Doing Hadoken Instead of Shoryuken

Newbie Saikyo Dojo
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I’ve been playing Street Fighter off and on for a couple years. I’m an adult, but didn’t have any consoles growing up, so didn’t have the chance to develop skills during my formative years. I did play a fair amount of MVC2 in the arcade, but mostly just button-mashing, no real understanding of how to really do things.

So lately, I’ve been playing much more in earnest, really trying to practice and improve, and I ain’t doing so hot. One of the biggest roadblocks I’m having is that I can’t do a Shoryuken dependably. I’ve definitely progressed past the point where I couldn’t do it at all, but now my problem is that most of the time when I try to do a Shoryuken, I do a Hadoken instead. Sometimes for practice, I’ll set the game on the lowest difficulty, and move away from the opponent and just try to do Shoryukens (since they’re not as quick to come over and press the attack on the easy levels). I usually end up killing them pretty fast because I do so many Hadokens instead. I’ve done some Googling, looking for other forum posts along the same lines, but most of the advice for people who can’t do a Shoryuken is to tap forward, and then do the Hadoken motion. That doesn’t seem like the right thing for me, if I’m already accidentally doing Hadoken much of the time.

I should mention that for the most part, I’m going retro and playing SSF2 on the SNES, but I also have MVC3 for the PSVita, so I did some Shoryuken practice in training mode to see if the stick would be any more effective than the old d-pad, but the problem is largely the same. Sometimes I can do as many as five Shoryuken in a row, and then just when I think I’ve got the touch, I do a Hadoken. There have even been some times when I felt like all I did was forward + down, and still did a Hadoken. I don’t understand how that’s even possible. So even though the d-pad probably isn’t helping much, it’s clearly not the only problem.

I really want to learn Ryu because he’s a meat-and-potatoes kind of character, and I like that he’s in all the SF games, so once you learn him, you’ll always have someone to play no matter which game you’re on. But not being able to execute my Shoryuken leaves me without an anti-air move, and that obviously leaves a gaping hole in my defense.

With apologies for the fact that this is one of those noob questions that gets asked now and then, does anyone have any advice to help me do the Shoryuken and not the Hadoken?

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well the thing is when you do forward just do hadouken from foward, never let the stick,pad or whatever you use return to neutral, cause if it goes back to neutral a hadouken will come out

1 Like
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It’s kinda counter-intuitive, but that is good advice.
Disclaimer: I haven’t played much SFII so I don’t know how well this advice will translate, but it should work in Marvel 3 engine. From what I have played of SFII I remember that it was stricter than most modern engines like SF4 or MVC3.

The game is looking for 3 inputs: Forward, Down, Down-Forward. If done quickly, Forward,Down,Down-Forward,Forward will still trigger the Shoryuken motion. That’s what people mean when they say tap forward and then do a Hadoken motion. However, if there’s too much time in between tapping forward and the Hadoken motion (Quarter Circle Forward, or QCF) then the game will “forget” the forward motion and give you a Hadoken. This is because inputs are only stored for a certain number of frames. Don’t think of it as “tapping forward then Hadoken”, try to picture moving the stick/d-pad to forward and then rolling to down and rolling back to forward. It’s a bit sloppy but that should get you a DP.

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hmm. so this is mostly on dpad then. my advice is to actually look at your thumb and do the shoryuken without thinking about it. just use muscle memory and watch your thumb on the dpad. you may be surprised that your doing it wrong but when looking at the screen it “feels” right. it’s easier to see when you use stick but with dpad it may be harder to see, especially if it’s on old consoles without training mode or without inputs showing up on screen.
RadicalFuzz basically nailed it on the head. you may be doing the motion or button press too slow. if it’s too hard for you to do it consistently in a fast motion, try doing it really slow and eventually getting faster. it will ingrain the motion in your brain eventually and you won’t have to think about it. it takes patience too so don’t give up on it. if you get too frustrated then let it go for a while and come back to it. you should improve eventually.

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I tried it again on MVC3 with the inputs turned on this time, so I could look back when it did a Hadoken instead. It’s definitely showing the exact same sequence of movements as when I do a Shoryuken, so what you’re saying is that the key difference is how much time passes between the forward motion and the QCF? That makes sense in a way, because I can’t see what else would be making a difference, but it must be a very thin window, because I don’t feel like there’s any sort of pause or additional amount of time with the ones that end up a Hadoken. They feel exactly the same to me. I wish I could make a video of myself practicing so a more seasoned eye could compare them, but I don’t know how to capture off of a Vita. But I feel like the difference must be extremely minute, because I really can’t perceive any change at all.

