Ironically I’m a Tekken main and SF these days. But I’ve always been a fighter at heart and have played many.
The hard part about KI is that starting a combo, to have it broken and lose a portion of the damage you’ve done, especially via the rare guess breakers. At the same time you can add in manuals, juggles, flip outs/resets all to make it harder to break, on top of having counter combo breakers. It’s very easy to open up due to the crazy amount of offensive options that you have.
Once you accept that, it’s a solid game, very creative cast, Instinct modes are crazy (exactly like v-triggers,) solid balance, strong defensive style characters too.
I’m not being sarcastic, I very much hear that reasoning over and over for both games on why people won’t play them.
So seeing from DevilJin’s perspective, it’s very obvious that it’s mainly SF and Tekken fans that can’t adapt.
The funny part about it is that both of them are so balanced out, that it becomes hilarious that they are so afraid of them:
As Phinx stated, you have so many options to make it harder to be CB’d out of your combos. Including Counter CB’s(which basically gives you so much guaranteed damage, it’s sickening), even FAILING a CB knocks you into a quick CD period where again, you can get your ass kicked and end the combo for like 10%-20% damage as long as you know where to end it.
In DOA, the holds have always been able to be grabbed and do more damage than they normally do if you grab someone while they are holding. In DOA5, you have Critical Bursts which basically guarantee the the opponents can’t hold anymore and give you a free juggle combo and hold spamming in competitive play will just make you end up dead more often than not(Online or Off).
I think the real problem is that once you are stuck on SF and/or Tekken, you become…“predictable” in what you want to do. KI and DOA pretty much works with the flow and allow you to become pretty unpredictable, thus making the counter system in both games an honest to god necessity and being balanced by said unpredictability.
Ryu lost his air grab too in SFV from A3 (as did every character lol). You’re right, SFV is a shit game confirmed cos no air grabs ;_;.
Furthermore you’re greatly exaggerating Karin’s RDP rekka, command grab and counter as “lost options”. RDP and command grab had very limited use outside of V-combos and counter was gimmicky garbage never used like all counters in SF game history. I agree VT Rekka is shit compared to A3 but that and st.mk no longer being cancellable is about all Karin is worse off for in SFV. Her new damage and versatility however more than make up for the changes imo.
Also I don’t know what game you’re playing if you think SFV has a weaker fireball game that either 3s or A3. For literal decades the latter games have been panned for having fireballs that did no damage or were largely made useless because of parries on this very site.
Alpha 3 Karin had a command grab, more move variety, required higher skill to use, was more fun to play, boasted better rekkas, had better meterless anti airs, and just had much more to offer a player. SF5 Juri, Karin, Ibuki and so on, are the most watered down versions of the characters that have ever existed. SF5 is about less not more. Less content, less techniques, less options, less skill requirements for combos, less characters, less range on moves, less to do in dojo, less variety in how characters can be played, and the list goes on.
ALL characters in A3 required higher skill to use, I agree there but that isn’t Karin specific. Older games pre-SF4 were pretty unforgiving execution wise and I still drop cr. lk, cr. lk, st. lk xx rekka on Fightcade/GGPO on occasion even after like 13 years of A3 lol. They also had a bigger emphasis on constant spacial awareness, positioning and footsies as opposed to the derpy heavily set up based stuff from SF4 onwards. And yes A3 Karin is more fun, but that’s because A3 is a better game overall imo and ALL characters are better in it due to the pace the game is played at compared to SFV. Even a couple months ago Daigo still cited Zero 3 as his fave game because of that.
But for everything else I’m not really buying this *Make Karin Great Again * stuff. Karin has multiple AA’s in SFV that cover differing jump archs without meter just like A3 and the “move variety” being cited includes a lot of junk moves that aren’t viable at mid/higher levels of play in A3. How many Karin RDP rekka, Command grab or counters do you see this higher level JP karin go for? Again outside of V-combos the first 2 moves have almost zero use and nobody uses counters.
And to be clear Karin doesn’t exactly require the mind Einstein to play even in A3. In fact they’re more similarly than not across both games outside the obvious differences of rekka and light chains no longer being her game. At most I can agree that SF is dumbed down universally these but it’s been that way for 8+ years since SF4 and isn’t a Karin or even SFV specific thing. Sad, but it is what it is.
Wasn’t a huge part of why SF4 was considered dumbed down the ultras/come back mechanic? Considering you have the opportunity to land 4 ultras per round, yet you hardly see them in high level games. Unless it’s something like Rose or Juri. This no neutral or footsies thing isn’t even true. We saw heaps in cpt and evo. How many pros have said that SFV doesn’t have the strong footsies/neutra game of sf4 and it’s the one thing they miss.
You had some silly things that could be simplified with crouch tech and option select. Still there was so much to learn, some really high execution characters and the biggest cast, hence learning matchup’s were a pain.
I’m probably one of the few around who really liked Alpha 2/3, SFIII and SF4 and find it’d be really hard for me to choose my fav. Especially with my biased towards Cody
It’s got nothing to do with high tier. The problem is they’re stripping away moves. Her counter would’ve been a good option in a game where they are keeping reversals minimal. And with the command grab, her mix-ups would’ve been too much, since she is already strong. Having access to a more robust rekka game permanently, also means crazy meter build up and chip damage. Still that version is more fun
Not saying it wouldn’t have been more fun, just that the character still seems rather capable and I personally think is one of the more fun characters in the game.
