Hiya!

Last week, I tackled the gimmicks of the remaining returning franchise characters in Street Fighter 6. That list was focusing on the remaining World Warriors. This just leaves a handful of familiar faces left. More specifically, Cammy, Dee Jay and Rashid. It’s a short list but considering I will have to do the same thing for the new characters I haven’t talked about yet, I still have my work cut out for me. So, let’s get started!

Cammy’s Charged Special Attacks

I guess Capcom had a difficult time thinking about what gimmick to give Cammy as she is one of the most straightforward rushdown characters in each entry she’s been in. So it does make sense to give her the ability to “charge” some of her special attacks, namely her Spiral Arrow, Cannon Spike and Hooligan Combos. By holding down the heavy attack button when performing the aforementioned special moves, Cammy will execute the Overdrive version of that move without using up any Drive Meter. This sounds good on paper but comes off more like a double-edged sword.

Obviously, having access to Overdrive versions of any special move without having to burn any Drive Meter is a good thing. The downside is you still have to charge it up, meaning the startup become horrendous. It becomes much harder to include in combos because of this. You still can get off the charged up version of her Cannon Spike and Spiral Arrow but only after a heavy punch.

Also, the springiness of her Hooligan Combo gets lost as opponents will see Cammy hold down the crouch, allowing them to prepare for the move. This makes it more of a mixup and setup tool and, depending on the Cammy, can be a good thing or a bad thing. It can be good as you can mixup her opponent using the Hooligan Combos various branching moves. It can be bad as you lose momentum as you can’t keep the pressure on because of the setup. As the gimmick is more of a mixed bag with slightly more benefits than deterrents, I will have to rate it as such.

Rating: 6 out of 10

Rashid’s Air Current Buffs

Capcom really loves wind buffs for their Street Fighter characters, don’t they? Not only did they give us Lily in Street Fighter 6, they also decided to give us Rashid of the Turbulent Wind as well. However, instead of giving him a stockpile to buff his moves like Lily, Rashid takes a little more work to execute his Air Current buffs. Basically, Rashid has several moves where he can generate a tiny tornado as an after effect. This is not just a fancy animation thing as Rashid can use this tiny tornado to do all sorts of crazy things and, of course, do much more damage than usual.

The biggest issue with the Air Current buffs is setting them up. Rashid can generate the tiny tornado using a fully charged up Whirlwind Shot, the Overdrive version of his Arabian Cyclone and his Level 2 Ysaar Super Combo. So this isn’t exactly a braindead way of buffing your moves. You have to be much more calculating as to when to activate the tiny tornado to get the Air Current buffs. Another issue is, besides the Level 2 setup, the tiny tornado doesn’t last particularly long. You only have around a second or two to actually use the buff before it fades away, meaning you have to use it or lose it.

Despite these issues, the Air Current buffs Rashid gets for his special moves makes it worth the effort. A Rashid player who knows when to use and setup the Air Current buffs can get downright scary as they can pressure the opponent with enhanced Eagle Spikes, get in safely with an enhanced Spinning Mixer or just increase his movement speed or the range of some of his forward moving normal attacks in general. I’m glad Capcom made it such a hassle to set up the tiny tornado. If they didn’t, the Air Current buffs would’ve been one of the most abusable gimmicks in Street Fighter 6.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Dee Jay’s Feints and Double Specials

If there was an award for the Most Improved Returning Character in Street Fighter 6, that would be Dee Jay. Capcom seemed to double their efforts to making Dee Jay not only a viable character but one of the better ones in the game. He has one of the best Drive Rushes in the game and he also has long damaging juggle combos which are pretty easy to do.

To top it all off, Dee Jay now has a really cool gimmick of, not only feinting some of his special moves, but also giving some of them different properties based on which strength was used. What I mean by feints is Dee Jay will fake out an opponent by just doing the startup of some of his special attacks, namely his Air Slasher, Jackknife Maximum and Rolling Sobat.

This may seem like a waste of time as why not just throw out a version which has an actual attack behind it? Well, it’s pretty good for baiting out some attacks, for one. Dee Jay can fake throwing an Air Slasher in order to bait out something like Marisa’s Level 3 or Cammy’s Critical Art from a distance away. If Dee Jay threw out an actual projectile, he would get killed by these attacks. However, the recovery from the feints are fast enough so you can block the Super Combo and retaliate with one of your own.

The feints also works as a good mixup tool. For example, you can perform a standard Dee Jay combo but do the feint version of the Rolling Sobat in the end. If the opponent is caught sleeping or is pressing the Drive Parry button throughout the combo, Dee Jay can sneak in for a throw. For his Jackknife Maximum kick, it can be used to make Dee Jay do a short jump into his Knee Shot or his jumping medium kick to either create pressure or sneak in a unexpected crossup attack.

Feinting isn’t only Dee Jay’s gimmick, however. While his Jackknife Maximum stay relatively the same between the medium and heavy versions, the Air Slasher and Rolling Sobat also get different properties depending which attack you use. The medium version of the Rolling Sobat does a quick knockdown kick while the heavy version has Dee Jay doing 2 kicks and leaves him plus on hit. This does not seem like a big deal but this puts Dee Jay close enough to add a throw afterwards or doing a combo from it on counter hit. Since Dee Jay has some really sweet and damaging combos, this can prove to be really deadly because of one slipup from the opponent.

The heavy version of the Air Slasher is really special as Dee Jay tosses out 2 projectiles in quick succession. This actually enables him to win projectile wars as the first Air Slasher will eat any incoming fireballs while the second one still flying safely through. It still can’t beat an Overdrive projectile but it’s nice to have. The really good thing is the startups and the recovery between the medium and heavy versions of these two moves are comparable to each other! You can’t throw them with impunity but you can mix between the two as well as the feints to cause a lot of confusion for Dee Jay’s foes.

Honestly, the best thing about Dee Jay’s feints and Double Specials aren’t the move gimmick themselves. Rather, what makes them special is how they add to the mental stack of the person you’re facing. Not only do they have to contend with Dee Jay’s fantastic Drive Rush, they also have to keep in mind his fakeout moves so they can’t just do a counter move as well as which version of the special he does.

Rating: 9 out of 10

Byee!

What other uses can you think for these gimmicks? Let me know in the comments section below!