Street Fighter 6 has officially received its final DLC character for the first season of content. Akuma, the iconic and powerful Shoto, rounds out the game’s Year 1 Character Pass joining the likes of Rashid, A.K.I., and Ed on the playable roster.
Now that we’ve had a bit of time to play the raging demon and see what he’s all about here in the latest entry of the legendary fighting game franchise, we have put together our full written review of Akuma in Street Fighter 6. If you’re wondering if he’s worth the money, he is, and for a variety of reasons that you’ll want to read on to find out.
Presentation:
Leading up to Akuma, Capcom has done an excellent job with their DLC character designs and visuals. From animations to clothing physics, the latest batch of fighters, overall, have looked fantastic, and Akuma is no different.
The master of the Satsui no Hado looks tremendous here in Street Fighter 6, taking on an older and bulkier design than we’re used to seeing for the warrior. It works well, though, and acts as a convincing natural progression for a character we’ve known and loved for the last nearly 35 years.
Akuma’s new appearance in Street Fighter 6 seems to take some of the initial ideas for the character in Street Fighter 5, but expands and improves on them. This time around, Akuma has his giant lion’s mane again, but in Street Fighter 6 it looks more like a massive, unkempt beard and high top knot that an isolated cave-dweller would actually have and not Akuma’s best sunflower impression.
“Then you’re left in the dust. Unless I stuck by ya…”
His move animations, visual effects for fireballs and supers, and virtually everything else about the character unsurprisingly looks incredible here. It is clear that Capcom took their time and paid extra close attention to the design of one of the franchise’s most popular characters for his inclusion in Street Fighter 6, so much so that they even added some extra bells and whistles to an already stacked DLC fighter.
Not long after he was officially released, fans discovered that Akuma actually has a hidden “Shin Akuma” version of the character that can be accessed in a regular match and is tied to one of his taunts. The gist is, if you perform a certain input during his back taunt (where he sits down and enjoys a giant rice ball), you can give him the Shin Akuma power up and gain access to two additional super attacks and his classic air double fireball.
Granted, you won’t ever be given enough time to actually get Shin Akuma out in a real match (unless the opponent knows what you’re doing and allows it) as it takes very long for the taunt animation to run its course and it cannot be interrupted with an action by the user. However, adding in Easter eggs like that makes this character feel even more fleshed out, and it’s awesome to see that Capcom went the extra mile to give longtime fans of the series some hidden gems to find and revel at.
Gameplay:
Akuma has all of the moves you’d expect him to have in any Street Fighter game. Once again, he is the classic case of “anything Ryu can do, I can do better,” with trademark special moves like his Gou Hadoken, Gou Shoryuken, and Tatsumaki Zanku-kyaku (Hurricane Kick) making a return, and he also has Akuma-specific maneuvers like his teleport, Demon Flip, and air fireballs, albeit with some new traits to them.
Capcom also went ahead and gave Akuma a handful of new moves as well, including his Adamant Flame which sees him perform a powerful, fiery body blow that can be followed up with further extensions, as well as a new command throw from his teleport.
If a fully loaded tool kit wasn’t enough, Capcom also equipped Akuma with some of the fastest forward and back walk speed in the game, great damage (especially in shorter bursts), a second Critical Art in his iconic Raging Demon, and as a means of regulating all of this, Capcom also slapped Akuma with the lowest health rating in the game coming in at 9,000 when the average is 10,000.
While Akuma’s lower health can definitely be felt, to an extent, when playing as him and against him, here in the early days his overwhelming offense still feels like it outweighs most any damage he’s going to take in battle. The good news is that any bread and butter combos you hit him with will definitely hurt more, and in situations where you might need to spend full resources to close out a round against your average character, there will be instances where you’re able to save a couple of stocks of Drive Gauge or a super bar for the next round when trying to put the stamp on a round against Akuma.
Akuma’s offensive options in Street Fighter 6 cannot be undersold, though. A lot of what he does feels very strong, but there are some interesting implementations that Capcom made to some of his more egregious attacks that do help at least somewhat make them more manageable.
For example, his classic teleport, which used to be fully invincible and was often used as a get out of jail free card, now no longer has any invincibility whatsoever. In exchange, though, teleport now has a hard-hitting command throw that you can fire into during the animation, and it can still pass through opponents making it so that you can craft meaty set ups that essentially force the opponent to whiff their reversal super, OD attack, or even normals as they fire them off facing forward while Akuma slips behind them.
Another important change to a classic move that should be noted is that of his regular air fireball. Here in Street Fighter 6, the projectile will now disappear if Akuma is hit while it’s in play, meaning he can no longer just throw it out, see you actually anti-air him, and then still get a hit on you because the fireball remained out and active — well… kinda.
In Street Fighter 6, Akuma can definitely be hit out of his air fireball pressure and beaten clean, and while footage of this before his release looked promising, actually doing it consistently is a whole other conversation. Every character seemingly has a “best” tool for stopping air fireball, so you’ll want to make sure you find the one for your character and practice using it as you’re going to need it against the Akuma army online. You’ll find that you are beating him outright in some scenarios now, scenarios that in past games wouldn’t have ended favorably for you, but it also feels like there are still quite a few instances where you’re hitting him and the fireball still hits you just before it goes away.
Those things aside, Akuma’s move set is incredibly fun to use in Street Fighter 6, and thanks to the versatility of many of his maneuvers, he also sees a very free-flowing combo game here as well. So many attacks combo into each other, he has multiple ways of juggling you that don’t require a ton of execution or set up, he can convert off of stray air regular and Overdrive fireballs with long, extended sequences, and he can even combo right into Raging Demon on grounded opponents.
Akuma is a character that has a very low barrier of entry for the basics, and because a lot of his tools are strong, you can definitely get by in the lower ranks with just a handful of combos and set ups. That being said, his wide variety of options for every situation also makes it feel like mastering him is going to take time and dedication, and as terrifying as a fully honed in Akuma sounds, it’s also very exciting to think about what this character is going to look like in the hands of a legend like Tokido a few months from now.
Dream King’s early tier take:
He’s top tier.
Okay, well… it’s not that simple. But I can say that this world warrior definitely does appear to have all of the fixings that a top tier character would have in Street Fighter 6.
Akuma has only been in the hands of the masses for about two weeks now, so it’s impossible to outright say he’s going to be a top tier or one of the best in the game. However, all of the early signs we’re seeing are pointing to this DLC fighter being a very strong contender down the road, and even when the community starts to figure out how to properly fight him, his strong tool kit and set ups should still make for a powerful pick among the cast.
Closing Thoughts / Is He Worth The Money?
This question has an obvious answer that everyone likely already knows. Akuma is consistently one of the flashiest, strongest, and most interesting legacy characters on any Street Fighter roster, and generally speaking it’s a no-brainer that he’d be worth your hard earned money.
Outside of all of that, though, Akuma is a really fun character to play, has some amazing hidden Easter eggs to him, looks fantastic, and has the potential to be a very strong character down the road.
He has a lot to offer newer players as his learning curve for the basics isn’t steep, but also brings with him a ton of room for exploration that seasoned veterans will undoubtedly want to engage in.
Even if you hate Akuma and everything you just read here doesn’t appeal to you, it would still be a very wise choice to pick up and purchase Akuma in Street Fighter 6 simply due to how unbelievably popular he already is and how many of him you’re going to be running into online.
Whether it be to snatch up an exceptionally well-made DLC character or just to learn the match up, Akuma is worth the money to anyone interested in Street Fighter 6.