It has been a tough road for Ryu users in Street Fighter 5. Although Ryu was considered a serious contender in Season 1 of Street Fighter 5, the nerfs he suffered in Season 2 resulted in Ryu from Street Fighter 5 being the target of jokes for about four years. Looking back, Ryu was mainly a top tier in season 1 thanks to the existence of his now-removed launch loop, anti-aircraft jab and his totally invincible, meter-less Dragon Punches – tools that no character should have in Street Fighter 5 right now Score.
For a long time, it looked like Ryu was designed differently than the rest of the cast. “Ryu is balanced, but he exists in a broken world”, was basically the universal analysis on Ryu. It looked like Ryu was suffering from some major design problems that had been actively ignored for years. To my surprise, Capcom apparently handled 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 squatting opponents with certain moves. In previous versions of Street Fighter 5, Ryu’s Hurricane Kick specials and target combination would sound against a crouching character.
Sure, reacting to whether or not the enemy was crouched or standing during his combo tended to be a staple of previous Street Fighter entries, but it seemed that only Ryu was hit with this design philosophy in Street Fighter 5.
Even other “Shoto” characters like Ken and Akuma were suddenly presented with Hurricane Kick specials that didn’t care if their opponent was standing or crouching. Ryu was “unique” for not having received this benefit.
While Ryu could choose to end his combination with Joudan Sokutogeri – aka “Donkey Kick” – instead, Hurricane Kick was naturally better at keeping Okizeme’s pressure on Ryu.
Players could simply work around this deficiency and react easily to the opponent standing or crouching, but the question remained: “Why bother?”
There were many fighters who were simply better than the Street Fighter poster boy who didn’t need to think too much about the enemy’s status of standing or crouching when performing their combos.
Allowing Ryu to hit opponents squatting with the Hurricane Kick and using a variation of his target combo that also works against squats not only makes Ryu easier to play, but allows him to mount Okizeme’s pressure more reliably – an absolute necessity for any character to see any kind of success at a competitive level in Street Fighter 5.
Another big change for Ryu was the added advantage of the frame on the block for his medium standing punch. It went from +1 on the block to +2 on the block.
Against certain characters, Ryu was not really able to frame the trap using his medium punch, despite having a +1 block. Instead, he would have to use the crouching middle punch.
At first, it might have seemed like a fair trade, as Ryu’s average support punch required only 5 boot frames, but this again doesn’t quite compare to characters like Ibuki or Necalli, who had medium 5-frame buttons that were + 2 on the court.
The patch also made a considerable effort to undo the damage done to Ryu’s mid-range game from season 2, when his medium squat kick and heavy squat kick received an additional boot frame. Capcom even took it a step further by finally making its heavy foot punch special cancelable out of its V-Trigger 1.
Ryu’s V-Triggers have also seen considerable buffs that make them useful in different ways. V-Trigger 1 gives his punches additional hitstun frames while V-Trigger 2 allows him to attack extra damage at the end of specials for the cost of V-Gauge. Prior to this patch, Ryu’s V-Trigger 1 provided only niche benefits, while V-Trigger 2 was almost useless for competitive games.
The only thing about Ryu that went unnoticed in my mind is how he still has one of the worst 3-frame light punches in the game. Since Ryu is not concerned with fully extending his arm, he has a terrible reach. Still, with all these other insane fans, I can’t help thinking that this smaller thing may not matter.
It’s still too early for the new update, but I can’t help feeling very optimistic about Ryu’s potential. Capcom finally gave exactly what the Street Fighter poster boy needed to be a competitive challenger in a high-profile Street Fighter 5 game. I, at least, am looking forward to (hopefully) seeing players competing with Ryu.