WHO’S THE BEST STARTER CHARACTER?

In Street Fighter, Ryu or Ken (also known as Shotokans, or Shotos) are great starters because you can build off of their basic kits (movesets) that loosely apply to most of the core cast. Ultimately, if you want to stay competitive, it’s important that you play every character in the game so you can learn their movesets, and thus, what they’re capable of. But at an absolute minimum, mastering one character will help you start to win games. Climb up a small hill before you start climbing a mountain.

Unfortunately, this Shotokan intro crash course doesn’t really apply here. King of Fighters 14 is different, which I’m sure isn’t something you want to hear with a roster of over 50 characters. There are anomalies, such as Kyo, who’s easy to grasp at first due to the similarities between some of his moves and the aforementioned Shotos. The same goes for Terry, who has a wide toolkit available (with half-screen punishes and plenty of anti-air), but is tough to fully master.

Still, I would posit that this series is one of the easiest fighters to learn in the history of the series, a principle that also applies to King of Fighters 14. King only has three command abilities in this game, which are all tied to the two kick buttons — a projectile (Venom Strike), a gap-closer (Tornado Kick), and an anti-air move (Trap Shot). She has a tool for just about every situation, and all you need to do is memorize three abilities to start with (five if you count the two supers and one climax, the latter of which is a deadly mid-screen punish).