Ryu

## General

Ryu is the main protagonist and mascot of the Street Fighter game series and one of Capcom's unofficial mascots alongside Mega Man. He is a Japanese martial artist who travels the world, seeking out strong opponents to fight against and improve himself. He and his fellow fighter Ken Masters use a form of martial arts that was rooted in an assassination style and taught by their master Gouken. Ryu's most well-known technique is the Hadouken, an energy attack that creates what appears to be a blue fireball that travels horizontally.

Ryu is one of the most famous fighting game characters, and he has appeared in every Street Fighter game and every crossover Capcom fighting game. He is a Super Smash Bros. veteran (added in SSB4), but he was added into Crusade long before this, so some of his moveset is a bit different from his official Smash counterpart. Although his normal specials are the same, he uses EX specials as his command inputs, and some of his grounded normals are different in Crusade.

## Attributes

Ryu is a heavyweight of above-average size, and surprisingly decent mobility and frame data. He is a combo-based character with fearsome KO power, great pressure and combo starters off of many of his moves. Although he has short range overall, he doesn't have a hard time getting in, being able to nullify most projectiles with his high-priority, low end lag neutral special, and having good ground speed and frame data for a character his size. With the ability to cancel all of his grounded normals and aerials into his specials, and his tilts into themselves, he has no trouble racking up damage on his opponents. He has a lot of unexplored potential due to his small player base.

Ryu's neutral special, the classic Hadouken, is a high priority projectile with decent speed, range, size and damage, which helps him a lot in neutral. He can have more than one on the screen at a time, allowing him to pressure his opponents and control the stage to a certain extent. Aside from this and his good frame data, his neutral lacks a lot, given his air mobility is mediocre, and he has short range overall, limiting his air approach and his spacing. However with his down special, Focus Attack, he can counter single hit attacks and briefly immobilize his opponents, allowing him to follow up from it even without charging it at times. He can also dash cancel it to bait his opponents. His forward tilt can break shields in one hit, making his shield pressure decent as well. Overall, his neutral is decent, but not among his strengths.

Ryu is known for his dominating advantage, which is among the best in the game. His combo game is relentless, with down tilt and neutral aerial being very fast combo starters that can be used for combos and kill confirms. Focus Attack is another main combo starter; he can combo into it from neutral air and since it stuns for a bit even without charge, he can combo out of it as well. It helps him at many percents, being an easy way to confirm combos and land kill moves. Dash attack is a lesser-known but very effective combo starter; it can cancel into all normals and specials, and even his grab.

His grab game is also threatening. His forward throw is one of the true chain grabs in Crusade. It works on most of the cast; it has minimal endlag and extremely low knockback growth, so it can chain grab most characters until kill percentages. Up throw is a 50/50 combo throw; if he follows the opponent's DI then it can be followed up with Shoryuken, leading to KO's at high percents or earlier due to the latter's extreme kill power. Back throw is a decent kill throw, killing in the low 100%'s.

Ryu has powerful finishers in his down aerial, down smash, up special and EX side special. Down aerial is a spike, meaning it can't be meteor cancelled. Aside from this, it has menacing knockback, killing at mid to high %'s without fail. Down tilt combos into it at mid to high percentages, so over-commitment isn't needed. His down smash comes out very fast, has high knockback and sends at a bit of an angle. On top of this, it is a low-hitting move, allowing him to secure kills on low-profile characters he can't kill confirm (e.g. Pichu and Pikachu). It is also fast enough to kill off of a slightly charged Focus Attack, making it easier to kill with when this situation arises. It can kill very early with the wrong DI as well, making it a nice burst option. Up special is a strong vertical kill move that can be combo'd into, with good DI tracking. Although he struggles to confirm on smaller/lighter characters, they can still be hit out of the air, allowing early kills. It keeps the same strength throughout its active frames. EX side special is a high-priority move that has decent hitboxes, making a bit of a defensive move as well. It also comes out very quickly and the hitboxes last for quite a while, which can mess up the opponent's DI and net early kills. Although these are his most well-known kill options, he has other good kill options like forward smash, back throw and back air.

His edge guarding and ledge trapping are also decent. Down aerial, as mentioned before, has very good kill power, allowing Ryu to interrupt recovery attempts with ease. Back aerial has good kill power although it has mediocre range. Hadouken and its EX version are pretty good at ledge trapping; it can halt some characters' recoveries do to its size and speed. EX side special is also good against neutral get-ups and for baiting get-up attacks, which can set up for kills.

Despite this oppressive advantage state, his disadvantage is quite weak, and he struggles against multi-hit characters. He might also have trouble forcing KO's in some match-ups. Ryu is a big character; even if he can use Focus Attack or neutral air to try and avoid juggles and escape combos, characters with fast juggle moves and multi-hits such as Saki, Pichu, and Falco can combo him easily. However, Focus Attack is very useful for escaping combos involving single-hit moves, making him surprisingly resistant to combos in some match-ups. Despite Shoryuken's ability to sweetspot the ledge in the second half of its active frames, and the overall long distance in his recovery, his options are quite linear and his slow air acceleration makes him even more susceptible to edge guards. Even though Ryu does well against most of the cast thanks to his combo game and kill power, smaller characters are a bit of a problem for him because of their low profile, hindering his combo ability. However, he does well against most small characters thanks to his kill power.

The world warrior's advantage is a lot to handle for most characters, and although he struggles defensively, his offense makes up for it, allowing him to bring an opponent to hairy situations off of one interaction. He is considered to be a very good character, despite his small player base and average tournament results.

## Moveset

*For a gallery of Ryu's hitboxes, see here.*

* Ryu can cancel **all** of his normals into specials, his dash attack into all of his grounded moves and grab and his tilts into themselves. He shares this trait with Chun-Li and Evil Ryu.
* Ryu has EX specials, which are powered-up versions of his regular specials. They can be performed by doing the traditional inputs using the standard attack button, by pressing left or right before using them or by tapping the special button at the same time as the direction button (for up special and side special). He shares this gimmick with Chun-Li and Evil Ryu.

## Alternate costumes

 Red
 Blue
 Purple

## Trivia

* Ryu was added to Crusade in version 0.1, using his Street Fighter Alpha sprite.
* Until version 0.9.3, Evil Ryu was an alt for Ryu despite the two possessing major animation and gameplay differences.