Ryu (SSB4NS)

Ryu
Nickname	Tireless Wanderer
Special Moves	Hadoken (Neutral), Tatsumaki Senpukyaku (Side), Shoryuken (Up), Focus Attack (Down)
Final Smashes	Shinku Hadoken, Shin Shoryuken
First appearance	Street Fighter (1987)
Voice actor(s)	Hiroki Takahashi (Japanese), Kyle Hebert (English)

Ryu (リュウ, Ryū) is a playable character in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo Switch. In Super Smash Bros. 4, he was revealed and released as downloadable content alongside veterans Lucas and Roy on June 14th, 2015. Ryu is one of the nineteen playable third-party characters, alongside fellow Capcom character Mega Man, Konami's Snake, Bandai Namco's Pac-Man, Goku and Naruto, Sega's Sonic, Bayonetta and AiAi, Square Enix's Cloud, Golgoth Studio's Justice, Clamp's Sakura, Activision's Crash, Team Shanghai Alice's Reimu, Rumiko Takahashi's Inuyasha, Nickelodeon's SpongeBob, Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim and Disney's Ralph and Elsa. Ryu is voiced by Kyle Hebert in English and Hiroki Takahashi in Japanese, both of whom have voiced him since Street Fighter IV.

Trophy Description

Ryu visits from the Street Fighter series! Ryu’s fighting style is based on karate, but he’s mixed in some other martial arts to make his own unique style. In Smash, he will perform either weak or strong attacks depending on if you press or hold down the buttons. His special attacks also have three power levels!

Trivia

• Ryu's attributes generally follow the mechanics of his home series:
  • He can perform special moves without using the special button by instead using a specific directional input and the standard attack button. This replicates the process of performing special moves in Street Fighter and most traditional fighting games.
    • This also makes Ryu the only character in the Super Smash Bros. series who is able to perform his neutral special after obtaining a Smash Ball, although Kirby may also perform his neutral special after obtaining a Smash Ball if he has first inhaled Ryu.
  • All of his attacks emit sound effects directly taken from Street Fighter II if landed. This makes Ryu the second character to emit unique sound effects when fighting, with the first being Snake and the third being Cloud. Coincidentally, all three are third-party characters.
    • His shield also emits a unique sound effect if hit, and a perfect shield emits the parry sound effect from Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike. This makes him the only character to emit separate sound effects while defending.
  • His very slow air acceleration is a nod to how jumps function in the Street Fighter series, in which they follow an arc and cannot be made to change direction once initiated.
  • His tapped and held inputs are a reference to the original Street Fighter, where the player had to tap the button for weaker attacks, or hold it for stronger ones. They also, to some extent, incorporate the light, medium, and heavy classifications of attacks that became the series' standards.
  • The beginning of his dash causes him to do a quick shuffle forward, replicating his dash from Street Fighter III onward. This shuffle is entirely aesthetic and has no unique function, although it does require more precision in the player's inputs to dash-dance properly.
  • Collarbone Breaker's shield breaking property is based off of its usage as an overhead in his home series, in which it is frequently used as a way to attack opponents who are blocking low.
  • His tapped neutral attack must hit an opponent to initiate the rest of the combo, referencing Target Combos.
  • His ability to perform one of two Final Smashes is a possible reference to the Ultra Combo Double mechanic introduced in Ultra Street Fighter IV, which allows fighters to perform one of their two Ultra Combos at the cost of less attack power than only using a single preset Ultra Combo.
    • Incidentally, Ryu is the first and only character in the Super Smash Bros. series to possess two Final Smashes in the same game.
• Ryu's supine position is nearly identical to his KO'd pose from his home series.
• Ryu, Roy, Cloud, Corrin, and Bayonetta are the only characters to emit different voice clips when using battering items.
  • Coincidentally, they are all DLC characters.
• Ryu is the only third-party character in SSB4 (and the second overall, after Snake) who cannot wall jump.
• Ryu, along with Goku are the only two characters to have two different Final Smashes.