Street Fighter 6 – Akuma
Demon rush
After a solid first season, Street Fighter 6 ends on a high with the return of Akuma, who may even unseat Luke and Ken in the game’s current meta. As fighting games’ ultimate glass cannon, he packs more varieties of powerful moves beyond the usual shoto (fireballshoryuken-tatsu) playbook, whether that’s pesky air fireballs that come at opponents diagonally or unpredictable demon raids.
Akuma has a 30-second taunt animation that is the ultimate show of disrespect.
He can even now warp in for a throw. Heck, the return of his Raging Demon move means he’s also the only character to have two CAs.
Suffice to say, longtime fans are having a ball figuring this fighting demon out, with one discovery being that he has a 30-second taunt animation that is the ultimate show of disrespect, in which he sits
down with his back to his opponent and wolfs down a snack (we’d love to see someone pull this off in an actual tournament).
Those who just want to best Akuma also got the ultimate challenge as he launched alongside a time-limited battle hub event in which players are tasked with defeating a giant Akuma in the centre. First you have to fight him in specially designated cabinet matches, then the energy accumulated from that can be released as a fireball on the big guy. Whether you’re good enough to take on a CPU opponent at the highest difficulty is another matter – we’ve been on the receiving end of his merciless juggle followed by a super finisher a few times.
As for what to expect for season two, surely 3rd Strike characters beckon? At least you can listen to that game’s music during matches now, though curiously Elena’s stage theme is absent. What could it mean?…