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Personally I would recommend Power Stone for a beginner. Its easy to pick up and play. No real combos to remember, no real counters other than evading and pressing b when someone is about to grab you or throw a box at your face. Its all technique not really remembering anything very complex.

Though I don't know how well this would prepare you for regular fighters, same thing with super smash bros. They are kind of their own thing. I feel like Power Stone would get you used to regular fighting mechanics a little more though as you have to worry about damage not how far you can hit someone.

brunoafh wrote:To be honest though, after you've played the game for a bit, fireball spam is nothing... You may find this useful/humorous, too: 10 Ways To Not Suck At Street Fighter

Two things:

• I find it funny that point-8 (playing cheap) was rendered as BBcode, and thusly:
• Point-10 against Ken is a no-no (get-up reversal and throw-reversals)

Playing foot games, anticipating attacks, is all about patience and builds up suspense. This is a key reason I couldn't hack the later King of Fighters games. ('96 ~ '98 were much faster with more general-use counter-moves.)

Back to SSF IV -- like brunoafh pointed out, you really do have a lot of options here, specifically focus absorb. (Blocking? Who blocks any more?)