Is Asuka R# Really The Hardest Fighting Game Character Ever Made? 

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I would really love to see a "fighting game characters that are actually difficult" kinda video like you did with crofts.

3:00 Fun fact, you can't run out of spells. If you mill one of your decks it resets back to 30 on the next draw.

I feel your apprehension to the labels here so much and it’s because Asuka is immediately approachable as you start learning him. The nature of his kit gives him a very naturalistic learning curve that HC, zato etc can’t replicate. The randomness and exclusively 4 spell slots align so that you feel correct in the improvisational gameplay that inherently comes from learning a character, and it both shows you the wealth of options while constantly limiting the amount of moment-to-moment choices you have to make to function.

from my experience, asuka's entire gameplan revolves around setting yourself up with good tools and focusing on neutral. asuka instead of needing precise input needs situational awareness. you can land one hit and carry almost any opponent halfway across the entire stage and wallbreak. asuka is not meant to zone, he's meant to fish attacks in neutral into cancels to maintain resources without being pressured. a good way I found to get out of a tight spot is 2 dust into charge. your #1priority at all times is keeping the mana as high as possible.

This char revitalized strive for me. They achieved making a character feel more interactive and exciting without changing system mechanics/ the game as a whole. I hope future characters follow suit. They don’t have to be broken (idk if asuka is or not) just fun and interactive.

I don't feel like there's going to be only one win condition with him. He's got a the deck 3 buff stacking obviously but stuff like the TK Screamer mix could lead to a a pretty obvious win condition as well. Situation assessment and trying to find the right wincon could wind up his most important skill. Also you can't run out of spells. It "shuffles the deck" if you get to 0.

I watch a lot of FGC content creators and almost all of them just says this character's broken or trash and nothing else. I really appreciate what you bring to the conversation. this is an in depth analysis of the character and more importantly it discusses foundation more than anything which is what's really important here.

I have a much easier time learning him than i had with Happy Chaos.

I don’t know if I’m going to pick him up, but he seems cool after Bedman and Sin were simple but also not great. At least there’s something to explore with this guy.

He's definitely very involved on a mental stack level, but since he's still a strive character with no negative edge gimmicks his execution is still pretty easy. It also helps that a lot of his spells are just variants on 'plus on block cube', if he only had deck 2 or 3 I think he would be a lot weirder to get used to.

i feel like his "win condition" is very match up specific, but generally it feels like test case 3 is your end goal. more specifically, mana regen and auto import allow you to just suffocate your opponent and make them scramble, either in pressure or just in neutral with the power of "random bullshit, go!"

I feel like Asuka is only difficult because of the randomness and mana mismanagement. Outside of that, he's got good buttons and can do some absurd damage while being relatively safe

asuka is shadow wizard money gang until the backthrow incident

I decided to main him and yeah its just a new learning process. Theres just a lot to become familiar with but once i started building muscle memory it became easier and easier to get into flow states where i see a spell pop up mid combo and im working it in on reaction since his spells have a TON of time to connect into eachother. The hardest thing for me at tje moment is my brain gets the spell slots mixed up since the buttons are layed out physically different than the spell display on the screen. Also the pot matchup is fucking terrifying. If i cant figure out good counterplay after a bit longer im considering picking up a pocket axl to counterpick with. But yeah overall im loving his variety and the way you can get creative on the fly and how maleable his combo routes are when different spells come up. Incredibly satisfying to learn cuz at the skill floor you can make do with once test case and basic fish for knock down to refresh bookmarks and mana strat. but the skill celing goes so high that the more you get used to what works in very specific situations you start getting some really fun stuff like the jump cancel into screamer 808 wall bounce combo that is really fun to pull off when you see the right bookmarks pop up. Ive never played a character that makes me feel so aware of the litteral neural pathways being constructed in my brain cuz when i hit flow state and land a combo mid match that i just intuited would work cuz of my growing familiarity with the spells i feel like a fucking god dude. Asuka on his shadow money wizard gang shit.

