It depends on the spacing. I think once a Guile player knows the exact range where that will work, they try to keep themselves out of that position. The spacing to accomplish that is pretty tight, so you don’t see it happen too often in Guile v. Guile. As far as I know, the forward version of flash kicks work best for this, since the edge of its hitbox is perfect for hitting the tip of a standing opponent, but feel free to correct. Usually, it’s not worth the risk, since if you misspace or misstime it by just a pixel, you’re going to eat a decent combo.
Guile v. Guile revolves entirely around how fast you’re able to fire off sonic booms, the ground game, and how strong your defense is. Grab the lifelead, play defensive and make Guile come to you. In fact, I was playing Mike from Norcal at your place the weekend before the qualifiers, and we were easily counting who was in the lead, and by how many blocked sonic booms it would take to recover, or lose, that round, lol. Highly technical and strategic matchup, and usually the superior Guile player will win out. It’s similar to a Ryu. v. Ryu matchup in that it tests ALL of the aspects of your character, so it’s really fun to play.
I think Guile v. Guile bore most people who don’t really understand that “lifelead” aspect of the game. I think it’s something that’s largely lost in newer games, except for very rare situations.
ST is probably different now I don’t know I probably should’ve played on Friday before the tourney to see if it changed and if the changes were little or a lot. But I wanted everyone to get as many games in without me getting in the way and of course right now I’ve been loving 3S. So I was playing that lol.
Throughout my life I’ve always played an aggressive Guile and been successful. In Guile mirror matches, I’ve always learned it is the more aggressive one who wins. It’s about taking away the other Guile’s charge time. So my style is not very traditional. But it’s worked in the past but I don’t know about now because what I noticed since EVO is that ST is becoming a different game. And I’m also different because I’ve been corrupted by 3S.
I have a split personality when it comes to ST and 3S. It’s two different languages that I’ve learned over the years. But some strategy has crossed over in the games. In 3S I dash throw a lot. Because of this today I walk up throw a lot in ST. A lot of people don’t expect it but it’s a strategy I learned from 3S. When I play ST there are times when I’ll take long walks to throw lol. That’s because of 3S.
I’ll be honest though I’m not very current when it comes to ST right now and a lot of it has to do with me not respecting the physics of the game. Because of Third Strike and it’s lack of respect when it comes to spacing, when I play ST today I’m always testing the boundaries and it gets me in a lot of trouble.
There are a lot of top ST players who I played and you can see they have total respect to the physics of the game. They honor the spacing and stay within the comfort zone. I use to play like that but now with my “3S liberation” I just play ST in a very random way with a lot of risk. Like a cornered animal who will do anything lol. The results have been mixed. Sometimes awesome while other time disasterous. I don’t have the discipline anymore like I use to. With the 3S knowledge I’m trying to find a new way of playing ST but I cannot conclude that it is a winning formula for success particularly tournament success.
Dude, it’s always fun playing you. Trust me, none of us don’t mind taking turns if it means you get to play with us.
It’d be fun to play Guile v. Guile against your aggressive play. We should try it sometime. Other players have tried, and it doesn’t work out. The hop kick can be annoying, but it loses or trades with st.jab, occasionally st.short at certain distances, and trades in my favor if I use a st.fierce or b.roundhouse. cr.forward abuse doesn’t work, since it loses to st.short, and o.guile can easily mash st.short while maintaining back charge. Jumps are rarely a good idea, since it’s pretty easy to trade with Guile’s jump attacks, and come out ahead on the life lead. It gets a bit interesting when a Guile attempts to backfast the sonic boom on the startup, then the fun begins.
Walk up throw works great in ST, but it depends on the character. A lot of players tend to throw out low shorts or cr.strongs or something to stop throw attempts, but of course they possibly lose to uppercuts, and walk up sweeps. It’s usually work the risk, since throws are very powerful in ST.
Nothing wrong with testing the boundaries. I do it myself, and I’ve actually discovered some new things that a lot of the older plays didn’t know about, and I’m relatively new to the scene. Papercut discovered a new way to reliably do 360 attacks, and I’ve also figured out some interesting option-selects with a variety of characters that completely change the game. I’m always amazed at how, despite the limitations of the ST system, there’s still so much being discovered in the game, even after nearly 20 years of being played. Just look at the rise of T.Hawk through the ranks. It took more than a decade for people to figure that stuff out.
Heck, look at the Mattsun videos I posted above. That guy just doesn’t care about matchups or spacing. He just simplifies the game to uppercuts and throws. Combine this with his insane ability to hit confirm off any hit, and the guy is truly scary to deal with at close range.
