It has been a difficult road for Ryu users in Street Fighter 5. Although Ryu was considered a serious aspirant to season 1 of Street Fighter 5, the nerves he suffered during the second season have caused Ryu to Street Fighter 5 is the butt of the jokes. for about four years. Looking back, Ryu was mostly just one level higher than season 1 thanks to the existence of his now-eliminated launch loop, anti-aircraft puncture, and his totally invincible, meter-free dragon punches, tools that none character should have point.
For longer, it looked like Ryu was designed differently from the rest of the cast. “Ryu is balanced, but it exists in a broken world,” was basically the universal analysis of Ryu. Ryu seemed to be suffering from some major design issues that were being actively ignored for years. To my surprise, Capcom seems to have addressed almost every complaint I had about Ryu in Street Fighter 5 with the latest balance update.
My biggest complaint about Ryu in Street Fighter 5 was his inability to hit crouched opponents with certain moves. In previous versions of Street Fighter 5, the meterless specials of Ryu Hurricane Kick and the target combo would be set up against a crouched character.
Of course, reacting in case the enemy is crouched or standing during your combo used to be a staple of previous Street Fighter entries, but it seemed like only Ryu was affected by this design philosophy in Street Fighter 5.
Even other “Shoto” characters, such as Ken and Akuma, were now suddenly endowed with Hurricane Kick specials who didn’t care if the opponent was standing or crouching. Ryu was “unique” because he didn’t get that benefit.
While Ryu might choose to end his combo with the Joudan Sokutogeri (also known as the “Donkey Kick”), the Hurricane Kick was naturally better at keeping Okizeme’s pressure on Ryu.
Players could simply fix this deficiency and react easily to the standing or crouching opponent, but the question remained, “Why bother?”
There were a lot of fighters who were simply better than the Street Fighter posters, who didn’t have to do any additional thinking about the enemy’s state of standing or crouching when performing their combos.
Allowing Ryu to hit crouched opponents with Hurricane Kick and use a variation of his combined target that also works against crouching, not only makes Ryu easier to play, but also allows him to more reliably mount the pressure of Okizeme, an absolute must for any character. a kind of competitive success in Street Fighter 5.
Another big change for Ryu was the added advantage of the box on the block for his average foot punch. It went from +1 on the block to +2 on the block.
Against certain characters, Ryu was unable to frame the trap with his middle fist standing despite being +1 on the block. Instead, you should use the half-crouched punch.
At first, it might seem like a fair trade-off as Ryu’s average punch only required 5 starter frames, but again it didn’t compare well with characters like Ibuki or Necalli who had 5 medium frame buttons that had +2 block.
The patch also made a considerable effort to undo the damage done to Ryu’s mid-range game from the second season, when his medium, crouched kick received an extra frame of start. Capcom even went a step further by ending up making its heavy-duty punch annullable outside of its V-Trigger 1.
Ryu’s V-Triggers have also seen considerable buffs that make both useful in different ways. V-Trigger 1 gives your hits additional hitstun frames, while V-Trigger 2 allows you to attack additional damage at the end of special offers for the cost of V-Gauge. Prior to this patch, Ryu’s V-Trigger 1 only gave advantages while the V-Trigger 2 was almost useless for a competitive game.
The only thing I have left without telling Ryu is that he still has one of the worst light 3-frame shots in the game. Since Ryu doesn’t bother to fully extend his arm, he has a terrible range. Still, with all these other crazy fans, I can’t help but think that this minor thing may not matter.
It’s still too early for the new update, but I can’t help but feel very optimistic about Ryu’s potential. Capcom finally gave exactly what the Street Fighter poster needed to be a potentially competitive challenger in the high-end game of Street Fighter 5. On the one hand, I hope (hopefully) to see players compete with Ryu.