Advanced A2 Discussion

Classic Fighting Games Street Fighter Alpha Anthology
121

Let me start with 2 things: first is that Zangief is a lot more weaker than in ST version and most players (even the ones that play ST at high level) will agree with this fact, and second is that Zangief CCs are weak and not strong like you are saying.

Now let me post FACTS that can prove why Zangief CCs ARE weak:

If you really play Alpha 2 then you know that Deadly CC Zones (Valle CCs) are one of the most powerfull weapons in this game and Zangief does not have a Deadly CC like some characters, heres a perfect example:

In order to a character have a Deadly CC Zone (Valle CC) this character needs to have a move that once is activated theres no way to fight it or block it once the character is standing, and how this is done you may ask? —> Deadly CC Zone (Valle CC) is so amazing powerfull because once it is activated on the CC Zone and once the character is standing theres nothing he can do to stop for been hited for a massive fast combo, and this is simple because (for example: Ryu) can start his CC with c.HK into any other move that he wantsso fast that his opponent will not have time to react once hes into the CC Zone.
Zangief does NOT have Deadly CC Zone like Ryu (note that Im not saying that Zangief does have have a powerfull CC, its not that, Zangief can have a powerfull CC but he DOES NOT have a Dealy CC Zone) and some people maybe asking why is that? —> just because Zangief c.HK takes a few more frames than Ryu c.HK to hit the opponent on CC mode and those very few frames will be the diference between “Deadly” and "Powerfull"
So I agree when you said that Zangief has a powerfull CC, yes… thats true, Zangief does really have a powerfull CC but its not a Deadly CC and that is a big diference when playing against characters like Chun Li.
Also: the famous knee drop into spd, splash into spd will not be as good like in ST and you know why, right? both knee drop and splash or any other air attack can be stoped very easy due to 2 reasons: first because his air attacks dont have that big priority like in ST and second because if he does that against a good anti air (example: Ken LP DP that has a huge priority against air attacks) he will go down again.

I could post that Zangief is a lot more weaker and you could post that Zangief is stronger or with the same power of Super Turbo version but that will not change much because if we dont play against each other then all we can do is to post what we know of each character in this game.

122

I don’t see how you can gief has lower priority with his jumpins. I mean his knee drop on the way up beats or trades almost all non uppercut normals. For example, he can jump in against Rose almost without fear and if you try rolento’s standing strong, it’s a bit difficult to hit gief clean. As for the CC, gief can do the low roundhouse cc trick like anyone else. Better yet, his d/f+roundhouse gives him even more range imo. The CC combined with his guessing game makes him a much stronger character than his ST version. Are you also saying that his jumpins beat DPs in ST? I don’t think so. If you are within range and if you time the dp correctly, gief is going to get hit out of the air. Old characters don’t even have to worry about timing since the DP is completely invincible. Relying on the DP solely for all anti air is a bad idea anyway since gief can jump shallow where the dp will whiff. You’re also assuming that gief will jump in blindly where a smart gief will wait until the right moment. With the CC, gief can jump in and activate CC through any anti attempts. You’re going to get hit out of the air when playing gief. You just keep the pressure going until you CC or spd them. Another useful trick is to do a SPD, activate CC and pressure them when they get up into another SPD.

Maybe you haven’t seen really good gief’s in Alpha2. In the U.S., I’ve met and played against some really good gief players and it showed that gief, by large, is a very underestimated character.

123

bump

Anyone still play this game? Looking for some Birdie or Dan strategy if any. Can they win? o_O

124

I’ve had Zero2 Dash for saturn for awhile now, though I only played it casually. I kinda want to get into this game and need to know some questions. First, should I get the original Zero 2 for Saturn? Also is Gen any good? He hasn’t been mentioned in this thread and he’s my fav character in the game:sad:
What should I do for a CC, trip into hand slaps? LOL.

125

I was planning to get into A2 with a couple of my friends.

I was wondering how close is the ps1 version of A2 to the arcade version?
Also the speed on the ps1 version for A2 seems a bit weird, can someone tell me the speed setting that would somewhat match the arcade version?

126

late post

A2 for Saturn is good. If you don’t have any competition in normal SFA2, Z2A/A2 Gold is fine. There was a thread about the differences in the two versions in Fighting Game Discussion, so you might want to look for that. A big one is that Alpha Counters do less damage and require 1.5 meters instead of one, and CCs also do less damage.

