(Super) Street Fighter IV

[Chest Rockwell]

I didn't know you could charge shit up before the round and whilst locked in another move. That's handy to know...

[JLM]

Oh man yes. It's the fundamentals of charging. If you're jumping in forwards you should always be charging back. I love the arcade stick for this. Jump forward then slam it into reverse so you can charge up the roll and unleash it just as you land.

 

You can charge whilst doing the charge move too. Like I'll do Blanka's horizontal roll, then immediately vertical roll when I land because I was charging the second move while the first was still happening. You have to hide your charging in other moves, and you have to have something charged at all times so you can bust out as quickly as the rotation move characters. If you do the vertical roll with hard kick you have enough charge time to bust out another one almost as soon as you land. People rarely expect this. Also you can charge whilst knocked down. So if you get flattened and they come close to follow up, you can EX vertical roll them in the face the second you're on your feet. Again, people don't expect it like they would from Ken or Ryu because they think your inputs will take too long.

 

Also, I know this might seem obvious, but always down/back charge. Walking backwards is a huuuuuge give-away, but if you charge using diagonally down backwards then you're crouch blocking and charging a sonic boom and a flash kick at the same time, and they don't know which you'll do until you do it. Do a Sonic boom and immediately charge your flash kick. They'll most likely jump over the boom and you'll be ready to flash kick if they get in too close.

 

Etc etc etc.

 

I love the psychology of charging characters, which is weird because I used to hate them up until pretty recently.

 

Another charging tip is that you can get a special move and a super move out with the same charge.

 

Say you want to do Balrog's charging straight and then immediately do his super. Impossible right? Back for two seconds > Forward and punch > Back for two seconds > forward back forward punch. You can't possibly do the super while the punch is still happening because there's not enough time to charge again.

 

However, using the tip above, you can do this:

 

Charge Back > Forward and Punch > forward/back/forward Punch. He'll do the charging straight and immediately cancel it into the super as soon as the punch connects. Presto, two moves off one charge.

 

If you notice a trial for a charging character that looks impossible (Honda's torpedo chained into super torpedo for example) then it's probably because you don't use that little trick. I only learned it when I decided to make Blanka my main guy a while ago and tried to absorb as much knowledge on the nuances of charging characters as possible.

 

Super cancelling works like that for rotation characters too.

 

For instance with Ryu:

 

Down to forwards punch immediately followed by Down to forwards punch will do a houken cancelled into a shinkuu hadouken. It's much much easier than doing a fireball and then having to put the whole super command in the split second while the fireball animation is happening.

 

Do you have a favourite character Hage?

[Chest Rockwell]

I've not really decided yet... and given this bit of news I'm clearly going to have to re-evaluate the charging characters.

 

Obviously I'm familiar with the older characters, and Sagat is piss easy to use so that was a natural character to jump in with.

 

I unlocked Sakura and ran through the game with her and she has some pretty cool moves. I have always wanted to be able to use Dhalsim well because I always liked the idea of the character but found I got nowhere with him.

 

So yeah.. still figuring it out, and trying out everyones moves. I only discovered EX moves on Monday. They seem to be a lot more useful than Super moves. Also I'm slowly learning to block more, which is pretty handy.

 

What did you mean by "wake up moves" - is that just whatever button you're hammering whilst you character is lying on the floor?

[JLM]

Yeah, the super combo gauge takes forever to fill up in this version, so I tend to agree about EX moves. I use them liberally and very rarely use my super. You should note that the yellow flash during an EX move denotes both the additional power/range/speed of the move and the fact that it comes with invincibility frames. Blanka's horizontal roll goes throuh fireballs if you use the EX version. This is tremendous. Scarier still, Zangief's walking forward grab animation thing when you do his flying powerbomb (360 rotation plus kick when at mid-range) can walk through fireballs when you EX it. Blanka's super is pretty shit anyway. Always has been. His ultra is decent but it has a horrible tendency to knock them down, causing the bit that actually hurts to miss completely.

 

Wake-up, yeah, it's what you do as you get up. The idea is to input the directions during the down time and then release the move the split second you get up. On the old games people used to "piano" the buttons to maximise the chances of doing this because the input window was so small. For instance, if they wanted to do a dragon punch on wake-up, they'd do the commands and then tap L. punch, M. punch, H. punch in succession, then release them in succession. This effectively gave them six inputs because letting go of the button counts as an input as well as pressing it.

 

So you do Forward/Down/Down forward, and you have a split second window to input "punch" as your character's feet hit the floor. What they effectively did by piano-ing was enter "punch" six times during those moments to make sure the fucker came out as quickly as possible.

 

On SFIV this is MUCH easier. Staggeringly so. Even the shittiest of the Kens I've played can bust out an instant fierce dragon punch almost as soon as their back is up off the floor. It's well worth doing, but be careful because most sensible players will see you do it once, realise that you're able to do so and then block the next time you do it, leaving you stuck up in the air and waiting to land on some PAIN.

 

With Blanka I do an EX vertical roll because it does one of three things: hits them, gets you far away if it totally misses or has a decent bounce away if they block it. All round decent move to come up off the floor with. Not always mind, but it's my go-to move if I decide to do it. You may notice that one of the XBL post-match medals is for "reversals". Reversal medals will be from wake-up hits against an opponent trying to pile pressure on while they're getting up.

 

Also, the focus attack has had an impact because they can stand next to you and do a level 3 focus attack as you're standing up. The focus attack gives them one hit of protection/armour/parry/whatever against whatever you do, so if your wake up move only hits once it'll get crushed by that and they'll hit you anyway.

[Joe_the_Lion]

I fear the 'real world' has lost young JLM forever...............

