I've been using this combo I came up with in training mode a lot online. Not so much due to how good or bad it is, but because it's hilarious. I won't explain why. Try it out and you'll see what I mean. If it was already in one of those combo videos then I apologize.
6C, 6C, 236A, 6C, 41236D (it works!)
Okay I've never been good at fighting games so I apologize if everything I'm about to say just sounds like the ramblings of a scrub.
I originally intended to sub Akatsuki because I thought he was quite cool, but I found (maybe because I'm a masochist and I never knew it) that he's all I can bring myself to try to learn to play so while I go in knowing he's bad, I cannot help but be frustrated by how he's bad.
I hear a lot of people say he's bad because of his range. Of course this is the case, but I think it's a bit too shallow of an assessment. Compared to the likes of all the top tier characters just about the whole cast has no range. You've literally got dudes who can do normals that hit full screen whereas many of the low and mid tier characters can't hope to have that much pressure.
What gets me is the priority and properties of his attacks. The way his normals work, how safe or unsafe they are, etc... they all don't make sense to me. I feel like every move you do with this guy requires 100% commitment. You can get punished for even the smallest mistake. Heaven forbid a move whiffs. They did a great job, but you can tell the devs struggled to figure out how to work him into the game.
I think at its core this game rewards creativity, which is probably one of the things I really like about it. If you avoid being predictable, you can do all sorts of things. Likewise, if you predict people, you can punish all sorts of things. IMO Akatsuki just gets all his stuff punished and cannot punish anything. I noticed this when playing against Linne. I've had to fight her a lot today for whatever reasons she keeps popping up. It seems like my moves just get snuffed out constantly, even when it looks like they should prevail. Akatsuki is obviously a footsie orientated shoto like character. I haven't played the game he's from since I was in middle school so I cannot really comment on how he was there, but here I feel like all those normals suck...to be blunt. His specials are bad too. His only reliableish anti air is 6C, and it's such a HUGE commitment compared to other anti airs in the game. You cannot even chain shift cancel it I think. Maybe I'm doing it wrong? I totally understand why it is unsafe and why it cannot be special cancelled unless done on someone in the air, but why can't you chain shift cancel it? A huge part of this guy is to try to bait out moves to punish with a huge 6C so being able to chain shift it would be wonderful.
I'd say most characters have a few good normals or specials that are great anti airs without much risk. I'm not seeing it here. I wish 5C worked as one, but I don't get much success with it. Same with 5A. Even his jump ins feel wonky. Compared to most characters, I feel like Akatsuki gets punished for the stupidest stuff. His jump ins are very particular. If the enemy is crouching or if you're even a little off, they just straight up whiff and I usually eat a full combo because of it. Those dudes who start doing pokes the second your blockstring has a hole really tear this guy up.
And then there's his overhead. This move just plain sucks. It's not even about it being so slow anyone could block it on reaction once they know it exists. Yeah they can punish it, but you can always chain shift cancel it right? No. The problem is that it's extremely easy to punish before it actually hits at all. I've gotten hit by that ABCD Infinite Worth of death thing while doing it before. If not that people are just DPing or doing full combo punishes. Of course overheads of this nature are often unsafe in this way, but this one is too extreme to ever actually do it against anyone competent..in my opinion.
This really doesn't give him many mixup options. He can do good blockstrings in the corner. But actually getting much out of it can be hard. People go on and on about how he has bad range but does great damage, but I think that's not quite right. He does high damage compared to the super fast or poke spacing heavy characters like Linne and Orie, but his damage output isn't all that special compared to characters like Waldstein, Sion, Gordeu, Evil Dhalsim, Byakuya, almost everyone else. Especially the corner stuff. I hear people saying how he's awesome cause he does 4k to 5k in the corner, but I imagine almost everyone in the game can do big damage if they start off a corner combo with their C move of all things. Starting a combo off of 6C in the corner is pretty optimistic. It definitely happens. I do it all the time. But I don't really think it's something you go home boasting about.
As for his throw, yeah I use it a lot. A few characters in this game can combo off their throw. I can only wonder why Akatsuki isn't one of them. He can't even chain shift cancel it into anything. Gordeu can combo off his regular throw and chain shift followup his command throw. Why would a dude who has a command throw even deserve to combo off a regular one? Above all else, the thing I want for Akatsuki is for his regular grab to be a command throw, but I guess because they want to stay true to the game he's from they won't stray too far from his origins. An EX grab with invincibility and extended range would be wonderful. The animation for it could just be a huge burst of electricity, moreso than how it usually is.
His 214A in blockstrings I think is safe, but not safe enough to get much out of it. I think if they're 2Aing whatever you go for next will get beat out, which to me nullifies a lot of its use. I mostly try to use it to get those guys trying to 2A me, but the range on 214A is pitiful so they usually aren't mashing until the blockstring was a bit longer and they're pushed out more. I probably just suck lol.
Probably the only thing he has going for him is he has little use for meter, but that in and of itself is bad because his EX moves are bad which is why he doesn't need them lol. EX Projectile doesn't provide as much blockstun as Linne or Hyde's does. The EX shoryu is nice to bait people who jump in on the projectile. I find I mostly use meter to straight up do his Infinite Worth off of chain shifts or in combos. Hell, the IW is the coolest thing about him and by far the coolest one in the game. It's so simple yet so awesome. I get hyped every time I land it. If I'm sitting down, I always have to stand up when it lands lol. I mean seriously have you ever landed it so that the last hit is what KOs? It has got to be the single most awesome move in fighting game history. The whole game explodes for it. If I knew what he was saying, I'd shout it along with him. All I know is that it says kamikaze in the background, assuming my Japanese is even that good.
I love his air throw. I get a lot of utility out of it and combos out of it are pretty decent too. I wish his j. 2C was better. This move really makes me mad. Why does this guy even have a double jump if not for this move? I'm always shocked how I get beat out of everything I do in the air even among other air to airs. You would think j. 2C would have a nice strong hitbox, but it's quite pitiful. Meanwhile, when Evil Dhalsim dive kicks, he hits even if I'm behind him. j. 2C straight up whiffs unless they're point blank, and good luck beating out air to airs with it. Once again, I probably just suck. It shocks me that it doesn't even hit high. Some of the things in this game that hit overhead are so silly yet this one doesn't? Earlier today I did it on Linne and she beat it out with a crouching either A or B. I was right on top of her... Seriously?
In fact the Hilda matchup is obviously terrible, but I have a lot of problems with Linne too and even Hyde. I find that these characters can do a lot of what Akatsuki wants to do but just much better and with way more range. Getting in is easier said than done, and with the DPs, veil offs, strong pokes, etc... it can be hard to stay in once you're in. Nothing beats baiting a DP in the corner and punishing it with a 6C 5k combo though. That's for sure.
As far as actual success goes, I've been doing pretty well with him. I think I have a little over 70% win rate in ranked with about 600k RIP and I've played a little over 100 games in player matches too so I've gotten a chance to use him quite a bit. I can tell this kind of success is due to people learning the game though. Winning with him is a combination of extreme satisfaction and a kind of depressing sadness. It's satisfying knowing I won with him and it's sad because I feel like it might as well have been a fluke, in that this kind of success is fleeting at best. Come one month from now and I'll probably have a ten percent win rate LOL. I'm already scared out of my mind of the Gordeu and Hilda players that infest ranked.
Sorry for the rant. Would love to hear what people think. I've been testing out some of the combos and blockstrings people recommend and they help a lot.
