Character Spotlight: Ryu Hayabusa

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Name: Ryu Hayabusa
Game(s): Ninja Gaiden series, Dead or Alive series
Archetype: Rogue
Class: Assassin
Skills/Attributes:

• Extremely skilled swordsman
• Stealthy
• Resourceful
• Agile
• Fast
• Gifted in chi magic
• Wielder of the Dragon Blade and the Blade of the Archfiend

Overview:

We head back into video game land with Ryu Hayabusa, definitely one of the more requested characters in the history of the blog!  I held off for a while because I was like, “Hey, why cover generic ninja dude?” This fateful day, however, my subconscious smacked me and said, “DAN!  You idiot!  This is not generic ninja dude!  This is Ryu Hayabusa, the super ninja, slayer of Vigoor, the Arch Fiend, and a buttload of other really weird looking bad dudes!”  Also, playing through Ninja Gaiden on the original Xbox was probably one of my favorite game memories of all time SO THERE’S THAT, TOO.

Ryu is a badass dude.  Probably one of the most badass dudes.  Widely regarded as one of the most powerful ninja in existence, Ryu also takes time out of saving the world from various demons and world-enslaving organizations to take part in the Dead or Alive fighting series.  Where he also helps save the world from various demons and world-enslaving organizations.  So, yeah, guy’s got a full plate, though I’m pretty sure it’s by choice since no one would ever dream of coming to mess with him if he suddenly decided to become a mountain hermit.

Ryu’s incredibly skilled with various weapons designed to smash, maim, cut, and kill you in various efficient and awful ways.  Initially, I considered placing him in the “Weapons Master” class but then I realized he’s a flippin’ ninja, so I didn’t do that.  Instead, Ryu’s agility, stealth (cough cough), and sleek black garb plant him in the Rogue archetype, and his propensity for killing things dead with his hands makes him a solid fit for the Assassin class.  Let’s take a look at how we’re going to approach this merchant of death!

In The Ryu Workout, the next post to cover the rogue operative, we’re going to build a totally sweet ninja body.  You want to be fighting fit, and read to run on walls, toadstool leap guards, and battle skyscraper-sized bad guys.  As such, we’re going to need to be strong, yes, but also very fast, reactive, and limber.  This is going to be a complete bodyweight workout, modeled partially around my current training regimen for American Ninja Warrior (fitting, eh?) with some slight modifications and schedule changes.

The Skills of Ryu is going to first focus on Ryu’s combat aptitude.  We’re going to talk about ninjutsu, and I’m going to have to dispel some myths for you.  It might be a bit painful, depending on how sentimental you are regarding the myths of the ninja, but I promise I will fill that new void in your mind with good, solid combat knowledge and recommendations!  We’ll talk about throwing weapons as well, because throwing sharp things is fun!  Finally, we’ll go over some of Ryu’s totally sweet parkour tricks, so you will fare better than I did when I took a break from playing Ninja Gaiden one day and tried to do a standing jump to the top of a four and a half foot wall!  (spoiler alert: dented shins)

Finally, we’ll wrap things up with The Mind of Ryu.  Even for a trained, hardened, totally badass ninja like Ryu, murdering lots of people can weigh after a while.  Conveniently enough, the most recent Ninja Gaiden game actually addressed this issue directly, in the form of a very convenient and unpleasant curse!  We’ll talk about how decisions and misdeeds can sometimes weigh on you, even if they were done in the name of good.  It won’t exactly be cheery, but hopefully we’ll come out of it more ready than ever to be badass ninja protagonists.

So, that’s our plan for the coming couple updates!  Sorry again about the lack of salmon ladder video this past weekend, it was literally too cold outside for my video camera to function.  Currently working on a solution for that, in the meantime you can watch a totes adorbs video of Lucas and me playing Super Mario together.

I’ll see you again on Thursday!  Live boldly, change the world, and continue to be awesome!

Dan “DaRatmastah” Wallace

PS: I’m proud of myself for only using the word “badass” four times in this writeup.  That was difficult.