There are a handful of checkmate situations you can be put into in Street Fighter 6 that result in a guaranteed (or very close to guaranteed) KO. In order to stave these scenarios off, one must have strong resource management abilities and have a lot of awareness of the various aspects of a match.
A perfect example of avoiding a terrible situation surfaced on Twitter this week that really shows just how important awareness is and reminds us that it ain’t really over until it’s over.
This stellar Street Fighter 6 highlight sees Akainu’s Guile taking on Kusanagi’s Ryu in an online bout. The clip kicks off in the third and final round of the match and shows the former ahead with a significant life lead as the two try and slug it out in the fireball war.
Kusanagi’s Ryu lands an Overdrive Hadoken into level 1 super for a quick confirm, then tosses out another Denjin Charged OD fireball for pressure which sends the Shoto into burnout.
Akainu is able to chip away at Kusanagi’s health a bit more until only a tiny chunk is left in Ryu’s health bar. After avoiding several Sonic Booms, Kusanagi gets pressured by Guile’s Sonic Blade-buffed Boom, which Akainu then walks behind to move in on the target.
The Guile player walks in behind the slow moving projectile for about five in-game seconds all while Kusanagi continues to back up and ultimately corners himself. This is particularly dangerous considering Ryu is in burnout still and the fireball is en route to lock him down and leave him susceptible to a Drive Impact into stun.
This aforementioned outcome begins to play out just as described, however, Kusanagi managed to avoid being stunned long enough for Ryu to recover from burnout essentially one real life second before Akainu went for the Drive Impact.
Knowing that the burnout would recover in time, Kusanagi perfect parried the Drive Impact — because a counter DI would result in Ryu losing here — and managed to score a big punish on the Guile player despite almost being in a terrible and nearly inescapable situation.
It’s never over pic.twitter.com/Gx5dbIgqms
— Kusanagi (@MaivineKusanagi) September 28, 2024