SF4 Biweekly TACV Series

[Maj]

Somehow i talked myself into making a fresh tool-assisted SF4 combo video every two weeks. The first episode is out already and the second one will be ready on Tuesday (and i'll be posting a random technical/combo article every alternating Tuesday).

SF4 Biweekly TACV 01: Ryu

To avoid cluttering up the SF4 Combo Engine Investigation thread, i'm gonna use this as a notepad to jot down whatever random useless stuff i happen to notice while recording these. There will be a lot of quadruple-posting. Here goes.

The most disappointing thing about the first episode was that last combo, because i couldn't think of much to do after the dizzy. There are probably more SF4 Ryu combovids out there than any other character, so his options against an immobile opponent have been explored inside and out. I thought i had one idea that looked promising but it didn't work out because EX Hurricane Kick hates me. In fact, here's a list of ways it hates me:

1) Tried trading EX HK with Gen's ultra, which brings Ryu to the ground but EX HK causes so little hit stun that it's impossible to combo after Ryu recovers.
2) It's not fast enough to juggle after point blank LP DP.
3) Tried doing two EX Hurricane Kicks in the corner but it's damn near impossible to get all five hits out of the first one and get the second one to keep them in the corner instead of knocking them out, and even then Ryu floats too long to connect an ultra afterwards.
4) Tried killing Akuma with lvl3 FA xx dash, F+MP, c.LP xx EX HK which normally gives you three hits out of the EX HK and misses the last hit, but turns out if you kill them with any special move it's instant knockdown and then the last hit always connects cuz Akuma's hitbox is different when he's falling than during ground hitstun.

Seriously what the fuck. What have i ever done to EX Hurricane Kick to deserve this kind of treatment?

[Maj]

Probably a really dumb question, but did everyone know you can do FADC by doing F, F+MP+MK? Seems like an easier command in some situations.

Probably more old news, but some characters can do FB FADC like this: D, DF, F+P, neutral, F+MP+MK. Works with Sagat and Rose, but i wasn't having any luck with Dhalsim or Ken.

Also i got bored and tested Zangief's FAB super ranges. (Man it's really hard to test ranges in this game because these characters refuse to stand still. Seriously, walk up next to Gief with someone and watch him push them away when he cracks his neck or whatever.) Anyway it looks like all three versions of FAB have the same (terrible) range.

Another random observation - from starting positions at the beginning of a round, Zangief's c.MP shakes the screen. Ghetto+funny. Actually this works from any range where walking forward would cause the camera to move.

Lastly, Gief can do j.D+HP, close s.LP, close s.MP xx HP greenhand because close s.LP hits meaty following splash hitstun. Normally cs.LP gives only +1 and close s.MP hits on the 4th frame. Looks dope too.

[Xenozip.]

It might not be old for SF players but it's probably old news for anyone who played GG for a while, since RC and FRC business (airdash prebuffer FRC, etc).

There's quite a lot of little input tricks in SF4 that remind me of other games. Makes me feel like that's almost what they were going for, as in, throw in every trick in the book.

[error1]

Zangiefs a tough one
you probly know about this one but gief has two jump trajectories
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6OhtwgWp3s
not very useful but odd.
Is ex banishing flat really his only move that juggles?
I believe you that he is a combo monster tho, his far light punch has the crazy frame advantage of +8 .

[Maj]

What the fuck? Why? That's the most random thing i've heard about SF4 yet.

Aw, sucks that he can't do vertical jumping attacks during his U~UF jump.

[onReload]

What the fuck? Why? That's the most random thing i've heard about SF4 yet.

Aw, sucks that he can't do vertical jumping attacks during his U~UF jump.

Yeah sorry sir I forgot to tell you I knew about that...and yeah if you could do a headcrunch jump-in that would be awesome for dizzy combos...but broke.

[Maj]

No worries, it's cool to know for the sake of knowing but i can't think of a combo application for it.

[error1]

What the fuck? Why?

