Super Street Fighter 4

[Fry]

Alright, SSF4 is the primary means of social interaction between me, my housemates and close friends; any serious decision needing to be made is settled over a game of SF and most talking or relaxing is done sat in front of it in mini adhoc tournements. It's a fabulous game.

My two characters are Chun-li and Juri, I've honed my skills with this pair I can take  pretty much anyone on and take the upper hand after slight changes in tactics.

Except Sagat. One of my housemate's characters is Sagat, and he's bloody good with him. So quick, yet so strong and durable  - and those projectiles! He can fire within a milisecond. It's killing me! Especially with Chunners, I absolutely love playing with her but if I slip up once (he always gets me by turtling for a while, then slipping in with a lk, opening me up for a crazy combo which shreds Chun-Li's flimsy vitality).

I need some tips for fighting Sagat. I am totally willing to learn another character if there is one that can counter his insanity (except Dudley, C. Viper, Sagat, Seth, Ryu, Balrog or Ken, they've all been taken by my friends. We have a 'no doubling up on characters' rule.) Or if there is just a weak point I could exploit? Anything?

It's killing me! He's running a tyrannical regime!

[Fry]

Quoted instead of Modifying. Ignore.

[The Boston Crab]

http://shoryuken.com/f253/

I haven't played in ages because I had to give up due to lack of time. Heart broken.

Anyway, Look at that link, it's the Chunners thread on SRK.com. Have a quick browse and you'll get some Sagat match-ups. I tried to play as Chun but was shit. I'm Ken and found the best way against Sagat was to just block/FA-dash through a couple until I could get in close and then keep the pressure on with tick throw/kara throw/crossup and try to just keep it on. It's bollocks though because his Tiger Uppercut beats Ken's SRK much of the time anyway and he trades hits into Ultra, which is fucking stupid.

One neat thing about Chun obviously is she can Super/full Ultra through projectiles but you couldn't pull it off on reaction given the speed of his but if you can read em, yeah, it's something.

Basically, anyone playing as Sagat is a cunt, anyway. If you're any good with shotos, I'd pick up Akuma, seems nobody's got him from your list. He can compete with the tiger shot stuff because of his aerial FB to mix up the pace and he's also got the Demon Flip which is amazing once you get it going, plus teleport through them and blah blah blah, he's a beast. Work on your Chun though, much more interesting.

I'd give you a game but...I have to kill someone.

[The Boston Crab]

FRY YOU CHEEKY FUCKING CUNT

[Fry]

Sorry, I typed a big ol' reply but it  fucked up before I could post and I got disheartened and forgot about you. I'll give it to you succintly - "Thanks for the link! Yeah I am going to stick with chunbags! I like this game! :oD"

[The Boston Crab]

NOF

(Nice one, Fry.)

Have fun!

[MattyHusted]

oi i play sagat

[The Boston Crab]

cunt

[Brent Cockman]

The trick to using Chun's Ultra to pass through Tiger Shots is to just keep buffering it without hitting 3x kick. Just keep buffering the motion until you see him fire one, then just press 3x kick and job done. Still need good reactions, but clever buffering like that is just a big part of a solid footsies game.

Apologies if you're already trying that but without success. Only thing for it is to work on your reactions.

[VegaLA]

Funny this thread should get a bump. I've been looking for this game for the 360 in the stores this past week, as my friend has my old copy and wanted to play her at this online so I went to get a new copy. I knew full well that the new Marvel Vs Capcom game was on the shelves so figured that SSFIV might be marked down which would be a result but uh oh...no such luck. Can't find the game at any of the stores, not even the well stocked big stores have it available. I could probably find it online in seconds but still find it strange that it's disapeared from the usual spots.

[Brent Cockman]

That is weird.

Glad you brought up Marvel vs Capcom 3 by the way - that game is all kinds of fun. First time I've been in to a team game of that sort (I briefly dabbled in Capcom vs SNK 2 but didn't stick with it). I really recommend SF4 players get their hands on Marvel 3, it's different but worth persevering with.

[VegaLA]

New DLC for SSFIV.

http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/23688/Street-Fighter-IV-Arcade-Edition-Coming-to-Consoles/

Includes 3 new characters and some cool shit too.

[Onionlimit]

I've had it for about a month now and I just can't get it right.  I've been playing mainly with Ryu as I hear he's a good all-rounder to start off with but I can't get my brain to work at these speeds while trying to remember the button combos/ actually pulling them off.  I've never played a Street Fighter game before - had a phase of Tekken and Super Smash Bros which are very different, but that's the closest I've come.

Should I just stick to Training or will I pick it up faster in Versus or Arcade where I've got a proper opponent?

[Brent Cockman]

Includes 3 new characters and some cool shit too.

