Masahiro Sakurai recently released an interesting video talking about the “Shoryuken” (or the Dragon Punch). As Sakurai himself points out, this is one of the most famous attacks in gaming history alongside the Hadoken (the fireball of the Shoto characters in Street Fighter).
During the video, Sakurai talks about how the Dragon Punch made its debut appearance in the very first Street Fighter back in 1987. Due to the way that inputs are read in that game, performing the Dragon Punch was actually exceedingly difficult, but the move was powerful enough to defeat opponents in two or three hits.
Though the inputs were the same, it was significantly easier to perform the Dragon Punch in Street Fighter 2. Ironically, Sakurai says that he was surprised at how much weaker the special moves were in Street Fighter 2 compared to the first Street Fighter.
Sakurai would go on to praise the risk-versus-reward aspect of the Dragon Punch’s inputs. Since holding back functions as blocking in the Street Fighter series, the Dragon Punch’s inputs forced players to momentarily release their guard.
Needless to say, the Dragon Punch is a rising anti-air attack that deals the most damage by hitting at its base. Additionally, the special’s start up invincibility makes it so that it will beat most attacks if timed correctly.
Although the Super Smash Bros. series started with this idea of utilizing simple inputs, fighting game characters like Ryu and Ken still have access to their command inputs in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
Of course, it’s also possible to perform the Dragon Punch special with Ryu and Ken using the more simplified method, but this will cause it to be less powerful. By performing the traditional inputs, the player is rewarded with better damage and more invincibility.
What’s interesting is that Sakurai says that, from a “game essence” standpoint, the command version of Dragon Punch could’ve been even stronger. However, Sakurai also says that balancing it like that “would have created a rift between those that could and couldn’t pull it off, as it would’ve been too difficult for most.”
Essentially, this was done to keep things more casual. Even fans that don’t have enough execution to perform the traditional inputs of the Dragon Punch can feel a certain thrill with pulling off the special with a simple set of inputs.
As it turns out, Yoko Shimomura, composer for Street Fighter 2, was apparently really thrilled to pull off a Dragon Punch in Super Smash Bros., though Sakurai suspects that she did it using Smash’s simple up special inputs.
According to Yoko Shimomura herself, this was an important moment for her as she had only been able to perform the Dragon Punch in games a few times throughout her life.
「私にも昇龍拳が出せた！！」笑笑
はい、本当に嬉しかったんです。それまでは人生で数回しか出せたことなかったです…（このイラストかわいすぎますw） https://t.co/9DF9M9kH7O— Yoko Shimomura｜下村陽子 (@midiplex) October 29, 2023