I wouldn't say so but maybe I picked him up easier than I thought, he's not hard to execute well with, it's just the POSSIBILITY of what he can do with the plethora of stuff,he doesent NEED all the crazy stuff u can do, but the fact that it's possible makes him hard in that way. Great vid again LK

I would argue that each test case has its own game plan, and his whole kit has a lot of layers to it. He's obviously great at strike thrill with all the plus on block cubes and he gets mix off his safe jump from his throw. The first test case is the most striketh throw focused, the second has real mix, and the third is just a different type of mix. I agree he's open-ended, but in a UMvC3 can I convert off my hits into meaningful things kind of way.

thanks for this and the previous vid Asuka. Climbed to floor 5 (although I just got knocked back down trying new stuff lol). Such a fun character. I often play the most complex/chore-y characters if the reward is there. 3 questions: 1. When is a good time to switch to test case 2 or 3? I'm sure it's matchup dependent to a certain extent, but not sure how much. 2. Are there good block strings without spells that are worth learning, especially any with lows and highs? 3. What would be a good follow up to CS 2H 5K 5D > red rc? I've just been doing j.S j.HS > any metron, but that only seems good if I get the splat. This is the combo I do if I don't think I can do the longer one you suggested in your first vid (too far, scared to drop, etc.)

You pretty much have to think on your feet with this character. After using a spell, you need to already know what follow-up you'll be using after being plus on block/after a knockdown(back). Low on MP? Recover MP. High on MP? Pull up or throw more spells to catch mashing. It's easy to memorize the offensive spells, it's the support spells that do things like manipulate projectiles or manipulate your meter that are going to be a bit more tricky to memorize and use effectively. My biggest worry is using meter for the spell replacement super and memorizing exactly how many combinations of P/K/S/H you need in order to get the set of spells that you presonally think will push the match in your favor. I get you on him not having a clear win condition. The mix-up deck seems like a good idea but his mix-up isn't anywhere near as threatening as to what the real mix--up characters like Brisket, Baiken, Millia, Zato, Chipp, Leo, I-No, etc. can do. It's going to be an uphill battle for the Asuka mains. I'll cut my losses and just stick to grinding Brisket.

I've had this really weird situation where I feel like I know what I want to do in the middle of games, but the way cancels work its a little difficult to cancel from like Howling Metron for example. But that's an execution issue on my part. If you were to ask me how this character goes, I would say TC1 is for neutral, but once you're on pressure with kara cubes and TK screamer pressure, you switch to TC2 and start drawing into some gross mixup. If you get the hit before then, then supering, then canceling into TC3 at the last possible frame before wall break and then using positive bonus to super into the exodia hand for your TC3 payload is going to be very strong. Basically what I'm saying is that this character is going to be the weakest at roundstart but once you get a little pressure or distance, then you can change TC's on the fly. Between it, his massive meter gain rate, solid supers, and sheer flexibility, plus a little understanding of sequencing and deck draw RNG, Asuka is going to be a monster in my opinion But yes its a lot of mental and physical stack. I'm learning hitbox with this character so its two levels of physical stack, but I think I'm pretty well adjusted to the mental. Doesn't hurt I was studying his footage before he came out shoutouts to my Shadow Wizard Money Gang on the Asuka Discord

I already have seen a strong one playing him. So I wouldn't be surprised if we saw some really good stuff in the future if they stick to Asuka. I can't wait!

I think if he wouldn't have these shortcuts on his bookmark & mana recovery he'd prob be one of the hardest execution wise. I still think he's fairly hard execution wise but not the hardest. I think the situational awareness of the spells & which test case to use in what situation & matchup is what's gnna be the most difficult to play him.

the worry is that people will find the win condition(s) but it would require some elaborate set up that will be hard to do in a match and he just gets rolled over once people know what he's going for. I'm cautiously optimistic though

My current understanding of the character is that you gotta first play neutral with normals, minimizing the amount of resource spend and mental overhead, then use cubes to get plus frames after buttons like 2h and 5h and use those frames to fish for a good combination of cards that allow you to play a favorable rps. And I think that setups with rods will be a Huge part of it.

Lord knight with a beard is something else, damn.

Haven’t watched you in awhile, ngl I thought you were a guest doing the intro.

This character is pretty neat, but I find that I struggle at playing the midrange game. And I get really confused since my buttons are almost aligned with the spells, but hs and k are switched, and it constantly throws me off. Part of me wants to keep trying, but the other part wants to go back to anji

I think he has the potential to be the mist complex character in the game. The mana management and hand/deck awareness has a lot of depth. The interqctions between spellls and the options they give you makes it so you could choose to keep some carda in your hand from some decks and mix and match them. Problem is, it is likely that the most efficient way to play him ends up not having you take advantage of this depth, but stick to simple yet effective strategies. Cubes being so plus is already a huge sign that this might happen.

I don't wanna talk about that gold burst

Woah LK with a beard looks so much more real, nice man

thank you for the end bit about picking up HC. People super underrate his barrier to execution when they hate him and don't realize the good HCs are actually just sick nasty at this point. He's just the one of the most enabling character if you do have the execution though.

