Capcom Need to Fix Ryu

I love how Theory Fighter says he doesn't agree with the balance changes made in Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, but he respects the logic behind them, cuz most fighting game pundits just go "this change ruined Street Fighter" or "Street Fighter would be good again if they brought this back" like the meta is only good when they specifically enjoy it

The ironic part is that the hadoken is actually really good outside of street fighter. Most VS games Ryu is in make it massive and hard to avoid, while smash bros make all versions great for pressure because they devour shields. Even RPGs and cards games use it as a strong projectile that often one shots weaker enemies.

3:47 From the perspective of Ryu being the franchise's poster boy, it does make sense for him to be well rounded in each game's core mechanics.

It'd great to see Dan get a fake super hadoken; animation and effects included. it'd be a powerful tool (like three times less recovery frames than his actual super), while keeping his meme nature.

I 100% agree with you. Ryu without a strong Hadouken is basically just slower Ken.

I’m surprised Ryu hasn’t gotten back the false fireball. Especially since Arc Sys also has their own version via Gunflame and GunFlame Feint. a 214P or a 236K input would be great for SF

Kinda made me think about Hyde's fireball for some reason. I liked the different follow ups he has.

SF4 was in a pretty good spot I think. The fireballs themselves weren't as good as they were in ST, but they were better than any other SF game AND the anti-airs in that game were incredibly punishing to make up the difference. And if I remember correctly you could almost do a proper fireball trap with ryu if you got them with a meaty one during oki.

I think that an easy way to balance fireballs and zoning in general without making them terrible comes down to making movement better. I'm not talking about making every fighting game an anime fighter with air-dashing and double jumps (although those do help quite a lot) because many KOF games still have strong projectiles and zoning, but the myriad of different jump arcs and the ability to roll keeps them from being overwhelming without giving every character some way to just literally ignore all zoning.

Zoner main here, I love fireballs, antiairs, and midrange pokes more than any other type of move. Ryu's fireball feeling gross to use turns me off from using him.

7:24 there was actually some tech designed around this oddity. People learned how to do the hadoken with one hand. That way, they would look like they were going for a fake hadoken, but actually do the move with one hand as some extra mind games. Tl:dr people faked a fake input with a real input.

Funny enough some of the Fatal Fury games have Feints like Fake Fireballs, but the execution is a bit different Taking Garou: Mark of the Wolves as an example, basically a character had 2 feints. What moves are feinted is character specific, but one's with 6AC and one's on 2AC Most Feints were extremely fast on recovery to my knowledge (yes, correct me if i'm wrong, on all of this), so they ended up being a safe way to end pressure strings, and a way to combo from a heavy normal to another normal, making the combo game more flexible. But I feel that rushdown application kinda overshadows using it as an actual feint, since a lot of the feints you see the most are the ones that are best at pressure & combos. Marco's DP Feint and Terry's Burn Knuckle A feint for example. And when some of the better characters make their way in, it's utterly nasty, thanks to Brakes, other tech they might have, and of course feints. I only recall hearing Freeman (a bottom 3 char) primarily used his feints as a strategy, but that's probably because he couldn't use them for his rushdown as well Not to mention, some feints were for Supers... in a game where every Super has a superflash. Marco feinting his Super Fireball doesn't work as well if the Super Fireball itself has a superflash. And sometimes there's more case by case bases, like Rock's Reppuuken feint, when Reppuuken is a pretty average fireball at best, nowhere near on the same level as what Marco or Kain use I would like to see this come back tho, but idk how i'd balance it outside of making feints just a character specific thing

You are quite literally one of the very few guys who makes ACTUAL Fighting Game content without resorting to low hanging fruit. Cheers.

As someone who plays GGST, and not a lot of SF, an interesting parallel is how Sol has fake gunflame. However due to gunflame being mostly used as a way to reset pressure when spaced out than as a zoning tool, the fake gunflame serves to be another layer on his pressure game. And this possibility seems very interesting to me, because depending on how capcom changes the hadoken a fake fireball could be a very interesting tool that functions as another layer in both his pressure and zoning which would reinforce ryu's identity as an all-rounder.

Watching this after playing SF6 makes me feel like Capcom watched this video to make him in 6

I wish I could like this video 10x. I actually suggested his VS2 be a fake fireball in SFV. The other parry type move he got is redundant.

Man I'd be so down for a TF take on HD Remix. I read sirlin's articles multiple times (they low-key act as character primers for their ST incarnation) and he's very good at convincing you his rationale is rock solid and well tested, then I asked most people I know and trust about fighting game stuff and I mostly got "lmao horizontal flash kick are you insane", and other observations on how the new kits in practice are often wack. Sirlin also talked at length, on a reddit thread, about how reticent the ST community was towards the game, going as far as heavily downplaying SnakeEyez winning with Zangief because he wasn't old blood enough and HDR doesn't count. Plus, you still have people harping on how supposedly tournament legal Akuma was, in fact, completely broken as a dunk towards Sirlin when he's the first to acknowledge it's because of an unintended interaction they couldn't get fixed in time. I'd like an informed take by a good ST content creator about this whole thing, if sirlin is actually a misunderstood genius mobbed by a grouchy community, or if he vastly overrated the quality of his changes

The ironic thing is that if they wanted a quicker more aggressive game they should have played alpha 3 and 3rd strike a lot more. This isn't a new thing they've been doing this since 1998 and before

The coolest thing I think would be to let Ryu charge the hadouken by holding the button and let him cancel it by pressing kick, similar to SF5 Poison's whip stance. A charged hadouken could also reduce the recovery of the move, making it harder to punish. This could add tons of nuance to the fireball as both a pressure and zoning tool. You could fake the hadoken while zoning, do hadoken-cancel tick throw mixups at close range, get setplay by charging a hadoken on a downed opponent... I could see a lot of potential there.

While anti-fireball moves are part of the problem, I wouldn't want them to go anywhere. It's an incredibly frustrating experience when your only options in any situation are "jump" and "block". The thing is, in Street Fighter 5 there are plenty of successful fireball characters, particularly Guile and Luke, but others are just as adequate. The problem is that Ryu relies too much on them for his midrange game since he lacks any other neutral options. All that being said, if I were to be designing street fighter 6, I'd operate with these tenants to "Bring back the hadouken" 1. Meterless anti-fireball moves shouldn't lead to offense by themselves. They should take space and present risk, never knockdown or start combos. 2. Ryu needs every kind of fireball. He needs a slow-moving fireball you can chase for offense and setplay, a fast one you can zone with, and a reliable mid-speed fireball with faster start-up and recovery. If we're being extra saucy, give him an anti-air fireball. The hadouken is ryu's signature move, he needs to to be able to do everything a linear fireball can do. 3. Ryu needs to have tools outside of his hadoken he can use in neutral. If the opponent has meter and is looking for a fireball, you need to have the option to not give it to them.