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If you’re pressing forwards then allowing the stick/pad/whatever to go to the neutral position before you hit d, df then your srk won’t come out. Just hit forwards, then without taking your finger off the pad, move immediately to down then down-forwards. If you’re releasing the d-pad/stick at any point than you need to stop.

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^I’m certainly not doing that consciously, but then, I’m not doing anything different consciously, so there must be something I’m doing without being aware of it. How can I fix the problem or even figure out what it is when I don’t feel any difference between the ones that come out Shoryuken and the ones that come out Hadoken? It seems like the differentiation between moves is very fine.

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I can’t really offer any advice other than the ones already stated in this thread.

  • Check Inputs. If forward > down-backward > down > down-forward is inputted, you will get a Hadouken. This is by far the most common input error I have for a Shoryuken.
  • If forward > neutral> down > down-forward > forward is inputted, you will get a Hadouken. This happens when you lift your finger from the D-Pad or you are inputting directions too slowly.

Go into training mode with inputs on and, as pootnannies suggested, practice inputting it correctly each time.

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Yeah, I definitely was doing that some of the time, but not all. That’s one thing I noticed about the SNES controller, is that down and down-back seem to feel almost the same. But according to the inputs, I was also doing it occasionally (but not most of the time) with the Vita thumbstick.

Do the inputs show neutrals? I didn’t see anything but arrows and attack buttons. What would a neutral look like?

I did try this, but the problem was, some of the time when I did one Shoryuken followed by one Hadoken, the inputs it showed were exactly the same for both. I guess the problem then must be timing, but since it doesn’t show that in the inputs, it makes it harder to debug.

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Inputs do not show neutrals. What are the exact inputs you are getting? from start to finish for both when you do it correctly and incorrectly? (add the normal you used (L M H S) so I can tell where it ended.

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I used L for training so I wouldn’t move as far. Generally when I did pull off a Shoryuken, it showed f, df, d, df, f, L, and then other times it would show that exact same string, but it had done a Hadoken instead. I would’ve thought that having the down-forward between the forward and the down would break the Shoryuken, but it showed that on many successful attempts. I guess there’s no way to get from forward to down without either being down-forward or neutral.

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That is because down-forward > down-forward is a shortcut input for Shoryuken (also works with df d df). If that shortcut didn’t exist, you would be getting Hadouken each and every single time with the motion you wrote down. The shoryuken shortcut isn’t present in all games, so it is recommended you don’t use it like a crutch.

From the motion you wrote (which is basically a half-circle back > half circle-forward), I am certain your execution is bad. Practice doing a Shoryuken so ONLY forward > down > down-forward comes out 25 times in a row for each side (player 1 and 2). Do this, and I guarantee that you won’t ever get a Hadouken input.

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I’ll have to try it again with this new info, but I think when I tried it before, in all the time I spent, I didn’t do a single Shoryuken with forward going straight to down. Is there any advice or description you can give about how to go straight from forward to down without going either down-forward or neutral? I know it’s hard to describe something that’s second nature for you at this point, but if there’s anything at all you can think of, I’ll take it.

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I thought that was only in SF4, this guy’s playing SF2.

Marvel 3:

The game runs at 60 frames per second. That means that 1 frame is equal to 1/60th of a seconds. The game stores directional inputs for 9 frames, which is equal to 9/60ths of a second. If you want a Shoryuken-input move to come out, the game needs to see something it can interpret as a Shoryuken motion all within 9/60ths of a second.

This means that the minimum required time to do the input for the Shoryuken is 3 frames. This is assuming that you input the motion in the fastest possible time, which is very difficult to do. Most players who have good execution get it anywhere from 4-7 frames on average. I don’t know for sure but when you get the Hadoken motion instead of the Shoryuken motion it sounds like you’re doing the directional inputs too slowly. Between the Forward and you pressing the button to get the special move, over 9 frames have passed.