Gen in SFA2 is not good. When SFA2 was popular, he was actually ranked bottom 3, along with Birdie and Dan by some people. Priority sorta sucks, and even if it didn’t, A3 system is more his style (guard bars, juggles, no ACs that do a bajillion % damage, don’t get CCd for walking, etc). Best CC involved repeated waterfall kicks (f, d, d/f+k in punch style), IIRC.

127

Gen on the same level as Birdie…that makes me sad. Well I’ll have some fun with this game then maybe give Zero3 another shot(wish that game didn’t have air recoveries).

128

I play me some A2! :tup:

I’m not an expert (somewhat of a scrub even), but here’s how I play. Critiques are much appreciated!

The four characters I play are Sakura, Rose, Dhalsim and Dan. (Yes, Dan.)

ROSE: Rose wins me the most matches, so I’ll start with her. Let me start by saying Soul Illusion is your best friend. Seriously, I don’t even use CCs with her. One of my favorite things to do is activate when someone jumps and Slide (df+MK) under them. The shadows will hit from the other side, effectively making it a cross-up. Also, Soul Spiral brings the pain with this super, even on block.

I play mostly defensive, with my bread & butter being c.MP into Short Soul Spiral. C. MP is a godly normal in this game, the priority is insane. Also, Rose’s C. HK has much range on it, perfect for responding to point-blank fireballs. I play mostly defensively, so I’m usually at the end of the screen (this gets me trapped in the corner, which is bad).

A few more notes: Last minute Level 1 Aura Soul Spark is a decent anti-air. Time it right, and you get all 3 hits, but be careful. More often than not, you’ll get tagged for it. I don’t think I need to tell anyone that Soul Reflect is an important part of Rose’s game, if for nothing other than super meter. Finally, s. HK is great as anti-air for a distance.

SAKURA: The main character of this game, Sakura plays like a faster, weaker, retarded Ryu. HK Shunpuukyaku is great for going over FBs (but I think I use it too much.).

With Sak, I use the Shunpuukyaku a lot, as well as playing mind games with her chargeable Hadouken. I use the Hadouken to bait a jump-in, then charge it to her huge Hadouken, which works as an anti-air.

The second I get a level of super, I go for a jump-in CC. I usually do j.MK, c.MK, MK Shunpuukyaku until the meter’s almost gone, then finish with HP Shououken.

The Strangle is a great grab. I do a lot of jump-in/walk-up throws when I play and sometimes I’ll get 3 in a row on people. You’d think I get nailed more often using it, but I don’t. I should, but I don’t.

Finally, for a good, non-super combo, j.MK, c.MK, c.MK, s.MK, HP Shououken. But you all knew that already, right?

DHALSIM: After Rose & Sakura, Dhalsim’s my 3rd best. I actually started playing Dhalsim in A3 with his X-ism insta-super.

Dhalsim, of course, works best at a distance using psychic limbs and Drills when you want to put the pressure on. The normals I use the most are s.MK, s.MP, c.HP, j.HP, C.MP and the Drills.

His supers aren’t that great in this game. Yoga Inferno can work if you get a c. MP/MK in. The Yoga Strike is extremely hard to get an opening for, but if you do and you win with it, you come out looking like a hero! Honestly though, I can win a match without using any meter with him.

DAN: Well, if you’re going to play Dan, it’s an uphill battle and you’re probably going to lose, but…

Dan’s Gadouken is better than most people think it is. The key is not to use it as a “Fireball”, but think of it more as an extended FP that snuffs FBs (like Gief’s Banishing Flat). It works okay as an anti-air too.

His best jump-ins are SK & MK. MK is great for setting up combos, while SK has great range. It does shit for damage, but I mostly use it as a safer jump-in than MK.

Dan’s throw is pretty good, I use it a lot.

And of course, if you pick Dan, taunt as much as you can!!! :slight_smile:

Taunt more than you hit!

