Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition

Think of red focus as 2 meter lost for a full revenge bar, that is if you use it right. It's a skillful way to finally fill your revenge meter. I'm looking forward to how folks will use this mechanic.

 

It's more meter management which is still the BnB of 2D fgs, but I don't see it being game breaking. Holding a charge that long is asking to get thrown, so it'll be move specific, and armor break moves still work against it. Still taking grey damage as well which means, you still need health to effectively turn it around.

I feel the same way about Delayed Wake Up (DWU). It's there to give the impression to make wake up game "fair", but if you've played a 3D fighter ever you'll know how to deal with it.

 

DWU is a nightmare for me, it's gonna make life hell for Hakan but I'll stick with him, I like a good challenge.

 

Two meters isn't that much to get, and burn, in my opinion. Especially for something that causes an instant crumple mid-combo. If someone has 3 or 4 bars? Sheeeeiiit. You bout to feel the pain, hahah.

The main focus of Red Focus will be used for that, I'm thinkin. Absorbing multiple hits isn't something I see being used, unless you just clownin n trying to do something cool looking. I don't see it as a good option for tournament play. Though some might bust it out on wake up or something randomly to catch someone off guard. Using it mid-combo is what we're going to be seeing to extend combos for damge and stun, and Ultra if one so chooses.. Yea there's scaled damage which SF4 does good at doing. But you still gonna get rocked pretty hard before that starts taking affect. Don't get caught on a reset, lol.

But I guess with DWU being in the game. And automatic setups being harder to abuse because of that. People will/have the option to be hitting a lot harder in the neutral game. It's going to help some characters more than others maybe. I've only really used like 3-4 characters in this game, so I don't know who can FADC from what.

My main character will benefit from it a lot, I'm thinkin. Makoto. It's gon be ugly man, lol. Watch I'll be looking forward to playing Ultra, regardless.

 

And yo. That SF Assassin's Fist got me wanting to use Akuma, lol. "Prepare yourself".

 

Yargh.. The onlineism! Gotta mash throw escapes I guess, cause timing them doesn't work! lol.

Shame I'll have to wait till August to play Ultra It's my choice though. I just want the disc and the costumes.

 

Everything your scared about involving red focus Feaucha was what shouldve been in the game from jump.. spend to bars to keep the combo going a bit easier is a good thing. Still useless against armor break moves..

 

Mug could have 0 armor my brotha, lol. Cats aint gonna be using it for absorbing multiple hits n trying to gain an Ultra from it or whatever anyways. It's gonna be the new FADC thing. Except hitting people with it instead of canceling it before it comes out and going into more normals, etc.. RFAC, or whatever name people want to dub it.

It's just going to hurt a lot more if you get caught with something specific in the neutral game. And I think the delayed wake up thing is why they added this, for the reason I said earlier. Since it'll be a lil harder for people to run automatic setups and traps. You can score some ill damage with RFAC.. Using it to land an Ultra wouldn't be too bad either, depending on the situation I guess. Probably could score more damage that way vs using 2 bars for a combo with hellavu lot less risk/chances of messing up. I think a FA counts as two hits, so the scaling will knock the damage down a lot. But it's still free n easy damage.

But anyways. That's my take on RFA. Be able to punish harder. Get caught with a short/jab or whatever close up n you probably gon feel the pain.. Makoto, with 2 bars off a minor punish.. cr.mp, m.hayaye, RFAC, IAT (instant air tsurugi), st.hp, h.hayate.

Of course you could hayate cancel after the st.hp into a mp. then m hayate, or karakusa to reset if you wanted. But riskier.. Have 3 bars? End with EX hp.Fukiage into a j.hp to reset/guessing game. And that's mid screen.. I don't know the numbers. But I'm thinking that'll land you more damage than using those 2 bars for EX hayate, lp.fukiage, EX IAT. And you'd have to be in the corner for that to work anyways.. It's gonna be interesting, that's for sure!

And I forgot Makoto can go into her U1 after a karakusa. You mess around and land a karakusa mixed in after/during all that stuff, that's probably like 75% health gone. If not more.. If you have a full ultra bar.

 

Ayo SDS. You gonna grab that AE when it's free in a few days? Or you gonna pass on that..?

 

Yeah why not.. I dont think I will play much though.

 

Coo coo. Cause uhhh, I don't know if I was trippin. But I thought I seen you talkin a lil wreckless the other day. Somethin bout destroying any vfdf'r in SF4? LOL, I'm just playin. Be coo to get a few games in though. Or we can even take it back to 93-94 n play some HDR, you can get it there too. lol, just foolin..

