The Street Fighter IV thread

[.Singe]

Ah SFIV.

My older brother brought this home for the first time, and we turned off the PS3 after 45 minutes after losing repeatedly to Seth.

The next day? We had unlocked all the characters. The mechanics take time to get used to, and when you do it all becomes clear.

I hate playing Zangief, but how else do you learn?

The idea of unblockable attacks came from SFIII's parry system, there's risk instead of miscalculating a few frames while you continue blocking.

Throws? They're part of the game, best learn to deal with them. If you're getting up off the ground, here's a hint - jump backwards or just grab as you're getting up, you'll tech the throw.

As for the Ken/Akuma/Ryu players - play as Gouken, you'll make them cry.

[whoisKeel]

Try playing player matches. I see way more Ryu/Ken/Akuma/Sagat on ranked matches. People experiment more on player matches (I prefer them).

Also, I love throws. I use them constantly. The only thing better than throws is Blanka's neck bite grab.

I have seen a few people getting better at El Fuerte the last week or so. It seems like whenever I play as him, people leave after the match, as if I'm just not taking things seriously Strangely, I have yet to see anybody all that great as Gouken. He seems slow and easy to predict, but I still think the potential is there.


Still waiting on a double K.O. online...

[Nirvana]

Player Matches are pretty sweet. I personally think that it shouldn't count toward your Win/Loss Ratio, or at least have a seperate record. I didn't notice it affected my record until it was too late. I was too busy experimenting with different characters.

I have a 75% winning percentage when it honestly could be about 80%.

And about the fight pads. I'm gonna copy and paste my opinion on them from another forum.

Madcatz/Capcom/Whoever is really intent on making these guys "limited edition," but it isn't fair for people who don't have access to an overall better gamepad. I have a Ryu and Ken gamepad, so I'm all set. However, I do feel sympathy towards people who are turned off by the game because they don't like the X-Box 360 gamepad, since it is pretty shitty when compared to the fightpads.

I personally think that they should keep the distribution of the current fightpads as they are, but then release newer fightpads, except with different characters. With the newer fightpads, they should distribute a much larger quantity all over and make them much more common to find. That way, the gamepads out now will keep their limited edition-ness, but everybody will be able to have access to the Genesis style of buttons and floating D-Pad.

I'd love to see a Cammy, Guile, E. Honda, Abel, etc. That'd be sweet.

[Mayhem]

As for the Ken/Akuma/Ryu players - play as Gouken, you'll make them cry.

I've played one Gouken, and I think he got picked to deal with the fireball spam. Except I know that's why he got picked, and hence I choose my timing with fireballs carefully and won out 2-0 in the match.

[GnawRadar]

I've played one Gouken, and I think he got picked to deal with the fireball spam. Except I know that's why he got picked, and hence I choose my timing with fireballs carefully and won out 2-0 in the match.

Word. Gouken has great defense, but there's nothing like using his "teleport" type attack that goes through fireballs to get in close then hitting them with a Back-Throw, which throws the opponent straight in the air, and hitting them with the Ultra Shin-Shoryuken on the way down for the win.

[kupomogli]

Haven't played the game in about two weeks. I went over to my friends and lost the first match against Jordan. That first match was more of a warm up and Jordan did get better. After one more loss I didn't lose another match afterwards.

We ended up switching out after every loss, meaning I kept the controller the entire time, beating Jordan, Steve, and Matt.

It wasn't until I was around 50 wins that Matt got pissed off as hell. He mainly got pissed off because I'd time my jumps to kick him then combo him from behind. If he used Zangief, he'd hit me with one attack if he was lucky, and the only other characters he chose were Sagat, Cammy, or Guile. Because he couldn't turtle me with Guile as I'd low kick him, jump over him, resulting in pushing myself into the corner with a kick, then combo him from behind, he got extremely pissed off and say the game was one of the most unbalanced fighters he's ever played. I'd beg to differ as Street Fighter 4 is probably the most balanced, period.

