathe some life back into SF6. It’s arguably the least liked Vanilla SF next to 5 which I thought wasn’t bad. Dope vid
I never used akuma because he was good, I used him because he was cool, but now I hope he is good because sf6 meta characters are absolutely busted
I love the fact that he's so powerful it has IRL consequences, almost as if being banned is now part of his lore
Its almost like having a lot of options usually leads to a character being good
Also capcom, if your low health and stun character doesnt also have low damage, it doesnt matter because now both players are deleting each other off a single hit. I consider Chipp Zanuff to be the fixed version of the Akuma archetype (has every tool, but has low life AND damage)
Something I’ve always liked with street fighter is their weird fireball power scaling. Usually being able to throw a fireball with one hand means that fighter has immense skill. Akuma throws one handed fireballs, as does Gouken, Nash, and Oro to name a few. I think Dan does as well lmao.
Nash sends a concussion wave, it's not a fireball
Now that we've seen how he looks in-engine for 6, let's hope all this still applies when the gameplay footage comes along!
this an is truly my favorite sort of character i started to go gym because of his physic back in the day
I haven’t watched this yet 0:08 , but I absolutely cannot wait for Akuma, he’s always been one of my top characters I use. But then Capcom shows us a character who I absolutely hated and sucked in 5, and they actually make this guy looks cool in the gameplay trailer.😅
When a character has everything, they will be good no matter what lol
Akuma is my top 5 fav fighting game characters I didn't get sf5 until he came out and in doing the same w 6 and every other sf
Akuma: *shows up conquers tekken and leaves*
OP: _but this is about street fighter_
Akuma: *raging demon*
_leaves_
What if Tekken 8 surprise dropped an Akuma DLC the same day that he comes out for SF6?
Bro I'll fucking cry if they bring him back in Tekken 8. I had so much fun playing him in Tekken 7 😭😭
I feel like the devs will give him 4 supers. The regular 1-3 bars like everyone else and in modern mode the one button inputs but his 4th, the raging demon, will always have to be inputted the old fashion way, modern mode or not. His raging demon will also be his critical art as well.
His 3 regular supers could be the super fire ball lv1, triple shoryuken lv2 and the misogi drop lv3.
as a casual third strike Akuma is my favorite
I want Akuma back in Tekken again
My fix for Akuma would be to change his Shoryuken into a command grab. It would make him no longer just a better Ryu and Ken while also adding to his mixup options. He would lose a universally good defensive option and be more in flavor of how aggressive he is both in lore and gameplay. As a command grab, you can do a lot more with it. For instance : you could have a weak version do less damage and allow for a juggle, medium give better vortex placement, and fierce do the most damage with no other benefit. As a grapple, you can make it look as strong as you want without also turning it into a much better anti-air in the process.
They have been making Ken less like Ryu and more his own character with his own moveset with each game, and they made Gouken have a completely unique fighting style altogether.