Akuma: Combos, priority, and technique

[Selfless Id]

I'm putting this here because I use Akuma as my main character and I really want to better my skill with him as well as the general populous of SF33rdS.

For a long while I'v considered myself a pretty good Street Fighter fan and player -- the best of my friends in my opinion and their's. However, in the past while I've come to the realization that I'm only good -- not great. Just looking at the Daigo full parry video makes me cringe. I'm far from having that kind of control. Not to mention I JUST learned about Kara-Throwing and I'm trying to implement it into my style. I just never though that people were THIS good. I was recently in Montreal and found myself at an arcade that had a SF33rdS arcade and figured, hey I'm pretty good -- I'll give it a shot. In short, after a few good matches I started to get my butt handed to me.Therefore I'm on a mission to better my playing: Specifically SF3 3rdS.

Now to the real question: I watched the Akuma demo that is in the torrents section of this website. What I want to know is: Is that without any system direction manipulation? Is he really capable of all that? I'm trying to recreate this stuff just so I know its real, default, gameplay. I just can't pull off the juggling and two-in-ones that he does. Can anyone varify that video for me? Plus I was also wondering if there was an instructional video to help me out with the actual system of the game. See if there are any nuances that I missed. I want to get to Daigo level and I'm willing to put some serious time into this. Nothing is more relaxing after work than some SF -- for me anyway.

On a side note: is the SF33rdS the same for the PS2, Dreamcast, XBox, and arcade versions? ie: are the game machanics the same?

[Ponta-kun]

The KYSG videos by 538 do not use system direction, but a lot of the combos shown aren't feasible for humans. He used a programmable controller to get frame-level precision on everything in that video. Some of the combos are doable but hard, a few of them are simply not possible for people to do. So don't try to judge your execution based on whether or not you can copy the combos from that video.

[nanitaberu]

haha! welcome to the internet!

i'll give you a long and serious response because you posted in a red fonttype, and that's very cool.

if you can have your butt handed to you in MONTREAL, you have a long way to go! (Haha i kid i kid, montreal kicks ass)

karathrow is not really that vital, but it darkens the line between "scrub" and "scrub scrub".

akuma is a good character, but he is a very "rush down" character. a rather "advanced" char. before having a really good grasp of competitive 3S, you should try ken or chun.

to answer your real question: yes akuma is capable of doing all that, but human players are not. the KYSG series were done by programmable controls.

if u haven't, log onto combovideos.com and find thongboy's 3S tutorial vid.

the dreamcast 3S port has input lag. not a lot, but noticable. xbox is the only one that offers online play, but the lag makes it not worthwhile. the ps2 port is pretty perfect, but it doesn't offer online play.

i love playing SF after work too ;-)

[Sju av Nio]

Please don't try chun. Thanks.

[Selfless Id]

Admittedly I use all the characters now and then -- I just accel with my Akuma skills within my group of frinds. I'm not saying I'm a total 'scrub' (is that the word? All this new terminology... my friends and I are big Fighting Game fans and we were never exposed to any of that.) I've been playing SF3 back when it first came out in the arcade (also since Fighting Street) but I just never really realized the true potential of that game. Thanks for the info. I look forward to discussing stratagy here.

[Sdouble]

get the brady games strategy guide...it is really good. If u have any specific questions, post em up and i'll do my best, as well as other people will. Read the other threads in here too. go to the bottom and do show threads from the beginning and read everything. Knowledge is ur friend esp. with akuma.

Easy combo that owns...Down mk or standing hp into lk hurricane kick into hp shoryuken. 5 hits and do the shoryuken a little late.

learn to cancel super from down mk, crouching lk lk, off of shoryuken(but this is not great damage but it is good to just seal a round if ur opponent is low and this will kill them.)

use his dive kick mix ups, do it as some one is waking up and continue to mix up between high and low attacks.

[nanitaberu]

Easy combo that owns...Down mk or standing hp into lk hurricane kick into hp shoryuken. 5 hits and do the shoryuken a little late.

i'd stay away from that combo, outside of punishment situations.

you can not confirm into the lk, and the lk is punishable if blocked by opponent.

what makes this move even worse is that it whiffs against crouching opponents.

however, if u succesfully land a jump-in HP or HK, you can proceed with close.mk > lk hurricane > whatever, provided you see that your opponent isn't crouching.

if you have AIM or MSN we can talk there perhaps ^^

[Donkus]

I've been meaning to ask for some time, in the last combo in that video, Ibuki does a command dash that makes her take slightly more damage. What was the point of this? It looks like the combo would've killed her anyway.

[nanitaberu]

the combo wouldn't connect if he weren't dashing?

[Donkus]

Nah, that's a very common setup that works on everyone. I guess he did it because he wanted to kill her with the fireball.

[Selfless Id]

I'm trying to work on my air game (hurricane kick super jumps amuse me greatly), juggling, and figuring out an interesting use for his Demon flip. Its just such an off the wall move to NOT be used.

I prefer MSN -- check my profile and look me up. I'm always on... just I might not be home all the time.

[Selfless Id]

And since I'm here -- what is this tier everyone speaks off? I hear the top are Yun, Chun Li, and Ken? What is the whole thing?

