LogFAQs > #968741446

Ryu - idk I play balrog and pretend ill pick up juri every game but never do

I dont feel qualified to say which of Ryus appearances is the best one (not V), hes not a character I follow from game to game to know the nuances of. Instead, I would like to praise what Ryu represents in general - consistency. Ryu is an absolute workhorse insofar as Street Fighter goes, someone who absolutely NEEDS to be at least playable in every single appearance as he represents the purest, most straightforward tempo that your chosen Street Fighter game is made to represent. Ryu is like picking rock in rock paper scissors; youre not choosing to play with the meta aspects of the game at all, youre choosing the default, but its rock. Rock feels good and it wins good. I know that he usually ends up inferior to Ken in most numbered entries, if not directly competitively than certainly casually by the time the ken flowchart came into effect, but theres a simple, disciplined elegance to the character of Ryu that makes him feel really good. All of his tools are straightforward, fulfilling their individual purposes and not much more, but all of them are good. He really is the character that sticks the closest to his Street Fighter 2 basis; Ryu will, of course, develop combos as games necessitate, but how he goes about them and what tools he uses to get them should always remain very easy to grasp, akin to those powerful single counter-hits in SF2. Hes never a character Ill decide to main, and there are definitely shoto variants I prefer over him (Demitri from Darkstalkers especially), but Im always happy to pick him up and go a few rounds. I guess I do like the purity of SF2 if you forced me to pick, but Hell if I could tell ya which version off the top of my head.

Best Smash Appearance: Smash 4 - Ryu is, sadly, the fighting game character who I think suffers the most in their transition to Smash Bros. When he was the sole novelty of the more traditional fighting game mechanics identity in Smash 4 and was overtuned to Hell, this was more forgivable, but SO much care was put into making him game-faithful to Street Fighter II that he ends up feeling really off doing just basic platforming. This isnt quite a case like Snake, where his weakness in platforming is the point so he has to rely on his tools and wits, or Kazuya, who is also weak in this regard but is brutally overpowered in other areas to make up for it, Ryu is just SF2 Ryu for the sake of being SF2 Ryu, and I dont think moving around with him has ever felt particularly good in any sense. He does what moves youd expect of him, has a good out of shield game as he should with the shoryu, and has more traditional combos, but the way he actually interacts with the systems of Smash Bros feels clumsy. The character exists to serve their identity and gimmick first and the actual flow of Smash Bros second (an issue with a lot of Smash 4s designs, admittedly), and while I think its been made to work okay in Ryus case, I think okay is really his cap. Terry has shown how to really make a fighting game character blend with the feel of Smash Bros insanely well, and in his wake, Ryu proves that its not that fighting game characters are inherently clunky in Smash. Its that hes failing to adapt to it. A lot of great work here, and there is some real juice behind his moves, but I feel like you need to focus on what Ryu actually DOES as a platform fighting game character now that were past the novelty of him being in the game. C-

Bayonetta - Bayonetta 2

Weird day to be writing this up with the Bayo 3 news on Hellena Taylors statement, but here we are! The Bayo games are probably my least favorite of the trio of Revengeance/Bayo/DMC. It all comes down to their defensive play; I love the feel of the parry directly correlating to the rhythm of the battle, and Dantes just dont be in the way gives a real feel of mastery where youre outthinking your opponent to do as stylish a combo as possible, or are actually using Royal Guard. Bayos dodge as a middleground between the two approaches feels less satisfying to me, a more generous window than parrying giving the same reward as Dantes flippy dippies. I do think that Bayo 2 generally being easier lets you lean into this more, really makes it a solid spectacle (and the shooter/auto scrolling segments were less annoying), but yeah, just not my favorite character action series. With that said, none of that particularly affects Bayonettas character, which is brilliant from an action standpoint. A purely dominant heroine inviting an obvious power fantasy with demonic climaxes to her combos that look absolutely fabulous and feel great to pull off - while I dont appreciate the flow of bayonetta as much as I could, the STYLE is absolutely infectious. Character action games live and die on the charisma of their main character, and Bayonetta has that in spades.

Best Smash Appearance: Ultimate - I mean, when you singlehandedly kill the singles scene from your first game and arent gimped to absolute death like Meta Knight was, the alternative kind of has to be your best showing, right? A lot of good work went into making Bayonettas combos carry just as in her games, and I have absolutely no issue with how they function on paper. Air juggling you like youre in Marvel is how Bayonettas general flow SHOULD go. The issue that I have with Bayonetta is.. well, look at Dante from UMVC3. He gets ALL of his moves from EVERYWHERE, ALL THE TIME, some of which are super specific, but a lot of which create for incredibly visually distinct combos. Bayonettas combos FEEL right, but the lack the pizzaz and flexibility that the witchs massive arsenal would lend to her. There are a lot of hyper specific moves that Bayo should be able to pull off in a free-form combo, but doesnt and simply settles for a rather straightforward ladder right out of the Mario textbook. Shes a character who should have paths and variants that suit her positioning and match-up experience, like Marths Dancing Blade but with more flexibility and specific set-ups, but sticks to following a single, predictable route every time. If Bayos combos are lookin like Luigis but slightly elevated, something has gone wrong. Bayo also, sadly, lacks any sort of climax to her moves, most strings simply aiming to drag the opponent up high and bop them off into the skies. And if theres a character who should be climaxing, its Bayonetta! The Wicked Weaves SHOULD alleviate this, but all of them but the boot are pretty underwhelming in their actual power to smack things away and arent typically seen in her actual combo game, often being regarded as some of the least essential parts of her kit. I feel like the baseline animations and core of Bayonetta are generally pretty solid here, but shes lacking a certain level of pizzaz to the end that makes her appealing beyond the desire to do big combo and being very pretty. And shortening her taunt in Ultimate was an absolute crime. D+