The difference between Ryu and Ken in EVERY Street Fighter Game!!

what's up guys so a few days ago I uploaded a video where I referenced a tier list for super street fighter 2 turbo and a lot of people asked me in the comments like wait a minute how are you and Ken in different positions on the tier list when they're like the same character aren't Ryu and Ken the same they have the same special moves and the answer is well it kind of depends depending on which Street Fighter game we're talking about Ryu and Ken have various differences between each other so what I've done for you today is I've gone through every single main line entry in the Street Fighter series and we're gonna discuss the differences between Ryu and Ken's so you can see the evolution over time from these characters being literally just clones of each other that play the exact same diverging in two completely different characters with their own move lists their own play styles and their own different placement on the various tier list so I've tried my best to make this as comprehensive as I can but I'm sure there's some stuff I missed so be sure to let me know down in the comments if there's anything I didn't get in the video and I hope that you enjoy thanks for watching guys alright so starting off here in Street Fighter 1 an interesting thing about Street Fighter 1 there's only two playable characters Ryu and Ken you can't pick any of the other characters in the game those are AI only and Ryu and Ken are actually identical in this game other than their sprites there is literally no difference between the two characters they play the exact same and boy does this game play poorly it's like impossible to do special move inputs in this game but they do do like 40% of your health if they connect so that's kind of cool but I don't recommend checking out Street Fighter 1 other than just as a novelty it's not a fun game to play and Ryu and Ken play the exact same but moving on to Street Fighter 2 the very first version the world warrior Ryu and Ken are actually mostly identical in this game as well the first version of Street Fighter 2 did not allow both players to play the same character which is kind of a bummer so having ryu and ken was kind of a way that the two players could play against each other with the same character so their special moves their normals all that stuff is the exact same between the two characters literally the only difference in Street Fighter 2 world warrior between Ryu and Ken happens to be there back throw with kick so when Ken does the back throw he actually will do like a little bit of a backwards roll you'll see Ryu he just throws you backwards when he does his back throw ken does a little roll when he throws you backwards does this matter not really it's just a small visual change I guess you could argue that ken can get you into the corner faster by throwing backwards but I don't think that ever really comes up so that's literally the only difference between the two characters in world warrior but moving on to Street Fighter 2 champion edition we got some new character portraits and we got some new differences between Ryu and Ken's so now Ryu his fireball is actually two frames faster to come out than Ken it's very hard to tell and you would think two frames wouldn't matter that much but it does matter a little bit it makes for you just a little bit better in the fireball war versus Ken but on the other hand Ken's dragon punch is a little bit better you can see Ken's dragon punch does two hits when it lands it does a decent amount more damage and more stun so you can see already they're kind of pushing Ryu to be more fireball oriented and Ken to be more dragon punch oriented and that's gonna continue across most versions here another small change here is that Ken's Tatsu his hurricane kick does not knockdown you can hit with multiple hits of Ken's Tatsu breeze Tatsu always knocks down after one hit so you cannot land multiple hits of it in a combo next up Super Street Fighter 2 we got new portraits I think they look really good in this game finally the portraits look amazing and we got some pretty big differences between the characters Ryu can now throw a flaming fireball by doing a half circle forward motion which is kind of cool you can see it does this flame animation when it hits the opponent but even more important if you're up close and you do this it knocks the opponent down so Ryu can knock you down with a fireball if used at close range which is a really big deal and it really helps out reuse pressure game and his combo game combo into the fireball for a knockdown but Ken gets a new flaming attack too which will be his heavy dragon punch his heavy punch sure you can you can see reuse hasn't really changed looks the same Kenz now has a fire effect on it and it does three hits now instead of two so that's pretty cool and again it continues over that reused Dragon Punch and combos will do a little bit less damage and stun compared to Ken's which is going to do more and then finally Super Street Fighter 2 turbo or Super Turbo they introduced a lot more changes here Ryu now has an overhead on forward medium punch he now has a forward moving command normal on forward heavy punch Ken's heavy kick is a completely new normal and he gets a new special move called crazy kicks which lets him do these weird not very useful kick strings including an overhead reuse throws are unchanged in Super Turbo they're pretty much the same as they have been but Ken gets a new throw forward Plus medium kick he can throw you with this knee bash which resets the standing and allows him to do some really nasty