There's at least 4 new characters. Oni Akuma (basically Hyper Mega Evil Shin Akuma) was hacked out of the arcade version along with Evil Ryu a couple of months back, but Capcom threw a big wobbly and got arcade operators to re-lock their machines so people couldn't use those characters. A lot of video got uploaded to YouTube of Oni Akuma but Capcom got that taken down. You can still find pictures and footage of him if you dig around enough though. He looks like a lot of fun actually, he has an air dash and an air Raging Demon.

Yun and Yang are proving very strong at the moment in the arcades. Some people have referred to this version of SF4 as the version where fireball zoning died a death, which was presumably why they went all-out and included the ever-silly Evil Ryu and Oni Akuma.

I've had it for about a month now and I just can't get it right.  I've been playing mainly with Ryu as I hear he's a good all-rounder to start off with but I can't get my brain to work at these speeds while trying to remember the button combos/ actually pulling them off.  I've never played a Street Fighter game before - had a phase of Tekken and Super Smash Bros which are very different, but that's the closest I've come.

Should I just stick to Training or will I pick it up faster in Versus or Arcade where I've got a proper opponent?

Ryu's a solid all-rounder but if you still find the combos difficult then just strip your playstyle back to basics and build it back up slowly. It's possible to beast other players without using big flashy combos, but it means you'll have to do more work in using Ryu's poking attacks and using a clever fireball-zoning game. Once you're more comfortable with the pace of the game you can use simple combos like jumping fierce punch > crouching fierce punch > fireball, and gradually mix more high-damage attacks in.

Training mode is useful for making combos and other tricks part of your muscle memory, and arcade mode is useful for improving reactions and trying to nail your combos on a moving/attacking target. But most people make by far the most progress by spending more time fighting real people. The Arcade mode opponents are stupid and you can't play mindgames with them like you can with a real person. Some people play games like Street Fighter for different reasons, but for me, the satisfaction from having better execution, reactions and strategy than my opponent and these traits showing in a match where I dominate is just so much fun.

[VegaLA]

Well I finally found this on a store shelf the other night so its back in my collection, and just in time for that DLC too.
So if anyone wants to school me on 360 the GT's VegaLA.
Like my CaB name.

Spoiler alert

That's VegaLA...call me!

[close]

[madhair60]

Just found out the new arcade version's coming out on PC!  Can't wait.

[The Boston Crab]

Link? Can't find any confirmation.

[madhair60]

Link? Can't find any confirmation.

Here it is.

[The Boston Crab]

I don't really ever play it any more, sadly, as I loved vanilla so much, but I did check out the SRK forums less than a fortnight ago and there was still a bunch of people complaining about Capcom stiffing PC users. This is a total reversal and I'm happy to see it's coming. I'll get it but I'm going to be back to square one, I reckon! Played with my bro the other week and could barely link anything, tick throws were fucked, kara anything was a write-off. Ah, I miss SF. I think I should probably have played it less last year though and worked on my relationship as I'm now crying my eyes out every day because I took her for granted. Looking forward to this to blot out the pain.

[Neil]

Aw, bosto, it's so sad to see how downtrodden you are of late, hope you're feeling more chipper soon.


Getting into this game, and thinking of getting an arcade stick for my birthday.  The Mad Catz Arcade Stick, Tournament Edition, seems to be the best (pipping the Hori.)  Sanwa parts and all that business, but I'll be buggered if I can find it anywhere online.  Anyone have any ideas what's going on?  Should be able to pick them up for a hundred, but there are only two Amazon sellers selling them for almost twice that, and it's a ludicruous enough price as it is. 

Have they run down stocks to come out with some new stick, or somesuch?  I spent hours looking for one of these yesterday to no avail.

[Consignia]

I don't know if it's any help, but I've got a fighting stick 3, and it does the absolute business for me. It got about £30, and feels nice and has a solid authentic feel. I don't know if it's still available, but it's woth looking for ilk in it's price bracket. I think it was even Hori branded, just not an expensive tie in, so it looks a bit dull.

[Brent Cockman]

I don't really ever play it any more, sadly, as I loved vanilla so much, but I did check out the SRK forums less than a fortnight ago and there was still a bunch of people complaining about Capcom stiffing PC users. This is a total reversal and I'm happy to see it's coming. I'll get it but I'm going to be back to square one, I reckon! Played with my bro the other week and could barely link anything, tick throws were fucked, kara anything was a write-off. Ah, I miss SF. I think I should probably have played it less last year though and worked on my relationship as I'm now crying my eyes out every day because I took her for granted. Looking forward to this to blot out the pain.

Sorry to hear it, hope the anguished cries of scrubs receiving a beat-down is some consolation. ;)

Regarding sticks, I love playing on them (though I'm happy to use a pad). Grinding out a difficult technique successfully is very rewarding.

[Spiteface]

Aw, bosto, it's so sad to see how downtrodden you are of late, hope you're feeling more chipper soon.


