SF4 Biweekly TACV 03: Ken

Get ready for a lot of uppercuts. The third episode features none other than Ken, setting everyone on fire with punches. At first he seemed less exciting than i’d hoped, but in the end it turned out better than i expected. Ken’s combos allow a lot of room for style.

0:11 Sagat’s Focus Attack startup makes him taller, which allows Ken’s EX air Hurricane Kick to connect thrice. His standing jabs create a lot of frame advantage so he actually takes a step forward between each one. Due to the spacing of the last jab, the LP Shoryuken lands meaty which gives Ken enough time to follow up with EX Shoryuken.

0:22 Ken’s F+HK has 2 active frames and normally yields -1 advantage. Seth’s HP Tanden Storm avoids the first active frame in addition to providing a counterhit bonus, both of which are necessary to link c.MK afterwards. Ken’s F+MK has 5 active frames and normally yields +1 advantage, which becomes +5 advantage when it connects on the 5th active frame. Ken has to take a step forward before the c.MK to get four hits out of HK Hurricane Kick. There’s barely enough time to whiff another LP Shoryuken instead of Ken’s F+HK feint before Seth gets up, but it still wouldn’t build enough meter to end the combo with an EX move.

0:34 Far s.HK is Ken’s most damaging single-hit attack. When two attacks trade hits on the same frame in SF4, neither character gets a counterhit bonus. This entire setup is designed to interrupt Ken’s far s.HK one frame after it scores a counterhit against Seth’s HP Tanden Engine. At 717 damage, this might be Ken’s most painful combo (percentage-wise). Adding anything before the LP Shoryureppa would bring it down to 80% power and reduce the total.

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0:45 Rose’s LP Soul Spark is very slow and her dash is very quick, making her a very useful character for interrupt setups. The first hit of Ken’s HP Shoryuken creates a free juggle opportunity when it hits an opponent falling from crumple stun, since they register as airborne during that state. Rose’s LP Soul Spark stops Ken before the third hit without costing him any meter. LP Shoryuken connects for free, Ken whiffs s.LP for style, EX Shoryuken juggles due to inherent juggle potential and resets the juggle counter, MP Shoryuken juggles due to inherent juggle potential, and EX Shoryuken tacks on one last juggle hit on its own merit.

0:58 After Ken’s lvl3 Focus Attack trades hits with Abel’s close s.LP, he kara-cancels F+MK into lvl2 Focus Attack in order to close the gap between them, which is important for connecting the next lvl2 Focus Attack after s.MP xx EX Hadoken midscreen. Ken kara-cancels F+MK again into the last lvl2 Focus Attack, which is spaced perfectly to get the second hit of Ken’s MP Shoryuken to connect as late as possible. This gives him enough time to jump straight up and juggle with EX air Hurricane Kick. After all that, the secondary animation of Ken’s Shinryuken ultra juggles for all nine hits, as usual.

1:13 Ken’s primary Shinryuken ultra sequence only occurs if the first hit connects, but it has zero inherent juggle potential. Therefore it always whiffs if the opponent is in standard knockdown state. The first hit of Ken’s HP Shoryuken creates a free juggle opportunity if it hits an airborne opponent, but not if they’re already falling from a knockdown attack. On the other hand, the second hit of Ken’s HP Shoryuken creates a free juggle opportunity anytime it hits an airborne opponent regardless of whether they’ve been hit before. However it has no inherent juggle potential of its own. So what happens is the first hit of anti-air HP Shoryuken creates a juggle setup for the second hit, which creates another juggle setup for the second hit of the second HP Shoryuken, which creates another juggle setup for the second hit of the third HP Shoryuken, which creates another juggle setup for the first hit of Shinryuken. The whole trick is avoiding the first hit of HP Shoryuken after launching the opponent, but it’s difficult because the second hit of HP Shoryuken is only active for 2 frames.

This is a tool-assisted combo video recorded with two ASCII PAD V Pro programmable controllers. Absolutely no cheats, hacks, or game-altering devices were used in the making of.

edit: As of right now (midnight, December 11th, 2009) this video has exactly 100 ratings on u2b with a perfect 5.00 average. Thank you everyone! Having reached this personal goal without asking anyone to rate it, i’ll never bother paying attention to those hollow stars again. Now someone should go rate it 1* because that’s the way these things ought to go.

16 thoughts on “SF4 Biweekly TACV 03: Ken

  1. harejordan

    You recreated the beta version of HDR with the 5 SRKs on Rose =O Simply another awesome combo video. Thanks for the entertainment and keep it up! Hopefully the next person is Blanka, I’d like to see what you can do with him. Or if you could throw on one bonus combo onto your next challenge =D

    Now to wait another 2 weeks =(

  2. kaneka

    this combo video was the best yet for me – possibly because I’m a Ken player :)

    Super -> Ultra, dayam.

    Thanks, great work!

