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Kazuya's unique jumpsquat isn't going to be applied to other characters any more than his controls, zero hitlag, or lack of victory screen music.
This is a character with poor general mobility, attack speed, and range, who has an abundance of tools to answer specific options/situations that would normally turn those flaws into deal-breakers. We've never seen anything quite like it in Smash.
Not calling anyone here out (mostly just yelling at Reddit from a safe distance), but the fear about 10 Hits or comparisons to Mac are especailly cringe-inducing.
Kazuya has little in common with Mac, and at first glance seems far more like Terry than any other character.
One particular thing that jumped out at me was up-b being a kill move that doesn't put you in free fall. I had to go check--in the video it was frame 12. Whew!
Also, Heaven's Door is tentatively frame 14? Seems good, but Flying Slam this ain't.
WTH? That's absolutely terrible. Does this mean that the patch will have universal jumpsquat changes, or is this a new way to balance certain characters?
You aren’t really jumping in Tekken and it’s pretty clunky to jump in general so it’s likely to both make inputs easier especially for tap users and to emulate that part of Tekken
Frankly they did an amazing job in making him look like a tekken character in smash.
But yes his jumpsquat is frame 7 which is pretty bad. That’s going to mean adding 7 frames to any OOS or rising aerial and make him a lot less mobile getting around platforms.
Normally a death sentence in a platform fighter but Kazuya is blessed with his wavedash which grants intangiblity, can attack out of it, not attack out of it, dash back, etc. He’s going to thrive on microspacing and using movement to open his opponents up and avoid attacks. There is no denying a frame 7 jump squat sucks and in matchups he’s gotta shield more in he’s probably going to struggle but I don’t think it’s going to hurt him that bad, he’s been designed around not being a fighter that is airborne often.
This does beg the question of his OoS options, or lack of.
Grab seems f8 or so, aerials seem off the table, up-b looks like a kill move but f12, u-smash doesn't appear relevant.
Unless I'm missing something, Kazuya might have the worst OoS game in the roster. He'll have to depend instead on his amazing tools for defense instead, which is sort of the recurring trend.
This does beg the question of his OoS options, or lack of.
Grab seems f8 or so, aerials seem off the table, up-b looks like a kill move but f12, u-smash doesn't appear relevant.
Unless I'm missing something, Kazuya might have the worst OoS game in the roster. He'll have to depend instead on his amazing tools for defense instead, which is sort of the recurring trend.
That seems to fall in line with their balancing decisions. Do not let Kaz get started. Pressure him. If he makes you block or hits you then you die and you DESERVE to die.
Outside of riddles or some random japenase player i dont think we will ever see him.
when people watch these demonstrations they tend to forget how smash is played. kazuya fights a zss, steve, or pikachu seriously what is he gonna do? hope you run into a hitbox?
think he has more potential to be smash 4 shulk (with people posting theory after theory) than a real threat.
overall for me what it comes down to is how good the wave dash is and whether he can cancell it into itself. that move alone for me determines if he has a competitive future. its cool to have tekken here in smash but in terms of character fit its iffy tekken being repped by yoshimisu, king, or lars or even alisha would have led to a much smoother fit to smash.
not to mention the menace a soul caliber character like ivy, kilik, or nightmare would have been. LOL
I want him to be good as he fixes one of my issues with smash ult (basic/simple characters being top tier) but i really doubt he's gonna be worht the effort.
This does beg the question of his OoS options, or lack of.
Grab seems f8 or so, aerials seem off the table, up-b looks like a kill move but f12, u-smash doesn't appear relevant.
Unless I'm missing something, Kazuya might have the worst OoS game in the roster. He'll have to depend instead on his amazing tools for defense instead, which is sort of the recurring trend.
tekken is very much a game of turns. you dont just wake up with something invincible you have to block and use mobility to get out of pressure. Its one of the reasons the tekken player base was not to fond of a street fighter character being dropped into tekken 7 because they defy this norm. kaz having bad oos is a callback to that imo.
Outside of riddles or some random japenase player i dont think we will ever see him.
when people watch these demonstrations they tend to forget how smash is played. kazuya fights a zss, steve, or pikachu seriously what is he gonna do? hope you run into a hitbox?
think he has more potential to be smash 4 shulk (with people posting theory after theory) than a real threat.
overall for me what it comes down to is how good the wave dash is and whether he can cancell it into itself. that move alone for me determines if he has a competitive future. its cool to have tekken here in smash but in terms of character fit its iffy tekken being repped by yoshimisu, king, or lars or even alisha would have led to a much smoother fit to smash.
not to mention the menace a soul caliber character like ivy, kilik, or nightmare would have been. LOL
I want him to be good as he fixes one of my issues with smash ult (basic/simple characters being top tier) but i really doubt he's gonna be worht the effort.
tekken is very much a game of turns. you dont just wake up with something invincible you have to block and use mobility to get out of pressure. Its one of the reasons the tekken player base was not to fond of a street fighter character being dropped into tekken 7 because they defy this norm. kaz having bad oos is a callback to that imo.
For the record I DO think Kazuya has enough sauce to be top tier just because it seems like he has the tools to fight disengagement. He is not a zoner, but he has just enough to force a zoner out of their comfort zone.
Put it to you like this.
I think Kaz has way more potential than Ryu, Ken and Terry combined.
There's no shield in Tekken so he's going to rely heavily on position and reads and punishes which is very much in line with the Mishima style. I wish more pros were also Tekken players. But I understand him a niche character.
As Greninja, who has weak OoS options, I often find myself using his fast jab for one. It's not the greatest, and you have to pay plenty of attention to what move was used against you (you're only going to jab if they're landing in front of you, otherwise just wait or maybe drop shield and dash back) but it is serviceable. So perhaps jab/10-hit-combo will be similarly fast and decently ranged to work as a situational OoS.