I think part of his win condition is to change testcase 1 to 2 or 3 where he has stronger spells. I mean, look at the card "Chaotic Option" (Bookmarks a powerful random spell) and list of spells that card gives, only 2 spells from this "powerful" list in testcase 1: low (x1) and overhead (x1). I looking at this as a hint from devs (i know this is a stretch). Like with multiple resources he has, what i should give priority? Well ofc this is mana, because without mana you die. If he didn't have manashield, it wouldn't be so obvious. And in testcase 1 he have Bookmark (Full Import), this card makes it much easier to change testcases.

Against rank 80 Asuka this past weekend. I lost to some pretty skilled players on the 9th and 10th floor, got knocked all the way down to the 7th, only to fight That Man for hours to get back up the tower. Asuka vs Baiken I feel is a pretty even match up.

one win condition, if i may be so brazen, could be the, lets call them 'exodias' of his deck. He has a few cards that are just insanely powerful like mana regen (continuous) and auto import Ive heard people say the staves are insanely good too but I feel like theyre far more situational than the insane versatility of mana regen on a character that uses mana for defense and offense

The beard is fire LK

The bearded LK arc is gonna be a movie

Asuka's 'win condition' is just keep a healthy supply of mana in stock! 😂

Love your break of this character….he’s a handful for sure…lol!

Definitely not. He may have a lot of tools, but that doesn't mean he's the hardest, or even hard in the first place (Nine The Phantom lol), on top of him not exactly being an execution monster, I don't think he ever could be, unless you get overwhelmed but the TOTAL amount of stuff he has and don't view him as 3 slightly different grooves of a character that you switch between based on matchup and opportunity

EXODIA is Auto Book->Auto Mana->Fire Cubes(5)->Portal Cubes->Gravity Staff->ANYTHING It's preferred to use Fire Cubes->Bookmark->EXODIA as Fire Cubes will give plus frames to cover Auto Book and Auto Mana's slightly longer start up frames. LET'S GET EM TEST CASE 3 BOYZ WE UP

Yo I love the beard!

that beard looking spectacular LK

Really nice analysis :) One question/clarification: you say "high skill floor" in the video, but I think the argument you're making is that he has a *low* skill floor, right? A high ceiling means lots of room to improve, a high floor means that even for a scrub like me, the character is just baseline really good. Another way to put it; you can have a wide skill range on a character via either a high ceiling, or a low floor, or both

Y’all ever try zato?

Tbh if I have empty space on any of my spells, and I have bookmark full import, i usually just use that

I don't know if it's just me but they should make him more like Ramlethal. Just punches, kicks, and spells, no melee weapons. And maybe slow his 2D a bit. His close-up game is kind of op for a spell casting zoner.

It will be the funniest thing if Asuka's most stable gameplan ends up being 5K or cS into dash kara cube into plus frames and strike-throw. Occasionally some Arpeggio into teleport crossup.

keep the beard fam. groom n grow it out - when you get the refill all spells spell, change test case or do bookmark super if you got full mana so you can fire off a ton of spells back to back - when you're around 40% meter, might just be good to fire all spells & do super since youll get enough soon. changing test case as well might be a thing before it - seems like charge should be something you do any & every moment.

My main problem with him right now is his combo structure. It's feels like you're always out of reach to do stuff, you're trying to keep away but his best confirms have to be done point blank and everything you do sends them flying across the screen and nothing vacuums. I wanted to be able to confirm stray hits way more easily and have to move way less, in a game where movement is sluggish and heavily neutered.

7:05 I would argue Faust is still like this. Faust in neutral is pretty straight forward but adapting to items mid combo is pretty free-form. You can have a few items out on the field, get a hit and just try shit and it will convert into cool combos. Also isn't that the Potemkin that threatened Kizzie on stream a week or so ago?

definitely above my pay grade, but I can't wait to see whatever crazy shizz people can come up with in actual matches