"We spoke with S-Kill online about this and he confirmed that it actually used to be a "feature" and could be done by every character, but he said Capcom decided at the last moment to "speed up" the game and take it out. He thought it was completely taken out, so he was surprised to find out that Zangief could still do it. We figure Gief can still do this because of his extra prejump frames (he has 6, whereas everyone else has 4 except Dhalsim, who has 3). I tested it with every other character, and Gief is the only one who can do this."

http://forums.shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=186169

[Tizoc]

Looking forward to the Gief and Fuerte vid Maj
BTW if you want a 'pic of the week', I recommend taking a screen cap of Alisa doing her UF+(LP+RP) throw on Feng Wei, while the camera is showing's Feng's reaction (Tekken 6 mind you )

[Maj]

Man it's really starting to annoy me that you can't juggle after non-knockdown moves. Every Street Fighter game ever has allowed it.

Also Fuerte is hella boring. Aside from the infinite he's got nothing except a bunch of links that lead nowhere. All of his specials are incredibly slow and he can't combo into lvl2 Focus Attack off anything.

And for whatever reason, it seems you can only combo air throws after lvl3 Focus Attack crumple stun or counterhit lvl2 FA, not normal lvl2 FA.

But i did just discover that Fuerte can (barely) combo lvl3 Focus Attack into lvl2 Focus Attack before the opponent falls over. Ghetto combo into ultra, here we come.

[Maj]

Alright screw the infinite. It's way better to leave that up to a dedicated Fuerte player to sort out. I'm certainly not going to optimize it against every character in the game to see where i can get the most hits out of it. Other than that i doubt anyone wants to see seven hits of it.

Also the "First Attack" message isn't that annoying in this game since the combo counter doesn't come out until the end anyway, but if you want to get rid of it for whatever reason, vacuum moves like Rufus' EX spin and Seth's uh ... vacuum actually count as hits without doing damage. Throw techs don't trigger it though.

[error1]

I think only seth's ex vacuum counts as a hit strangely. But I didn't know about Rufus.
Yah in infinite is really to much trouble. I think if you use some ex dashes you can get more then 7 hits. His ex dash is faster in addition to the armor. I tried scripting it but it would usually fail after a few hits.

[Maj]

Yeah i noticed that too, because you can trade hits with Seth's EX vacuum but not the regular version.

[Xenozip.]

Some one said you could backdash out of Rufus' vacuum, any truth to that?

[error1]

You're invincible for most of the back dash so you can back dash out of anything as long as it doesn't catch you at the end. Example is it's possible to backdash past Seth's ultra

[Xenozip.]

Yeah I knew about backdash startup invulnerability since the game hit arcades. It's in a lot of the games I play (SF4 being the first Capcom fighter to have it). But regarding Rufus' vacuum, wouldn't being able to backdash out of the vacuum make that move rather useless?

I mean, it sounded like you could get out of it, not just avoid it in the first place.

[Maj]

I dunno, it's kinda hard to do that on reaction and it's still good for combos. Plus Rufus has no shortage of useful moves. He's got literally everything you could ask for: divekick, overhead, halfscreen poke, air-to-air juggle starter, ground launcher, chain combo into damage, juggle ultra, chip damage special, etc etc.

Btw you can actually see the ranges of these vacuum moves by how far the dust trail goes. It's visually different for each version of Seth's vacuum special and his super, and you can see the ultra hitbox travel too.

[Xenozip.]

And yet we still have Sagat and Ryu consistently dominating. Yay for strong basics over gimmicks. Though I had wondered where everything would pan out of SF4 survived in the tournament scene for another few years.

I'm really not one to talk though, out of the whole cast I only liked Akuma and Chun as expected.

[Maj]

Sagat yeah, but Ryu dominating? Are you sure it's not simply Daigo dominating?

[Maj]

Vega can do lvl2 Focus Attack xx dash forward, vertical jumping air throw but i don't think he can do a lvl2 FA after lvl3 FA like Fuerte can, because his dash is 4 frames longer.

