What are the differences between Ken and Violent Ken?
In 1994, Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie was released and with it a huge deal of inspiration for the future of fighting games. The movie was successful and many other fighting game titles soon followed the same idea and started releasing expanded content in the form of movies, tv shows, and other forms of media.
In the movie, the character of Ken is brainwashed into joining M. Bison and his Shadaloo organization, and so Violent Ken was born. Soon, the character made its playable debut in SNK vs Capcom: SvC Chaos and ultimately made it into Capcom titles as well.
10. Goals And Aspirations
Ken Masters comes from a family of wealth, and he is a millionaire who owns a big business. He devotes his life to his family, mainly his wife, and son, and strives to be a better fighter.
Violent Ken, on the other hand, is Ken after being brainwashed by M. Bison’s Psycho Power, so he has no bonds with his family or friends. Instead, his goals are aligned with those of Shadaloo. Not so family-friendly, eh?
9. Relationships
Ken is best-friends with Ryu, with whom he has a friendly rivalry since they learned to fight together. He also has tremendous love and respect for his master Gouken, he is proud of his pupil Sean, he has multiple allies, and keeps a close and deep relationship with his wife Eliza and his son Mel.
Violent Ken’s relationships are basically inexistent. Instead, he hungers for destruction at the command of Shadaloo and holds Evil Ryu as a rival, as well as Orochi Iori, from the King of Fighters series.
8. Likes And Dislikes
Ken Masters is a huge fan of pasta, he has the skill to cook some delicious pasta himself. What really grinds his gears are mundane stuff like soap operas and unnecessary meetings.
Violent Ken’s tastes are nothing like his normal self. Instead, he simply adores bloody battles, victory, and killing, and he just can’t stand boredom. Yikes!
7. Appearance
One of the main things you can notice right off the bat is the difference in appearance between the two forms of Ken.
Violent Ken has white hair instead of blonde, he has glowing purple eyes and a general purple aura that envelops his body. His skin is also darker than regular Ken and he is commonly depicted with a vicious grin, contrasting with Ken’s confident smirk.
6. Origin
Ken was sent to train under master Gouken by his father when he was still a child. There, he learned the ways of fighting and he became super close to his training partner, and now best friend, Ryu.
After he was abducted and brainwashed, Ken became violent and willing to kill in the name of Shadaloo, developing a strong hatred for Ryu. Since Psycho Power was what was used to brainwash him, he is all about that negative energy.
5. Ki Nature
Matching his burning fighting spirit, Ken’s ki adds flames to his attacks. From his flaming Shoryuken to even flame Hadoken and Tatsumaki, fire is an integral part of Ken as a character.
Violent Ken doesn’t use fire at all in any of his moves. Having been infused with Psycho Power, his moves usually have a purple color derived from said Psycho Power fueling all his attacks.
4. Speech
The way the two characters communicate couldn’t be more different, and it is something that is visible even during battle.
Whilst Ken is always smiling and presenting his moves in a passionate way while teasing his opponents, Violent Ken is constantly shouting and spouting nonsense about his obsession with power.
3. Final Moves
Ken’s repertoire is filled with flashy moves when it comes to his finishers, in the shape of Super Combos, Ultra Combos, Super Arts, or Critical Arts. He has many iconic finishers such as Shinryuken, Shoryureppa, and Shippu Jinrai Kyaku.
His violent, brainwashed self lacks most of these super-famous moves. Instead, he has his own killer move known as Shinbu Messatsu, an array of strikes finishing in a Psycho Power-fueled Shoryuken.
2. Moveset
At their core, their moveset is pretty similar, almost identical. Barring the visual differences in the already mentioned distinction of flames versus Psycho Power, both versions of Ken employ the same basic moves of any shoto: Fireball, Uppercut, Hurricane Kick.
The main differences are in the additional tools that Violent Ken has. Aside from his super moves being more around multi-hitting combos, he has a very peculiar special move which is a big part of his identity as a character: the Rasetsu Kyaku, a kind of teleport that can be really tough to deal with.
1. Mood
Well, Violent Ken doesn’t get his namesake for no reason. How should we put this? He’s really, really violent.
Truly, the biggest difference between Ken and Violent Ken has to be their overall demeanor. Ken is confident, he is passionate, and he has a burning soul. Violent Ken is angry, acts like a rabid wolverine, and only has hatred and insane intensity in his mind.
Violent Ken started out as a non-cannon idea for an animated movie and ended up becoming one of the biggest mythical, what-if characters in Street Fighter history.
In terms of popularity, regular Ken is one of the most emblematic characters in overall gaming history, so his Violent self is just a niche character with a reduced fanbase. Still, it’s cool to compare the two versions of Ken, and hopefully, this list helped you gather what makes them two very different characters.
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