Beating CPU Zangief in SFA3

This sounds pretty lame, but even after playing SFA3 since 98 I still get my ass occasionally handed to me by CPU Zangief when I’m using certain characters.

At certain high difficulty levels it almost seems like your playing a good gief player since he can always time jumping FP’s properly to avoid anti-airs. He can also do a crouching FK/RK? to avoid your attack and then piledrive you at the end. He also does maximum range SPD’s, and sometimes perfectly timed lariats.

I mean I keep hearing about these easy ways to beat him, but sometimes you make one single mess up and he’s done 70% damage and is right on top of you. All the careful poking and zoning you were doing all goes to waste.

Of course sometimes he acts like a complete dufus if your lucky, but when he suddenly gets his act together that scares the crap outta me.

what works best is whiffing normals to get him to jump (ie shoto-type crouching Forward), and then using whatever anti air you have, assuming your character has one. Other than that, keep him out with whatever normals you have.

I can’t talk about Zangief on Alpha 3 but I can tell you how to beat Zangief on Alpha 2 (level 8) with perfect (very easy)

Since Zangief CPU “AI” is one of the dumbest ever just do this with Ken, Ryu, Akuma: as soon he’s walking to you just type LP and 90% of the times he will jump on you, then do srk because any of his air attacks doesn’t have a chance vs any deep srk, in case if you don’t wanna do srk then type down + HP, this works with every character and this is one of the easyest ways to beat cpu Zangief with perfect on Alpha 2.

If Zangief cpu AI from Alpha 3 is close to same cpu AI of Alpha 2 then should be easy.

(I hope this helps)

master akuma: can you please stop coming into threads talking about alpha2 in NON ALPHA 2 threads? you always do that.“i dunno about alpha3, but in alpha 2 you can do blah blah” and the info is always irellevant. a3 gief is WAY different than a2 gief. so none of that crap really works but runaway. use that info for an alpha2 thread, not a3. if he wanted that info, the topic woulda said a2…

Shoto’s aren’t too much of a problem to beat zangief with, you just have to be fast with a dragon punch and sweeps. I also do find with characters that have a good all purpose poke against zangief like sagat and cody.

The real problems start happening when you get characters that have trouble against gief. Like Bison or R.Mika, gief can just jump in and does air FP to avoid anti airs or hit you, then land and spd you at maximum range( or FAB if he’s feeling annoying)

Like I said this doesn’t happen all the time, but sometimes I’ll have gief on 30% on the last round and then suddenly he goes ape and next thing you know your the one at 30%.

It’s similar to sometimes how Ryu goes nutzoid and starts playing for real. I think it’s a real positioning thing, since if your able to fool the AI into being in a different position then they often muck up. Like jumping in and hitting at maximum shallow range, the computer won’t anti-air. Or how if you dance around the perfect jump-in range against Gen and Cammy, they usually do.

Gief often jumps in if you get the right position, but because of the SPD and FAB and banishing fist, one screw up doesnt cost you 10-20% it costs you 40-60% Sometimes he’ll even fake, with a jump-in, walk back, banishing fist, SPD/FAB.

He’ so damn good I just might start learning 360’s :lol:

ok… sorry about that, I will keep the A2 stuff inside of A2 threads.

If you’re just looking for something cheap and cheerful, then with must characters you can always just jump straight up and do a deep attack with whatever normal has longest range. Just jump vertical whatever range he’s at, and most of the time he’ll walk into it (or walk forards and then block it and hget puched away again). You don’t even need to move your left hand! (unless you want to do some fancy followup once you’ve hit him cleanly up close)

Luckily Gief rarely uses his jumping super…

Of course, you were probably looking for something a little better than that!

Pokes are useful, block damage is helpful, too. Most AIs, though cheap, can be tick thrown-this works on Zangief as well.

Awesome. I’m sure he’s been waiting these past 4 years for you to drop that knowledge

These types of threads probably shouldn’t be bumped since everyone has moved on.