Even if that is the case, though, Kazuya will still have poor OoS overall. His disadvantage is also probably going to be rough, lacking things such as Focus or Revenge that are a big help to similar characters (who still have rough disadvantage even with those). We already know his jump doesn't go high, and he'll probably have poor air stats, making things even more difficult for him. I can't imagine his recovery will be very good, either. A side B that covers a kinda short distance, and an up B that goes high vertically, both of which you can act out of, reminds me of Incineroar, who has the same. And Incin's recovery, while better than a handful of characters, is still among the weakest. Even if Kazuya's is a step up, it'll probably still be kinda bad, especially in conjunction with poor air stats.
If the frame 7 jumpsquat thing is here to stay and isn't just something they were tinkering with during development... OOF! That's going to be a huge Achilles heel for him, and the people worried that he'll be overpowered likely haven't seen that yet/don't know how detrimental a poor jumpsquat is to a character in Smash. It's so detrimental, that he could be completely broken, and the poor jumpsquat would probably be enough to keep him out of top tier. If you want to experience how bad a slow jumpsquat is, boot up Melee, pick Bowser, and play against a level 9 CPU of a fast character such as Captain Falcon, Fox, Falco, or even Pikachu, and try to do things. You will find that, even against CPUs, it is difficult to accomplish much and your attempts at using aerials get stuffed out more often than not, because your slow ass takes ages to leave the ground. Kazuya's jumpsquat will only be one frame faster than that, in a game where aerials are king.
If I had to make an early prediction on Kazuya, I think he'll be upper high tier, though he might have enough strengths to make it into the low end of top tier. I am doubting that he'll be upper top tier, let alone broken. And of course, this is all going by pre-release stuff, so we won't really know whether his strengths outweigh his weaknesses or vice versa until we've actually spent a while with him. The only other thing we know right now is his weight will be a strength, meaning it'll take a while before your attacks launch him far and allow him to make comebacks. It'll probably be in the 106-108 range, which is also where Terry is.
He will not be bad. That is literally impossible based on his insane tool kit.
I think what is really striking is how much was needed to make him competitive.
Smash is a REALLY broken series. You have all these characters with tons of mobility, free disadvantage states, easy mode neutral, crazy confirms, super good recovery, safe pokes that leads to really hard to deal with situations, big combos off spammable buttons and more.
Just for Kazuya to be able to compete he needs all of these even crazier tools because his frame data is not up to snuff.
I think it speaks on just how used to the community is to the extremely high power levels of this series in general.
That even with all these tools we know Kazuya will still need to really prove he has the sauce to be considered top tier.
Spargo's won Get On My Line 2021 (online) and I'm pretty sure, since their release, they have better online results than any other character. Just saying.
Kazuya has far too much going for him to be a bad character. Reflector, laser, crouch dash, super armor... they gave him everything and the kitchen sink. Still it's hard to say exactly how good he'll be without seeing his frame data and mobility first hand.
Tekken Rage is gonna be powerful without a doubt, but tying Kazuya's Rage Drive makes for an interesting dilemma.
Unlike Little Mac, who really only uses his Neutral B normally to fake people out, GRAB is a pretty important utility move for every character. Normally, if you whiff a grab, you might get hit for it, but you don't get punished actively for it. Here, though, you're literally burning through your opportunity to make a comeback. The result is that Kazuya players might get hesitant about going for grabs—not only for fear of burning it, but because it also means not using the superior command input version.
The way Tekken Rage works also means Kazuya joins a select few characters in Smash with a finite resource. That is, an ability or attack that cannot be replenished without losing a stock. That's Ice Climbers (Nana), Banjo & Kazooie (Wonderwing), Sephiroth (OWA), and now Kazuya.
Re: Protobanham's win, I have never seen any Lucina or Marth land THAT many Shield Breakers. There's something about Proto that makes him really good and getting people to shield at the worst times.
As I expected, considering the number of moves and mechanics in place, quite a bit of things went differently from my predictions. who in the world is going to predict that Demon's Wrath was going to be his side taunt lol
I, and a lot of people thought this character was going to have a dedicated punch and kick button.
Turns out that is incorrect. He does indeed have a normal special moveset, and most of his command inputs are tied behind simply putting a position in the control stick to 8 different directions. Thankfully, there is only one stick motion you should worry about, being the DP input.
I feel that those who don't dedicate themselves to the character, or simply those who play tap jump (like myself) are going to find playing this character difficult. It seems incredibly easy to misinput and get a different move than you want.
I was correct on how Devil Kazuya is going to work, simply being a cosmetic thing attached to his Smash attacks and up throw. It also is attached to his special moves as well.
How Rage works is quite simple. How Rage Drive activates (I incorrectly dubbed it as Rage Art in my predictions, which is not in the game interestingly), is something no one is able to predict, and I am happy to see it come with more routes.
Anyways, since there is still a lot of moves to take in, I compiled all the moves in this one post, in an easy to follow manner for future reference.
Ground Jump: As expected, Kazuya does have a notable weakness when it comes to jumps. His grounded jump is quite poor, in a similar vein to Steve. This can make dealing with platform camping quite awkward for Kazuya to deal with.
Midair Jump: Using the devil transformation, Kazuya travels a very long distance upwards. His double jump seems to travel longer than the average character. Works well in tandem with his up special.
1v1 Turnaround: As expected, Kazuya does indeed have the 1v1 turnaround mechanic. However, it seems to benefit him far more than I expected. This namely comes with have to deal with moves that require a back input for them to come out. It also can allow him to jump back, fire Devil Blaster while facing the opponent. Without this mechanic, the character becomes an even bigger pain to play than he already seems to be.