As far as style goes, there’s a bit of variety between each player’s playstyle, although it’s not clearly evident unless you’re used to playing a variety of players and those matchups a lot. I can confidently say that I’ve never played a Ryu who played exactly like another Ryu. Even in LA, where we have a ton of shotos, we all play a different style of Ryu, each good in its own right, but very different. Even my O.Guile is slightly different from Watson’s, despite the limited amount of O.Guile players. I’ve been told I have an odd mix of old school playstyle with new school tricks, so I’m pretty happy to have been told that, but it shows that you can still develop a style of your own, that’s as effective as you’re able to make it work.
I like your eye for detail when you talk about ST. It’s awesome.
I’m gonna make excuses for myself when it comes to ST lol: I’ve been playing ST all my life so it’s all in my fingers. I can’t really explain how I play. BUT for the majority of my life I’ve always played ST on an American arcade stick. It’s only this year when I made a supergun with hacked TE sticks that I started playing ST on Japanese. For me a lot went missing in the transition. When I play on American it was like an extension of my hands but on Japanese it’s kind of a struggle but not too much. But for me playing ST on American my execution was perfect and my confidence was high. Now I miss things and I’m hesistant and not as confident. Yes this an excuse but I know Japanese now is the standard.
When I got HDR 4 years ago, I bought an showcase cab pedestal from an arcade guy for $25. My brother moddded it to the xbox360 controller (This was before the TE came out) and I would play HDR like crack on it. It was awesome because it was the first time I played ST online with competition. And best of all there was no lag. And I was actually using an real arcade controller. It was like the most fun I had online gaming in my life. I was dominating in a game I grew up with. I’d play HDR 8 hours a day online when I first got it. Maybe more. I had a 217 game winning streak with Ryu and a 158 game wining streak with Guile. There was some good guys but of course a lot of them were ok. But it was amazing because I was ahead of everyone when HDR came out because I never ever stopped playing Street Fighter. Sometimes I’d play the villain and fake fireball taunt lol. But ya HDR with my pedestal joystick was awesome. It felt like a virtual arcade.
But ya you could feel the extreme saltiness in ST. I had so many rage disconnects and pms that were very hateful lol. But also admiration and a lot asked me what kind of joystick I was using. If they only could see lol.
I try to pay attention to the details in ST. It’s those details where I discovered how to make myself better, or encounter situations that I normally get shutdown. Plus it helps that I do commentary for ST whenever I can, and so I hone my analytical skills when I commentate on ST, and so far people seem to appreciate my insight. I guess I’m doing something right.
I understand your pain about American ST. I had a rough time transitioning to Japanese sticks to. I know Watson absolutely hates playing ST on Japanese cabs. He can use Japanese sticks for any other game, but not for ST. ST takes WAY too much precision, and you can’t be sloppy with inputs, whereas other games have a lot more leniency when it comes to inputs. To this day, my shoto play has never been the same on Japanese as it was on American. I used to be able to easily uppercut Hawk’s hawk dive on reaction, at any range or timing, but I can’t do that anymore. I lost faith in my ability to do a quick uppercut, and that’s definitely affected my game. I can’t uppercut with high accuracy, lol. So I understand the hesitation, but I’m forcing myself to stick on Japanese, since that’s the new standard now for tourneys.
That HDR setup sounds pretty sick, I wish you still had it. ST produces a lot of salt. It’s just the way ST is. You can lose a game in less than a minute, and not fully understand why you lost, and so that makes people pissed off. ST is an extremely unforgiving game, and if you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re going to get tore up. This is the reason why I’m trying to reach out to the newer players in any way I can, because I realize how insanely difficult it is to get into ST competitively.
Since I’m in a threading mood let me defend 3S again:
3S is what it is today because Capcom wanted to reinvent the wheel with 3 that’s why it’s so drastically different than 2. With 3 Capcom wanted to make the revolutionary jump from Part 2 to Part 3 that they did from Part 1 to Part 2. And I think they succeeded. The parry system was one of the greatest ideas ever created because it took away the “monotanous” fireball/shoryuken trap of SF2. Now you couldn’t spam the same thing over and over again to win. Not saying that it’s bad in ST because it works well there but by shaking up the system in 3S Capcom created what I think is the pinnacle of 2D fighting. Everything is well thought out. All the details. Now Snk tried to do something similar with the just defend system in MOTWs but the details are not as well thought out. The system is clunky and sluggish not smooth like 3S.
ST and 3S are masterpieces but I think I’d give the edge to 3S because it’s the complete evolution, refinement, and modernization of all Capcom’s fighting game concepts developed over the last 25 years. SF4 is just a reset of everything because Capcom at that time couldn’t add anything new to 3S but of course at the same time it was also a business decision. The reset is not a bad thing because it resulted in a popular following and a rebirth but for those who lived during the time of 3S, you realize what an innovative age it was.
