Behind-the-Scenes: Rebalancing Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix (part 4, Ken)
December 4th, 2007 Seth Killian
This is part four (count em–4!) in an extended series of articles from David Sirlin, detailing the changes we’ve made to the rebalanced mode of the new Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix project. The first article went into some details about the design philosophy behind some of the changes, the second detailed changes to Ryu, and part three was all about T. Hawk. This week focuses on the ladies’ man behind everyone’s favorite flaming fist, Ken Masters!
Ken
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.
Here’s a brief bio on our guest blogger:
David Sirlin has competed in Street Fighter tournaments for 16 years, and for 11 years he has helped organize and run the tournament series that started as B3 and has now become the international Evolution Championships. He represented the United States in SSF2T in Japan’s Super Battle Opera tournament, wrote the competitive gaming book Playing to Win, and provided narration for Bang the Machine, a documentary film about the Street Fighter community. He’s now overseeing the design and gameplay on Super Street Fighter 2: HD Remix.
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I’m a Ken player. Thanks for these changes, they sound perfect.
> This bug is fixed in HD Remix, but it remains unfixed in HD Classic Arcade.
I hope the Dreamcast dipswitch options are left in, allowing us to customize the original game in the same manner as the DC version of ST (defaulting to ‘arcade-perfect’, naturally).
Dipswitch options for the new game would be appreciated as well. If something added to the game tickles your brain as maybe too much of a change, or you want to do something cool but decide not to since it might be too powerful, new dipswitches will allow us to change things up later, once we know SFHD as well as we do ST.
Naturally online modes would have to have static dipswitches.
How about posting some real gameplay footage instead of the low res stuff out there? I assume you guys got your video capture equipment working by now? Also, when the game drops, how about Capcom organizing a tournament, kinda like pro’s vs. joe’s or something where you take some top pros and have them demolish the winners of an online tournament. I think that would generate some good buzz and develop a bigger community.
Great changes! Leaving the knee bash as it is may be kinda risky but it’s good you lowered the damage.
but yeah its great giving the crazy kicks those commands, now things are more hardcore and in control instead of random. ^_^
also, does this mean Ken still has that “rainbow arc” hurricane kick? I liked his hurricane kick like it was back then which was straight forward. but I guess he goes straight (instead of an arc) if he performs it in the air, huh?
is his normal fireball as fast as Ryu’s? well most likely. the damage difference would come with Ryu’s red fireball in comparison, but yeah it’s nice to hear more about this game ^_^
The thing I’m most worried about is the flow of multiplayer…real world multiplayer.
The problem is wiith the xbox, gamertag system, it takes so long to sign in and out and if we are going to have every stat tracked… we will wont to have no one but ourselves be responsible for our miserable loosing streaks…!
The solution in my eyes if possible would be before a session would take place, for all the gamertags that are going to be in use noted by the system in order…
lets say John ,Mary, Seán and Colm are going to play
John and Mary play first (a ken mirror match by the way…;-) ) Mary looses, on the character win pose screen an automatic 5 second countdown appears, if nothing is done Mary is signed out and Seán’s gamer tag is automatically loaded and the char select screen appears.
Seán now fights John, and wins, on the char win pose screen the coundown which would swap John for Colm appears…but Colm is in the toilet so by pressing x john can play again, or y will skip the next player and go on to in this case Mary…think of it like the halo 3 veto system, a few secs to vote and if nothing happens winner stays on continues as normal.
I’m Not sure if this is possible, but would love to hear your views on it.
I fear that on a game with short time in between switching players that constantly doing it manually would go from a small problem to a big one.
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[…] 2: Turbo HD Remix’ Balance Mode? A couple of days ago, David Sirlin updated the blog over at Capcom Unity concerning the changes they are making to Ken Masters. His Hurricane Kicks and Dragon Punches will […]
Thanks for the updates. I have one request for the online gaming.
A lot of people have been using rapid fire turbo pads to help with winning throws and various other moves.
Is it possible to have a rapid fire detecter?
It’s no fun knowing that somebody has a high rank simply because of a turbo pad.
Thanks
M
whoa, ken sounds too strong. hope he doesn’t become as strong as he is in 3S…
It could be a classy move to include throwback elements from the very original Street Fighter II Arcade.
such as…
the foreground elements .. the “palm tree” from Sagat’s Stage, the “Rock” from Chun Li’s Stage, the “Chain & Lever” from Zangief’s Stage.
…but at the same time include parrying and dashing.
Also as far as a throwback to the very original SFII Arcade, the stage colors were very vibrant and (for lack of a better term) “unforced” so all the lighting looked natural.. (in other words, no hue-ish green lights and floors). Ryu used to fight in a sunset environment and I really miss that. Anywho.. maybe they can have a sunset that litterally sets as the match progresses subsequently transitioning into the night setting.
E.Honda has a mural on his stage’s back wall.. In the current games it looks like its painted on to the tile then magically animates. Is there any way you can make it seem like a projection rather than a painting?.. (maybe adding flickering to its projection or maybe the characters shadow silhouttes).
I congratulate the HD Remix dev team on making Street Fighter attractive to new players.
It is very frustrating for newcomers when the moves are so difficult to pull off.
Most other specials are smooth, natural movements: either an arc (Quarter circle, half circle) or to-and-fro (charge moves). They can be mastered easily once the timing of the button press has been learned.
However, that crazy jiggle motion for the Dragon Punch took me years to master. Not wishing this hardship on others, I have only one request for HD Remix:
Please introduce an alternative input for the Dragon Punch.
forward, down-forward, down + button
–O \ | + button
O O
If you would indulge me, it makes more sense in two respects:
1) Fireball/Uppercut trapping becomes a seesaw action among those three directions, punctuated by button presses.
2) For the games iconic characters, Ryu and Ken, down + punch3 is an anti-air uppercut. It would make sense to a beginner if a movement ending with down + punch3 would produce a “super uppercut”.
Lots of good ideas in here, though some of them are beyond the scope of the HD Remix project. I do like your alternate input idea Nadal, although this would be big change to one of the most iconic moves in all games. Maybe we can experiment a bit with it and see how it feels.
Hope it’s not too late, but I would really like to see Ken be able to do a double light shoryuken like in SF III. I always thought that was such a cool combo. THat would be an awsome “new toy” for ken players.
Good work so far, but please keep us updated!
[…] que incluirán en este juego (en el que se podrá jugar sin cambios), tal como hizo con Blanka, Ken, T.Hawk, Ryu y la […]
THX GOD U FIXED KEN why the japs decided to make a broken ken in ST I dont know but he’s back now. So u fixed his dragon punch thats great I used 2 be a Ken player in the very 1st SF2 game when they played the same but then they messed up Ken and I had to start using Ryu :(. ONE THING U DIDN’T TELL US WAS IF CLOSE UP HURRICANE KICKS STILL LEAVE U OPEN ALL THE TIME AFTER U LAND THEM 2 GET KICKED IN THE GRILL OR THROWN ON UR ASS. It was so unfair when land a Hurricane Kick wit Ryu the emeny gets knocked down but wit Ken u got beat down what hell were they think when they put that in so did u fix that. Also thanks 4 the new crazy kicks those things were crazy retarded b4. PLZ RESPONED Seth OR Sirlin THX GUYS