129

[quote=Deathstroke]
In Ryuuko.cl, i have too many vids of Alpha2 ( I love this game )…

Akuma is Top Tier! I have matches of this game…

http://www.ryuuko.cl/descargas/[A2]Deathstroke[Sak]_Vs_KuntaBoy[Sg].avi

http://www.ryuuko.cl/descargas/[A2]Deathstroke[Sak]_Vs_KuntaBoy[Ak].avi

http://www.ryuuko.cl/descargas/[A2]Deathstroke[Ch]_Vs_KuntaBoy[Ak].avi

http://www.ryuuko.cl/descargas/[A2]Deathstroke[Ak]_Vs_KuntaBoy[Gen].avi

If you cant see the videos, download the codecs in

http://www.free-codecs.com ( K-Lite Codec Pack )

130

link

I’m sorry if you already know this link (i didn’t see it) but there is a lot of SFZ2 matchs from a jap tournament here :

http://walhall.sakura.ne.jp/movie.html

131

I just need to defend this scrub-ass post of mine, over 3 years after I made it. I was playing on the A2 machine at the CSU Sacramento game room…which hella didn’t work. So supers and ACs would randomly not work, and it was just hella gay.

Also, I hella sucked at A2.

The A2 machine has long since been replaced by one of those SF Anniversary Edition Ultracade machines, which is also shitty, but less so.

This post bruoght to you by…Ego.

132

General Rule for custom combo…

Sweep, most damaging move, multi hitting move at the end
Sagat can do a lot more in this game than his tier gives him credit for

and aside from dan and birdie, this game is hella balanced…

:tup: <3 alpha 2 for life.

133

I play a lot of alpha 2 but i cant for the life of me get chun-li’s lightning legs CC to work!!!
I do c.rh and mash rh kick but to no avail i also mash lk and mk or mash them all together but it dosent work can someone give some help thanks

134

This is more Alpha 2 Gold related, but are there any good Cammy custom combos? I cant seem to get anything of hers to work out to well…

135

what IS a valle CC as oppossed to a regular one?

136

It is when you activate point blank your CC and start it with a low sweep kinda move. So stuff like Ken’s lvl 1 CC c.RK, qcb+RK, dp+FP. Somehow CC’s do more damage after a sweep and are also not blockable if you would be in the standing animation on the up close activation.

137

There are two unblockable CC issues:

#1 involves range more strictly than the other: if you’re standing close to someone and activate a CC, there is a “blowout” range where they can’t block. Even if they had already been blocking, they will stop.

#2 is the Valle CC. Valle CC is as described by Terry-nb above, but you don’t have to be as close. From well outside of sweep range, if you activate a CC against someone who was standing or not blocking low, they cannot do so for a moment, and are vulnerable. However, if they were out of the blowout range, thy can still continue blocking if they were doing so already.

This makes things like throwing too many fireballs (fast ones moreso) dangerous, and also whiffing too many slow pokes, or walking forward.

138

you can block blow-out. blow-out only happens if you weren’t blocking.

139

Sorry for the super late reply but I tought that this thread was gone, and if you are still around here at srk:

yes, you are probably right, over here mainly no one plays with Gief and if there’s anyone who play with him then they don’t know much, I know that many people in the U.S. enjoy Zangief in Alpha 2 (his long c.HK has crazy range wich is amazing good for Valle CC with good damage, his regular hits do more damage than the rest of the cast, etc…)
Most peole here plays with Ryu, Ken, Chun Li, Charlie, Akuma and that is kinda bad because a good rolento or a good rose, etc… can a ton of things after a certain level.

140

Hey BBCampbell, how about some anti-Rose strats? I enjoy to play mainly with Ken and Chun Li but sometimes I have fun with Rolento, I also kinda play with Akuma, Ryu and Charlie.

and yes, the c.MP is a bitch, that move is like the c.HP of Sagat from CvS2 but with smaler range (I think)

A few months ago I lost big time against a good Rose player in a tournament final, the thing was: I never played against a good Rose opponent and I ended been smoked big time, I know that before the tournament I played some matches against him in Hyper Alpha with Zero 2 Rolento/Ken vs his Zero 2 Rose and I won without problems but Hyper Alpha (Zero 2 ISM) is not exactly the same as the original A2 (but then again I don’t know much about HA)
I know that if we played more times that I would get things around because I never faced good Rose opponents (in fact no one plays with Rose here and she’s really good in A2) but like in every tournament: we can’t play vs the same guy the times we want, so whoever wins 3 fights in the finals would won the tournament and I lost the 3 fights (I suck) :tdown: :wasted:
So could you post some knowledge about some anti-Rose strats?

Does anyone else here who still enjoy this game and has some Rose knowledge could post some stuff for Chun, Ken, Rolento, etc…?