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:
Versatile, stylish, and damaging conversions with sideswaps on demand A classic and effective shoto playstyle that emphasizes highly layered pressure Solid neutral buttons with high reward on Punish Counter Multiple strong ways to start pressure at almost any range, such as with Dragonlash Kick and his incredible Drive Rush The best and easiest corner carry in the game	Having no plus on block normals, making your pressure more reliant on Drive Rush and special moves A slower than average fireball that only really shines with Drive High execution optimals utilizing Quick Dash and Jinrai loops

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) and Neutral Jumping Heavy Kick (j.8HK)
Missing Command Normals	N/A
Shortcut-Only Specials	Hadoken (5S) Heavy/OD Only Dragonlash Kick (4S) Heavy/OD Only
Assist Combos	A[L~L]: 5LK ~ LK Jinrai Kick ~ Kazekama Shin Kick Any Jinrai Kick followup can be manually input, even with the Assist button held Entire combo will execute on block, potentially leaving Ken -11 or -5 A[M~M~M~M~M]: Chin Buster (5MP~HP) ~ Quick Dash ~ Run Dragonlash Kick ~ Level 2 Super Any Quick Dash followup can be manually input, even with the Assist button held (except Thunder Kick) Quick Dash will not execute if Chin Buster is blocked A[H~H~H~H~H]: 5HP ~ OD Jinrai Kick ~ Kazekama Shin Kick ~ Kasai Thrust Kick ~ Level 3 Super Any OD Jinrai Kick followup can be manually input, even with the Assist button held (except Senka Snap Kick) OD Jinrai Kick ~ Kazekama Shin Kick will execute on block, creating a true blockstring and leaving Ken -7 or -5 Kasai Thrust Kick will not execute if Kazekama Shin Kick is blocked
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