After that we didn't play Street Fighter 4 anymore. He got up after his turn and punched his 360(resulting in it resetting.) I was like .

[Wolfrider]

Ok, I'm going to have to step to colb33r's defense here guys. One thing I really dislike in the fighting game community is the tendency to reject valid critique by throwing the word "scrub" around.

Myth: Fighting games are perfectly balanced and if you disagree you don't know how to play them. Wrong. All fighting games are balanced to various degrees. Tier lists develop, infinite combos are found, exploits in the system are discovered. Street Fighter is not perfectly balanced either. Sorry, that's just the way it is. Often people deal with it by adjusting their play styles around the imbalances or just accepting the game as it is. Unbalanced does not equal unplayable or un-win-able.

In the case of SFIV, and I've made my opinion on this clear, I happen to agree with coldb33r's general sentiments. I'm a bit of a fighting game aficionado - though Street Fighter surprisingly was never my "thing". I respect most of the games though, just knew that I wasn't that into them. SFIV, however, is different. I don't dislike it due to personal tastes, I dislike it because I think there are some serious design issues in the games overall architecture.

Throws: I like throws, throws are fine and needed in any fighting game as a blunt against turtling. Why are so many "scrubs" complaining about the throw system in SFIV? Because, to put it in academic terms, SFIV's throw system is RETARDED. There's no real logic to the timing of throws. Characters can, in one frame, go from being hit and staggering to immediately grabbing their opponent. Throws should be a defensive counter usually, offensive move in rare cases, but never should they be usable when getting hit. It destroys the flow of the game. If you're open to throws defensively AND offensively the entire game becomes schizophrenic and haphazard - which is what many SFIV fights amount to - panicked fireball throwing and bouncing around the arena. If you enjoy that - fine. But people who don't do have valid reasoning for it.

Take a much speedier fighting game like Guilty Gear. That never happens. There are checks and balances to everything your opponent throws at you and although the game moves fast, careful concentrated and elaborate strategies can be executed effectively due to all characters having the ability to deal with all moves appropriately.

This doesn't happen in SFIV. Yes, if you're an excellent Street Fighter, then you can probably use any character effectively to get around the games humps - but that's not balance. The system in SFIV is character oriented - meaning all the little nuances are about pure memorization. "I'm playing Fei Long and against Sagat so I'm going to have to do this move to jump over his fireballs etc..." of course that strategy no longer works if it's against another character. That's not good. Take a fabulously balanced fighter like Virtua Fighter: it doesn't matter who I'm fighting against or who I'm using, I can deal with oncoming attacks by sidestepping, rolling back, forwards, left right, doing a rising attack, and quick rise etc etc. For Guilty Gear I can dash back and forth, use that little defensive projectile .... thing, etc.

In SFIV? It's all about memorizing combinations and specific situations. You might like that, but to me that's lousy fighting game design.

All of this might be forgivable if SFIV (apparently designed with casual gamers in mind) did anything to properly train the player. The manual is less than adequate, the training mode is a joke (VF4: Evolution anyone?), and it in no way attempts to explain the techniques needed for successful play. I'm not talking advanced techniques, I'm talking about the bare basics of how the game operates.

An anecdote: Last night I popped in SFIV again to give it another try. I got my ass handed to me multiple times while playing Sakura. Now, Sakura I know basically how to use. I know her moves some combos etc. Not enough to play deeply with her though, so I assumed the reason I was getting beat down was because I was just playing poorly.

Then, by accident, I picked Abel. Damn. Well I wasn't going to drop out - but I wasn't looking forward to my next match - I never used him before.

5 match win streak. Including two perfects. With a character I had no idea how to use. No button combos, nothing. The character was just built better than Sakura. Could I get good at using Sakura? Of course I could. Should there be that big a discrepancy between two characters? In a balanced, well designed fighting game - never.

