Ken

The original shotoclone, Ken is very similar to his old training partner Ryu. Both characters have fairly similar movesets, but Ken carves out a path all his own. With emphasis on aggression and close-range combat, Ken acts as a more offense focused alternative to the Shoto playstyle.

Ken shares the iconic Hadoken and Shoryuken with Ryu, but there's about where their kits begin to diverge. Ken's signature special is his command sprint Quick Dash, which can be used both as a pressure tool and to empower his other specials. If certain specials are used out of Quick Dash, they gain enhanced properties rivalling that of Overdrive moves. In particular, while his normal Tatsumaki is a decent combo ender, Dash Tatsumaki gives incredible corner carry off of any clean hit. Each of these enhanced specials act as different combo enders or extenders, and each one gives something valuable to Ken's kit, whether that be corner carry, strong okizeme, or even sideswapping mid-combo.

Excellent corner carry is a running theme in Ken's kit. While he pokes with 5MK, 2MK and 5HP, Ken looks for a clean hit to Drive Rush. After a confirm, Ken can carry you all the way to the corner and set you up for some truly nasty corner pressure. Any successful hit leads into powerful corner combos that deal great damage and give good okizeme, allowing him to loop pressure continuously. The Jinrai Series of kicks acts as great rekka pressure options in this scenario, and even come with built-in mixup tools. All of this adds up to Ken being a neutral and offense monster, capable of easily tagging the opponent and dragging them into the corner off of any successful opening.

While Ken may seem like an offensive rushdown monster at first, what keeps him in check is the considerably bad block advantage on many of his moves. Each version of Jinrai Kicks and Dragon Lash are either punishable on block or interruptible, causing his offense to be based on making the opponent unsure of when to press. Smart players will quickly learn not to press until something punishable comes out, which can force Ken to play reactively and wait for the opponent to give him an opening.

Due to the stubby range of Ken's 5MP, he may sometimes struggle confirming into his important combos—but with smart use of Run and Drive Rush, he is able to get great confirms from very far away. Learning his Run combos to capitalize on openings can also be somewhat tricky. But overall, Ken is another great character to learn Street Fighter with. If you like aggression, strong confirms, combo expression, and enjoy kicking so hard you set things on fire, you really can't go wrong with Ken.