Akuma has enjoyed the benefits of his top tier membership throughout most of Street Fighter’s history with the demon consistently being one of the strongest characters around, but it’s looking like he had to hand over his member’s card for now.
Street Fighter 5 competitor Pokey recently shared a clip of an online bout where he tried to copy Gill’s flashy Critical Art punish against his Akuma, which immediately goes terribly for him.
While in neutral, the Gill player was able to react to Pokey’s Gohadoken with their Seraphic Wing CA, leaving Akuma with a small bit of life left, but fully stocked on resources.
The Secret Society leader follows up with an icy fireball of their own on Pokey’s wakeup, which gives them enough time to activate V-Trigger and input the Raging Demon to return the favor.
That is except Akuma just gets slammed by the ice as he slides forward.
Akuma’s received a handful of nerfs over the past few years after running amok for most of Street Fighter 5’s life, which appears to have really hurt the demon on the competitive front with longtime Akuma mains like Rohto|Tokido moving on to other fighters.
Oh you think you’re hot shit?! 2 can play at that game. pic.twitter.com/k9IqK7fz1l
— Pokey (@Just__Pokey) February 22, 2022
To be fair though, none of those recent nerfs adjusted his Raging Demon. It’s still invincible for the first 11 frames, but it’s still a bit cathartic to see when it feels like Akuma could do and get away with everything before — and is still one of the stronger characters in SF5.
Sometimes you just get blown up for trying to be swanky. It just helps if you’ve got a good sense of humor when that happens.