[JLM]

Haha. Quiet you. Listen, beat'em ups are my favourite thing in all of gaming, but they're also on the decline and the 2D fighter is so far underground now that you have to import or scour the internet to get hold of pretty much anything now. To have a new Streetfighter game in 2009, and for people to be playing it competitively and talking strategy and stuff is an absolute dream for me. Let me have my fun and bore people with my ravings before everyone goes back to "Military FPS Game 7345367: World War 1 again? AWESOME!"

[mattshutter]

Hehe the strange thing is I've not really played beat em ups since Tekken 3.

 

I played a couple of SNK King of Fighter games on an old emulator, amongst others.

 

But i've never been a huge beat em up fan....i traded in Soul Calibur 4 after a few days. I was so disappointed. I'd been a Street Fighter 2 fan, but never ever thought i'd be so into Street Fighter 4.

 

I enjoy talking strategy, even if i'm a bit of a noob!

 

It's a hell of a game!

[FLips]

I could sit and read JLM's posts about this game all day. Brilliant stuff.

I got absolutely destroyed by him online, and rightfully so. I've had quite a bit of practice with Abel and Balrog now though so I reckon i'd put up a bit more of a fight , i'd still get beaten though.

 

Abel is easily my favourite character on this, using his rolls and counters is so satisfying if you get them right, his only downfall is his lack of long range moves. I got sick of fighting Ken really fast, as 9/10 someone will pick him and either spam uppercuts or jump and kick, sweep, repeat. I've gotten used to it now though and just crouch and block, wait for them to get above me and then unleash Abel's uppercut because it hits twice and is good to get a few shots in afterwards.

I hate fighting Chun-Li, Zangief and Cammy online too, as the people i've played who use Chun-Li always jump/sweep/spam lightning kicks, Zangief spams the lariats and powerbombs and Cammy does that stupid sliding kick thing.

 

I hated street fighter 2 but loved the Marvel vs Capcom/ X-men vs Street fighter type games, so as this game meets kind of in the middle i'm absolutely in love with it, because it's got the simple gameplay of the marvel games, but it's taught me all the tactics and stuff from Street Fighter 2.

 

Seth is a dick.

[Mattyc]

Soon enough I

[cdm316]

Amazon have the Hori EX 2 Arcade Stick (Xbox 360) in stock for

[Almighty Rod]

I've finally not only mastered the ultra combos with charge characters but I've found my perfect character - M. Bison.

 

Just to prove how great I have become I'm going to brag like I have been doing the past twenty minutes that I destroyed my friend 37 wins to just 2. With 2 winstreaks, 14 wins and 22 wins respectively, and I had 1 perfect and won the last round. He also begged for a rematch but I left. Now normally I sound like I'm being an arse bragging this much, but this guy is one of those guys who is naturally brilliant at games and lets everyone know it. Really stuck up and makes fun of people who suck at games in general (me) constantly, so I'm feeling VERY smug at the moment.

 

It's only my third time playing the game too! I don't even own it!

[JLM]

Amazon have the Hori EX 2 Arcade Stick (Xbox 360) in stock for

[Onyx2]

Damn I wish I had an Xbox and a copy of this game Jarrence, I feel we would have some fucking EPIC battles. I devour your posts with glee, I haven't found someone normal with this level of interest in the game in years.

[JLM]

Yeah, I need to play you at a beat'em up one of these days Garrence. If BlazBlue is a PS3 exclusive (as is rumoured) and I lose the will to fight my need for Little Big Planet, then I guess I might eventually get one of those PlayStation 3 dealies.

 

Also, mattshutter, I don't know what went on earlier. I invited you but I think some random guy usurped my open spot at the exact moment you tried to join my game. I tried it again but the invite wouldn't send. We'll sort it soon enough anyway, I'm curious to see what you get up to with that stretchy-limbed individual.

 

Oh yeah, and in the spirit of presenting a balanced view on the Xbox live community, I got a nice message from a stranger after totally killing his Ryu in a player match. It said "you're really good mate". No abuse, no racial slurs or liberal use of "faggot", just straight up acknowledgement that he had been bested by a superior opponent. Warmed the heart it did. Only problem was that he was really bad at the game. Really bad. So I didn't know quite what to say. I ended up saying "thanks, it was fun, nice to see not everyone sends abuse when they lose". I couldn't bring myself to say "good game" or anything encouraging him to keep practicing because he was reeaaaallly bad.

 

It's like, there are a few people I have slaughtered in straight rounds, but it isn't because they suck or because I'm awesome, but simply that what I do just totally flies in the face of their particular gameplan and their whole routine goes out of whack. I can see what they were trying to do, but fortunately my course of action countered all of it perfectly on that occasion. You even see it happen in tournament matches at the highest level. Two extremely skilled players who have beaten the best in the world to get to the final, but for the odd round there will be a time where one player gets absolutely fucking stuffed, sometimes a perfect, and if you saw it in isolation you'd assume that the other player was miles bettwe.

 

With this guy, it wasn't the case. I could have played him fifty times and I wouldn't have come close to dropping a round. At one point we spent a full twenty seconds with him on the other side of the screen spamming fireballs and EX fireballs. I used Blanka's awesome new ducking move to go under them until he got bored, then finished him off. I was tempted to try and get one of those medals for winning by time limit judgment, but felt like a dick for toying with the guy.

 

So, so bad.

 

So yeah, don't be disheartened if you're getting whupped a lot, because you're probably not as bad as that guy.

[spikester]

I've ventured back online ranked matches, so far I'm pretty competent and holding my own. I won my first, lost my second, then went on a 7 match unbeaten streak then lost

 

So as it stand my ranked matches are won 8 lost 2.

 

I've used Sagat 3 times, Ryu twice, Zangief 3 times Fei long twice