Rage: Rage activates at 100%, similar to Terry's Go mechanic. It gives him a 1.1x multiplier. As a reference, Ultimate's universal rage mechanic caps at 150% with a 1.1x multiplier, so Kazuya is able to reach this multiplier earlier. Unfortunately, Kazuya will lose Rage if he takes enough damage, adding another limiter to this mechanic. Info on Rage Drive will be listed in the special move section.
Universal Armor: Kazuya seems to have a weakened version of Bowser's Tough Guy mechanic. Since Kazuya's poor frame data will oftentimes get him hit a lot, being able to armor weak hits at low percents is nice safeguard.
Weight: Kazuya is a heavyweight character, heavier than Ryu. The Shotos are tied for the 26th-27th heaviest character in the game with a weight unit of 103. After some testing, I noticed that Ryu dropped down faster on the Mushroom Kingdom platform with Kazuya than with Terry. It is possible that Kazuya might be even heavier than Terry's already very high weight of 108 (tied for the 9th-12th heaviest character), which is making him approach superheavy territory.
Jumpsquat: Kazuya has a frame 7 jumpsquat. Probably done for the sake of making command inputs easier (and I heard that this is also close to how it went in Tekken as well), but this is still pretty bad. A frame 7 jumpsquat in a game where everyone has frame 3 jumpsquat is hilariously sluggish relative to the rest of the cast. His aerials aren't out of this world-ending fast in startup either.
10-Hit Combo: Turns out, this move is his entire jab combo. No special motion or alternating between different buttons. Just press A 10 times or hold the A button. A powerful move when it works. However, it leaves Kazuya very vulnerable while performing it. Despite the last hit being unblockable, the entire move has such a long duration that it may not matter too much. It also seems to have difficulty connecting against airborne opponents. This move unfortunately appears to be frame 6 startup, so among the slowest jabs in the game.
Flash Punch Combo: Also his jab combo, but you have to delay jab 2 and jab 3. Seems to be a more reliable jab finisher in my opinion. It slightly hurts 10-Hit Combo's mixup potential since you cannot delay jab 2 and jab 3 or else Flash Punch Combo comes out, although this is a rather niche scenario.
Leaping Sidekick: His dash attack. This dash attack honestly seems pretty mediocre in my opinion. The startup on this move is VERY slow. Endlag doesn't seem to be too bad, but the absurdly slow startup doesn't seem like this move is very worth it. Sakurai did note of this move having good power, but how much is yet to be determined. The move can jump under very low buttons, but I am not sure how reliable that is.
Left Splits Kick: Performed by forward -> forward + A. Seems to be able to combo. Also has the Min Min up smash properties of reflecting projectiles, but it seems very hard to borderline impossible to perform this move on reaction to a projectile. As such, the reflector bonus of this move doesn't seem to be nearly as reliable as Min Min's up smash already situational utility on that regard.
Oni Front Kick: Performed by forward + A, essentially forward tilt. A kick that sends opponents in a semi-spike esque angle. Something to note is that this move seems to have slightly less range and is slower than Ganondorf's forward tilt, a frame 10 startup move. This is honestly a very unfortunate thing for this move.
Tsunami Kick: Performed by down forward + A -> A (while standing). This is a two-part move where you can manually choose if you want the second kick. The second kick launches opponents and does extra damage to shields. However, the first kick can be combo'd into his other moves, in my opinion making it the more useful option.
Nejiri Uraken: Performed by down + A (while standing), essentially a down tilt. Sluggish startup, but Kazuya steps forward, giving it extra reach. It also has brief invincibility just before the move happens, especially just when steps forward and crouches. This move is a combo starter.
Stature Smash: Performed by down back + A (while standing). Trips opponents on hit leading to a followup. A theme is that all of Kazuya's downward moves while standing act as combo starters, as such they are important for his gameplan.
Flash Tornado: Performed by back + A. Possesses some pretty good reach. Also can be used in combos. However, being a back input, this move seems like a source of getting misinputs so be careful of that.
Jump Side Kick: Performed by up back + A. A good tool for instant grounded retreats, especially given that his legs are intangible. The range also seems respectable. For tap jump users, it seems easy to misinput this move and get jump -> back air by accident.
Twin Pistons: Performed by up + A -> A, essentially an up tilt. Similar to Tsunami Kick, it is move where you manually choose if you want the second part of the move. A bit sluggish, but it seems to be a decent anti-air considering that it seems that all of his moves will have at least a little disjoint. Also similar to Tsunami Kick, the first punch can be combo'd into his other moves. However, the first punch seems to have much less range than the second punch, so use with caution.
Roundhouse to Triple Spin Kicks: Performed by up forward + A (x4). A four hit move that can be stopped at any part of the move, although it seems very punishable regardless. Used as a combo finisher.
Tombstone Crusher: Performed by down forward + A (while crouching). It is a move with sluggish startup, but it is invincible for a long part of the move, as well as it low profiles. It also possesses some pretty good KO power. Solid, albeit predictable move since he needs to be crouching in order to perform it.
Crouch Jab: Performed by down + A (while crouching), also essentially a down tilt. Since the down input is also the input for crouching, this move is much easier to perform and much more like a down tilt than Nejiri Uraken is. Seems to be one of Kazuya's fastest normals (although it appears to be about frame 7 so still not too great). Not as spammable as say Ness' down tilt, but it does combo, so it is still a good tool to use.
Crouch Spin Kick: Performed by down back + A (while crouching). A simple sweep kick. It has a longer hitbox duration than Crouch Jab and has disgusting disjoint. Doesn't seem to combo and seems slightly slower, so both moves have a purpose.
Demon God Fist: Performed by pressing A as he rises from his crouch to his stand (also known as "while rising"). This move crumples the opponent, leading to an easy confirm into what he wants. Slow, like pretty much all of Kazuya's moves, but he does lunge forward doing it giving it extra reach. The move is limited by its somewhat restrictive and tight command, but it is very effective on hit.
