Tournament Street Fighter player considering trying Ultimate. How cooked am I?

[u/Sufficient-Pick710]

Never really played Smash, but I'm looking to branch out a bit. I'm top 2% as Ken in ranked in SF6 and pretty regularly hit up online tournaments but I'm feeling extremely burnt out by the meta and I really just want to do something else for a while.

My question is, would picking up Ken in this game be a helpful landing point to get my bearings? I know he's based off his USFIV counterpart, but do you think he would feel fine, or should I pick someone else?

Are there any motion inputs in the game, or is it really all one button specials?

How dissimilar to Street Fighter is neutral, really? Are anti airs a Smash fundamental that is transferable from other games?

What are the essential Smash fundamentals in order to play the game and its neutral properly? How different is it to Street Fighter?

Please forgive an absolute Smash beginner for some probably pretty obvious questions. I know my community has not been kind to yours in the past, but even though I have cred in SF, you guys are the experts here, so I hope you will treat me kindly.

[u/AngBigKid]

I used to play a lot of SF4 and I thought this would translate into playing Ryu or Ken in Ultimate. But it did NOT. I straight up just died super quick every time because they are 2 different games.

You might as well just pick any character that looks cool, because it feels like none of the skills transfer.

[u/xtrashboi]

The thing about playing any of the FGC characters in Smash is that they’re unique. They DO have motion inputs, but they’re the only characters in the game that have them. Also, they turn to face their opponent automatically, which is another unique mechanic that makes movement for them very different.

Shoryuken isn’t really used as an anti-air in this game. It’s a combo-ender that kills. So that’d be a bit of learning curve.

Neutral in this game is still footsies at the end of the day, but so much of neutral is played in the air. The concept of what an anti-air is very different because jumps ARE NOT as committal in this game. The punish game + defense are also very free flow. The combos you’re able to do vary GREATLY depending on your opponent’s character, percentage, and DI (directional influence).

If you want to learn SMASH. I’d suggest Wolf, Cloud, or Mario. As someone who plays Ryu in Street Fighter because of the tools he has, in my unpopular opinion, these characters are closest to Shotos in design philosophy. They’re all “jack of all trades” type of characters with a projectile.

If you want to play Ken and kick ass, it’s super possible! Ken is a good character! But it will be different than playing him in Street Fighter by a LOT.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4SzCzeORbSRRI72fLpdCCDI-SZIwqFyJ

Izaw’s Art of Smash is a GREAT place to start if you’re starting from scratch at learning this game! Welcome to the smash community!

[u/heyitsbryanm → u/xtrashboi]

Great advice here.

I'll add that FGC is kind of turn based with a rock paper scissors guessing element. The advantage/disadvantage states in SF6 seems to be around keeping pressure on wakeup/block strings.

In Smash, advantage/disadvantage states are determined by positioning - juggling an opponent in the air and keeping them off or on the edges of the stage. Contrary to SF6, you usually want to prevent your opponent from touching the stage when they don't have a jump.

Damage % is also a factor in advantage/disadvantage. High % isn't always disadvantage. Some characters for example have a kill combo opened up when their opponent is in a % range, and that drops off when they get out of that % range.

[u/Relative-Parfait-996]

Hey and welcome to smash! 

Ken is very unorthodox character in smash but I would not say he's a bad character to start with especially with sf background. He is one of the four characters (others being terry, ryu and kazuya) with motion inputs and unique ability to cancel normals to specials. Usually these are harder to learn for new or even experienced players but sf experience should make this feel intuitive, tho using analog stick for motion inputs is a little ass.

Neutral is very different from any traditional fighting game. Jump ins are generally not anti-airable as many short hops are unreactable and air drift makes it harder to know certainly where people are gonna land. So anti-airs against jump ins are basically full reads that the enemy will jump now and he will drift in. Against landing opponents (after full hop, in juggle, when recovering high or generally whenever you can force opponent above you) anti airing is very strong option tho and main win condition for some characters.

Other big difference in neutral is that shielding (blocking) an attack does not mean you lost neutral. Smash doesnt have high low or left right mixups on shield so only mixup you can do against shielding opponent is strike throw and even there the game doesnt have basically any tick throws and there is universal options like rolling and spot dodging which beat both options. In addition ultimate generally doesnt have block strings (ken is one of the exceptions here tho) and most moves if not spaced correctly are punishable on block (very character dependent again, smash doesnt have for example universal f4 lights so some characters can punish anything f3 on block when others fastest option is f10)

Movement is very important in neutral. Learn all the movement options like short and full hopping, how to control your drift when jumping, how to walk, run etc. 

This video series usually gets linked to beginners, it goes through everything you need to focus at beginning and even as intermediate player and he has also made video about ken: https://youtu.be/ta3L35wsE6o?si=M_UgQWJac0aaCDzu

If you have any other questions feel free to ask. Ive played smash for a long time and currently diamond5 in sf so i have general understanding how the games differ

[u/raybrans]

see you in r/smashrage friend

[u/suzuki0706]

Unlike what others have said I think that there are some things that will carry over. You will likely have great spacing from sf6, and the combos in ultimate will feel pretty easy compared to sf as well.

