Street Fighter IV strategies

[elvis]

http://www.youtube.com/user/LordAborigineSF4

http://forums.shoryuken.com/forumdisplay.php?f=241

http://www.shoryuken.com/wiki/index.php ... Fighter_IV

[MrPopo]

Short answer JT, yes, the timing just IS that demanding. I guess that's one of the reasons I really like BlazBlue; it buffers your inputs so you don't need to be quite as precise.

[J T]

Thanks for the links elvis, and the short explanation Mr. Popo.

Man, SFIV has got to be the deepest game I've ever played. Maybe Virtua Fighter IV or KI Gold are deeper, but those can't be played online where you really HAVE to know the tricks to survive a match. I went a long time before I ever had a single win online, and I'm a long time Street Fighter player. I'm used to being the best fighter amongst friends. I'm actually enjoying getting my ass handed to me so much online-- it makes the wins all the more satisfying. I'm in love with C.Viper at the moment. I mostly use her or M. Bison. I can play with Ken/Ryu/Sagat, but everyone does that and it's boring.

7K, you're totally right about Sagat. He can launch fireballs all day, and his jumping HK is not only hard to break through, but devestating. People don't even have to be very skilled to win with him. I also hate Zangief. He didn't use to be so hard, but his new spinning fist move and overhead green slap are untouchable, not to mention the spinning pile driver can pick you up from like a quarter screen away. He's way more powered than he used to be.

[gradualmeltdown]

The key to long combo's is learning the difference between a chain and link combo.

Chain combo's are easily mashed out and generally the simple early combo's you might do. An example is Balrogs 3 hit jab chain. These are accomplished by each moves start up frames being fast enough the cancel the previous move. In most cases you cannot cancel more than 2 moves in a row, except those with insane start up times. Because of this to accomplish a combo using only normals you have to "link" moves after canceling.

Links are well timed moves for specific characters that require very specific timing to "link" together. An example of a link combo would be Balrogs Jab, jab, crouching short kick. This 3 hit combo requires you to "link" the second jab into the crouching short kick. What makes this important is the fact that short kick can be chained or linked into many, many special or normal moves because you have "reset" the ability to again cancel a move.

Pick a character and learn their simple chain into link combo. Once you master a simple 3-4 hit chain > link add on another few hits as you can. Find out what move you can easily cancel or juggle into ultra as these are the most devastating techniques later in the round. Eventually with time your execution with come together and you will be linking simple 3 hit combo's into 20 hit ultra's.

[J T]

It bugs me how very few people use anyone besides Ken/Ryu online, so I got a laugh out of this cartoon:

[Dylan]

^ I like it how the console is red ringing in the first panel.

[elvis]

The upside to bringing SF4 to the masses is that it has a bigger community, which makes a versus-oriented game more fun.

The downside to bringing SF4 to the masses is the huge volume of wanker rage quitters, and people who apply random scrub rules to online ("focus attack is for cheaters", "throwing is cheap", blah blah).

The trick to the latter is to just go with the flow. The more scrub Kens out there, the easier they are to beat because you'll get used to their "techniques" in no time. And sooner or later they'll all rage quit permanently, and the community can go back to getting on with having fun.