And so it begins, folks… Akuma is looking pretty darn strong in Street Fighter 6 right now.
The new and final DLC character for the game’s first season has been available for the last two weeks now, and as more and more footage of him surfaces, we learn more about his competitive prowess. Traditionally, Akuma has been a very privileged character over the numerous games he’s been in, and if you were wondering at all whether or not he retains some of said privilege in Street Fighter 6, this clip might be enough to sway you and make you a believer.
To set this up, here in Street Fighter 6 (and other games as well) Shoto and traditional fireball characters usually have hurtboxes on their arms when they extend their limbs out to chuck the plasma. This makes punishing fireballs in neutral easier for the opponent and helps to try and regulate the powerful footsies tool.
You probably saw this concept referenced in Ken and Ryu’s Season 2 patch notes sections where it notes that they had their forward hurtbox reduced when throwing fireballs (Ryu’s from the beginning to the end of the move animation and Ken when his arms extend out). This was done to make their fireball games better and make it harder for them to get punished when using Hadokens.
I say all of this to say that though Ken and Ryu’s fireballs got better with the latest update and they had their forward hurtboxes reduced when throwing them, Akuma’s “Akuma privilege” decided to one up both of his fellow Shotos. From the looks of it, Akuma doesn’t even have a hurtbox in front of him when throwing fireballs, and this Street Fighter 6 clip we have for you today demonstrates perfectly what that means in a real match setting.
MIH.Solidjin shared some Street Fighter 6 footage on Twitter this week that shows their Ken going up against an Akuma player online. After a little bit of a back and forth, the Akuma player anti-airs MIH.Solidjin’s Ken with a heavy punch DP, and while the opponent is knocked down fires off a meaty fireball for pressure.
Due to the range at which Ken landed — which left him quite close to his opponent — MIH.Solidjin opted to answer back against the meaty fireball with a level 3 super. The invincibility on this powerful attack sees Ken blow right through the meaty projectile, and despite Akuma being close enough, visually, to get hit here, the demonic Shoto narrowly avoids it.
You see, the first portion of Ken’s level 3 super sees him lunge forward with a fiery Shoryuken, and even though we see his fist and the fire make contact with Akuma’s arms as he recovers from throwing the fireball, Akuma still remains unscathed. Essentially, this happened because Akuma seemingly lacks a forward hurtbox there or at least has it scaled back far enough behind his hands, and had it been Ryu or Ken they would have gotten hit here (I tested this myself).
Why???#sf_akuma pic.twitter.com/EykTe4yNav
— MIH.Solidjin (@Solidjin31) June 5, 2024
A Twitter user by the name of Chico shared a side-by-side comparison image of both Ryu and Akuma’s fireball forward hurtbox, and while we haven’t been able to confirm that these images are legit, they certainly appear accurate based on the above clip.
Why pic.twitter.com/Du8svWK80Y
— Chico (@STB_Chico) June 1, 2024
It’s still a bit too early to say concretely say that Akuma is top tier or one of the best in the game right now, but based on how things are going, it’s going to take some pretty strong arguments to prove that he isn’t.