SSF2T HD Remix, Part 4: Ken
This article is reprinted with permission from Capcom Unity.
Ken is juiced up! Although there isn’t any single overwhelming change to him, all the small changes add up.
Hurricane Kicks
The most visible change to Ken is his new roundhouse Hurricane Kick. In the original ST it has almost no use, but now it travels much faster and goes much farther. Most people say, “Wow!” when they see it for the first time. It allows Ken to hit back various whiffed moves from far away, such as Cammy’s Spinning Backfist or Balrog’s Buffalo Headbutt, but it usually gets only one air hit in those cases. If you can hit a standing opponent with it, it has a lot of dizzy power. So far in testing, this moves *looks* a lot more dangerous than it actually is, but it’s definitely a fun toy.
There are a few more small changes to Hurricane kicks, mostly because of the change mentioned above. The medium Hurricane kick goes just slightly farther, as does the aerial roundhouse Hurricane kick, but you probably won’t even really notice those changes. The short Hurricane kick stays in the air a shorter amount of time, making it a slightly better trick and a little bit better against Sagat’s low Tiger Shots.
Dragon Punches
Now Ken’s jab and strong Dragon Punches are invulnerable on the way up, exactly the like Old Ken’s from SSF2T. Ken’s fierce dragon punch is based on ST New Ken’s, so it still has fire effects and sets the enemy on fire on hit. Although it has no additional invulnerability, it has even more horizontal range than before, similar to the range it had in SF2: Champion Edition. You can think of his three Dragon Punches as a kind of Greatest Hits of Ken: the best properties of Old Ken (invulnerable jab and strong versions), as well as ST’s fire and CE’s arc on the fierce Dragon Punch.
Another change to the Dragon Punches is that the strong and fierce versions always knock down on hit. In the original ST, it’s frustrating if you happen to hit with a Dragon Punch at just the wrong range where it won’t knock down and gets only one of the intended 2 or 3 hits (you’re going to get hit back!). Now the strong version knocks down even on the first hit and can air juggle for a second hit, and the fierce version always knocks down and can air juggle for two additional hits. Note that if you get a glancing hit with the fierce Dragon Punch, it will do very little damage, just like in ST. But if you land a very deep fierce Dragon Punch against a jump-in, it will now juggle for 3 hits and do high damage, even more than New Ken’s deep jab Dragon Punch.
“Crazy Kicks”
In ST, Ken has three different so-called Crazy Kicks, each with a different joystick motion. These three motions made the kicks generally confusing and they would come out when you didn’t want them. In HD Remix, the commands for these kicks have been changed to the commands in Capcom vs. SNK2. Quarter circle forward + either short, forward, or roundhouse gives you each of the three different kicks, and holding the kick button down makes any of the Crazy Kicks cancel into an overhead. The actual properties of the kicks (speed, hitboxes, damage, etc) are exactly the same as in ST. They’re just a little easier to keep straight in your head now. Note that, like before, you can easily combo a normal attack into the qcf+medium kick version and with good timing you can combo a sweep after the qcf+short version.
Knee Bash
Ken’s Knee Bash hold is very powerful. Afterwards, he can walk under most characters and end up on the other side. This means that he might do a low attack from one side or the other side, and then either try for another Knee Bash or maybe a jab Dragon Punch. Or, against many characters, he can jump jab right after the Knee Bash and the spacing is just right for him to “safe jump” (see the tutorials on Capcom Classics Collection 2), which lets him go for another Knee Bash.
The Knee Bash is, in my opinion, the third most deadly repeated throw trap in ST. This is a close call, but I left it in. Ken is not considered a top tier character, and we’re trying not to nerf the power level of anything unless it’s absolutely necessary. Also, Ken gets so much gameplay out of this mixup that he’d lose a lot of fun-factor if this were removed.
As a bit of a compromise, I reduced the damage on the first hit of the Knee Bash. I don’t mind the fun gameplay resulting from his mixups, but his ability to get as much as 25% damage off each one was just too much.
Super
In ST, there is a bug that prevents Ken from doing a reversal super. That means if he’s knocked down and the enemy makes him get up into a sweep (or any move), he can’t do a super on the first frame he stands up. This bug is fixed in HD Remix, but it remains unfixed in HD Classic Arcade.
Ken was a viable, middle-tier character before and now he’s a bit better all around (except for the lower damage Knee Bash). The invulnerable Dragon Punches come in handy because it allows you beat out every other character’s Dragon Punch if done correctly. The big range on the fierce Dragon Punch also has several uses, such as stopping a pesky off-the-wall Vega even moreso than before. And the 3-hit anti-air fierce Dragon Punch, the simpler Crazy Kicks, and the long range roundhouse Hurricane Kick give him some fun new toys.
--Sirlin
You can post comments here, but if you want a response, you have a better chance at Capcom Unity.
December 12th, 2007 at 4:14 pm
I’m glad to hear the Fierce Dragonpunch will become better; it’s Ken’s trademark move.
December 12th, 2007 at 7:24 pm
[…] Check it out! While looking through the blogosphere we stumbled on an interesting post today.Here’s a quick excerpt This article is reprinted with permission from Capcom Unity. Ken is juiced up! Although there isn’t any single overwhelming change to him, all the small changes add up. Hurricane Kicks The most visible change to Ken is his new roundhouse Hurricane Kick. In the original ST it has almost no use, but now it travels much faster and goes much farther. Most people say, “Wow!” when they see it for the first time. It allows Ken to hit back various whiffed moves from far away, such as Cammy’s Spinnin […]
December 12th, 2007 at 8:43 pm
Yes! Yes, yes and yes! Yes!
