It’ll take some time for me to warm up to Street Fighter V’s Karin

I’m rusty since playing her in Alpha 3

I couldn’t be happier with the injection of all things Alpha into Street Fighter V. I had the chance to talk to a Capcom representative about it lately, and they were in complete agreement, hinting that perhaps there will be more to come in terms of the Alpha comparisons. Excellent.

Having said that, it took me a few rounds to acclimate to Karin. Hot damn am I rusty with her!

Although I enjoyed playing as Karin in Alpha 3, I had a variety of mains that I mostly focused on (Akuma, Cody, Evil Ryu, Fei Long, Ken, Rolento) instead. Quite simply put, Karin has a learning curve, and she’s someone that you’ll want to play around with in training mode before you attempt to take her online. This was especially evident after I lost my first round, after being matched up with an amateur Street Fighter player who had some experience with game’s beta. I lost the first round to his Ryu pretty handily.

Using her was pretty fun though, and she has a ton of personality, from the very start of her intro in the character select screen (complete with a signature “hohoho!” laugh) into her animations. Most of Karin’s command attacks are simple quarter circle commands, coupled with any punch or kick. She can dash forward, backwards, but unlike Rashid, it’s a bit more complicated, as most of them turn into chains (like a forward dash into an uppercut, for example) that must be executed perfectly to fully pull off. Heck, her Critical Art (super) needs perfect execution — you need to combo into it — lest you whiff entirely. If you’re a rushdown type of player, you’ll love Karin.

After that initial loss, for the next few rounds I decided to play it old school and crushed with Ken twice, before switching to Rashid and winning the rest of my games. Again, Rashid was super easy to pick up and he’s probably my favorite cast member so far — when Street Fighter V hits I’ll be maining him for sure.

Still, I’m pretty anxious to pick up Karin too! Man, this roster is shaping up to be one of the strongest launch lineups yet.