Akuma content for Street Fighter 6 continues to roll out GameSpot Hits us with just over 8 straight minutes of new footage.
The next DLC character (dropping on May 22) faces off against Dee Jay, himself, and Manon in the video. He may be a level 7 PC controlling Akuma, but we still get to see a lot of interesting aspects of his gameplay that add to our early understanding of how he plays here in SF6.
We notice some small things that appear to be tweaks to Akuma’s appearance back in Street Fighter 5, such as his visually powerful animation where he slams his opponent into the ground after hitting them in the air with a goshoryuken (1:07).
You may remember that when the Demon Fighter did this maneuver in Street Fighter 5, it left him right next to his opponent to apply easy okezi pressure with almost whatever he wanted. The maneuver now causes the victim to bounce slightly off the Akuma, certainly leaving him with fewer options than in the previous version.
The beginning of the second mirror match round (3:28) gives us an idea of how the character’s fearsome air fireball works when used in a neutral position. As the round begins, one Akuma fires a normal fireball while the other steps forward and performs an instantaneous air version of the same technique.
The former has time to recover and block while the latter doesn’t seem to move forward much. Given how powerful this single maneuver proved to be in Street Fighter 2, 4, and 5, we really hope that Capcom has figured out how to balance it a little better this time around.
Another powerful tool we’ve seen Akuma utilize over the years is his demon palm, which recovers quickly.
Not only did this move provide him with confusion when he got close out of the air, but it also recovered quickly enough to allow him to use it as a sort of feint when it would blow out and then quickly go into another attack.
He spits out the action against Manon (4:30) and still recovers very quickly. However, when we paused and moved the footage frame by frame, it looked as if there were about 7-9 frames of recovery after the attack, which is better than the 4 frames we had in Street Fighter 4.
These are just a few of the many moments we can learn from in the footage provided by GameSpot, so watch them and then please share anything of interest you spy in the comments section afterward.
Want more Street Fighter 6 Akuma? You can check out his move list, see what he looks like on the character select screen, and take a quick look at his character guide video straight from Capcom.
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