This game is going to become my life (until SFVI, but that’s ages away). I hope you appreciate that, Capcom and Mr. Sirlin.
December 12th, 2007 at 11:09 pm
Great to hear about updates for my favorite ST character! Now just biding the time until I get a PS3 and this game :)
I always found the air hurricane kick great for not just the multiple hits but also for quick and easy transportation or escaping. I’m glad to hear it can now be used to punish wiffed moves too.
December 13th, 2007 at 1:07 am
[…] Read the rest of this great post here […]
December 13th, 2007 at 5:15 am
So no fake fireball for kenny-boy?
December 13th, 2007 at 7:32 am
Naw, he gets a fake dragon punch. :)
Shoryu-siiiiiike.
December 14th, 2007 at 6:23 am
Yup. I’m loving this. Though I don’t think a fake SRK would be REALLY useful, compared to the fake hadoken. But what would make the New Ken better against guys like Dhalsim? The fake Hado helps Ryu against the screwdrivers, but does Ken get something similar? Or did he already have something that I missed?
December 14th, 2007 at 8:30 am
Invincible jab and strong dragon punch?
December 18th, 2007 at 7:06 pm
What happend to the weekly updates?! Been almost 2 weeks since last one :(
December 19th, 2007 at 1:33 am
Sirlin is probably busy making SSF2THDR awesome.
December 19th, 2007 at 7:10 am
Hugin: These are released on Capcom’s blog, then posted here later. I do not control the release dates of the posts, even though they’re written weeks in advance.
–Sirlin
December 24th, 2007 at 12:20 am
Dear Sirlin,
The revolution begins…
Let’s look at arcsystem work’s newest 2d fighting game in development- Sengoku Basara X.
By looking at the command list of each character you can see that the makers of Guilty Gear, a great game but full of hard technical stuff like FRCs, started to think just like you.
Every special in the game, even the “Zangief SPD” type move is done by either a fireball motion or a dragon punch motion (or those motions in reverse). For example the SPD is done by pressing QCF+A. Every super is performed by either QCFQCF or QCBQCB, and the 1HitKo move is always performed as QCB,HCF. (I guess they couldn’t do them QCF/QCB+2 buttons becuase they already have lot’s of universal gameplay features that require 2 buttons).
No more characters like I-no that have specials that are hard to perform just of the sake of it.
I hope every fightign game dev. team will follow this concept for a better future for fighting games.
December 24th, 2007 at 4:49 am
There are only two moves in fighting games that are hard for the sake of being hard. Order-Sol’s Dead Rave and the Hayate throw in DOA4.
December 24th, 2007 at 10:30 am
What about Akira’s Knee in Virtua Fighter? Or Ivy’s Summon Suffering in Soul Calibur?
December 28th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
Cool, cant wait to play Super-I dumbed the game down like crazy because i think i am a good designer- fighter. Walking supers with gief? oh thats right, i forgot, “Everyone can do them 100% anyway” right? Glitchy looking thawk dives? Champ range on fierce dp? Why not just release the hex codes for codebreakers and gameshark and i can try out this mega-hawk before i buy?
The worst part is, there *SHOULD* also be just a ST with bug fixes. Throw bug, ken super reverse frame, input frame amount to be static, etc. Not all the tweaks. I dont HATE that you are doing it, i HATE that all i get is same ol ST, OR hyper hack fighter HD.
December 28th, 2007 at 4:51 pm
Maybe I’m wrong about this… but didn’t the dreamcast version dip switches include some of the bug fixes you described. Far as I know, everyone hated it, and just played original ST anyway… I’m not sure there’s any market for the “slightly” modified from arcade version you describe.
December 28th, 2007 at 10:54 pm
How big is the stick up your ass if you won’t even try the new ST before judging it?
December 31st, 2007 at 2:53 am
I like what you’re doing overall.
I hope you properly beef up Blanka. Shouldn’t his special-ball moves be unpunishable when they hit? His super should juggle completely, when the 2nd part connects as well (as opposed to be a lot less reliable).
Other than that, I can’t really think of anything. You’re probably miles ahead of me there anyway.
I hope to see more updates. Thanks for the Play to Win book.
January 1st, 2008 at 10:24 am
So, Please…I can’t help but notice the very obvious contradiction in your post saying that you want something that’s the same ST, but with bug fixes…then go on to say that you don’t want the “same ol ST.”
January 22nd, 2008 at 5:44 am
You mentioned you don’t control the release dates for these updates, but do you know when they will be posted on the capcom blog site? Thanks!
March 18th, 2008 at 2:16 am
Thank you Mr. Sirlin.
Looking forward to the release of this game. I don’t care how long it takes. It’s really easy to sit back and judge a game before its release. How would you like to have to tweak and redo this game? Talk about a HUGE task. Cold sweats at night, tone downs tune ups. I have been playing ST for years now, and am loving everything I have seen and read about this game so far. So again I say thank you Mr. Sirlin keep up the hard work. You have one fan that is grateful.
June 26th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
Why is Ken so broken in the Beta version??? What is up with his uppercut combos???
He is straight up broken with that jab into strong uppercut juggle AND a DIZZY?!? WTF?!?
June 29th, 2008 at 1:09 am
^^ juggle was realized a long time ago and was fixed after the beta build.
I hope the final version does not nerf the knee bash any more!