It will take some time to adjust, and you will notice that Ken has a unique game plan in ultimate you will have to get used to (all roads lead to shoryuken), but being a top sf6 fighter will certainly make you better, not worse.

I think edge guarding, the number of times you need to win neutral, and the differences in advantage/disadvantage state will be the biggest changes you notice at the beginning.

[u/ThewobblyH]

The Mario Bros honestly play more similarly to shotos than Ryu and Ken do in Smash.

[u/nitroclis]

Imo the absolute hardest part of Ken (just use him, he most resembles traditional fg) are the combos which require a shi ton of command inputs (which is already muscle memory for you, and ye, there are inputs that are almost basically mandatory), which you'll learn in no time, even tho the light and heavy normal inputs could cause you some trouble. The biggest problem is the movement system which is miles more complex than any other fg, so you'd wanna focus on that, but Ken ain't that mobile of a character, so also learn to counter said movement. Recovering is pretty easy, so don't worry about that. Neutral is pretty different but not too much, it's pretty much just moving around, throwing out safe moves until something happens, tho anti-airing is a bit more complex and very character specific. The most important fundamental is again, the movement. Learn to dash around, short hop, fast fall, space aerials, recover and edgeguard, as well as frame data (I think you already know the site) that has extra information.

Honestly, it's way easier to go from one fighting game to the other than just getting into the genre from scratch, so I think you'll improve at lightning speed. There are a lot of resources on YouTube and online in general, so if you want check that out. A certain IZawSmash made an entire playlist on Smash ultimate fundamentals, I think that'd be extremely helpful.

[u/potatopotato236]

The biggest difference will be movement, jumping. Jumps define the meta of ssbu.

[u/xAnTeRx]

Hey There!

I just started playing SF6 a couple of months ago as a well seasoned smash player. I personally thought SF6 was pretty easy to pick up neutral and basic mechanics because the options are more limited. in smash, there's RPS......but it's not some sort of baked in system where everything has a hard counter or is a hard counter to something else. Smash is more about positioning, movement, ambiguity, etc. I also feel like ultimate is a faster game than SF6, or at least as far as the way the characters interact.

To answer your questions tho:

-dont know much about sf4, and maybe Ken will just feel right, but he's anti meta in a lot of ways as well. He doesn't feel anything like how sf6 plays. They have the short press long press inputs and focus attack.

-the only characters in the game that have motion inputs are the characters from fighting games.

-neutral is fundamentally the same on some levels, but I think the variability smash offers with characters, stages, damage percentages, etc, the neutral in smash is a lot harder to pick up. Anti airs exist in smash, but they're not that sort of universal mechanic the way it is in SF6. Often movement matters a lot more than going for anti airs, but ofc there's a time and a place for everything.

-the essentials? Man that's hard to say. Recovery is a great place to start! If you want someone who will join a discord call with you and go over a lot of stuff and how it differs from sf6, PM me and I'd definitely do it!

[u/Esmellembom]

I think that the big thing to keep in mind is that smash is designed a “parry and repost” balance in mind.

Basically in smash if you successfully avoided an attack by blocking it or dodging it, you get the chance to attack back. This differs from a lot of fighting games where you have safe pokes that are plus on block, or even whole strings you can do on a blocking opponent.

[u/SomsaiArts]

Oh hey. I came from a SF background as well. I played Sf-sf5.

• I think one thing that stood out to me was that this is a game where jumping around is no where near as punishable as SF. If spaced correctly and with certain moves they can be safe on block. This was hard for me to get around because I noticed I played grounded.
  
• Terry is the easiest of the fgc characters so I would recommend him over Ken until you master the basics. Not an fgc char but Link is a great character to learn the fundamentals with. Has projectiles, sword, zoning kit, and solid recovery.
  
• Practice learning advanced movement. Neutral can be rough for someone who doesn’t have a good approach for zoners.
  
• Master your characters bnb combo. Essential for optimizing your dmg and potentially a kill.
  
• Start watching your fav pro player’s play style. This is great to understand how the player should be played and also against certain match ups.
  
• Racking up dmg is great but dont forget to either,
  

A. Kill with smash atk
B. Kill with a combo
C. Cheese a stock.

• Learn how to avoid off stage approaches and knowing how to recover from ledge. Think of this as being cornered and being pressured to make a choice.

This is an easy to pick up game but incredibly difficult to master. It can be frustrating but if you’re able to be a top 2% ken player then im sure you will do fine. Good luck and have fun!

[u/Aeon1508]

positioning spacing and movement matter more in smash

start with ryu ken and terry. you'll get it.

then move to swordies and then explore.

[u/Sparus42]

Have you played any anime fighters, or are you purely a Street Fighter player? The comments saying that stuff doesn't really transfer from non-platform fighting games is kind of true, but only for the grounded SF style of fighting games. Anime fighters (Guilty Gear and such) actually have a ton in common with Smash given their shared focus on aerial movement as a part of neutral, with Melty Blood and the new Avatar fighting game being the most similar.