Definitely a difficult character; but not for his inputs, it's for the amount of awareness, knowledge, and improvisation the character requires. He has a lot of fast cancels but it's all 236, 214, or 22, and they get easier with the 2X/4X/6X cancels from 236 or 214. IMO it's far more difficult to remember what all of the spells are, which deck(s) they're in, which spells can go well together, remembering to always keep up your mana, and changing your routing based on what spells you have or if you need to bookmark more spells or recover mana. I also feel like it's hard to pinpoint what his main goal is because he has multiple styles you can play with him depending on who you're fighting; he can play like a zoner against people that have issues with his projectiles in neutral, he can play like a close ranged pressure character with how many plus frames and guard crushes he gets with his spells, or he could possibly play like a super unorthodox mixup character once people lab different spell combinations on block or during a reset setup (mainly thinking about potential setups revolving around "Go To Marker" / "Metron Arpeggio" / "Bit Shift/Delayed Tardus/Terra/Accipiter Metron" / any of the staves) I feel like the best Asuka players are going to be the people that are easily able to remember which decks contain what spells, are able to always be aware of how much mana they have and what spells they have, and are able to come up with different gameplans on the fly based on what spells they have at the moment and what character they're fighting.

We love casting spells, except for when we don't, then we love big buttons

I think hes a lot easier than ppl think purely because of one factor. He doesnt have any bad spells. If you look at a similar spell/randomness character like hero from smash or faust, their learning curve is heightened by the fact that some spells being able to be used against you or just straight up detrimental forces you to be way more aware of what you have and yhe ramifications. Every cube spell is a projectile that is very plus on block. Every mana card and bookmark card is universally helpful. If every once in a while you had to cycle out cards cus they might get you killed if you use them would make him vastly harder than he currently is

W commentary

I feel like people insisting that he is not hard when even you're being quite humble about the difficulties encountered picking up the character is a bit of a cope. To succeed as this character you need to know your matchups more than most characters do. You have to know when you can squeeze in mana recovery or a test case switch or mill some cards. The fact that his spells start scaling so hard as you continue to combo them also means that there isn't really a moment that you can go fully offensive and burn all your mana for a big payoff. There are some scenarios where he can go for big damage but a lot of his best combos start off of his c.S which is slower than a lot of characters' normals that they might check you with. And as you've put it, yeah, there's not really a clear win condition a lot of the time. Sure, mana regen is phenomenal and so is auto-draw, but it's still on you to take advantage of those buffs and turn it into a win, because they're not gonna be there forever and a good opponent will see that you are positioned to start popping off.

It still feels weird to see you with a beard

The thing I’ve figured out about asuka is that he truly doesn’t have 1 game plan or win condition. He has specific spells or combinations of spells that can be win conditions, but they are either flawed somehow or very hard to aquire. I think the best asuka is gonna be someone who can react to their given cards and create a more reactionary win condition that changes over the match.

I think the exodia cards is even better with the mana reduction from deck 1

From what I gather playing Asuka, Asuka wants to setup the broken cards from full moon deck and go ham. When I have meter, set up the slower projectiles for 50/50s

the corner is not where I want to be, it's demoralizing when there's only 25% mana left

As a plebian, I feel like Asuka is hard, but probably not as hard as Zato. Certainly, I was doing waaaaaaaaaaay better with him than I ever did when I had a go with Zato or Jack-O. I'm generally terrible with characters with extra meters (I can barely managed Tension and Health as it stands, plenty of times I've died because I failed to notice my Health is low or didn't RC for ages with 2 bars) but in the case of Asuka even with no spells loaded, if he has mana he can be pretty threating due to the strength of his shield in conjunction with his solid normals (Catching people with his 6K is pretty fun and the 2D is pretty great 🙂). I feel like when you're learning Asuka you can achieve stuff on the fly as much more easily than with Zato. So yeah, definitely a hard character but probably not as galaxy brain as some are saying.

As a gio player, me not being able to drill through the cubes is horse shit

After playing him for a while, he's harder than he looks. The baseline awareness you need during match, especially while dealing with oppressive offense or scramble, is absurdly high. Of course if you draw a good hand you can brain dead for a bit, but that's not a stable condition you can always access.

“eSports damage” 😂😂

The comment section here kinda makes me want to come back to the game and try him. This is the only character this season that I found interesting but the talks about his execution scared me. Jack O and Happy Chaos were torture on my hands. But! Folk here say he's not as bad them, so... maybe...

I think calling a character "hard" needs stipulations lmao. Like Faust is easy as fuck--- to do some really REALLY basic stuff on. An idiot like me with -5 execution can pull of some pretty cool shit. Now on a meta "What is my win condition?" is a bit more difficult. There's no clear moment to go for Snip into afro setplay until you've played Faust and know how to cultivate the necessary fears. It's sometimes tough to recognize when to throw items. It's tough to know which opportunities each items give you. But all of his combos and 90% of the theory behind them are stupid simple. Like I'd argue Baiken is a good example of a hard but easy character. She has a certain execution requirement to do the stuff which unlocks her potential. But her general gameplan is super easy. If I had to suggest the areas of "ease of use": - execution How hard is it to press buttons to do the cool shit - character experience How much time needs to be spent with the character to know what cool shit you can/should do - matchup experience How much knowledge of other characters do you need to do your cool shit - fighting game experience How much does just knowing how to play fighting games is needed for this character

I appreciate the Xenoblade 3 music.

