Sakurai Presents Kazuya for Fighters Pass Vol. 2

It’s been 13 days since Kazuya was announced on June 15th, 2021, and now his presentation has finally aired!

The presentation starts off with Sakurai introducing Tekken and going over the fundamental differences between Tekken and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. He further explains that he wanted to add a Tekken character to Smash, but that it would feel incomplete given the differences. That is, until he had an idea. This idea was to use Kazuya’s Devil Gene powers for his special attacks, midair jumps and smashes while basing Kazuya’s normals off his Tekken moveset. Notably, this idea to use the Devil Gene is the main reason Kazuya was picked over Heihachi, as he lacks the gene. Sakurai then goes over his special moves.

• Devil Blaster, an angle-able long range projectile that can hit multiple opponents at once.
• Devil Fist, a quick burst attack, if you hit opponents from afar or in the air they’ll be knocked away, however if you hit opponents up close they’ll be stunned.
• Devil Wings, a recovery move where Kazuya spreads his wings and flies up. It also has a hitbox at the beginning.
• Heaven’s Door, a command grab with super armor where Kazuya grabs the opponent, flies up and then slams down into the earth, which can also be used for suicide kills.

That isn’t all there is to Kazuya of course, we haven’t even talked about his character-specific mechanic yet. When Kazuya reaches 100% damage or his health is below 25% of his maximum in stamina mode, he’ll be covered in a red aura. This is Rage mode, his attack power is multiplied by 1.1 times and he is able to use a new special attack, Rage Drive, which is effectively a much stronger version of Heaven’s Door. Kazuya can activate this attack in Rage mode with 3 methods. First is by grabbing, second is by using down special, and the third method gives the attack more power, for this you must use a shoryuken command input while holding attack. Kazuya can lose Rage mode by getting hit enough times, by landing Rage Drive, or by missing a Rage Drive and having enough time pass after that.

Sakurai then proceeds to talk about his special character traits. Kazuya is a slow, powerful character with Tough Guy armor and an automatic turnaround function. Kazuya also has a massive arsenal of moves, many of which use unique command inputs. Some examples include the 10 hit combo, which merely requires the attack button to be pressed ten times, Jump Side Kick, which requires the player to press diagonal-up backwards and attack, and Gates of Hell, which requires the player to press diagonal-down forward, down, diagonal-down forward again and grab.

Kazuya isn’t the only thing coming in the next update though, there’s still more content! First of all, there’s a new stage, Mishima Dojo! The Mishima Dojo has walls and a roof, fighters are safe from being knocked out while those are there, however they can be broken. Heihachi is also featured here and will react to the battle whenever characters are knocked out. This stage also brings us 39 new songs. These songs are:

• Marine Stadium, Japan
• Chicago, U.S.A.
• Kyoto, Japan
• Heihachi Mishima, the King of Iron Fist
• Kazuya Mishima, Devil Kazuya (New arrangement)
• Kazuya Mishima, Devil Kazuya
• Emotionless Passion
• Attract -Embu- / Character Select
• Hwoarang
• Jin Kazama
• Heihachi Mishima
• Opening Movie
• Jin Stage
• Kitsch
• Bit Crusher
• Red Hot Fist
• Moonlit Wilderness
• Poolside
• Snow Castle
• Into Nirvana
• RESURRECTION
• Ethno Evening
• YUKI
• Only One Fight
• Dist Thins Out (New arrangement)
• Karma (New arrangement)
• Arisa
• Yodeling in Meadow Hill
• Abyss of Time
• Plucking Tulips
• Landscape Under the Ghost-Kaminano (New arrangement)
• New World Order
• No Easy Way Out
• Heat Haze Shadow
• Dojo (Japanese-Style Mix) (New arrangement)
• DUOMO DI SIRIO 1st
• Moonsiders 1st (New arrangement)
• Desperate Struggle (New arrangement)
• Aloneness (New arrangement)

Kazuya also comes with a new spirit board, featuring characters from the Tekken franchise such as Ling, Heihachi and Jin. Notably, if you level up Jin to level 99, he’ll upgrade and become Devil Jin. There’s also some new Mii Fighter Costumes:

• Mii Swordfighter Costume of Lloyd from Tales of Symphonia
• Mii Swordfighter Costume of Dragonborn from Skyrim
• Mii Swordfighter Costume of Dante from Devil May Cry
• Mii Brawler Costume of Shantae from Shantae, comes with Burning Town as a bonus song

The presentation then ends with the announcement that Kazuya is releasing on June 29th, 2021, and a Min Min Amiibo will release in 2022.

Credits:
Editing & Writing: Zerp
Thumbnail: Zerp
Social: Zerp

 

In regards to the knockback-based heavy armor, Sakurai stated that it's not as strong for Kazuya as it is for Bowser. However, we do need to take into account Kazuya's weight value, as we do know that he's heavier than Ryu, but how heavy is still unknown right now.

Anyway when you look at Bowser, the threshold for his heavy armor is 19 KB units in Smash 4, and it never changed in Ultimate. Instead, the heavy armor was indirectly buffed by a weight buff. Maybe Kazuya has the same threshold, but having lower weight makes the armor less dependable.

 

He is bowser but a fighting game character so uh
New main i guess

 

In regards to the knockback-based heavy armor, Sakurai stated that it's not as strong for Kazuya as it is for Bowser. However, we do need to take into account Kazuya's weight value, as we do know that he's heavier than Ryu, but how heavy is still unknown right now.

Anyway when you look at Bowser, the threshold for his heavy armor is 19 KB units in Smash 4, and it never changed in Ultimate. Instead, the heavy armor was indirectly buffed by a weight buff. Maybe Kazuya has the same threshold, but having lower weight makes the armor less dependable.

I'm pretty curious about how much weaker Kazuya's Tough Guy armor is going to be than Bowser's, and yeah, it could just be that they applied the same indirect weight buff to him and he's (assumedly) less heavy. It's going to be fun to figure out when he comes out.

 

I'm pretty curious about how much weaker Kazuya's Tough Guy armor is going to be than Bowser's, and yeah, it could just be that they applied the same indirect weight buff to him and he's (assumedly) less heavy. It's going to be fun to figure out when he comes out.

Well, at least I'm able to get a game dump, so getting down Kazuya's weight value should be simple enough once 12.0.0 is out. His parameter data, however, won't be so easy when you have to deal with undefined hash entries.

 

I'm pretty happy with what we got! 39 songs is a lot for a 3rd party DLC series (excluding Terry, of course). However, there were some songs I would've loved to see, so here they are (bold indicates a new remix):

1. Fiji, Melanesia Region (excluding this was a crime)
2. Morning Field
3. Michelle Chang, Wandering Female Fighte
4. Yoshimitsu
5. Ling Xiayou
6. Kuma & Panda
7. Mokujin
8. Authentic Sky
9. Ground Zero Funk
10. The Finalizer
11. NANCY
12. Mushroom Battle -Underwater Mix-
13. Jungle Outpost (Equator Line 2nd)
14. Devil's Pit

 

First impression, the tripping move is the most broken thing. Thats a guarenteed kill confirm combo starter or even infinate possibilities.

This character is possibly trash based on the no hitlag.

Hitlag in combination with hitstun is what makes things combo in smash games. Having no hitlag means his opponents get launched the moment a move hits them, then if Kazyua’s endlag on his move is even close to the hitstun duration, absolutly nothing will true combo.

We already saw c falcon roll out of the 10 hit combo in the presentation.

He could be a brawl character in ultimate.

 

We need to remember that the footage that was shown today is not the final product. Adjustments could be made before Kazuya is released.