[kupomogli]

Street Fighter is anything but memorization. You play one round with one character in any SF game and right there is all the memorization you need. How many attacks and such do you think Street Fighter has in it? It's not like Tekken and it's 15 button press combos. Now Tekken is nothing more than memorization.

That said. Abel isn't hard to play as is why you did so well(though maybe his fighting style was better for you, or you may have played against worse opponents.) The character is probably the easiest character to start as due to his attacks are "press direction and button." But just because he's easy to play as doesn't mean he's overpowered, you have to learn the best way to play with him. So saying SF4 isn't a well balanced fighter just because Abel is a far easier character to actually be good with is just bs.

However, I for one do agree with the grab thing you mentioned. While Zangief isn't overpowered in the least, the fact that you can be doing low punches on him and he comes in with a grab even while being staggered. To me, that's just plain stupid.

[Wolfrider31]

Street Fighter is anything but memorization. You play one round with one character in any SF game and right there is all the memorization you need. How many attacks and such do you think Street Fighter has in it? It's not like Tekken and it's 15 button press combos. Now Tekken is nothing more than memorization.

That said. Abel isn't hard to play as is why you did so well(though maybe his fighting style was better for you, or you may have played against worse opponents.) The character is probably the easiest character to start as due to his attacks are "press direction and button." But just because he's easy to play as doesn't mean he's overpowered, you have to learn the best way to play with him.

However, I for one do agree with the grab thing you mentioned. While Zangief isn't overpowered in the least, the fact that you can be doing low punches on him and he comes in with a grab even while being staggered. To me, that's just plain stupid.

I'm not arguing that anyone is over-powered. I don't think anyone is (maybe Seth but whatever). I'm arguing that being able to perform so much better with one character that I've never used before, and another that I know relatively well is a bit silly. It could indeed have been because I was fighting against weaker opponents - but it was all random so that seems unlikely.

[kupomogli]

Balrog is the hardest character to learn to play as well. What's the difference? One character being easier to use for a beginner doesn't mean the game isn't as balanced.

It's true that no fighter is perfectly balanced, but that doesn't change the fact that Street Fighter is the closest any series has came. If you ask me, the only fighter that could be considered as balanced as the Street Fighter series is Garou Mark of the Wolves(my opinion only though.)

Your mention of Guilty Gear, though? You must not know about the infinite combos that those games carry? Other than with Dhalsim, Street Fighter has no infinites. Let's not forget the amount of so called "combos" in Guilty Gear that consist of doing the exact same attacks over and over once you hit them with the first of that specific attack.

If you're a Street Fighter fan, you've most likely seen this. If not, you need to. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7cW2nMf1gk It's a video of Daigo Umehara, who's probably the best Street Fighter player ever.

[Wolfrider31]

Balrog is the hardest character to learn to play as well. What's the difference? One character being easier to use for a beginner doesn't mean the game isn't as balanced.

It's true that no fighter is perfectly balanced, but that doesn't change the fact that Street Fighter is the closest any series has came. If you ask me, the only fighter that could be considered as balanced as the Street Fighter series is Garou Mark of the Wolves(my opinion only though.)

Your mention of Guilty Gear, though? You must not know about the infinite combos that those games carry? Other than with Dhalsim, Street Fighter has no infinites. Let's not forget the amount of so called "combos" in Guilty Gear that consist of doing the exact same attacks over and over once you hit them with the first of that specific attack.

If you're a Street Fighter fan, you've most likely seen this. If not, you need to. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7cW2nMf1gk

I've seen that. And as I indicated, I respect the other games (earlier in the post I even said that SFIII was brilliant). My criticisms lie with SFIV only.

And haven't infinite combos just recently been discovered in SFIV? But as far as SFIV being the most balanced fighter ever... well... I can only balk at that. Especially considering you believed Garou is its only runner up. I think Virtua Fighter easily wins that round - and I don't even think there's a lot of debate on that point in the fighting game community.

