I used to play Chun-Li back in the SFII days. I then played Super SFII Turbo and I really liked Fei Long but I was horrible with pulling off rekkas or most anything with him. So when I got AE the first thing I gravitated towards was making sure I could play Fei Long effectively. Now that I’m pretty good with him I may find somebody else to go with because Fei is rather boring to play with.
I’m considering Ibuki after watching Option Selector play her as I like the incredibly fast gameplay and mixups she allows. I also really like Oni as he just looks BA and my alternate in SFII was Ken so naturally I like Shotos. I tried Seth and he’s fun but he’s also an all or nothing sort of character where I may need more overall experience before trying to play him (assuming I want to keep my sanity). My old main, Chun-Li, just hasn’t been enjoyable at all since Capcom changed/added mechanics which I did not like. I am not a fan of any charge character so I won’t be going that route…at least not right now.
So yeah, I didn’t exactly answer the OP’s question but at least I gave some insight to a personal process haha.
I picked ryu for a few matches and I noticed people were getting easy wins with Gief. I then tried Gief and it was able to win many beginner matches just by spamming the Lariat and mashing on grabs, but when I would run into good players they would keep me out. So I started looking for someone who was a bit quicker, I then picked Abel because he was a grappler and I thought he was Gief but with faster walk speed. I didn’t win as easily with him as I did with Gief, these were Vanilla days btw.
I stuck with him just because I knew I had to settle somewhere so didn’t move from there. I even remember being embarrassed telling people I played Abel so I would say I played Ryu because Abel players were not very common. Once super rolled in, my messages went from Vanilla “good to see an Abel player”, etc… to Super “f*** that overpowered character”, etc… I still play him because I truly like the character, he is fun to play even after all this time, it just feels natural to me. I have picked up other characters along the way, but no matter who else I play Abel is always the funnest character to use, they can nerf him to oblivion and I will still stick with him. Everytime I hit my links I just feel so satisfied, like a shot of caffeine in my system, it never gets old and it is addicting.
The first version of SF2 that I played when I was a kid had Vega as a boss character you couldn’t actually play as. It might have been original SF2 I can’t remember. I just thought he was the coolest, then when I was a teenager I went through a phase where I had to buy every super nintendo game ever known and somehow got ahold of ST and I would play Vega with my friends. When I finally got back into SF this summer I just stuck with him, didn’t even know what a tier list was, I’m glad I made the choice though.
Picked Zangief at first because I didn’t plan on buying a stick and I figured he’d be better for me as a pad player. Eventually, I bought a stick, but by then I was to far along to go back.
It’s weird, whoever I do well with, I seem to subconsciously trick myself into liking.
I tend to play characters everyone (including myself) gets hyped up about, except I don’t drop them when I find out they aren’t top tier.
If we’re talking SF4 series:
SF4 was Gouken - remember how cool it was to see him in a SF game!
Super was Dudley - remember "he looks top tier!!!"
AE has been Oni - remember Capcops “Shut. Everything. Down.”
I went to the arcade loketests, and at first only the 8 World Warriors + C.Viper and Abel were selectable. New game and new systems, so pretty much everyone was just picking Ryu and Ken. I hate mirror matches just as much as anyone else - I’ve used Chun off and on in games before so I gave her a try. I won a few matches and I liked the way she felt in this game. I used her for the remainder of the loketests.
When the game came out in arcades, I also wanted to play around with Guile and Sagat. But other players know the matchups extremely well - I found that even if the matchup wasn’t in her favor, my experience with Chun gave me the best shot of winning. So I had to pick her to win, and the more I used her the more I found she really suited my play style the best.
Watched this vid, immediately thought Akuma was badass and I wanted to try him out. Turns out he’s a diverse character, and I’m someone with a diverse range of skills, so we clicked. Zoning, pokes, rushdown, mixups, Akuma has it all, and I can do it all, depending on how I wanna play.
Rose, I’ve always been attracted to the classy lady with a nice figure, the librarian/secretary type. xD But before that, I was character hunting, and something in my head just said “play Rose.” This was back in Vanilla, so there’s no Super U2 excuse here. I use her for strictly poking and zoning.
Cammy … Being aggressive is my favorite thing in the world, that and cool combos to go along with it. AE Cammy gave that to me. Started playing her at the end of Super’s run, but I couldn’t really do TKCS that well, so I translated in to AE pretty well. Cammy is the most fun.
Knew i would play ibuki before i even bought the game. SSF4 was the first fighting game I really got into. I know you guys give '09ers lots of shit, what about '10ers?
Anyways I was just looking up videos of the game and then I saw one of Ibuki vs Makoto and I was just like O_O. A hot ninja girl? Sign me up! When I did her arcade mode and found out she was on a quest to meet boys I was like wow shes perfect, lol. On top of all this her playstyle fits me perfectly, very mixup heavy and glass cannony. I’ve always liked fast characters and high risk, high reward characters in video games. She also has the most adorable voice, ever.
looked at the character select screen and picked whoever I thought was cool. if I feel comfortable playing them, then good. if not, pick again. don’t wanna have to play MODOK for example if he was top tier for the sake of playing a top tier character-- just wouldn’t feel right lol.
the fact my characters are usually top/high mid tier in the games I play is (mostly) secondary.
I gave every character a fair shake in training and arcade mode to learn their moves and normals. Cody ended up not only fitting my playstyle best, but also was the character I just plain liked the best out of the cast. I fall back on Ryu and Ken because I’ve been playing them for 10 or so years.
I tried my best to make Yang my second main in AE, but it just didn’t mesh. I like Yang as a character but I can’t play him very well. I’d say at this point it goes Cody/Ryu/Ken/T. Hawk. I don’t really know how Hawk got in the mix, but sometimes that’s just how it is.
Back in vanilla, I played every character and decided on balrog, because he was the easiest to anti air/bnb with.
Now I can pick any character and rock people with them, but I still use Rog when shit gets real.