[ramza]

Making Akuma so weak stamina wise was how Capcom decided to balance out his suffocating offense; if he had Ken/Ryu health, he'd be top tier, no question. As it is, one or two mistakes against a good player, and Akuma is GGPO. Ken, on the otherhand, can play much more reckless and still pull through. Since Ken's ground game is so solid and varied to begin with, that makes him top tier. Chun with her SA2, ridiculous throw range, and long range pokes also make her ground game impeccable. Yun's ground game is weaker than Chun's or Ken's, but his SA3 is perhaps the best SA in the game. Keep playing Akuma, though, just don't make any mistakes :tup:

[300ZX]

technique? where's the "shit"? where is he? where is his technique?

[Sdouble]

bring the shit, bring the shit lol. lets' hope he's done with with his "secrets" for god's sake.

[300ZX]

akuma vs hugo in the corner...anti air fireball, jab srk.
2 hits combo. too funny.


training mode rocks...

[scum gale 88]

I need to learn more juggles. Im bored with the qcb lk-hp dp/jab -SA1. the most Ive done is jump in hp-mk/cr. mk-qcb lk-lp srk-SA1-SA1-qcb hk. if anybody knows longer juggles than that it would help alot.

plus, how the hell do I do a kara srk?

thanks

[ramza]

cr. lk>qcb mk>mp srk

Deep demon flip(kick variation)>close HP>qcb mk>mp srk

Demon kick has to be fairly deep so that after the close HP Akuma's knee from his tatsu can connect.

[HarmoNaz]

Your juggles with Akuma are pretty much the best and only practical juggles he has. The other useful one is the reset kkz.
If you really wanna take things to a (ridiculous) extreme, go for a SECOND set of air hurricane juggles after you've landed the first lot.
In English, air hurricane juggles opponents so that you can hit them again after you land. If you time it right, certain players can be juggled AGAIN (see KYSGs combo vid) by doing another jump hurricane. Timing is bastard hard. Good luck :tup:

[scum gale 88]

Ive wanted to do more than 1 air hurricane juggle but I never thought it was possible so I just didnt bother to try it. after the first hurricane do I super jump into the second?

kara shoryu?

[nanitaberu]

hahaha don't bother to practice anything in the KYSGs combo it's about as practical as Elena's healing combos. (note: not very)

low mk into lk tastumaki can't be hitconfirmed, unless you have food footsies and good mind reading, stay away from spamming it

players from higher levels of play should probably know that it's nearly impossible to land a jump-in attack against another decent player

[CyanideAssassin]

food footsies
:wow: I thought I was the only one who knew about the uber secret food footsies?!? :wow:


:lol:

edit:I wanna throw a joke about meaties in here for good measure but I cant think of anything clever...

[HarmoNaz]

Why would you wanna do a kara shoryu with Akuma? Its done the same way as Ken's, but I dont see the point.
If you want to try the second set of air hurricanes, do it on Urien as he seems to be the easiest (relatively speaking) one to land them on.

[Goryus]

Why would you wanna do a kara shoryu with Akuma? Its done the same way as Ken's, but I dont see the point.
If you want to try the second set of air hurricanes, do it on Urien as he seems to be the easiest (relatively speaking) one to land them on.

If Ryu has kara-shoryu juggles (or juggle I suppose, since I really only know of one), surely Akuma must too?

[nanitaberu]

ryu has a karashoryuken juggles?

i feel reduced to a scrub for not knowing

[Goryus]

It's not really very useful, but he can do (in the corner):

st.fp xx mp shoryu xx SAI, juggle with kara-fierce shoryu

Or, if you have extra meter to burn, kara-strong shoryu xx SAI again (not really reccomended...the second SAI only hits 3 times).

[Goryus]

Ok, so it turns out Akuma can't kara uppercut like Ryu and Ken can, because doing :dp:+k~p results in a demon flip. D'oh.

[Donkus]

Doesn't really need it for SA 1 corner combos. LP DP, SA 1, LP DP, SA 1, LP DP works on most people, I think.

[Goryus]

Yeah, I was thinking more along the lines of max range air tatsu, kara-shoryu, or something.

But the point is kinda moot, because he can't do the kara with either cr.mk or cr.fk, and doing it with f.mp is prohibitively difficult. So Akuma will just have to leave the kara-shoryu juggling to the other two.

[HarmoNaz]

Well the Ryu kara juggle you mentioned makes sense, but in that exact same scenario, akuma can't do it. He can only attack after sa1 if it hit while the opponent was fairly high in the air to start off.
By the way, that Ryu juggle you mentioned can be made much easier if you can time a HK tatsu - exactly the same damage if I remember correctly.

[Goryus]

Well the Ryu kara juggle you mentioned makes sense, but in that exact same scenario, akuma can't do it. He can only attack after sa1 if it hit while the opponent was fairly high in the air to start off.
By the way, that Ryu juggle you mentioned can be made much easier if you can time a HK tatsu - exactly the same damage if I remember correctly.

If you do lp shoryu xx SAI while both of you are on the ground and in the corner, Akuma can immediately juggle with another shoryu (xx SAI again if you want, and then another shoryu to top it off). Inserting a fierce at the beginning makes the last uppercut whiff on some characters, though...st fp xx lp shoryu xx SAI, lp shoryu xx SAI, lp shoryu whiffs on Ryu, for example. Might have been a good candidate for a kara-shoryu finisher.

As for the Ryu juggle, the HK tatsumaki whiffs after mp shoryu xx SAI on almost every character in the cast (the exception being Makoto). The reason for this is that the last hit of the SAI passes under them, so they don't bounce as high. The only person the tatsu connects on is Makoto, because she eats all 5 hits of the SAI for some reason.