Regardless of whether you like SFIV or not, my point in posting was to say that people who dislike SFIV dislike it for legitimate reasons and not because they are "scrubs".

[norkusa]

I just got SFIV in a trade Monday and it's the best Street Fighter game yet IMO. The canceling challenges are driving me insane though. Must have tried at least 100 times with Dhalsim and Ken and I can't pull a single cancel move off. I'm using a stick and doing the moves as fast as I can, but they still aren't canceling for some reason. Any tips?

[Wolfrider31]

I just got SFIV in a trade Monday and it's the best Street Fighter game yet IMO. The canceling challenges are driving me insane though. Must have tried at least 100 times with Dhalsim and Ken and I can't pull a single cancel move off. I'm using a stick and doing the moves as fast as I can, but they still aren't canceling for some reason. Any tips?

Pre-order BlazBlue and KOF.

*Runs*

[norkusa]

Seriously, any tips on how to do the cancels? Is it basically supposed to be 2 moves in a row in one fast, single motion? Or can I take my time with them?

For Ken, the first one you're supposed to do is a heavy kick canceling into a hadooken. I can do a heavy kick and I can do a hadoken, but I can't put them together for a cancel. I'm thinking it has to do with the timing but I dunno.

[G-Boobie]

Seriously, any tips on how to do the cancels? Is it basically supposed to be 2 moves in a row in one fast, single motion? Or can I take my time with them?

For Ken, the first one you're supposed to do is a heavy kick canceling into a hadooken. I can do a heavy kick and I can do a hadoken, but I can't put them together for a cancel. I'm thinking it has to do with the timing but I dunno.

The timing for canceling in SF IV is pretty strict: usually in the 1 frame area. That's 1/60th of a second. So yeah, it's your timing.

All the general tricks for canceling into combos from previous Street Fighter games apply here. A brief overview:

Basically, a cancel is cutting the animation for any move short, usually(but not always) in order to cut out the part of the animation that takes place after a move hits your opponent(known as 'recovery time', or 'recovery frames'). That allows you to continue to hit an opponent for free while they're stuck in hit or block stun.

The easiest way to figure out when you're supposed to input the command for the next move is to input the commands for a combo chain in sequence in one smooth fluid motion. If that doesn't work right off the bat(which it probably won't), some experimentation with input timing is probably required. YouTube videos can help you figure it out with some of the later trials.

A few general, non specific tips for getting combos to work properly:

1) When you start your chain, be as close to your opponent as you can. Every hit in a combo will push you farther away from the dude you're stomping on. This is especially important to remember for combos that start with 'jumping in': Jump in as close as you can without jumping over your opponent. Same with standing combos: get to the point where you're almost pushing the guy away before you start hitting him.

2) For some inputs, you can begin a special move stick input while your character is in the middle of a normal attack. Just by way of example, you can begin a charge for Blanka's roll while either jumping in, or doing the face bite grab, or even in the middle of an FA or normal move that has a long recovery time.

The important thing to take away from that is that attack animations will not be interrupted by movement inputs. Once you get that firmly in mind, picturing how a combo is structured becomes easier: for the kick into hadoken you're having trouble with, try inputing the HCF P motion as soon as the animation for the kick begins. Adjust from there.

3) Practice makes perfect

Do you play on 360 or PSN?

[G-Boobie]

And haven't infinite combos just recently been discovered in SFIV? But as far as SFIV being the most balanced fighter ever... well... I can only balk at that. Especially considering you believed Garou is its only runner up. I think Virtua Fighter easily wins that round - and I don't even think there's a lot of debate on that point in the fighting game community.

The idea that Street Fighter IV is the most balanced fighter ever is ridiculous, and stretches even hyperbole to the breaking point. I sure as Hell never said that. I'm with you on that one.