Go into training mode and turn inputs on. First do a Hadoken as you normally would. Then try hitting the button later, so that you’ve consciously finished the quarter circle forward and the button feels very late. Eventually, when the fireball stops coming out, you only get a normal attack. When that happens, it’s been 9 frames since you began the motion. This will help you understand how long of a time 9 frames is. Once you can get the Hadoken slowly and consistenly, start speeding up the motion. Every time you successfully throw a fireball do the motion a bit more quickly on the next one. If you mess up the motion and get a normal or a different move, slow down the speed of your inputs. If you’ve ever played an instrument it’s kinda the same idea. Practicing smartly is better than practicing hard, and muscle memory is very important.

After becoming comfortable with the fireball, begin practicing the Shoryuken. Start by doing the directional motions very slowly, don’t press any buttons yet. Watch the input display and look for the actual Forward-Down-DownForward directions. Do them very cleanly and slowly. Think of it as a smooth motion. When you feel comfortable with the SRK motion start pressing an attack button at the end of it and see if a Shoryuken comes out. If you see the SRK motion and you’re hitting a button but you’re only getting a normal move, speed up the motion. No matter where you are in this exercise you should be getting the motion correctly. If you’re not, slow it down until you are and then gradually work your way back up again. Eventually try doing 2 in a row, 3 in a row, etc… and set a record of your highest number. If yesterday you could do 5 Shoryukens in a row today try for 6.

Best of luck.

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I didn’t even see this thread but I unintentioanlly answered your question in the other thread. Turning the inputs on won’t show timing. If you want a shoryuken and are getting a hadouken the answer is simple. You are doing the motion too slow.

Executionally if the hadouken is coming out it means that unless you aren’t hitting forward before it, which would be crazy, then you are doing all of the pieces necessary to get a shoryuken; the fact that you are getting a hadouken means that there is too much time between the difference between the difference between the two moves (The forward and the down) for the game to realize that you want a shoryuken instead of a hadouken.

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Turning on inputs shows you if you did the motion correctly. If you did the motion correctly and pressed the button correctly but the move doesn’t come out it’s because your timing was bad.

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I am not sure about SF2, but the input shortcut works in Marvel 3, which is the game where he is practicing the input. If he was doing this in SF2, that motion would probably get him a Hadouken 100% of the time.

Take time to practice hitting down (without getting any down-forwards or down-backs) over and over again so you can get a sense of where exactly down is. Then practice hitting forward over and over again. Lastly, practice hitting forward to down. Then put it all together. To be honest, learning to input shoryukens is not something you should have trouble with. More people have problems inputting a Hadouken than a Shoryuken. Since learning to input a Shoryuken is kind of like learning to ride a bike, no one can easily describe how you should go about doing it. If I asked you how to ride a bike, you would probably just tell me to practice pedaling and steering at the same time until I understood the concept. It is just one of those things you should just be able to do after enough practice.

If you are still having problems after a few days of practice, perhaps you just are not a pad/controller player and may be better off investing in an arcade stick. If you want to test drive an arcade stick, hit up a local arcade (something like Boomers) that hosts a Street Fighter title.

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Thank you for such a thorough and detailed training plan. This sounds like it’ll be tough, and certainly tedious at times, but it is a very clear plan with a gradual progression of difficulty, so it seems like it should be doable with the appropriate amount of time and effort. I’ll put this into practice, and if I don’t see any changes within a week or two, I’ll check back in (hopefully with some idea of what’s going wrong). Thanks!

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The forward > hadoken motion is flawed because it doesn’t tell you one important thing:
YOU ABSOLUTELY CANNOT HAVE A BREAK between the two motions. It has to be a solid motion.
If you’re just looking to do an SRK, there’s several shortcuts in various games to do it.
If you want to learn to do it properly, think of it as a z-motion (that helped me get it back in the day)
If you still can’t get it, ride the gate.
F, D/F, D, D/B, D, D/F+P
Lock it into the corner to get the dp.

Basically, start from forward, ride the gate to down back, and then to down forward and hit punch.
It takes longer, but it should help you get it.

Shortcuts I know of:

3S: d, d/f, d, d/f+p
SF4: Several, including, d/f, d/f+p, and d/f, d, d/f+p

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Having down-back in there wouldn’t ruin the sequence? Or is it that it doesn’t matter what else is in there as long as the f, d, and df are there within nine frames?