mix ups he also has an air throw which is pretty sick for you did not get an air throw in this game but Ken did but probably the biggest difference between these characters in Super Turbo is their supers Ryu Super is an extremely powerful fireball the Xingu had Oken that he can use to win fireball wars Ken's is the sure.you RepA a sort of double dragon punch that he can combo into using a glitch called render cancelling which is a very powerful technique that helps them out a lot so you know super turbo still sees a lot of tournament play and Ryu and Ken I think this is the first game where they really feel like different characters because of the new normals the new special move for Ken his new knee bash throw I think you can really feel like Ryu and Ken have really different strategies in this game and they each have their own things that make them really fun and unique Ryu is generally considered better than Ken in this game but it's close ken is not bad but Ryu I think the power of his super especially helps them out a lot but we're moving on to Street Fighter Alpha 1 a lot has carried over from Super Turbo Ryu still has his flaming fireball if you do a half circle forward so you can see he can knock you down with a fireball from up close ken still has the flaming shoryuken does an absolute grip of damage in this version ken gets a new special move in this game which is this neat roll which allows them to pass through fireballs so you can see they're kind of pushing pen towards a more aggressive strategy ken wants to get in and fight from close range whereas Ryu wants to play from a little bit farther away and press you with fireballs they also gave Ryu a new command normal forward plus medium kick does this hop kick this move has not been in very many Street Fighter games but I would like to see it appear and more ken gets a new command normal to Ford Plus medium kick with Ken does a two-hit overhead pretty similar to reuse forward medium punch overhead that he got in Street Fighter 2 chinku hadouken and sure you report earn from super turbo but Ryu and Ken each got a new super in Street Fighter Alpha which is pretty cool Ryu gets the Xingu tatsumaki which is a super version of hurricane kick and ken gets the shin ryuken which is a new upwards spiraling uppercut which looks really cool next up we're moving on to Street Fighter Alpha 3 not a lot changed from alpha 1 to alpha 2 for these two characters so I didn't feel like recording footage of that but one thing that they did give Ryu that carried over to alpha 3 is a fake fireball if you do a fireball with the top button he throws a fake fireball so that's pretty cool you can bait people with it we also got new supers for both characters and alpha 3 Ryu gets the shin shoryuken which does extra damage if you space it out well and then Ken gets the shippou Jin Riky aku or just Shifu which will come back a lot in future games we'll see that super ends up being pretty useful in games like this Street Fighter 3 the new generation a ton changed about both these characters in this game first of all their normals are mostly pretty similar except medium kick and heavy kick are very different for both characters you can see they've got different angles and different sort of ranges that they cover Ryu also gets a new special move in Street Fighter 3 which is cool the donkey kick ken gets a new target combo medium punch heavy punch which is really useful for him doing extra damage up close sort of reinforcing that aggressive play style view gets a new super dungeon hadouken which you can charge and it's unblockable and does a high amount of stun if you charge it up with Ken his Shifu Jin Ryu aku return and is even more powerful than before very easy to combo into off of lots of different stuff for Ken you'll see this ends up being pretty much his best super across every version of Street Fighter 3 really really powerful lots of damage and easy to land moving on to Street Fighter 3 second impact giant attack I don't know why this game has two sub titles but it's kind of funny they gave you a second super meter for his dungeon I cannot believe that you can build up two meters throw one dungeon and immediately have another one ready that is crazy to me but they also gave Ken three slots for his ship ooh super and this remains a very powerful super and easy to combo into another important thing that second impact giant attack added was e^x moves so by spending a little bit of bar you can throw a powered up version of a special move we use red fireball returns as an ax move which i think is really cool ken now his ax Tatsu makes him travel very far but Ryu CX Tatsu leaves him horizontal sort of a throwback to his chin ku tatsumaki which i think is really cool and then finally Street Fighter 3 third strike a lot has changed first of all the super meters are different lengths now so Ryu has to make a tough choice does he run with denge n' which is a powerful super but he only gets one medium-sized super bar or does he run chinku had open which gives him two long super bars and lets him take more advantage of his ax moves ken though is pretty much always gonna run Shifu Shifu is one of the best supers in this game and really what makes the character good ken got some new command normals forward medium kick and then his old for medium kick overhead is moved to back medium kick he also has forward heavy kick which is a sort of stepping overhead that you can faint by holding the button and then go for a throw or a low so third strike it's interesting this is actually one of the only mainline Street Fighter games where ken is considered pretty significantly