Crouch Dash: Inputted via a normal DP motion (forward -> down -> down forward). While this is the Mishima crouch dash, it uses the simpler motion of the standard crouch dash. Good tool to close the gap, especially since it has upper body invincibility. Important in order for Kazuya to execute his gameplan correctly.
Wind God Fist: Inputted via the DP motion + A (tap). An important tool, as it comes out of a crouch dash and starts up combos. Also possesses good range thanks to Kazuya moving himself forward. As such, it is by far Kazuya's best burst option and a fairly good one at that.
Electric Wind God Fist: Same input as Wind God Fist, but the down forward + A part is done simultaneously. Not as incredibly unforgiving to input as in the original games, but still precise. Stuns the opponents, offering different, but generally more rewarding combo routes. Likely to work better than normal WGF at higher percents. Outside of that, it is pretty much the same as standard Wind God Fist.
Dragon Uppercut: Inputted via the DP motion + A (hold). Significantly slower startup than WGF, but it is instead a burst KO option out of crouch dash. It is briefly invincible as well. Likely a combo finisher as well. Also tied with Rage Drive (as will be talked about later).
Spinning Demon to Left Hook: Inputted via the DP motion + B, his only command normal outside of Rage Drive that uses the B button. It is essentially the counterpart to RTSK, but low. It acts as a combo finisher. Decently fast, and has invincibility during the spinning part of the move, but it in general seems a bit awkward to use. He seems to have more rewarding combo enders.
Glorious Demon God Fist: His forward smash. Considerable startup, but has super armor (the strongest of the three Smash attacks) and very solid reach. Its sweetspot is at the fist, which has very strong knockback. The sourspot, point-blank, doesn't seem to be very rewarding.
Devil Twister: His up smash. By far his fastest Smash attack, and funnily enough, one of his faster moves (about frame 8). Has super armor, but not as effective as his forward smash armor. Seems to be his weakest Smash attack and has very narrow range. One of his only moves that can reach to the platform above him.
Lion Slayer: His down smash. If there is a move in Kazuya's arsenal that seems absurd, this is probably the closest we will get. With super armor, great shield damage, and a powerful spike that hits at ledge, this seems like the go-to move to abuse for especially lower level play. Can combo on-hit as well. Very slow at about frame 18 though.
In general his throws seem to deal a whole lot of knockback. His forward, back, and up throws seem to be potential KO throws. Up throw also shoots a projectile that bystanders can be hit by, similar to Fox/Falco up and back throws.
His down throw seems to be a combo starter at low percent. As a whole, while we have little info on the grab itself, his throws seems pretty potent.
Gates of Hell: Performed by down forward -> down -> down forward + grab. The first ever command normal involving a grab in the series. He lunges a bit more forward doing this grab, making it a bit easier to land than a normal grab. It sideswitches and is said to deal good damage. Outside of that, this move doesn't seem to be all that special, as it seems to lack significant KO potential, although it can set-up for that.
Jumping Knuckle: His neutral air. Pretty much the FGC down air on a neutral air. The spike itself doesn't seem to be as strong the FGC down airs, and the move itself doesn't seem to have much reach, but it can be clutch in those situations. It appears to be a frame 8 neutral air, not too great, but not horrible either.
Searing Edge: His forward air. A forward air with great reach, especially with its disjoint. Used well in-tandem with his low jump height.
Jumping Sobat: His back air, and seems to be the standard FGC back air, which is pretty solid.
Rising Toe Kick: His up air. A simple rising kick. Seems to lack any significant KO potential. Whether it can be special canceled remains to be seen.
Demon Scissors: His down air. It is a stall-then-fall down air that seems to work well in-tandem to his up special and double jump. Its hitbox seems to be impressive. While it still has the standard stall-then-fall down air weaknesses, this seems to be a nice tool on specifically Kazuya.
Devil Blaster: His neutral special. Fires a straight beam that can be angled up and down. Deals about 11% (at least without the 1v1 multiplier), which isn't super great, but it can snip KOs offstage. However, the projectile itself is pretty fast and covers nearly fullscreen. As such, this is a pretty good tool from a distance, especially for edgeguards, although it is restricted from three specific points. Up-close, it isn't that good, mainly due to its sluggish startup and endlag. The normal version has trouble hitting even mid-sized opponent, and even when angled downwards, it appears to have large blindspot directly below him. Aerial version goes directly downward, also another pretty good tool at a distance, as well as it briefly stalling him midair.
Devil Fist: His side special. A punching lunge attack. It pretty much has 0-reward on hit on both faraway opponents and aerial opponents. In point-blank range, it crumples the opponent, leading to an easy confirm. It doesn't cross up on shield and has high endlag, making this move death-on-block. It can be used as a short distanced recovery tool.
Devil Wings: His up special, in my opinion one of his most important moves. A seemingly simple move that travels him upwards that can be guided left or right. It also slightly stalls in the air. It is a move that doesn't put him in freefall, which combined with his long double jump, gives him very good vertical recovery distance. You can do Devil Fist -> Devil Wings, but you cannot do Devil Wings -> Devil Fist. Has a traveling hitbox that is strong on startup, which can act as a strong combo ender. It doesn't start until frame 10+ (I count frame 12), so it is not a good OoS option.
Heaven's Door: His down special. Very similar to Bowser's Flying Slam. The main difference is the startup, as it starts up much later than Bowser's side B (frame 14 vs frame 6), but it has super armor. Can be combo finisher.
Rage Drive: A one-use, powerful special move that he can only use in the Rage state. It, however, removes his Rage state on hit. Careful when using the below methods, as they whiffs a few times, he will lose the Rage state. Has three methods of activation:
Grab: Very simple. Has limited reach in comparison to the other options. Also the easiest to have the Rage state end-by-whiff. Makes the opponent be afraid of shielding.