To be honest with you because I’m getting up there in age, personally I’m actually scared/hesistant that Capcom might develop a new Street Fighter that tops 3S lol. It would be good for the younger players like Mr.12 and Karafail but a new SF that is in the league of 3S would be trouble for me. If a new SF that was advanced 3S would come out, I would understand the commitment and time involved in learning the game. Personally I don’t want to use that time anymore for SF lol. I don’t think I could afford many hours for a new 3S at this point in my life. 3S keeps me in the game and I only play once a week lol.
But it would be great if the law degree of Street Fighter was created in the future. Just hope it’s 2D.
I still have the panel but took out the xbox pcb’s. So it’s another project in the waiting. I use to have it in the garage connected to SF4 but no one liked it. They were all too use to Japanese.
ST is a great game. It’s just that the philosophy behind it is not appealling to new gen. One big reason is it’s “rapist mentally strategy” lol. It’s just a game where you can easy be prey. Players today are afraid of getting raped, if that makes sense lol. Nobody today wants to risk losing in 30 seconds or less. To me that’s the most thrilling part of the game. ST is one of the best ways to express dominance over someone else. Yes I know rape analogy is weird but that’s what’s at the heart of ST lol.
It’s no surprise that Capcom aimed to re-create the success that it encountered with the original SF2 when it sought out to design SF3. I think that’s why they were so surprised that it was so poorly received when it first came out. They genuinely thought they had created another masterpiece, and yet, the vast majority of people weren’t playing the game or picked it up. I think this is what largely led Capcom to reduce its stance on creating hardcore fighting games, and slowly reverted back to making more casual-friendly games, culminating in SF4. Something like 3s took years of competitive play before people got attracted to it again, but of course, Capcom sees very little profit in its quarterly reports when an old game suddenly picks up competitive speed. It’s not enough to justify creating another hardcore game, so SF4 was its big cash cow by appealing to newer players.
They’re never going to make another hardcore game, at least not for awhile. We were “promised” a hardcore game after sfxt comes out, so we’ll see what happens. The first thing I learned about Capcom, is that they LIEEEEEEEEE about everything. Hell, Ono has always lied about his statements on SF on purpose just to get a rise out of the community, pull back the curtains to reveal something else, and have that “AH HAH! GOTCHA BITCH!” moment. He’s the greatest troll in Capcom JP’s company.
ST is quite brutal. It’s a game that punishes you severely for making a mistake, and you don’t have much life to sacrifice before it’s nearly impossible to make a comeback. Modern games are slower paced in terms of damage potential. Honestly, I’m kind of fine with that, since I do think ST matches tend to end too quickly sometimes, but such is the nature of the game.
ST is different in that a solid strategy will work 100% of the time as long as you’re able to execute. In 3s, this isn’t so, since the introduction of parries always adds that “you can do this…BUT…” element to everything. 3s is a bit more free flowing, and demands some more creative attack strings and timing shifts and bait parries, and you’re able to mount an offense much more successfully than in most ST matches.
Both games have clearly withstood the test of the time. But it’s still important to continue to develop and grow the player pool here in the US in order to maintain its competitive lifespan here in the States.
I totally agree that the “hardcore” philosophy wasn’t good business for Capcom. And that’s why I think it’s a miracle that a game like 3S was created. It was probably a game that aimed to please it’s fanbase rather than expand it’s market. Come to think of it ST like 3S, was created too under this “hardcore” philosophy. In hindsight it actually explains why ST was unacessible when it first came out. The concept of Supers and playing the extremely hard AI wasn’t exactly invited. Being the 5th game in the SF2 series it didn’t seem like a good business move after the extreme flop of New Challengers. ST was just an apology game to it’s fans (Sense a pattern here lol). I think ST was just also an attempt to create a library for the new CPS-2 system.
So I believe that ST and 3S created for players with a “higher understanding” of fighting games. You have to give it to Capcom in this way: They could’ve stop after the big flop. In this case New Generation and New Challengers but they kept going and tried to make it better even though at that time it wasn’t a good business move. Because to be honest ST and 3S were both dead on arrival. And that’s why they’re both miracle games today.
But at the same time I might be in a cacoon because I’m totally ignoring the influence of the Marvel fighting games. While the popularity of SF was deteriorating, the popularity of the Marvel fighting games was booming. These games are Capcom’s real cash cows in the fighting game market IMO.
ST was created to bring the fighting game fans back to SF. At the time, if I recall correctly, a lot of guys were moving on to 3d fighters and Mortal Kombat and all of these other combo-intensive games coming out (basically the birth of Marvel-style gameplay). So to compete, SF2 were designed to have a few moves added to all of these favorite characters, re-balancing the new cast to make them more viable (they were terrible in SSF2), and add supers to add a new level of depth to the game. Of course, initially ST was poorly received by the few who were still playing SF2 competitively, since supers completely broke the game. I kind of understand their sentiment, since I also feel that some supers are just so extremely powerful, that your strategy isn’t nearly as important as building the super first, which completely changes how the matchup is going to be played, which is the highest level of strategy onto itself.
