Having completed Hyper Street Fighter 2 for the first time ever with Blanka, I have been using a lot of HP Blanka Ball and to a lesser extent the vertical version with a LP version thrown in every now and then.
But I have not use MP versions at all and I only used the MK variation of the vertical version when fighting Balrog in arcade mode because he’s so damn fast and its difficult to execute a timed special attack using the HK because its assigned on a trigger on a console port combined with the nature of having to charge down than suddenly shifting to up button (which is extremely difficult to execute with a trigger). Had I been using a 6 button pad I would have used HK all the way for vertical Blanka Ball.
I am curious if any players actually bother using the M button for special attacks?
It just seems useless imo. From World Warrior and onwards I already seen the importance of mixing L and H versions of attack (especially with the Shotos back in in WW as throwing a LP Hadoken and than a HP Hadoken or vice versa could dizzy your opponent if they both land unblocked). But M versions didn’t do anything not even dizzy opponents if mixed up L and H versions even as far as WW IIRC.
I’m not the only one, most casual SF players are often seen using a mix of both L and H especially with fireball based characters but its very rare to find someone even touch the MP version and this is practically nonexistent with Shotos from both personal playing experience and from watching players all around. Just search a youtube video of some random playing an SF game.
Even among players with some skill I have not seen not much use of MP Hadoken for example are rare and good luck finding any MP Shoryuken on the PERFECT playthrough below.
Not to say M attacks are useless as many M normals not only are incredibly effective but are necessary in some cases to have defeated the AI from personal experience.
I am curious if tournie players actually use M variations such as say M Helicopter Kick or M Yoga Fire and if M specials can lead to high level strategy?
Because the only uses there seem for M specials is Chun Li’s Kikoken and Zangief’s Flying Powerbomb.Other than those two it just seems useless for an M attack and if normal variations weren’t so useful, it would just seem better to take away the 6 button control scheme and cut it down to 4 buttons.
AI is not a great way to gauge the usefulness of a lot of attacks. I might concede that mediums versions of a lot of things don’t see as much use, but also realize sometimes they are hard to distinguish between other versions. As an example there are a lot of times in ST where deejay’s medium up kicks come in handy because of a less steep angle than the hard version to anti air shallower jump ins but retain the juggle properties of hard up kicks. For fireballs it can help mixup timings on jumping over them. It breaks up the rhythm and pattern especially with projectile slow down in older games. Sometimes they are of greater positioning or mix up value because they won’t cross up when the hard versions would or the light versions are easily seen to not cross up. In short they are used, but subtlety.
Haven’t play SF2 since my childhood, but I’m sure that at least medium is used for blanka ball spacing/mixup… Medium lighting and upball and rainbow ball are all a mystery to me… Medium Hadoken is the main hadoken used because it makes it difficult to gauge the speed of fireballs early after release. Using mostly medium Hadoken almost guarantees your opponent will fall for your switch up. There’s a bunch of uses for medium specials, but only the real SF2 players can give you the answer you want.
I’m not just asking for SF2 but the series as a whole. While I haven’t played them to the extent of SF2, I do have Third Strike and also have tried Alpha. IDK if its just my lack of experience but like SF2 the medium variation don’t seem to really have any significant advantages to really justify using except for Chun’s Kikoken (which really gets quite emphasized in the Alpha games) and Honda’s M version of his Hundred Hand Slaps (which is much easier to do than the H version ever since it was tweaked in SSF2T-in fact I have yet to execute the H version).
Can’t comment on 4 which I haven’t played yet.
(FACEPALM) yes I forgot Honda’s Slap attack as an example where the M version is actually useful.
Is just not the AI just go watch any casual match at the Arcades or in an online video. Casual players will spam Ls and Hs but never Ms specials.
Casual players aren’t really thinking about what they’re doing. That kind of negates the mind game aspect of it.
In thoughtful play, yes they exist as a variation of the optimal. For safety often the light version is the best, least risk least reward. In combos and out of combos, heavy is typically best for damage. Medium exists as an alternative for speed/angles/positioning as mentioned above.