Is he the hardest? Probably not. Is he the most complicated? I can't think of a more complicated character. Like you said, the skill floor is very high. We'll see where the skill ceiling ends up. Asuka's 2P does look pretty strong, the frame data is nice and the hitbox is good. I play I-No and i'd take his 2P over her 2P or 5P.

Bro (°3°)/) here's my take and it's quite simple he is like dante from dmc5. He isn't hard he just has a giant high ceiling of possibility and optimization. Tho he can play without crazy stuff.

LK with the beard tho

Based on my experience ( im not a pro) fighting him in celestiall im gonna say no. I have seen people straight up out neutral and lock down myself and others in replays. I think people have a very good idea. Of what he is supposed to be doing. Itll take time before we see any busted asuka tech due to rng carf based system. Overally i dont think he is harder then zato or plus r ino

People really forgot about arakune

YOU HAVE A BEARD 😳😳

The hardest character is the character I play

Personally i think all the DLC characters except Happy Chaos have been really weak. Asuka is touch once and do fat damage carrying your opponent all the way to the wall and even wall break, or be touch and now im panicking cause i have to manage my cards/mana/and try not to be mixed up.

Good question. Ever heard of Melty Blood?

I don't understand why they wouldn't put the cheat sheet in his actual command list. Makes no sense.

Yeah he seems to have a high skill floor, but I don't think his skill ceiling is too terrible. As people get better with him, he offloads some of that complexity to his opponent.

LordStache

no but he's definitely up there certainly one of the hardest where all of his moves actually work

I’m just saying, learning this character would be a lot fucking easier if Strive just had frame data in the game. I don’t know why it’s so hard for games to just include it on launch. SF6 is based as fuck for their frame meter.

Actually, isn't his win condition [hit .5 tension, then] "summoning Exodia" 😂😂😂😂😂😂

The anwer to this is of course no. Asuka is pretty cool though.

Bro aged 8 years

Nope imma say it. LK looking real good 👍

Hell no.

Tbh I struggle way more with Jack-O and Happy Chaos execution wise. So, in my personal experience, no, he isn’t the hardest. Playing Asuka optimally will be the real challenge, but we haven’t reached that point yet. It is yet to be seen how hard he actually is when played the best way possible compared to other characters played at the same level.

me like xenoblade music 😊

I'd say he's on the hardest tier of characters, but not THE hardest. off the top of my head carl clover is still harder, asuka breaks your brain but carl breaks both your brain AND your fingers. strive makes him look impossible by comparison.

Why is it always sol players

Im gonna be honest, i think hes easier than Zato

I think Asuka is hard because he doesn't play Guilt Gear Strive very well. There's a LOT of broken rush down characters like May, Gio, and Chipp that can just run down Asuka with one opening and getting pinned down as Asuka is going to cost you a ton of mana from damage and chip and that's both your offense and defense potentially severely crippled. Not to mention his offense is incredibly unstable because of his incredible variety of spells and how resource intensive it is. You need the right card and the mana for it and unlike HC, he doesn't have easy ways to restore them. HC can end his combo with super on wallbreak to completely reload his gun and now he has positive bonus + a full clip. Or he can restore his concentration with meter. Asuka needs to get lucky with the right card pull to get mana back or else he's constantly sacrificing meter or health for mana and he needs to constantly restock his spells. His offense can be really dummy though but his neutral buttons aren't as good as like HC. It's too early to determine how strong he is but every else aside, I do think he's very fun.

I don't think any character is going to top KoF XV Angel anytime soon. He does seem to be a knowledge check machine though...

Zappa exists so no

He’s just hard based on the rest of the cast. Nothing he has takes that much execution. It’s just remembering what each spell does, reacting to each spell, then applying them accordingly. It’s a lot to focus on in a game like strive

Lmao no, not even close

kid named Tekken:

He’s very strange. I love playing him but he’s definitely an anomaly.

Just stop it. He's definitely not that hard, good grief. He's not even the hardest character in Strive, which is one of the easier fighting games out there.