Heaven's Door: Simply performing down special. This also boosts the range of the base move as well. The slowest of the three methods, as Heaven's Door is a slow command grab.
Dragon Uppercut: Performing DP + A (hold), but it also works with the B button as well, as long as you hold the button. As such, this method must be done out of a crouch dash. However, doing the Rage Drive via this method will boost the power of the move, rewarding doing the harder route.
Demon's Wrath: Such a scary, powerful sounding move right? Well... it is his side taunt. It can do stuff, but pretty much all of his other combo enders are far more rewarding than this move. A novelty move as a result.
As a whole, Kazuya's moveset is rather strange and diverse for Smash standards. While he has moves that seem absurd on the surface, when you see things up close, they seem to be simply good, at least individually.
While Kazuya is coming out tomorrow, and stuff like mobility specs is still unknown, I think we can make an inference on the kind of strengths and weaknesses he has, cause oh boy he is quite a polarizing character.
Combos/Damage: While he doesn't have super long combos, the damage this character can dish out is ridiculous. In a few touches, he can get you to very high percents. He also in general has good burst combo ability, namely with WGF, and there are a lot of moves in his arsenal that can start out combos. This is further boosted by him getting the maximum Rage multiplier earlier than any other character, as long as the state is up.
KO Power/KO Confirms: A lot of these combo starters also can confirm into KOs. His overall KO power is amazing, as he can combo into his finishers and have raw (but slow) finishers themselves. He also in general has a lot of KO options, that KOs at ridiculous percents. This gets boosted further in Rage state, getting access to the powerful (albeit limited) Rage Drive.
Shield Pressure / Safety: When Kazuya gets up close and the character is left vulnerable, then that is where the game behind. Kazuya possesses a few moves that deals some pretty good shield damage, with Tsunami Kick being the most notable as his fastest shield breaker option (although it cannot break shields at full). As such, when you are shielding, there are scenarios where you can regret it. His throws are also pretty good, adding another layer to this.
Whiff Punishing / Approach: This is by far the thing the character is best at. With seemingly decent ground mobility and the crouch dash, this is the FGC rep that focuses on whiff punishing than anything. While I think the crouch dash is a bit more limited than some people think, it is nevertheless a great microspace option in a pinch that can lead to a few of his best moves. Wind God Fist (WGF) is his most notable, as it combos reliably and it isn't absurdly slow like Dragon Uppercut is. SDLH is likely his least rewarding, but safest option of the three DP motion moves, and one of his safer moves due to the invincibility. He also likes the super armor and limb invincibility on some of his moves, making these otherwise risky approach options.
Survivability: With weight potentially even heavier than Terry, a long double jump, and an up B that covers good distance with a traveling hitbox, Kazuya seems to have great survivability all-around. His air mobility is something rather to be determined, but in general, the character can live into very high percents.
Overall Reward: Once this character touches you, he will make sure you feel it. The reward the character brings to the table is borderline absurd, and he will live long to see the day. Especially given the below weaknesses, a successful Kazuya player must utilize his immense reward on hit to the absolute next degree, and must know the opponent's habits and playstyle very well in order to successfully do so. You must know when you should fire Devil Blasters from a distance, then choose to close in.
Frame Data: The big one. His frame data is frankly awful. At first, I thought it was simply mediocre, but the more I analyze it, it is honestly pretty bad. While his endlag frame data doesn't seem to be too bad overall, some of his key moves like Wind God Fist seem to have a lot of endlag in places. But what really sucks is the startup. His fastest grounded normal is jab, at frame 6, which is very slow for especially a character of his archetype. The rest of his moves are even slower, with a lot of even his basic buttons being 10+ frame of startup. His smash attacks outside of up smash (which doesn't have much reach or power) are among the slowest in the game. His aerials aren't too much better, cause of outside of his frame 4 up air, the rest of his aerials are 8+ frames of startup. Kazuya may have the slowest overall startup frames out of any moveset in the entire game. This issue is further exacerbated by another unfortunate, unique weakness given to him.
Reach: While he does possess some alright reach in a few of his moves, as well as some deceptive disjointed reach in almost his entire moveset, his moves as a whole doesn't really have a lot of range collectively. We have seen poor mobility + reach before (with Dr. Mario & Steve), but we have never seen poor frame data + reach before in Ultimate. It sounds like an ugly combination, but at least Kazuya has some good ground mobility.
Awkwardness: But that kinda leads to this: the way this character functions is very awkward in the grand scheme of things. With his poor frame data and eh reach at best, the character seems like he has to rely on the opponent making reckless approaches/mistakes to get a hit reliably in. While he has super armor/limb invincibility on some of his moves, utilizing these moves outside of a combo typically requires you to be prediction reliant. Being both mistake and prediction reliant are not very desirable when it comes to any character's viability. At the very least, he will make you yell in absolute pain when you do make one. While he has some good ways of closing the gap once he gets close, he needs to chose his buttons carefully, especially depending on who he is fighting against. It also hurts that some of his tools are locked away behind some awkward conditions, such as the "while crouching" requirement and the need to dash twice in order to do LSK (which pretty much makes this move's reflector properties gimmicky at best). While crouch dash has invincibility, it is only upper body, which means larger projectiles (or ones that can reach lower down like PK Fire) or any low-profile/arcing hitboxes can simply smack Kazuya out of a crouch dash. Devil Blaster is a nice tool for long-range, but the projectile doesn't seem very rewarding outside of offstage scenarios, is limited to three angles, a bit on the slow side in startup (which makes counter-camping not too good with it), and most importantly, have glaring blindspot issues (especially standard version).
Out Of Shield: He possesses a unique weakness no other character has: a frame 7 jumpsquat. While this is bad thing to have, it is exceptionally bad in a game where pretty much everyone else has a 3 frame jumpsquat. Combined with his poor frame data and the fact that his up B is frame 12, Kazuya may have the worst OoS in the entire game. This especially hurts in a game where a lot of upper tiered character are simply going to throw safe buttons on your face willy-nilly, Kazuya can't do anything about it.
