While Luke’s crouching medium punch and Ken’s Jinrai kicks surely aren’t far behind, there’s one move that’s garnered more hate and frustrated X posts than any other in Street Fighter 6: JP’s OD Amnesia.
Not only does this counter maneuver function differently than any other counter in Street Fighter’s entire franchise history, it can also lead to some of the game’s most damaging combos. Fighting game legend BST|Daigo Umehara weighed in on Amnesia in one of his latest videos.
The Beast first considers the history of counter moves in Street Fighter, and concludes that they’ve never really been that powerful to begin with. They didn’t pop up until Street Fighter Alpha, and have been somewhat seldom seen ever since.
It’s apparent that counters tend to be daunting to developers in terms of balance as in the relatively rare instances where they are used, devs tend to err on the side of designing them to be relatively weaker than other moves.
This is achieved by means such toning down versatility, often requiring characters using counters to predict specifics of incoming attacks, or by giving them long start up times.
OD Amnesia, however, comes out on frame one and triggers not only on strikes, but also on grabs. Where most counters traditionally dole out a set amount of damage when successful, OD Amnesia causes delayed, homing explosives to pursue the opponent for a short time.
This is a double edged sword as it can happen that a successful OD Amnesia results in virtually no gain for JP, or it can mean half a health bar’s worth of damage if it happens in the right conditions.
Is this a case of a move that people simply need more time with to fully understand, or do developers need to nerf OD Amnesia because it’s simply too strong? Hear what Daigo has to say on the matter in his video below and share your two cents as well in the comments afterwards.