Fun fact: HF was actually designed by Capcom USA while Super SF2 was developed by Japan. People were dying for a new version of SF2 after CE, and so while Japan was busy completely working on a new arcade board with new characters, graphic changes, audio, etc etc, they handed HF to the Americans. Capcom USA took influence from the rainbow editions and other hacked versions of the game, and added a lot of the stuff they saw was fun. They increased the speed, they added special moves that you could do in the air, and people loved that shit. Capcom JP was still developing Super SF2 under the same speed, and so was unable to update the speed since it was currently in development. This is why the game slowed down after HF, it wasn’t intentional, it was kind of this weird accident of poor development cycles not syncing up properly. I think ST was their way of salvaging how poorly Super SF2 was received.
Americans like flashy moves, explosions, a kaleidescope of colors, and cool combos, over simple strategy and substance. While there is a measure of strategy in Marvel-type games, execution and combo-optimization are the primary skill sets you need in those games.
You’re right about HF being developed by Capcom USA. And I think that was a big problem and the beginning of the end for SF2.
My theory is that Capcom of Japan was stubborn and didn’t want to follow the upgrades in Hyper Fighting namely the speed. So when New Challengers came out it was a SLOW game. Everyone was use to the speed in Hyper Fighting and I have no idea why they didn’t upgrade the speed and kept it World Warrior speed. The speed was a big reason why New Generation flopped. By the time Capcom got the memo and put it in ST it was too late. I’m guessing they were gonna use the Turbo to milk one more title I don’t know.
The buzz was super hot for New Gen to be released especially withthe 4 new characters but when you found out the speed was slow it didn’t feel like the SF2 you loved.
That’s the question that lingers in my mind if New Gen was Hyper Fighting speed I wonder if it would have been a hit.
I’m assuming you’re referring to New Challengers, and not New Generation. New or Next Generation was the title to the first SF3.
Actually, Super SF2:New Challengers was actually a pretty fun game. I played that game for a bit on the SNES with the speed settings set to the highest number. So you had SSF2 gameplay with HF speed, and it was a pretty damn good game. The roster felt well balanced, there was no super abuse, and the majority of the characters in the game were usable, probably with the exception of the new characters. The speed is the primary issue that everyone has with the game, but otherwise, it was fun.
I think it would’ve been a hit if the speed was increased. It was enough of a hit for there to still be tournaments, and even an official Capcom tournament out in Illinois. Imo, the game would’ve been MUCH better received if the speed was increased, to the point that they might not even have had to put out ST. I would love to play a faster version of Super SF2 competitively today if there was a scene for it.
Surprised you’re able to beat Akuma. That’s pretty tough.
I’m sure Camelot has like no existing FG scene anymore. I haven’t been there since I was a kid, but it was fun.
Anny is great, but has a lot of weird bugs and glitches as well, which is one of the reasons why the ST community didn’t bother playing it after Evo. The other reason is that the old characters are so much more powerful, that hardly anybody used the ST characters. CE/HF Guile, CE/HF Ryu, CE Bison, and CE Sagat, were so terrifying, that hardly anybody else was worth playing, lol.
I’d play that version of Anny. Of course, people will still complain about HF Ryu, Sagat, and Guile. HF Blanka, despite how good he is in the actual HF, is pretty ass in Anny for whatever reason. They severely fucked up his hit and hurt boxes in that game, and he feels more like a neutered version of HF Blanka.
For shits and giggles, I’d just have a Super SF2 tournament using Anny. I think it’d be fun. We’ll see how well Papercut’s T.Hawk will fare in the old game versus the old cast.
Maybe because Anny is CPS-2 and HF is CPS-1 so cramming CPS-1 in a CPS-2 system glitches I don’t know. Also the 1-2-3 Turbo speed is not the same as HF. ST 1-2 is not the same as HF single speed.
HF Ryu is powerful though in Anny. Well you can’t have everything lol.
I might be able to delete the WW and CE in Anny but it will be a long process because I gotta find ppl in the tech community to do it. Maybe.
Maybe because Anny is CPS-2 and HF is CPS-1 so cramming CPS-1 in a CPS-2 system glitches I don’t know. Also the 1-2-3 Turbo speed is not the same as HF. ST 1-2 is not the same as HF single speed.
HF Ryu is powerful though in Anny. Well you can’t have everything lol.
I might be able to delete the WW and CE in Anny but it will be a long process because I gotta find ppl in the tech community to do it. Maybe.