Street Fighter 6/Ken/Introduction

Introduction

Former US National Fighting Champ, and ex-VP of the Masters Foundation. Accusations of orchestrating a criminal plot have forced Ken to abandon his family and business and go into hiding.

The original shotoclone, Ken is very similar to his old training partner Ryu. Both characters have fairly similar movesets, but Ken carves out a path all his own. With emphasis on aggression and close-range combat, Ken acts as a more offense focused alternative to the Shoto playstyle.

Ken shares the iconic Hadoken and Shoryuken with Ryu, but there's about where their kits begin to diverge. Ken's signature special is his command sprint Quick Dash, which can be used both as a pressure tool and to empower his other specials. If certain specials are used out of Quick Dash, they gain enhanced properties rivalling that of Overdrive moves. In particular, while his normal Tatsumaki is a decent combo ender, Dash Tatsumaki gives incredible corner carry off of any clean hit. Each of these enhanced specials act as different combo enders or extenders, and each one gives something valuable to Ken's kit, whether that be corner carry, strong okizeme, or even sideswapping mid-combo.

Excellent corner carry is a running theme in Ken's kit. While he pokes with 5MK, 2MK and 5HP, Ken looks for a clean hit to Drive Rush. After a confirm, Ken can carry you all the way to the corner and set you up for some truly nasty corner pressure. Any successful hit leads into powerful corner combos that deal great damage and give good okizeme, allowing him to loop pressure continuously. The Jinrai Series of kicks acts as great rekka pressure options in this scenario, and even come with built-in mixup tools. All of this adds up to Ken being a neutral and offense monster, capable of easily tagging the opponent and dragging them into the corner off of any successful opening.

While Ken may seem like an offensive rushdown monster at first, what keeps him in check is the considerably bad block advantage on many of his moves. Each version of Jinrai Kicks and Dragon Lash are either punishable on block or interruptible, causing his offense to be based on making the opponent unsure of when to press. Smart players will quickly learn not to press until something punishable comes out, which can force Ken to play reactively and wait for the opponent to give him an opening.

Due to the stubby range of Ken's 5MP, he may sometimes struggle confirming into his important combos—but with smart use of Run and Drive Rush, he is able to get great confirms from very far away. Learning his Run combos to capitalize on openings can also be somewhat tricky. But overall, Ken is another great character to learn Street Fighter with. If you like aggression, strong confirms, combo expression, and enjoy kicking so hard you set things on fire, you really can't go wrong with Ken.

Pick if you like:	Avoid if you dislike:
What if the Jack had a flaming uppercut...: The classic shoto kit shifted to be more rushdown oriented Coast to Coast: Easy access to superb corner carry and oki Potent Neutral: Neutral that is hard to contest due to many long range and rewarding buttons, especially on PC Inflammatory Pressure: Pressure that keeps you guessing even off small interactions with Jinrai being a large source of this	...but his fireball was worse: A long range presence that needs Drive to shine Average Damage: Thriving on looped situations rather than huge damage Safe but not plus: Lots of good pokes but only one naturally plus move that is pretty slow in Dragonlash

Classic & Modern Versions Comparison

List of differences with Modern Ken

Missing Normals	Crouching Medium Punch (2MP) Jumping Light Punch (j.LP) Jumping Medium Punch (j.MP) Jumping Heavy Kick (j.HK) Neutral Jumping Heavy Kick (8j.HK)
Missing Command Normals	N/A
Shortcut-Only Specials	Hadoken (5S) Heavy/OD Only Dragonlash Kick (4S) Heavy/OD Only
Assist Combos	A[L~L~L]: 5LK ~ L Jinrai Kick ~ Kazekama Shin Kick Any Jinrai Kick followup can be manually input with 6X, even with the Auto button held Entire combo will execute on block, leaving Ken at -5 with two interruptible blockstring gaps A[M~M~M~M~M]: Chin Buster (5MP~HP) ~ Quick Dash~Dragonlash Kick ~ SA2 Any Quick Dash follow-up can be manually input (must let go of Auto for Thunder Kick) No SA2: 5MP~HP ~ Quick Dash~Dragonlash Kick ~ H Shoryuken On Block: stops at 5MP~HP A[H~H~H~H~H]: 5HP ~ OD Jinrai Kick ~ Kazekama Shin Kick ~ Kasai Thrust Kick ~ SA3 Any OD Jinrai Kick follow-up can be manually input with 6X (must let go of Auto for Senka Snap Kick) Burnout: 5HP ~ M Jinrai Kick ~ Kazekama Shin Kick On Block: stops at Kazekama Shin Kick (true blockstring, leaves Ken at -5)
Miscellaneous Changes	2L is 2LK but switches to 2LP if chained into 2LP is unavailable outside of chains 2S is MK Jinrai Kick but changes to Run Tatsumaki Senpu-kyaku during Quick Dash (with 20% shortcut scaling) Chin Buster (5MP~HP) changed to A[M ~ M] Triple Flash Kicks (5MK~MK~HK) changed to 5M~M~M