And Garou? really? Huh. I'm with you there, too.

Regardless of whether you like SFIV or not, my point in posting was to say that people who dislike SFIV dislike it for legitimate reasons and not because they are "scrubs".

If the argument had been presented in a calm, rational, collected manner, I wouldn't have responded in the way I did. It wasn't. The argument was five hundred words that could be summarized as "I'm getting beaten online because I didn't learn the system and therefore I hate it".

If Coldb33r, whom I like quite a bit by the way, had provided some valid technical reasons for his dislike of Street Fighter IV, such as priority of certain character's moves or the weird, floaty feel that jumps have in comparison to prior games, or even how badly they nerfed Vega, I'd have left well enough alone. He didn't though, and here we are.

Oh, and Kupo? You really don't know what you're talking about. Street Fighter is quite a bit about memorization. All fighting games are, at least at mid to high level. Guilty Gear has a damage scaling system in place that reduces damage for every hit you take in a combo: eventually, every hit will do a pixel of damage, so even infinites have extremely limited uses. There's green blocking, and there's your handy dandy burst gauge. Infinites, assuming they exist(and I haven't seen any), are pretty much worthless in Guilty Gear.

Street Fighter III has at LEAST one infinite (Oro), and two seriously broken characters (Chun Li and Yun). The only Street Fighter game with balance even close to Guilty Gear is Super Turbo, and I call happy accident on that one.

We're not even going to talk about Garou. All I have to say is 'Kevin', and that's the end of that.

[norkusa]

Thanks a lot for that explanation, g-boobie. Makes more sense to me now. Especially the part about being close to your opponent when you do the cancels.

I guess I gotta keep practicing although I think I'd do better with one of those new SFIV pads instead of this DOA4 stick. Stick feels real loose and it's hard to tell if I'm hitting the motions properly. Or I can just wait until March when the TE sticks are supposed to be back in stock.

I'm playing on 360 (as Norkusa). Add me if you want but I just got the game Monday, so I'm still trying to get the hang of all the new moves.

[c0ldb33r]

If Coldb33r, whom I like quite a bit by the way, had provided some valid technical reasons for his dislike of Street Fighter IV, such as priority of certain character's moves or the weird, floaty feel that jumps have in comparison to prior games, or even how badly they nerfed Vega, I'd have left well enough alone. He didn't though, and here we are.

Hey guys, I'm just popping back into this thread cause my name's been mentioned a few times. From my perspective, I don't really need to explain or justify to anyone why I don't like the game. And to be honest, I don't expect that anyone would really care what I had to say on the topic. I doubt that I could convince someone else to dislike the game anymore than someone else could convince me to like it. And that's okay - if other people like the game, then I wish them the best!

Now, if they release nude Cammy or C. Viper DLC... I'm there!

[ubersaurus]

Street Fighter III has at LEAST one infinite (Oro), and two seriously broken characters (Chun Li and Yun). The only Street Fighter game with balance even close to Guilty Gear is Super Turbo, and I call happy accident on that one.

Heh, ST was pretty fucked up too. Akuma was way better than everyone else, with O.Sagat, Vega, Balrog, and Dhalsim pretty much rocking everyone below him. There's matchups, to be fair, so it's not a total wash, but I'd never call ST a balanced fighter. Now Hyper Fighting, on the other hand...Ryu was a beast, but he was not a particularly insurmountable beast.

I'd also give props to KOF 98 Ultimate Match, as SNK succeeded in making a game where all but one of the (non console exclusive) characters are viable in a competitive environment. Krauser is good and probably slightly better than everyone else, but has his own weak points. It's really what HD Remix set out to be with ST but for KOF, and I'd argue that SNK did a better job on the rebalance.

[Nirvana]

Dammit. I'm hitting a wall at 3800 BP. Better work on my Cammy more. This sucks.

(On a better note, I finally got the achievement for beating the game on Hardest then beating Gouken.)