Nothing says “hype” like a 2.1Gb download for a new Street Fighter V patch. You would think that if SFV Juri was scheduled for a certain date then maybe Capcom would allow the update to happen a day or so in advance, and then on the actual date you would download a 4kb unlock key or something. Not so here. Even after the patch was downloaded in the PS4 notifications screen, starting up SFV led to another download of unspecified size; the only signs of progress coming from notifications of how much % of the update had downloaded.
In any case, SFV Juri was one of the characters I was looking forward to the most. I had even instigated a personal social media blackout until I got the chance to see what SFV Juri was like. The chances are that if you’re looking forward to something being released, there will always be online friends who aren’t working and are busy enjoying themselves and telling you how great it all is. In a way I wasn’t too bothered about spoilers – SFV Juri had already been teased in the cinematic story update – but nevertheless I was keen to see if there had been any tweaks since that early playable iteration.
SFV Juri – special moves
In SFIV, Juri was defined by delayed projectiles, a pinwheel attack, divekicks and a teleport that triggered on hit and either nullified the attack damage (pre-update) or turned it into potential damage (post-update). Such a unique array of moves made her confusing to play at first, but making the most of her skills was very rewarding. SFV Juri isn’t as much of a radical departure as Ibuki was last month, but her old moves still need to be relearned. Those delayed projectiles are stored by performing a fireball motion with kick – depending on the strength of kick you use, you will store a different projectile attack, and then if you do the same motion with the same kick, that attack will come out. Each time you store one of the three attacks you can see a small icon that shows you which attacks are stored, but I wasn’t sure if this was visible to your opponent, so I went looking for casual matches against other Juris and found that I *could* see the opponent’s stored attacks. This means that if you’re playing against a Juri you will benefit from that layer of information, but it’s likely that most players will quickly store all three regularly.
The pinwheel move – here called “Tensenrin” – is changed as well, although it’s probably the one change that’s easiest to get used to. Rather than spinning Juri on the spot in a flail of hands and feet, different strengths of attack will now cause SFV Juri to rise further up into the air. Also, the motion for Tensenrin is a dragon-punch style motion (forward, down, down-forward), which makes sense since it is a rising attack, but it may still take some time to get used to.
SFV Juri also has a new move named “Ryodansatsu” which emulates Chun-Li’s hazanshu move – an arcing attack that ends with her bringing her foot down on an opponent. The trajectory of the attack makes it useful against projectile-using characters, as you can hop over a fireball and deliver a blow of your own. That being said, I tried setting up a Juri mirror match scenario in training mode, and the arc of the attack won’t send Juri over the head of an opponent, so its use as a corner escape seems limited at best.
SFV Juri – V-System
The teleport from SFIV is back, but it is now her V-Skill, and instead of happening on hit it will move SFV Juri automatically when the medium attack buttons are pressed and released. It still retains some element of invulnerability, but it comes with a large risk factor due to the fact that the buttons can be held to charge the V-Skill. In order to delve deeper I set up a training dummy Ryu who would do nothing but throw fireballs, and then tried variations of the teleport. I found that if you tap the two medium attacks when a fireball is headed towards you, it’s likely that you’ll just slide right into it and eat the damage. However, if you’ve been holding the buttons a little longer (it takes 1.0 seconds for the full charge) your teleport will pass through the fireball. This means that Juri will give her opponent a large “tell” in order for the projectile invulnerability to work.
SFV Juri also has a V-Reversal that is pleasantly familiar to fans of the Ultra 2 seen in SFIV: “Kaisenrenkyaku” sees SFV Juri perform a low kick-style attack, and if this connects she will sail into the air in a flurry of attacks, taking the opponent with her. I believe this is a slight change from the V-Reversal we saw in the cinematic story mode, because I’m pretty sure that previously she would do the rising attack automatically. I prefer this new iteration, because it means that if the first attack is blocked you won’t automatically fly upwards and be open to a devastating counter-attack. The V-Trigger is more familiar but no less useful – it’s her Feng Shui Engine from SFIV, allowing for more attacks to be chained together for a brief period of time. Finally, her critical art is a tall projectile that knocks down the opponent, although there’s no cinematic when the attack connects.
SFV Juri – familiar yet different
SFV Juri is easily my favourite of the five DLC characters seen so far, although it’s a bit early to say whether or not I will be retiring Rashid just yet. Everything seems familiar enough to avoid confusing old fans, but different enough to keep her feeling new and relevant. Of course, the whole reason I retired my Juri in SFIV was because of certain character changes in the Ultra update – there’s every chance that SFV Juri could end up “worse” in the future due to rebalancing, but for now she’s a welcome addition to the roster.
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