. The SNK leak. Sakurai's inspiration. "Hat Ken."GO.
Terry's inclusion made him one of the biggest "winners" of FP1, arguably even more so than Joker. While Terry and FF / KoF are very much well known in some regions (Japan, LatAm, China) he's mainly within those regions' respective FGCs. In other regions he's much more niché or even obscure - to the point where on these very forums Sari was one of the very few people to have Terry or SNK in general even on the radar, and did entire writeups on him and the other SNK characters.
Afterwards, well, he became surprisingly popular to play as. Several factors contribute to this:
Terry's competitive fortunes have been strong right out of the gate, although the playerbase is not huge nor is he considered super-overwhelming. Riddles - already a solid Ken / Ryu player when Terry was unveiled - took a strong interest in Mr. Bogard and instantly switched to him. After the switch he showed off how Terry's surprisingly mobile and that he's capable of some silly kills, and that combined with prominent results helped to solidify him as Terry's most well known player. Other players include Tsu, who uses him alongside
and have upset several prominent players.Terry's moveset is heavily leaned towards the punish game - arguably even more so than Ryu / Ken. Like the Shotos though, all but Power Wave can be inputed using specific commands - which is difficult to do but its reward is generally increased damage, knockback and intangibility.
Power Wave is his sole projectile, a low-profiling poke that can stifle reckless approaches. Burning Knuckle is a commital but dangerous punch with strong knockback, allowing it to kill surprisingly early. Rising Tackle is a short but highly damaging Up B with a likewise dangerous ability to trap people. Terry's the first character to have a back special - Crack Shoot a high profiling spinning heel kick that works both as a damage racker, crossing up shields and a recovery mixup. Power Dunk is famously the go-to move for damage racking, and can also work as another mixup.
All right, it's time to talk about this:
The Special Cancels. While a trademark for Ryu and Ken, Terry's inclusion highlighted this even more since multiple normals (Jab, all of his tilts, N-Air) can cancel into Special Moves. The most common use is... well, yeah, although there's a surprising number of different special confirms. The punish game Terry possesses is further augmented by him having a strong normal combo game. U-Tilt, N-Air and U-Air are especially good for combos / juggles. Terry is also the first character to incorporate a dodge attack - a modified U-Tilt that comes out slightly faster, has higher knockback and launches upward with the primary trade off being less shieldstun. Dodge Attack -> U-Air -> Rising Tackle is a real chain at certain %s.
And this is an intentional segue right into the GO meter. Yup those two. Power Geyser and Buster Wolf are super-commital, but Power Geyser covers entire ****ing platforms and can kill as early as 50 % with low blast ceilings, while Buster Wolf's status as a hitgrab means it can completely counter stuff like
's Wonderwing, 's Revenge and 's Rebel's Guard (but not Tetrakarn). The Supers can also be confirmed into: Up Tilt -> Power Geyser and F-Tilt -> Buster Wolf, making it extra imperative for the opponents to KO Terry before Terry can get the damage gravy train rolling. He's surprisingly heavy too - that combined with the recovery mixups makes it possible for him to tank a ton of damage in some situations.The catch is that the Supers can be difficult for newcomers to execute properly and that they're liable to being misinputed / thrown in the wrong direction. This also goes for the input versions of Specials, meaning that Terry has a decently steep skill curve for players interested in trying him out. The difficulty of execution is arguably not as bad as Ryu / Ken, but can still cause tech flubs and various unintentional hiccups. The autoturnaround makes his B-Air in particular difficult to pull off in 1v1s.
Other weaknesses he has are also worth noting: His movement stats are slow whether on the ground or the air, which combined with just one projectile makes approaches kinda difficult. He's also very vurnerable in disadvantage - he's especially prone to being juggled, even as he has several moves with intangibility on them. While he has his recovery mixups they're also very exploitable and susceptible to off stage edgeguards / two frames. His ground game is amazing, although heavily centered on baiting and then punishing opponents: he doesn't have many good CQC pokes outside of D-Tilt.
Casually Terry's heavily situation-dependent. His lacking speed either on the ground or air doesn't allow him to play the item game vs. faster characters, but his attacks - especially his specials - have a lot of "splash" damage. This allows a Terry player to plow through multiple opponents at the same time, and can create situations where everyone else is yeeted away by a Burning Knuckle or Power Dunk. If he doesn't get killed early by an item, AT or whatever he can survive for a lot longer and unleash a bunch of Supers.
While I don't talk about the Final Smash often (every DLC FS is a cutscene) Terry's Special Cancels allows him to cancel almost every single move of his into his Final Smash, allowing him to cause even more casual AoE carnage assuming FS is turned on. Sure the FS cutscene only affects one, but everyone else caught in the "Overheat!" explosions will be launched away.
His Challenger Pack is honestly a near-10/10. The stage is amazing for casual fun, with the walls preventing the normal walk-off shenaningas and also encouraging people to just go ham. The music tracks are likewise amazing - the fact that SNK approved the entire list caught Sakurai off guard. The Spirits are pulled from all over SNK's properties, with the only notable missing characters being Mai and the Metal Slug cast.
All in all, those all factor into Terry being an enjoyable but not overbearing character whose playerbase have notably pushed him.
Edit: (Weird character interaction sidenote: I'd say that Terry's weirdest matchup are vs. other combo-centric characters like
and . Not just since one touch often = tons of damage or trades all over the place, but also since both Terry and Sheik / Meta Knight can shut down each others' recoveries. It often results in some weird shenaningas whether on or off stage.)I've been a Tekken fan for a while (I prefer characters like King, Alisa and Kuma / Panda
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