Ken Corner Cross-up Differences

In the corner, sometimes Ken can cross characters up, and sometimes he can’t. It has been really bothering me that I didn’t know exactly when and where he can do it. It can be really annoying when you think you are being tricky and do an empty jump cross up on wake up and do short short when you land, only to have done the super the wrong way because you thought you were going to cross up, but landed in front of them instead, or the other way around. So I did a bit of investigating to figure out when and where Ken can cross people up in the corner.

On some characters, the way they get knocked down affects whether or not they can be crossed up. Most characters have two different knock down states, head towards the opponent and away from the corner, and head away from the opponent and towards the corner. The only thing this affected that I previously knew about was Dudley being OTG’d. However, some characters only have one knock down state, for instance Makoto and Q. Coincidently, those two can’t be crossed up in the corner.

The other thing that seems to affect ability to cross up is what corner you are in. Some characters can only cross people up in their own corner. For example, 1P character can only cross people up in the 1P left corner, and 2P only in the right 2P corner. Why this happens I still have no idea, but this phenomenon is not limited to 3rd Strike. Alpha 3 and CvS2 both have weird corner differences. However, 3rd Strike is the first game that I know of to have 1P/2P differences mid screen regarding cross ups. I found something with Ken that demonstrates this. It is really useful in fact, but I’ll get into that another time though.

Here are the circumstances where Ken can cross characters up in the corner.

Alex, Dudley, Hugo, 12, and Necro can always be crossed up. No special circumstances required.

Ken, Ryu, Akuma, Sean, and Chun Li can be crossed up in either corner after a knock down that puts the opponent’s head out of the corner, namely a forward throw or back throw.

Elena you can always cross up standing. But in a knock down situation, Ken can only cross up Elena on wake up in his own corner after a knock down that puts Elena’s head out of the corner, namely a forward throw or back throw.

Oro can be crossed up in Ken’s corner after either a forward throw or back throw. However, Ken can only cross Oro up after a forward throw in Oro’s corner. I am still clueless as to why this discrepancy happens.

Yun, Yang, Ibuki, and Remy can’t be crossed up in either corner, even though they have two types of knockdowns.

Makoto and Q cannot be crossed up in either corner. Both Makoto and Q only have one type of knockdown.


Ken also has corner differences in regards to his ground cross-ups. For instance, he can only cross up Chun Li in his own corner. From playing I am aware of most all of the nuances of Ken’s ground cross-ups, but I will have to do some messing around in Training Mode to verify every possibility before I make a complete list.