If you’ve ever played Street Fighter online, you know that Ryu players have a certain…reputation. They constantly throw fireballs from a distance and will Dragon Punch if you try to jump. They throw out heavy hits galore and, anytime they might be under pressure, will try to shoryuken their way out of the situation.
To an amateur player, this can be both overwhelming and frustrating, but it’s actually quite easily diffused in an offline tournament setting, where you can react to everything accordingly and punish reckless options with ease…right?
Gandhi vs. FSP has gone down in history as one of the bizarre showings of how button mashing, having fun, and simply not giving a crap about results can bring about the seemingly impossible outcome: victory.
How Salt Can Ruin You
Throughout this match, it’s worth looking at the player cams and seeing the players’ respective reactions. FSP, the Rufus player, gets increasingly frustrated even when he wins rounds, whereas Gandhi is having the time of his life with his…textbook Ryu play.
Gandhi’s mentality is obviously better suited for the situation, and because he’s so relaxed, he’s not getting into his own head. FSP is salty as can be, and this is noticeably affecting his play; his punishes are off, he’s getting hit by obvious moves over and over, and he’s letting Gandhi control everything.
If FSP wasn’t so clearly infuriated by what he was playing against, he would very likely win; he is the better player. But no matter how much you practice and polish your play, if you get easily tilted during a match, you’ll fall victim to players that you might otherwise decimate in friendlies/online.
The One Time You Root For An Online Ryu
The sheer joy Gandhi gives off versus the immense salt that FSP is showing makes it very hard to root against the Ryu player, even if his style of play is annoying as hell to both play against and watch. It may go against the meta, but this match is definitely one to watch, as it sums up all the perfect, inexplicable chaos that fighting games can bring.
Behold, the best/worst Ryu play ever:
If you’d like to see what peak Ryu play looks like, check out this hype exhibition!