Sakurai Presents Kazuya
In case you missed it, Masahiro Sakurai and Nintendo announced new Super Smash Bros. Ultimate DLC at E3 this year, and it went over fairly well! Kazuya of Tekken fame is joining the cast, and just this morning Sakurai gave us a taste of what to expect. Here’s a Sakurai Presents Kazuya recap.
Sakurai presented in studio with the staff “watching from a distance” (who laughed at the intro), and as usual, it was extremely wholesome. He gave us a quick recap of the Tekken series, and jokes that he “heard a voice from the heavens,” that asked him to add Kazuya into the mix. he explains that Tekken is a game of understanding hit boxes, but requires a “different skillset,” and that Smash‘s fastest move is about “five times faster” than Tekken‘s equivalent. So they had to convert Tekken sensibilities into Smash without outright copying it.
He confirms that the “devil gene” plot point makes it into Smash, and that the reason they didn’t go with Heihachi is because he does not have that gene: and the devil powers make for a cooler character. Kazuya will sport most of his original kit, including a classic 10-hit combo and crumple moves. But he also straight up has a projectile (devil blaster) that can pass through multiple opponents (with its power decreasing each time), and you can angle it. It can be reflected and absorbed (and pocketed!).
In fact, all of his specials (B) will utilize his devil gene, including the devil fist, which can be heavily punished. Up+B will trigger his devil wings, which sport an extreme vertical, and can even be used in KOs. Down+B, heaven’s door, grabs an opponent and slams them into the ground following a launcher uppercut.
Kazuya can also utilize a rage mode, which does 1.1x damage, and a “once per stock throw called rage drive” (which can work as a grab, a converted heaven’s door, or by using a shoryuken input). It has no time limit, but you can leave it if you take too much damage or whiff throws. His final smash is “final blaster,” which goes full devil mode and fires multiple beams: you need to hit that initial small beam first though.
Throughout the Sakurai Presents Kazuya stream, the Smash boss notes that his “attack power is very high,” which makes him prone to comebacks. But his attack speed is slow, and you might have issues against ranged or aerial opponents. He is a “heavier” character though, which makes him tougher to launch, and he sports “continuous super armor.” Amazingly, he can use his armor to interrupt enemy attacks.
As for his normals, Kazuya has dial-a-combos, as well as delayed hits that can trigger combos. Sakurai warns that the last hit of a combo cannot be shielded. He can use eight input directions, which can cause new combos with directional nuances. One example is an upward diagonal right combo that allows spin kicks and four presses of the A button. Similarly, downward right, A, A will cause a tsunami kick, which can launch an opponent. In one on one bouts, Kazuya will automatically face his opponent to orient himself.
Smash attacks include glorious demon god fist (a side smash that’s extremely powerful, that requires a “bit of distance” to hit at full power, and grants super armor), devil twister (an up smash that has a narrow uppercut range, but does a ton of damage), lion slayer (down smash that’s a launching attack within a combo, including setting up the demon god fist – and it can hit enemies on a ledge). By using a shoryuken input you can do a quick crouch dash, which can avoid projectiles and close the gap between you and your opponent: you can also chain this into moves with A (like the dragon uppercut, with “high launching power”). He can still use the demon’s wrath taunt (it’s a side taunt here) to “throw off people.”
His new stage is the Mishima Dojo (which belongs to Heihachi), which has closed ceilings and walls that can be broken with strong attacks. Once everything is broken, it’s less safe, Sakurai says. The walls will rebuild themselves over time though, and Heihachi is present in the background and will react to KOs (similar to the King of Fighters arena). Oh, and there’s an Easter egg on the ground! Hilariously, Sakurai demonstrated Kazuya in a gauntlet featuring all of the fighters the character threw off the ledge in the cinematic intro.
As noted by the Sakurai Presents Kazuya stream, the soundtrack for the Kazuya DLC will feature 39 songs in total, and you can read all of them here. There’s no victory fanfare, instead, the Tekken announcer will say “Kazuya Mishima wins.” He’s out on June 29, with new Mii Fighter costumes. Oh, and here’s the Min Min amiibo, which is slated for 2022.
If you want to watch the whole thing yourself, you can check it out below!