Air Approaches: This frame 7 jumpsquat, combined with alright at best frame data for his aerials, his aerial approach is very lacking. He is, as we expect, a ground-based (or at least a ground-focused) fighter. However, he in general has a tricky time dealing with characters above him, especially in platforms. He possesses a low first jump and a lot of his moves doesn't really reach the platform above him when he is grounded. He does possess a long second jump, but having a low first jump, then a long second jump just adds another layer of awkwardness to the character.
As such, Kazuya is a character of the absolute extremes.
Summary (from my view anyways)
He is a character that specializes on whiff punishing, and has a high focus on capitalizing on opponent's mistakes and punish them for it. When he touches you however, he will make you hurt so hard, harder than almost any other character in the game.
At the same time, he possesses some very undesirable traits of a classic low, even bottom tier character, with his awful frame data, lackluster air game,
In general, he possesses weaknesses not even actual low tiers in Ultimate even possesses.
He is such a wild character, that is it hard to make an accurate prediction.
However, I am personally feeling very lukewarm about the character. While his touch of immense pain aspect is very inviting, and borderline absurd on the surface, I am not sure if his moveset is good enough to warrant such awful weaknesses. His reflector is extremely gimmicky, as it is very hard to borderline impossible perform the move on reaction to a projectile. Laser is a solid tool, but it in itself has its own heap of issues (which I described above). He does have a Tough Guy mechanic, but it is described as weaker than Bowser's. If it is like SSB4 Bowser's Tough Guy, then it isn't going to make a significant impact outside of very niche scenarios.
In the end, I think it comes to how crouch dash will perform. However, given that crouch dash is a set distance move, and that it is only upper body invincible, I am not sure if this move will be as flexible as some people will say.
That being said, I don't think it is possible for a character with such absurdly awful frame data to even come close to top tier. He could end up high tier, but at the same time, he could as easily end up in the lower tiers.
Not sure if it is just me, but I am not very sold on the character viability-wise. I will be interested if I am proven wrong in the future since Kazuya's playstyle is very wild, if not polarizing.
To be fair, Brawl Snake was on another realm of absurdity. He and Kazuya aren't even comparable.
His strong projectiles, traps, escape options, hitboxes, stray KO power, safety, hitboxes, in a game where everyone's jumpsquats was higher than frame 3, a campy metagame, hitboxes, very solid grounded frame data, and absurd weight.
Oh, did I mention hitboxes yet?
Tekken Rage is gonna be powerful without a doubt, but tying Kazuya's Rage Drive makes for an interesting dilemma.
Unlike Little Mac, who really only uses his Neutral B normally to fake people out, GRAB is a pretty important utility move for every character. Normally, if you whiff a grab, you might get hit for it, but you don't get punished actively for it. Here, though, you're literally burning through your opportunity to make a comeback. The result is that Kazuya players might get hesitant about going for grabs—not only for fear of burning it, but because it also means not using the superior command input version.
Ehhhh smart thought but I don't think this is a real dynamic.
If I'm at 100%+, I'm not planning on whiffing grab 3 times and living to tell about it. Adding a higher cost to that outcome has zero impact on my decision-making.
Maybe if the "cost" of whiffing grab is combined with the damage-based timeout. Maybe.
Yeah exactly, he literally has an answer for everything, and the answers look pretty good. It's just a matter of how deep he has to dig, how much he has to get right moment-to-moment to keep playing these cards that give him permission to play the game.
Kazuya punish game might actually just be insane. People should be reminded on how characters can be much better than expected just because of their punish game. The character has trips, crumble, and stuns from his normals along with crouch dashing which applies invincibility on his upper body which makes it good against projectiles. The crouch dashing might also make him immune to certain short hop aerials from characters depending on the location and hit box etc.
Mew2king has believes that Kazuya hit boxes are actually generous due to how much disjoint is on his kicks and other normals (more than they should be on a melee fighter).etc. One example I saw was min min doing d-tilt and getting hit by Kazuya kick when his leg was at the same height as his face when she was already SLIDING. It could be that Kazuya has overly generous hit boxes to make him combo better. You can look up his notes on the character on Twitter where says he has crazy disjoints or just beat other characters moves often. He can also command grab people in the air which means shielding on platforms can be dangerous. (Tri-plats can alleviate this to a degree) granted his command grab beats shield I assume.
He can also command grab people in the air which means shielding on platforms can be dangerous. (Tri-plats can alleviate this to a degree) granted his command grab beats shield I assume.
I think you mean Shoto, what an incredibly unfortunate typo goddamn. A shoto is basically the typical fighting game character with all the trademark tools, usually a jack of all trades and meant for beginners
has no attribute that makes a character good in Smash.
Range looks lackluster, he has disjoints but can he deal with characters like , , , and that will just swing at him? He doesn't even have OoS options to deal with this.
His mobility appears to be very underwhelming, both horizontally and vertically. Can he catch up and pressure that WILL camp him out and kill him early to deny any rage comeback? Yes, with a shoryuken input you can dash while having your upper body be intangible, but and accomplish the same thing by just pressing left and right on the control stick with their low profiling. Can he approach as well as them? I doubt it heavily.
His projectile seems terrible outside of edgeguarding purposes (and even then it's only going to force an airdodge due to how slow it is, and I don't think he can benefit that much from forcing a low recovery). That means that he'll likely have to approach himself.
He does have a reflector but have you seen the input? It requires dashing TOWARDS your opponent, I don't think I have to explain how bad this is in terms of reacting to a projectile in the neutral. It also can't be done in the air and I'm not sure it'll be a practical reflector but we shall see.
