Why are we talking about Cody?
Never understood that one lol. In Final Fight they were just a set of golden tags of some sort (I guessed they were like dog tags or pictures of him and jessica) personally I’m not a fan of the “bro” look Cody got on that alt. His best alt costume is still by far his “I just stole Edi E.'s police uniform, and even if it is too big I manage to make it look fucking bad ass” from SFxT.
I’d mention Cody for high damage and frame traps, nothing else though lol
I still usually don’t see him brought up when “who has the highest damage” discussions. (Partially because he doesn’t have the highest damage combos. Prob the highest BnBs but not the overall highest damage potential since he can’t combo into fireball and he has to scale any FADC combo because when he does Criminal Upper - FADC he has to do a LP to keep the combo going since he is +4F and his mids are 5-6F and his heavies are 7-8F startup. If he could FADC and land clsMP his damage would jump up quite a bit.)
Still, my main point was just that I find it a little disheartening how he almost never comes up in a discussion about who has the best (blank). Like they might bring up his strengths if discussing him specifically “Cody has great normals and badstone is the fastest recovery fireball in the game” but then when someone askes “Who has the best normals or best fireball” nothing. 
As I said though, I think Cody has 2 of the best command normals in the game with F+MP and B+MP. Both of those are easily in the top 10.
On that subject, who do you guys think has the best command normals? or at least what ARE the best command normals in the game?
Step kick and solar plexus are pretty neat.
Dudley’s overhead is nothing to sneeze at.
cody has the best AA normal in the game w/ back+mp
It’s great. I still wouldn’t say it’s the best. Cammy’s cs.hp probably is.
IMO it’s up there but it’s not as good as:
Cammy/Sakura close HP
Sakura crHP
Makoto crMK
Juri’s crMP
Then Cody’s B+MP and Dhalsim’s B+HK go here.
Those are all pretty exemplary AA normals tho.
Balrog Sim Guile
Talk about frame traps and everybody will mention Cody :<
Oni has some good command normals.
Hakan, Makoto, Dudley, Sim…
It’s a bit limited of a discussion, not that many characters have command normals beside an overhead.
Sim. Imagine him without them, forget combos/properties…he couldn’t even function as a character at all.
Characters with command normals (not counting Target Combos as “Command normals”):
Ryu, Ken, Honda, Ibuki, Makoto, Dudley, Seth, Gouken, Akuma, Gen*(sorta), Sakura, Oni, Yun, Juri, Chun Li, Dhalsim, Abel, C Viper, Sagat, Deejay, Cody, Guy, Hakan, Yang, Evil Ryu, Guile, Blanka, Zangief, Rufus, El Fuerte, Vega, Fei Long, Thawk, Adon, Rose.
(Every character except for: M. Bison, Balrog, Cammy, Dan, and if you don’t count Gen’s 2 stances then Gen)
Characters with command normals that AREN’T an overhead attack:
Ryu, Ken, Ibuki, Makoto, Dudley, Seth (Toe Taps + Dive Kick), Gouken (Dive Kick), Akuma (Dive Kick), Oni, Yun, Chun Li, Dhalsim, Abel, C Viper, Sagat, Deejay (Knee shot), Cody, Guy(Elbow Drop + 3HK), Hakan, Yang (Dive kick), Evil Ryu, Guile, Blanka, Zangief, Rufus, Vega, Fei Long, THawk, Rose
Characters with a command normal that aren’t an overhead OR dive kick
Ryu, Ken, Ibuki, Makoto, Dudley, Seth (Toe taps still), Oni, Yun(6HP palm strike), Chun Li, Dhalsim, Abel, C Viper, Sagat, Cody, Guy (3HK), Hakan, Evil Ryu, Guile, Blanka, Zangief, Rufus (3MK, 6HP palm strike), Vega, Fei Long, Thawk, Rose
I’d say there is a pretty decent amount to draw from. I count 25 characters whose command normals are neither a dive kick OR an overhead
Makoto c.mk is such a beast AA. Unless you have a dive kick you simply cannot jump in on a crouching Makoto. I can’t tell you how many matches I’ve won just waiting on that Ken to try and air Tatsu his way in to just stick my foot in his face and call it a day.
More characters normals should be designed like Makoto’s in terms of hitboxes and how their frame count is laid out for Startup / Active / Recovery.
sMP = 5F startup 7F active 7F recovery hitbox for days
sMK = 6/3/12 good hitbox, special cancelable
sHK = 8/8/12 incredible hitbox 250stun
F+MP = 7/6/8 moves very far forward
crMP = 7/6/9
crMK = 7/6/8
The only attacks she has where the hitbox isn’t past the hurtbox (and often generously so) are her jumping LP/MK.
Her crHK is probably her worst normal and it’s better than some characters BEST normal as far as an anti air goes.
Cody w/ Knife = Best Normals
I’m not sure we could give the number of active frame Makoto has on her normals to everybody without breaking the game lol.
Not everyone can handle the power of rindoukan.
That thing can definitely be used as an overhead.
Of course not, you can’t just throw something at the game and go “there, all done.” especially something not that major. I just think that they should use Makoto’s stuff as a design reference at least in the future or if they ever do a legitimate major overhaul to the game instead of comparatively small tweaks like most of the character based changes have been (when you compare how big of a difference there was for characters from Hyper Fighting to Super SF2 or even from Super to Super Turbo to the changes for most characters in SSF4 to AE it’s pretty small. Even SF4 to Super isn’t that much by comparison.
I’d much rather they have characters with normals that look more like Makoto’s than normals than like Bison’s or THawk.
Can be used yes, but it’s not really the same thing as say: Ryu’s 6MP.
Great normals you say?