  3. Maj Post author

    harejordan: Actually i’ve been wanting to try Blanka because i think he has a couple of really cool combos waiting to be unlocked. Although i might have to do a split since i’m not sure if he has enough to fill out five combos by himself. To have flashy combos in this game, you either need a fireball, a reliable way to combo into lvl2 Focus Attack, or something very unique and versatile.

    kaneka: Yeah i think that’s actually the generic formula for maximum damage in SF4. You gotta start with counterhit bonus on whatever hurts the most and combo directly into super so you can get full damage out of it, then do ultra or do more stuff. For example, Ken’s super does 400 damage at full power. If you push it back to the third move in a combo, it goes from 100% to 80% which is 80 points. That’s a lot to make up later on. Every time you delay it further, you lose 40 points, not to mention weakening the ultra as well.

  4. Mickey D

    Amazing work as usual Maj. As someone who has a special place for combo videos in their heart’s, I just gotta say that you have never failed to impress me. Any time I look at your videos, I always think to myself that if I ever do a combo video myself that it MUST be to Maj’s standard. The video was so great that I had to tell people about it my website as well! But enough of the ego stroking, great stuff man.

  5. Maj Post author

    Haha don’t worry, i’m immune. I feel the same way about TZW, Sai-Rec, 538/kysg, and so on. There’s always something more to do. I’ve been spending a lot of time on these SF4 videos but i have no illusions that they’re gonna last. It’s too early, pure and simple.

    Guaranteed, there are a handful of nuances we don’t know yet. They won’t change match play much, but they’ll destroy old combo videos. That’s the way it always goes.

    Thank you for mentioning my video/site on your website. It’s very kind of you and i’ll try to return the favor.

  6. BackForwardPunch

    Great video again, Maj! I am always thoroughly surprised by what you can achieve in these. Can’t wait for the next installment!

  7. Maj Post author

    So i was hanging out with jchensor and Aric Tetley when we got to talking about Ken’s fierce uppercut. A lot of people have been having trouble getting that last combo to work. After quite a bit of testing, we figured out that most characters are practically immune to the first hit of Ken’s HP DP while jumping empty. They simply drop through it and block. However if they press a button in the air, then Ken can land that crucial first hit which leads to extra juggles.

    Furthermore, it turns out the second hit doesn’t create a juggle setup if it connects normally. You only get that free juggle opportunity if the second hit connects after you’ve sent the opponent reeling from a knockdown. In other words, the second hit of fierce Shoryuken must be preceeded by one of three successful attacks:

    1) first hit of HP Shoryuken connected as initial anti-air or counterhit
    2) lvl2 or lvl3 Focus Attack connected as initial anti-air
    3) second hit of HP Shoryuken directly after one of the previous two options

    Once you break into this cycle using option #1 or option #2, you can keep juggling with the second hit of Ken’s HP Shoryuken indefinitely – until you run out of super meter of course.

  8. c_nul

    @Maj

    Nice combo video and nice info.

    So if understand what you just said.
    When you empty jump versus ken, you have more time to block his dragon even if it come in 3 frame initially ?

    Lp and Mp shoryu hit in 4 frames. Ex shoryu hit in 5 frames

    But versus empty jump, Hp shoryu will hit in 5 frames if you avoid the first 2 frames of the first hit, no ?

    It’s look like the first hit has the properties of a low move

    —-

    I remember seeing a ken do a Hp shoryu anti air with no counter hit and he successful launch a full ultra after that. I was surprise and rewatched the video again and again to be sure, i don’t see the counter hit notation. If i remember, it was ichi (star) in a TRF ( september)

  9. Maj Post author

    Startup speed isn’t the problem. The problem is, Ken starts his HP Shoryuken very low and most characters seem to skip through that airspace during an empty jump. They simply land without passing through it, so that hitbox can’t connect. However if they attack in the air, then their fist or their foot or whatever does pass through that area so the first hit of Ken’s HP Shoryuken can hit them.

    You’re right, it doesn’t have to be counterhit. It just has to connect while the opponent is still airborne.

  10. T-Swen

    I have a question not about this video, but about a situation with Ken I’m was trying to make happen. You seem to know the ins and outs of the engine, so I hope you can answer this. What I do is this: From across the screen against a jumping opponent, I throw a lp.Hadoken, focus dash cancel forward, jump and do air.EX. hurricane kick. My goal is to knock the opponent back into the fireball after the screen moves, but the opponent always goes right through it. Is this even possible? Thanks.

  11. Maj Post author

    No it’s not possible with Ken’s regular fireball but it would be possible with his EX version, though it’s faster which might not give you enough time.

    Generally speaking, there are two kinds of juggles: where one move puts the opponent in a special state that allows another move to juggle, and where one move simply knocks down and another move juggles due to its own properties.

    In this case, EX Hurricane Kick simply knocks down and juggles due to its own juggle potential. Ken’s EX fireball has juggle potential as well, so it would work. But his regular fireball does not.

    Ken’s only free juggle setups are anti-air lvl2/lvl3 Focus Attack, his HP and EX Shoryukens under certain conditions which we’ve been discussing here, and most of the hits of his super except for the last. Your best bet is probably the super, as long as you get someone to reach into it, like with Dhalsim’s j.HP or something.

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