Recovery seems REALLY bad. He can't use SideB after using UpB and vice-versa (from what I've understood). He doesn't have good hitboxes to protect himself, UpB doesn't look like it hits while rising (I could be wrong on this one), airspeed is probably bad, NeutralB can only cover yourself after getting sent really far from your opponent (like a discount Dragon Laser). I'm really afraid that will just die when sent offstage by a character with good edgeguard, denying him rage comebacks.
Disadvantage state looks awful in general, too. How is he going to escape strings and frame traps from characters that can abuse a lack of combo breaker? (, , ,...). How is he going to land?
It's obviously not all bad for him, he looks like he has a TON of moves with armor/intangibility that pack a punch, he probably has at least decent combos, he has a comeback mechanic and looks REALLY heavy, as well as possessing a mini tough guy (most people haven't mentioned this but it could be useful combined with crouch cancelling).
This is Smash Ultimate guys, look at how broken every good character is. This is a game where a character like that WILL kill you off of one hit while having insane frame data up close is BARELY mid tier.
So many characters can camp with either an insane projectile game or good mobility. What will Kazuya do once people learn how to avoid interacting with him? I do hope I'm wrong but I don't see this character being any good.
With that being said, I'm excited to try out , he looks fun. I also hope we get a good patch, so many characters are unplayable right now and some top tiers are a bit too dominant for my taste!
So I decided to analyse the Top 128 seeding for Kagaribi #4 to show usage statistics and which characters are the most popular and least popular in Japan, counting secondaries and pocket characters. These are my findings. View attachment 320537
I think you mean Shoto, what an incredibly unfortunate typo goddamn. A shoto is basically the typical fighting game character with all the trademark tools, usually a jack of all trades and meant for beginners
Yeah I meant Shoto. Meant for beginners huh? Hmm... I look at Kazuya and I don't think he's beginner friendly. Way too many moves to learn and think about when it comes to combo potential.
He looks good. I'm willing to give him a go. I love how his moves look so aggressive and hard hitting. The effects and sounds are pretty sweet too.
I was indifferent towards him at first, but after that presentation, I think I'm sold.
No Bayo at all? Ouch... they really gutted her in terms of competitive viability and desirability (for usage I mean)
I just googled Shota and uh... oh **** LOL
Yeah I meant Shoto. Meant for beginners huh? Hmm... I look at Kazuya and I don't think he's beginner friendly. Way too many moves to learn and think about when it comes to combo potential.
He looks good. I'm willing to give him a go. I love how his moves look so aggressive and hard hitting. The effects and sounds are pretty sweet too.
I was indifferent towards him at first, but after that presentation, I think I'm sold.
Kazuya's not a shoto in Tekken either so it tracks, most people said he's a whiffpunisher who's good at pressing his advantage and Smash translated it by giving him a move for damn near every situation
I've decided to do the results for GOML Online up to top 16 as it's the last big online tournament before going to the offline era. (I bet GOML really regret making it online now that we have offline majors back with InfinityCON and Kagaribi 4)
1. Sparg0
2. Kiyarash
3. 8BitMan
4. WaDi
5. Dark Falcon
5. Capitancito
7. Mr. E
7. Monte
9. Cobra
9. Regi Shikimi
9. SuperGirlKels
9. 0mart
13. Scend
13. Mabel
13. Panther
13. Angel
I think the more frightening thing is that it's a grab with super armor. It completely changes the interactions we'll be having with the move, as it takes the already iffy attack-grab-shield RPS in Ultimate and skews it even further.
In fact, I think one of the key themes of Kazuya in general is just him finding ways to neutralize opponents' superior frame data. Mini-tough guy means most characters won't be able to jab him, while invincibility and armor up the wazoo probably help him tank a lot. The same could be said about Bowser (who's probably faster), but the sheer versatility of Kazuya's tools makes it feel different.
The Street Fighter characters in Smash have specific attacks that eat shields in order to approximate the threat of the high-low mixup in traditional 2D fighters. I wonder if the multipurpose aspect of many of Kazuya's attacks is meant to do the same with replicating the 3D fighter feel. It's as if Kazuya is trying to constantly play Tekken, and everyone else is really trying to not.
Kazuya's not a shoto in Tekken either so it tracks, most people said he's a whiffpunisher who's good at pressing his advantage and Smash translated it by giving him a move for damn near every situation
To be fair, Sakurai did a fairly poor job of showcasing Kazuya's abilities. If you watch the demonstration, he spends a significant portion of it camping with the eye laser and throwing out smash attacks. Heck, he even got himself killed on his first go.
Wow, I was a staunch believer that Greninja's OoS was the worst in the game, but you make a fairly convincing case for Kazuya. At a minimum, Greninja has the air speed and mobility to reset neutral OoS along with a frame 8 Bair (including jumpsquat), but man, Kazuya really doesn't seem to have any viable OoS options. I'm beginning to see why he was given so much super armor to compensate for his poor defensive game.
bayonetta is the closest thing we have with cqc bad frame data as a character. but bayo comes with a frame 4 up b combo starter kazuya doesnt.
also lets get in front of the hysteria we will see tonight on twitter. We WILL see 0 to death 0 to 100 combos on twitter tonight. Do. not. Freak. Out. most of these that i have theorized are only possible on a crumple state which honestly you should never get hit by (think of it as ridley skewer).
also for reference i went and watched hehhachi in ps all stars to get a feel for how this type of character performed in a game like smash and it wasnt pretty characters with range ((dante, kratos, and the heavenly sword chick) along with others just picked on him. when your biggest asset is damage done usually it doesnt bode well for you.
But like i said before and some others have said his visbility depends on crouch dash and how good it is.
