Ryu or Ken

Iwasfrozen

Well, which is your favourite ?
The slow hitting, Hadoken loving Ryu.
Or does the faster but weaker Dragon Punching master do it for you.
Personally I prefare Ken, to me his faster Tornado kick and super Dragon Pouches are totally worth the weaker Hadoken.

randomchild

Always been a ken man myself.

Iwasfrozen

Same here, people always say Ryu > Ken but really if you get up close Ken's Dragon Punches can take anything out.

Cunny-Funt

I was always a ken man until SFIV. I like his speed and I like the white version of his Gi. I started being a ken man as I young kid playing SF2 as it seems like ryu was the star and I'd pick ken to be different to pick the underdog.

Seems everyone else had the same idea

murrayp4

Ryu

Kirby

Ken seems to be the more fun to play, but Ryu is the better character.

Retr0gamer

Anything Ken can do Ryu can do better. Ken does have a faster tornado kick but it's really only useful for catching people out so isn't that much of an advantage. His shoryuken also has more range but if you miss with it, it can leave you more open. Also in Ryu's normal moves he beats Ken hands down.

The biggest factor however is Ryu's ultra/super which is much easier to combo into and can catch people off gaurd from a distance when they jump.

Iwasfrozen

Retr0Gamer wrote:

Anything Ken can do Ryu can do better. Ken does have a faster tornado kick but it's really only useful for catching people out so isn't that much of an advantage. His shoryuken also has more range but if you miss with it, it can leave you more open. Also in Ryu's normal moves he beats Ken hands down.

The biggest factor however is Ryu's ultra/super which is much easier to combo into and can catch people off gaurd from a distance when they jump.

I used to think that as well untill I came across this video. Now I realise that if your good enough the character you play doesn't really matter.

cherryghost

chun-li. :cool:

Retr0gamer

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

I used to think that as well untill I came across this video. Now I realise that if your good enough the character you play doesn't really matter.

At low level play maybe but at high level play you won't see match ups like Honda vs. Sagat going in favour of Honda very often.

Dreddybajs

Yeah, there's a reason why Mike Ross places high in tournaments, but never wins. Most/all of the characters in SFIV are usable, but you'll definitely have an easier time with certain characters.

Cunny-Funt

Lads when talking about whos 'actually' better versus who you like generally, you have to be very specific what SF your talking about. 3s ken is top tier, 3s ryu is mid, the roles are reversed in sfiv.

But even with out tiers, which mean little to me, I don't really like sfiv's rendition of ken, its the worst rendition of him in SF I can think of, he looks stupid, he sounds stupid, his moves don't feel like they have that oumph any more, his dragon punch feels more lame then cool unlike other SF's, he has the forward HK overhead but its not as stylish as the 3s version, he has the back mk overhead but its not 2 hits like 3s, where the feck is his knee bash? His ex spin kick doest juggle...the same way it does in 3s, his target combo is there but useless, he's..... he's barley a shadow of his former self really.

Leprekaun

Ken's lack of juggling abilities compared to Ryu is ridiculous. I've always felt that they were somewhat even in the previous games but in SFIV, its just ridiculous how much better Ryu is to Ken.

Ken's dragon punch is certainly nasty but dragon punches are mainly used for anti air so Ryu can anti air with his too as with Akuma and Dan as well.

Locally, during the SFII Champion Edition days, it was always that everyone used Ken and I'd always use Ryu, all the way up to Third Strike, Ryu would be my main and even then, I've practiced a bit more with Ryu in 3S and now I think I'm better with Ryu over Ken.

I think at least a fundamental modification that needs to be made for Ken is allowing more hits of his Ultra to connect during a juggle (i.e.: dragon punch > FADC > Ultra) because its ridiculous that it does over 600 points damage on its own but something like 300+ comes out when used as a juggle. Also, they should either apply the same system of Ken being able to juggle with his ultra after a weak dragon punch like Ryu or just remove that functionality from Ryu.

It drives me mad that after all these years, Capcom still make bad balancing. Even after SSF2T and my personal fav, Alpha 3, they go and screw it up for 3S. Have they learned anything from the previous games? I think not.

Cunny-Funt

In fairness SFIV is the most balanced yet. They just nerfed the hell out of ken for once it seems.

I kinda hope whatever next version of SF comes out, either SF4.2 or SF5 that they take away how often ultras happen (lets say it would take a hell of a beating to the point where your nearly KOed before an ultra can be used BUT the ultra can be carried over to the next round)

And they makes supers/the ex bar more like 3s etc. I really miss supers!

but thats another discussion.

As for kens ultra, if they made it a little like kens super in 3s where he walks along kicking 1st and then it turns into the rest of the ultra , instead of it starting with a punch to the gut, well that would help it big time.

Dreddybajs

Ultras carrying over to the next round would make things even more horribly turtley than they are now.

Cunny-Funt

good point

Kirby

Its quite simple really,

Option A : Rebalance the sucky ultras. Give every character a way to combo into ultra Or make ultras that are hard to hit with, do alot of damage

Option B : Make the damage to ultra gain ratio reflect the difference in power of the ultra.
For example, Dan and guile would get their ultra's after taking 5 or 6 hits where as Sagat, Ryu and Gief would take 15 hits.

Obviously, Option A is much better.....making crappy ultras better would be a better fix...... but the truth is, Option B requires alot less work, simply requiring a few numbers to be changed around.

Leprekaun

Actually, I take back a lot of what I previously about Ken. He's actually not that bad. I found that you can link the ultra after an anti air Med Shoryuken quite easily actually and does a fair bit of damage or link a strong shoryuken.

Also since his dragon punch has wider range so after a FADC (example: cr. mk, hadouken, FADC), its possible to go for a cr. mk Strong Shoryuken and be safe in the knowledge of the Shoryuken connecting whereas with Ryu, you have to make sure you were close enough when doing all the stuff before the FADC.

Only weakness that I personally find now is his Tatsumaki in that he can be easily thrown after it.

Obviously, there is the recovery time from his hadouken which is a bit longer than Ryu's but its always been that way and it balances out anyway since he has better normals.

So really, Ken isn't that bad.

Soulja boy

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Well, which is your favourite ?
The slow hitting, Hadoken loving Ryu.
Or does the faster but weaker Dragon Punching master do it for you.
Personally I prefare Ken, to me his faster Tornado kick and super Dragon Pouches are totally worth the weaker Hadoken.

I'd bottom for ryu but top for ken