stronger than for you in terms of tournament play a lot of that does come down to his super he gets three super bars and he builds them very fast and this super is so easy to combo into and you get good mix up afterwards so Ken is absolutely a powerhouse and third strike alright guys we're in the homestretch now moving on Street Fighter 4 a lot has carried over from Street Fighter 3 and the other versions I would say but we have the addition of ultras which are a big deal Rio has one of the best ultras in Street Fighter 4 it does a grip of damage and it is very easy to combo into off of all kinds of stuff ice where ever you can land his ultra off of like any hit it's pretty crazy even in certain situations he can land it meter las' which is very rare so all that combined made real one of the best characters in vanilla Street Fighter 4 ken on the other hand his ultra you know you could come into it sometimes but it did not the full hits it's really hard to combo into the entire animation of the ultra you need a lot of meter and some pretty specific circumstances so ken not quite as good as Ryu in vanilla Street Fighter 4 but he does have a really fast step kick they've really made this thing fast from what it was in Street Fighter 3 and by canceling the startup of step kick in to throw ken can perform a throw with very extended range you can see even from ranges where normal characters can't land a throw ken can this is called a cara throw and ken had the best car throw in Street Fighter 4 so that was nice and then with Super Street Fighter 4 and onwards every character got a second ultra reuse is Metsu sure you can extremely damaging but pretty hard to land in a lot of situations similar to Ken's ultra 1 you're not gonna get the full hits if you try to combo into his ultra so that's a bummer and then Ken's ultra 2 occasionally you can get an amazing moment where this goes through a fireball or something but it's pretty hard to land and you really can't combo into it except in the most specific of circumstances I think generally his ultra 1 was considered better moving on to Street Fighter 5 were booking it through here not that much has changed with Ryu he plays pretty similar to what he did before except now every character has a v-skill and v-trigger reuse v-skill is a parry which is kind of cool harkening back to the parry system of third strike and then his V trigger once you activated his fireballs are gonna be powered up so that's pretty cool they go faster do more damage and you can charge them up to break guard kind of a throwback to den Jen Hadouken from third strike and if you're powered up and you do his super it actually becomes the dungeon Hadouken and will break their guard ken is drastically changed in SF 5 maybe for the better or for the worse in some ways he no longer has his step kick now he has a V skill that makes him run which kind of replaces that he can use that for a rush down or for mix ups his toddlers are interesting in this game his Tatsu is knocked down for the first time in a really long time and his heavy Tatsu flies it kind of this arc which is cool e^x Tatsu goes at this upward sort of anti-air arc or if you do it in the air it acts kind of like a dive kick you can combo off of so that's nice and then his V trigger is going to set his feet on fire make all these tattoos do the extra fire damage that's associated with his heavy uppercut and you can combo off them in some circumstances so Ken much more rush down oriented even than he was before in SF 5 and then with Arcade Edition and champion edition of SF 5 they added V skill to and v-trigger 2 for every character Ken's V skill to is this sort of kick that looks like an overhead but it's not really but you can occasionally use it to get around fireballs and his B trigger 2 is the return of the shin ryuken it does a lot less damage but now you can usually get a few of them in before your V trigger 2 meter runs out so that is pretty awesome and then Ryu his V skill to is gonna be this sort of stepping lunge punch I'm not crazy about this thing like I don't really get why he has this he's never had this in a game before what did what does it mean I don't really understand the use of that move but his V trigger to is pretty neat it's going to apply electricity to his hands now he has access to a new parry move that whenever you happen to land this he does a great deal of damage to the opponent and you can combo off it so it's sort of if you run V skill to you can run B trigger to to still have a parry so that's pretty cool and basically I feel like I've run through most of it here guys I hope you enjoyed this little trip down memory lane it was a lot of work for me to put all the together but I hope the reward was worth it be sure to let me know if there's stuff that I missed down in the comments I'm sure I missed a lot it was really hard to cram all of these games into one video but I had a lot of fun doing it so let me know what you think down in the comments be sure to LIKE and subscribe if you enjoyed the video I'll have a lot more cool fighting and content coming for you in the future so that's gonna be it guys thank you so much for watching and I will see you in the next one

Channel: jmcrofts

Views: 2,125,783

Rating: 4.8678694 out of 5

Keywords: Street Fighter, Ryu, Ken, Difference, Differences, Street Fighter 2, SF2, Street Fighter 3, SF3, 3s, third strike, SF4, Street Fighter 4, Tier List, Tiers, Combos, Tatsu, Hurricane Kick, Fireball, Hadouken, Shaku, Dragon Punch, DP, Shoryuken, Flames

Id: WA4ebA-XHkA

Length: 16min 6sec (966 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 21 2020