Here are 8 minutes of new Akuma gameplay footage in Street Fighter 6

The Akuma content for Street Fighter 6 continues to roll in as GameSpot hits us with just over 8 uninterrupted minutes of new footage.

The next DLC character (who drops on May 22) faces off against Dee Jay, himself and Manon in the video. It may be a level 7 computer controlling Akuma, but we still get to see plenty of interesting facets of his gameplay that further our early understanding of how he’ll play here in SF6.

We do notice some little things that appear to be amendments from Akuma’s appearance back in Street Fighter 5, such has his visually powerful uppercut animation wherein he slams his foe back down to the ground after hitting them up into the air with a goshoryuken (1:07).

You may recall that when the demonic fighter lander this maneuver in Street Fighter 5, it left him right next to his opponent for some easy okizeme pressure with pretty much whatever he wanted. Now the maneuver causes the victim to bounce a bit away from Akuma, surely leaving him with fewer options than in the previous version.

The beginning of the second mirror match round (3:28) offers us an idea of how the character’s dreaded air fireball will work when used in neutral. As the round starts, one Akuma shoots out a regular fireball while the other takes step forward and does an instant air version of the same technique.

The former has time to recover and block while the latter doesn’t appear to move forward too far. Given how overpowering this single maneuver has proven in Street Fighter 2, 4, and 5, we’re really hoping that Capcom has figured out how to balance it a decent bit better this time around.

Another powerful tool we’ve seen Akuma take advantage of over the years is his rapidly recovering Demon Flip palm.

Not only has this move provided him with a mix up as he approaches from the air, it’s also traditional recovered quickly enough to allow him to use it as a kind of feint when it whiffs and then quickly go into another attack.

He whiffs the move against Manon (4:30) and still recovers extremely quickly. That said, when we paused and move the footage frame by frame, it appeared as though there were around 7-9 frames of recovery after the attack whiffed, which is better than the 4 we had back in Street Fighter 4.

Those are just a few of the many moments we can learn from in the footage graciously provided by GameSpot, so give it a watch and then please share anything of interest that you spy in the comments section afterwards.

Want more Street Fighter 6 Akuma? You can check out his move list, see what he looks like on the character select screen and peep his character guide video straight from Capcom.