Maybe this is common knowledge (entirely possible because I’m such a noob), but the other night I was playing around with character colors on SSFIIX using button combinations, holding buttons, etc. and noticed something strange and repeatable. With at least 2 credits, if I pressed & held Start when selecting my character (Ken, in this case) and continued holding Start until the match started, in the upper right corner of the screen, instead of just saying “PRESS START”, it would alternate between “PRESS START” and some other string of kanji characters.
I don’t recall ever seeing this in normal play. Anyone ever tried/noticed this or better yet, know what that kanji string means?
-ud
The text says “Wanted! Match play,” which is basically to invite other players to come play with you. And yeah, as far as I’m aware, this message only appears in the JP version. To activate it, just be in 1P mode and have Start held down during intermission just as the match starts.
Contrary to popular belief, this message isn’t a bug; it’s actually a feature. The purpose of this feature was so that anybody thinking of jumping into the game would do so without being concerned that the current player was only looking to play the AI or on a Shin Gouki run. After all, in JP arcades, it’s not always easy to ask the other player across a row of head-to-head cabs. Consequently, if you’re messing around 1P mode just waiting for someone else to step up, then you turn this flashing message on as an indicator.
There’s also another button combination that goes along with this one. Press 3P+3K at any time to remove the message. That way, if you’re in the heat of an AI match and for some reason want to finish up, then you can make clear you don’t want to be disturbed.
HSF2 has a bunch more of these messages with different button combinations. From my experience in Japan, nobody actually uses any of them. Just for reference, T-Akiba has a comprehensive list of them at the top of this page: http://games.t-akiba.net/sf2/kowaza.html
It’s a pretty interesting feature. So how do people know how to use this function? Were there text descriptions about this thing posted on Japanese ST cabs? Was it spread by word of mouth?
Also, who WOULDN’T want to play against other players? I’m sure after 1992, everyone pretty much figured out it was much more fun to play against people than AI.
I think features like this is more common than you think. Iirc the Dreamcast version might have even had the message translated to English (well, EngRish at least). And I think the samurai shadows games had a feature like this too. Actually its so common, that when reading your post I was kind of surprised not everyone knew about it.
Well, it wasn’t just you that surprised me. I consider hanasu and eltrouble well versed in the game too and they seemed to be as oblivious as you. I also can’t imagine you being a noob being around so many st boards and doing so much testing and demos with them.
in HSF2 if you hold down start and select game mode on ST or Super another version of ST and Super is enabled for your character. So in other words HSF2 has 7 modes instead of 5 modes…
Hmm. this doesn’t relate to pressing start. But It’s a tidbit I feel not many people know. and they SHOULD know.
I always see people skipping menus and trying to get to the actual fight faster by pressing buttons and such or tapping coin/start really fast.
What I don’t see is 1p tapping jab (shot1) really fast to get past the boot screens.
That’s why I believe a majority of people don’t know about this.
only player 1 can do this, and only the jab button works. it’s a slight annoyance of mine when i’m not p1 and i’m waiting for the boot screen to pass and the other person isn’t tapping/mashing jab.
(I haven’t seen a single person do this, in person or ggpo without me telling them to beforehand)
Holding jab also works and IIRC is faster as well, at least for the versus screen.
I think most people I play online skip the screens, surprised to hear otherwise.