Getting into this game, and thinking of getting an arcade stick for my birthday.  The Mad Catz Arcade Stick, Tournament Edition, seems to be the best (pipping the Hori.)  Sanwa parts and all that business, but I'll be buggered if I can find it anywhere online.  Anyone have any ideas what's going on?  Should be able to pick them up for a hundred, but there are only two Amazon sellers selling them for almost twice that, and it's a ludicruous enough price as it is. 

Have they run down stocks to come out with some new stick, or somesuch?  I spent hours looking for one of these yesterday to no avail.

The TE has always been a bitch to get at the best of times - They were going for ungodly prices on eBay pre-launch.

If you cannot find the Tournament edition stick, I can advise doing what I did - buying the bog-standard SE version Mad Catz make, and buying the Sanwa parts seperately.  They will all fit as the dimensions of the Buttons are the same, if a tad fiddly.

I got my Sanwa stuff from here

Guide to getting it done: http://shoryuken.com/f177/how-mod-your-sfiv-se-fightstick-faq-175882/

[Neil]

Thanks for the advice regarding sticks, but I obsessed over a TE for weeks and weeks. Finally found a Chun Li stick which I've imported, and will have tomorrow. I'm paying most of it, and a chunk of my birthday money will be going towards the rest of it. Hoped I might escape import tax, but no such luck. Can't fucking wait to get it, I've been on the USPS tracking site constantly.

Only 5 days left until the release of Arcade Edition too!  Really hope I can get into SF properly now. Metsu Hadokens and the like were impossible to pull off regularly on joypad.

[Brent Cockman]

It's looking like a fairly brutal game for the Ryus and Kens of this world so far, with Yun, Yang and Fei having some nasty corner lockdown tricks. Somebody a while back mentioned it was the version of SF4 where good fireball strategies became much, much harder to use.

[Neil]

It's looking like a fairly brutal game for the Ryus and Kens of this world so far, with Yun, Yang and Fei having some nasty corner lockdown tricks.

Well, I was always the default agressive Ken player, but last week I started making a move to a possible new main.  Ryu.  I started trying to play 'properly', and my pp halved over the next day.  I decided to stop playing, till my stick arrived, as not being able to do Supers and Ultras with precision was making it far harder than it should be.  So in the morning, I start again, and I'll have to look at learning some more characters.  Particularly interested in the new ones, and I think I'll give Balrog a good chance, after watching Gootecks video guide on him. 

I understand it could take some time to get used to the stick, too, but I can't wait.  It's obviously such a deep game, and I really want to get into it, and develop a bit of a fighting game habit. 

What's your Xbox ID, Brent?

[Brent Cockman]

Yeah, stick doesn't come naturally to most pad players so it's worth spending a few hours getting used to the feel in training mode before jumping in to a fight. When it feels a bit more comfortable, I recommend dedicating 30-60 minutes at the start of each session just drilling combos and techniques in both directions so you're warmed up before getting a fight going. It took me a couple of months of non-stop play before I realised I was finally a 'stick player'. Tempting as it will be to occasionally switch back to pad here and there, don't do it!

Good call on Gootecks, he does a lot of good stuff for fans of fighting games in general.

Balrog's a good choice to get used to charge-based characters. I'd recommend also sticking with Ryu too just so you get the traditional techniques ingrained in muscle-memory faster.

[Neil]

Balrog's a good choice to get used to charge-based characters. I'd recommend also sticking with Ryu too just so you get the traditional techniques ingrained in muscle-memory faster.

Been playing with the stick for the last few days, mostly with Balrog, although I got Marvel vs Campcom 3 through the post, so spent all day on that.  I'm really enjoying the game, now, and loving getting the hang of Balrog.  It's a very different type of play from that which I'm used to, but he's a huge amount of fun to play as.  Still getting the hang of charge buffering, though, and getting it embedded into muscle memory.  Same thing with combos - I've never really used those before, except for cancelling heavy punches into Hadokens and stuff like that, but I know I really have to learn them now.

The Microsoft Points I ordered didn't arrive today, so I had to go out and get another 2100 so I could grab Arcade Edition!  Just playing it now, been trying out the new players in training, and they seem like fiun.  I've only played Ranked Matches before, so I'm trying out the lobbys now.  Beat the guy in the first one I went into, and then got immediately kicked, even though it was a close match.  Hmm.  I didn't realise these lobby matches didn't affect pp/bp, seems like a good way of practicing.  Wish I'd known that before I decided to learn via ranked matches :-) 

[Neil]

Oni is an absolute fucking cunt.

[Neil]

^ His second super really is a ballacks.

Here's a list of all the balance tweaks. Balrog's pause on a whiffed headbut is annoying.

http://www.gamemanx.com/super-street-fighter-iv-arcade-edition-balance-changes-detailed/street-fighter/6898/