He can also do meaty DF+HK, DF+HK but i don't think he gets another free juggle after the second one.

[Xenozip.]

Surely you've glanced at super nohoho fighter?

He's kept a rather thorough record of SF4 results. With useful graphs and charts like this one and these. One moar.

He takes everything into account and has been doing so for quite some time.

[error1]

I think an unusually good player can bring a character up a tier but I think ryu deserves the no 2 spot in sf4. Seriously Ryu has no weaknesses, even Sagat has to deal with a slow walking speed and poor depth perception.

[Maj]

He's buff, yeah, but the point is that the #2 spot is arguable whereas Sagat's #1 ranking is undisputed. On most of those graphs, the gap between Sagat and Ryu is around five times the gap between Ryu and Rog or Gief. If you take Daigo out of the equation, Ryu doesn't win any major tournaments this year.

[SlimX]

For the love of god, Maj, switch the voices to Japanese.

[Maj]

No way, English Gief is way better. Japanese Gief sounds like he's trying too hard and ends up screaming.

I have all the Shotos set to Japanese because the English ones say ridiculous annoying shit like "Try this on for size!" but i don't want to switch to Japanese voices across the board. Though i think i made a mistake not switching El Fuerte over. Eh, live and learn.

[Xenozip.]

Those aren't really tier lists though, they are results from tournaments in Japan and USA. Perhaps from everywhere. So while Daigo is certainly added to the results he isn't in every single tournament. It gets averaged out by all the other tournaments that went on that week while Daigo was only at one of them.

Though I don't think it's a coincidence that those tournament result charts look rather similar to current tier lists.

[Xenozip.]

The only Japanese voices I can't stand are El Fuerte's and Guile's. The only English voices I can't stand are ALL OF THEM.

That said I have everyone set to Japanese except Elf, Guile, and Rufus. Because at least "Eng" Elf can pronounce his own goddamn name correctly unlike the JP one who doesn't sound even remotely Spanish. And the Eng Guile doesn't sound like a flaming fairy fruitcake. And while I do like the JP Rufus I figure I want to hear "Space Opera Symphony" to remind myself that Rufus is a retard and not to be disillusioned into thinking he was cool by the JP voice.

And if you have dictator set to English you are committing a GREAT UNFORGIVABLE SIN by not having it set to Norio Wakamoto mode. I don't care how good the Eng one is, it isn't Norio Wakamoto.

[error1]

The only characters I have set to Japanese are Ryu, E. Honda, Goken, Akuma, and Sakura who are from Japan and also Bison, and Seth who's nationality are not known. Bison's probably not Japanese, I don't know which is canon the sf move where he is played by a Puerto Rican or the newer move where he is played by an American ( both of these moves he is speaking English btw ). Anyway I think it more likely that all the other characters would be speaking English.

[Xenozip.]

LOL canon, personally I don't care about canon when it comes to aesthetics.

Ken is Japanese-American (not a natural blond! check his eyebrows!) so he could presumably speak either English or Japanese about as fluently. Abel is French with no past, so there's no reason for him to be speaking English unless you believe he's Charlie/Nash. Gen has no business speaking English, nor does Zangief, and why Dan and Blanka would know English is a mystery to me.

The reason I don't care about canon is because Dhalsim says "Yoga Fire" (and all his other attack names) in English WAY BETTER when set to Japanese mode than when set to English mode. Probably because all the English voice actors suck with the exception of Elf's.

[Maj]

Yeah but he says Yoga Catastrophe way better when he's in English mode. Anyway it's all a matter of opinion. At some point the internet declared that all Japanese voice actors are genetically superior by divine decree and that's been the de facto stance ever since.

There are probably 10 or so characters who have a vastly superior version and yeah it's usually the Japanese option. The rest of the cast is a tossup. My default choice is English unless proven terrible.

I don't think Bison has made it into any of my clips yet but i'll switch him to Japanese because i am intimidated by your bold underlined caps.