Didn’t say SF4 had no footsies, I said the games post SF3 are more about setups and in addition have way too many characters that bypass the ground based footsies element. There is a distinct shift in how you play the games up till SF3 vs SF4 and beyond. Not sure why you’re mentioning SFV’s footsies either tbh. Neither SF4 or V properly represents what I was talking about.
it took me a long while to realize that what I really enjoyed about 3s (and CVS2 and A2 even though I suck at them) is that the ground game is so interesting and vibrant. I feel you really never saw the same kind of things in 4, xT, and 5. those games are really fun but that kind of gameplay probably isn’t coming back so I’m happy to be an old man who’ll play old people games into eternity.
I think counter moves are kinda hard to balance in a game with this combat system. If they start up in 3 or less frames, they are basically get out of jail cards every time you are being frame trapped (and karin has an invincible reversal already). If they start up in 4 or more they could be useless.
Maybe something like gouken’s high/low counter could be viable
See, the words you chose here make me question a lot of things about what people/players are willing to put up with. Traditional SF players don’t really like things that don’t always work – in-fact, a lot of SF players are veeery repetitious in what they do. I remember in 3S, I would often come across people who came from ST or SF4, and I would tell them after only a few matches “You are painfully predictable.” 3S punishes predictability harsher than most other games, because it’s one of the rare SF games that allows you to punish things while they’re happening, where most SF games only allow you to punish things before or after they happen. Every single thing can be unsafe, and you have to play around that. Mix up EVERYTHING or get bodied – every block string, every combo, every footsie tool, I don’t think there is a fighting game where timing was more important than in 3S, where people would dance in-front of each other without throwing moves out because they were all waiting for something, for that particular player’s breaking point.
When someone has something in their arsenal, you play around it. Let’s use a hypothetical and say in another world, Capcom made Ryu’s parry good (or at least practical to use) in this game, so no 8 input delay, no start-up frames, no recovery on success, just a parry with recovery frames. In this world, you would have to really learn how to test each Ryu player individually, to see their habits and what they are willing to go for. Approaching Ryu up-close in a game with no true block strings like this one would be frightening as hell, to be sure. Frame traps are off the table until you deduce the habits of the player. However, every single parry attempt by the Ryu becomes essentially a LP DP frame-wise, with the same guaranteed crush counter status. It possesses the same risk as it does the reward, and you have to play around that.
Now personally, I think the parry above is too good for this game, just due to this game’s limited advantage and such. I’d prefer if it was a high/low option for the Ryu player as well. That is a lot easier to play the parry game around.
Don’t be scared of different things. It saddens me that SF players abhor defensive mechanics, because interesting defense breeds more interesting offense. We’ve seen how repetitious SFV can get during EVO this year. How often did we see Chun do the exact same thing over and over again? Same block string, same combo if it hits, over, and over, and over.
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I’ve said this before, but I really do wish this game had Just Guards, and was built around them. Ken could have real run pressure, and it would be up to you to defend successfully – get the JG and make his run negative, and it would mesh so well with the input buffer because then you don’t also have to worry about getting a frame perfect punish, because it’s easier to get the timing. This is what ASW games have been doing for yeeeeears! I really do think an input buffer in a game like this doesn’t really work well, it breeds ridiculous repetition. If the input delay goes away, we might well see this in full effect.
I’m talking about the game that we have now, not about a new hypothetical street fighter. I don’t want to change the game to make counter moves work. I want to know if there is a way to make them worth the risk and not be useless.
Alex’s parry is the closest thing we have to a counter move and I wouldn’t mind if other characters had a similar option
I don’t know what it is, but SFV players seem afraid of anything “good”. I’m not sure how else to say it. Like everyone looses there shit when someone suggests Gief SPD should have SPD start-up. Everyone cries it would be too strong in a game where pressure is based around 3-4 gap frame trap, and where a lot of moves are negative, but not punishable. Instead of adjusting to compensate for a fast SPD they want to be able to go in and mash their medium punch frame trap.
Edit: It’s the same reason people still whine about reversals, despite them being less common, not as strong, and way more risky.
It doesn’t have to be hypothetical, I used an existing character with an existing concept and tweaked it to work into what you were talking about. Another character could come along that has exactly what I described only instead of a parry it’s a counter move. Same philosophy – it’s something you play around.
There will be matchups where you have to play differently. Taking a non-sf example, we could talk about Baiken from GG. You can’t do block strings against her because she has four meter less alpha counter (dead angle) options and one metered one. This is in a game wholly focused on pressure, block strings and Oki.
She forced neutral and poking.
It’s not wrong, it’s just a new play style, something to be encouraged and something SFV drastically lacks. Just because someone has something strong that you have to play around does not make it broken, it just makes it different.
You’re not wrong Vhozon, I’ve noticed the same thing. Even long standing veterans are scared of power in this game, it’s very weird.
This is the most underpowered game I can think of. That’s not to say it’s easy, because lack of options means that you also suffer. Personally I find defending in this game to be a nightmare because your opponent only has a few options of offense and you only have one defensive option to counter each one of those. It’s a frightening guessing game.
I would block forever in 3s looking for the one true hole in someone’s pressure and by all means the pressure in 3s is way more scary – yet I was always so much comfortable in it than I’ve ever been in SFV’s close game. shrugs
She isn’t anywhere near as fun to use in SF5 as she was in Alpha 3 and it makes a difference to me and other players that want to have fun with the characters and games they play. For people that can put up with the stripped down, buggy, and boring state of SF5, maybe she’s rewarding to them and being high tier is a nice bonus. For people that want fun gameplay they are forced to look elsewhere however. Being high tier yet limited and ultimately boring, is not very appealing if you aren’t treating the game as a source of income (pro tour/sponsorship).
I still fuck with Terry even though he hasn’t had the Power Dunk since Forever.
I still make my shit work. Even if Cammy’s spiral arrow is a 360 and her cannon strike flys backward I’m making any iteration of my character work lmao