So what are anyone's thoughts or predictions on possible balance changes for the Kazuya update /Ver 12.0.0. I think it was mentioned before May be the only character the balance team may look at with how he has been getting resutls both Before and during online play. But honestly I expect any major significantly balannce changes are being saved for the final FP2 character release patch or "Ver 13.0.0" patch
So what are anyone's thoughts or predictions on possible balance changes for the Kazuya update /Ver 12.0.0. I think it was mentioned before May be the only character the balance team may look at with how he has been getting resutls both Before and during online play. But honestly I expect any major significantly balannce changes are being saved for the final FP2 character release patch or "Ver 13.0.0" patch
I wouldn't be surprised if ROB's arm rotor is toned down; he can get chains off gyro that carry you offstage and kill at about 50%. I hope Link and Ganon get some buffs but if they haven't yet they probably won't. Ganon wouldn't be so bad if his recovery wasn't abysmal. I'd like to see side B not cause freefalling.
Abadango posted his tier list. It's unordered through each tier alphabetically. and being better than are some pretty interesting opinions. Also he's confident on just like ESAM and ShinyMark, even after that lackluster placement at Kagaribi 4.
Abadango posted his tier list. It's unordered through each tier alphabetically. and being better than are some pretty interesting opinions. Also he's confident on just like ESAM and ShinyMark, even after that lackluster placement at Kagaribi 4.
Does anyone not think Pikachu is at least top 13? One can certainly argue that Pikachu is overrated, but even then most people would probably call him at least top 10. Since that tier list is unordered that greatly limits my comments.
Yoshi top 13 is very interesting though. And Palutena not being top 13. Wolf as well. And Sheik in top 13 is interesting, as are Diddy and Pac-Man.
Btw, there is something to note about Kazuya's Tough Guy armor.
In the "Sakurai Presents Kazuya for Fighters Pass Vol. 2" thread, Mario & Sonic Guy commented an interesting fact about how Tough Guy works.
The way Tough Guy worked is that the threshold for his heavy armor is 19 KB. This is actually unchanged from , and we all know how forgettable the mechanic was in SSB4.
Instead the Tough Guy mechanic got indirectly buffed from SSB4 to Ultimate in two ways:
1. Bowser's weight got buffed from 130 -> 135. Since it is knockback based armor, this in general improves the reliability of the mechanic, and makes it work until much higher percents.
2. Rapid jabs universally got their knockback nerfed from SSB4, which is the primarily reason why he is able to armor through multi-hits.
I think the reason why 's armor is going to be weaker than Bowser's, is because he is a much lighter character than even SSB4 Bowser. While he will still be able to armor through multi-hits due to the universal knockback nerf to them, it won't work for no where near as long as them.
The way I see it, Kazuya's Tough Guy is going to be slightly more reliable SSB4 Bowser Tough Guy, but not nearly as reliable as Ultimate Bowser.
Bowser's overall armor also got improved because all of his tilts and Smash attacks now has armor on startup. This is different from Kazuya's move armor, which is only attached to a few moves and are generally even slower, and the moves that are about the same speed or slightly faster typically have half-the-range as Bowser's equivalent move.
I think the more frightening thing is that it's a grab with super armor. It completely changes the interactions we'll be having with the move, as it takes the already iffy attack-grab-shield RPS in Ultimate and skews it even further.
In fact, I think one of the key themes of Kazuya in general is just him finding ways to neutralize opponents' superior frame data. Mini-tough guy means most characters won't be able to jab him, while invincibility and armor up the wazoo probably help him tank a lot. The same could be said about Bowser (who's probably faster), but the sheer versatility of Kazuya's tools makes it feel different.
The Street Fighter characters in Smash have specific attacks that eat shields in order to approximate the threat of the high-low mixup in traditional 2D fighters. I wonder if the multipurpose aspect of many of Kazuya's attacks is meant to do the same with replicating the 3D fighter feel. It's as if Kazuya is trying to constantly play Tekken, and everyone else is really trying to not.
Something going understated I find is Kazuya's ability to play the slow game, using the disjoints and microspacing afforded to him by always staying just out of reach while landing single hits that add up even without follow ups.
Just crouching, as an example, lets him check practically any grounded approach you can think of. Spin kick and Tombstone Crusher stop rushing moves with their disjoints, the jab stops non-tether grabs, trying to run up and shield these can see him lunge forward and take you through Gates Of Hell, and on the off chance you whiff something in front of him, you get gut punched by Demon God Fist.
Once the opponent starts jumping in response is when he can concentrate on moving to to always be in the right spot, not just with steps and dashes but also advancing or retreating Rising Toe Kicks, the back+up kick or the quick and reliable whiff punish back roundhouse.
I think many are overlooking his Tough Guy. I'm not sure what extent it will be compared to Bowsers but that might actually lead to a lot of his OOS game. Plus he has super armor or outright invul/intangibility on a lot of moves as well that might just be the thing that makes his OOS kinda scary. I'm eager to see just to what extent his armor will benefit him.
Like if any of his smashes out of shield will be probable options or any of his downward tilts will be fast enough out of shield/invul on them will be useful, etc.
Does anyone not think Pikachu is at least top 13? One can certainly argue that Pikachu is overrated, but even then most people would probably call him at least top 10. Since that tier list is unordered that greatly limits my comments.
Yoshi top 13 is very interesting though. And Palutena not being top 13. Wolf as well. And Sheik in top 13 is interesting, as are Diddy and Pac-Man.
I'd say he's top 13. I don't think Pikachu stacked up to pre-nerf characters like Joker and Palutena but top tier's power level has been toned done significantly. Pikachu and many high tiers are enjoying the tamer environment- although I think Pythra is still very overtuned and Kazuya and the final DLC character can still shake things up. I'm not as worried about the end game balance as SSB4 after seeing the devs tone down Joker; they seem to be taking a proactive stance toward nerfing OP characters.
Tough Guy, as well as the potentially terrifying Super Armor on down-b, is one of the things that we have no clue about without knowing the numbers. So, see you in a few I guess.
won 