You use Guile right? I tried him for the first time in SF4 the other day. He seemed pretty dam good. Guile has always been a force (far as I know), but his normals feel crazy good in this. And his mobility and jumping speed feels nice. Even feels like the booms charge faster.

There's things I don't like about SF4 and SF in general. But I find the fun in doing the combos n whatnot. If it wasn't for Makoto, n a homeboy who talked me into getting this to play him. I probably wouldn't even be playin this right now.

 

I still got a lil bit Of game lol! I quit after super because they neft guile. I didnt like the fact the new characters had these lunging dashes compared to the others that avoided certain things. I used Guy and Cody also.. im rusty in HDR but I can shake it off. When I get on ill hit you up.

 

So it's looking like it'll cost 3 bars to use RF to cancel from a special move. Which is good, cause dam, hahah.

 

Lots of things felt "off" about SF4 to me, and the big emphasis on converting a safe series of links into special fadc ultra really turned ruined it for me. Ultra doesn't look that different to me. Red focus attack just looks like something they just threw in for the hell of it. Delayed Wakeup is the bandage solution for the "vortex" character problem. It seems sound on paper because immediately a bunch of akuma and ibuki players started crying because their auto-pilot offense is no longer airtight.

also i am still not happy about getting not-cammy instead of someone cool like alex

Divekick was pretty damned cool until they threw in a whole bunch content and mechanics that undermine the simplicity of the original idea.

 

It's only the speed of the game that is "ugh.." in this game. I was watching some A3 footage from last year, then watched the recent A-Cho uploads for Ultra and was like "......" . Every mechanic has a counter in any fighting game, so the additions aren't a big deal to me.

The crying over nerfs and buffs in this game, are the same ol' same ol'. I'm not feeling the Guile changes like health reduction, slower recovery on Sonic Boom at all. He got some nice buffs, but I feel the aforementioned nerfs were a little too much, where it would've been better if it was a health reduction or slower recovery on SB, not both.

Thinking about Yun, just 'cuz of Baji.

 

Yea, cats steady complaining. Then back pedal their words when they see x character in Japan doing good.

Guile got more recovery on booms? Didn't see that one on the list. He pretty much got all buffs except for the health, -5 fadc on flash kick, and CH while getting hit throwing a boom.. But you gotta be pretty much on the way down from a jump when he starts the boom to hit him like that. So that one aint much to shake a stick at, in my opinion. Foo can AA if you jump at the same time he throws it pretty much, hahah.

 

Ah misunderstood then. I figured there was more recovery because of the counter-hit. Seth was another one that I heard was too much, then I saw the vid and was like "That's it?" he got some nice buffs too.

'Gief is gonna be scary with the Double Ultra. I know there's a damage reduction on the Double Ultra, but just the utitlity is pretty wild. I was thinking the same thing with Fei having his U1 and his U2 is pretty cool.

 

i could come up with a laundry list of things wrong with the SF4 games, but i'm fine with just being lazy about it at this point: jumps. jumps have always felt off in SF4. i haven't figured out exactly why, whether it's the ascending/descending speeds, the distance covered, or the hangtime at the peak of a jump. it also doesn't help that so many characters have relatively easy cross-ups from a large range of situations/positions on the screen (at least compared to earlier sf games). the cross-ups in super turbo (with some dubious exceptions) were more situational, much stricter spacing and they usually required knockdowns or specific situations. they strike me as a design oversight, one i can live with when they happen less often.

also it's not a simple matter of whether or not every option has a "counter", it's about how intuitive the solutions are. are how the game and its rules are telling you to play correctly consistent with the solutions?

not sure why makoto needed big bang upper but hey

 

It's the speed that's bothering you too. I've heard the same complaints about jumps. Cross-ups are whatever and have been in just about every 2D fighter I can think. The ambigous cross-ups in ST are just as nasty. I just adapt and still find the game fun. The people I used to game with more, don't find the game fun but there's some solid comp near me that does, so I'm just rolling with that. A lot of the hate is "X worked like this in another game, and should work the same way here", it's something you take into account if you play the game. The people that like it either bitch and stil play, or don't play the game at all.

 

oh, they are nasty in ST, but they were more situational. when they happened, they were huge, but they didn't happen in as many situations. in sf4 there's a ridiculous amount of cross-ups that can be converted from midscreen neutral positions. this could also be due in part of how the jumps work in sf4.

part of the reason why sf4 gets the "it wasn't like this in this other street fighter game" scrutiny is that the developers explicitly stated that they were trying to make the game more like super turbo. that makes it seem far worse when the mechanics of the game are nowhere close to the cited game.

despite all of the things i don't like about playing the game, i still really like watching street fighter 4 tourneys though.