Hey, i have only been playing SSF4 for about 2 weeks now, and i am wondering how should I choose my main? I chose to play as Akuma, because I played every characters arcade mode up to Akuma (So i have played Ryu, Ibuki, Makoto, Gouken, Gen, E. Honda, Ken). Really the only reason I chose Akuma is because he seemed cool, and because I looked it up and he seemed to be a pretty good character. The only problem is I am not very good defensively, and Akuma has very low health, which is a problem. I don’t want to give up on Akuma, because I really like him, but I want to at least find a secondary character. Should I just play through the arcade mode of every single character to decide? Thanks for any advice.
try all the trials that you are allowed to do and see who feels the best.
Whoever has solid normals, and a good anti air attack. Solid Projectile as well.
and finally the character that looks badass. But usually the bad ass looking characters are high or top tier or at least B tier. I’m not a tier whore, but everyone knows that usually the sick ass looking characters are up their while the lame looking ones suck not always the case though. I know that theory sounds dumb but I’m pretty sure of it. Its like picture ken in 3rd strike or Sean, nobody wants to play as sean when they could choose ken cmon now. Lol
even a beginner could look at seans portrait and think, “um yeah, I think ill try out ken”.
Their was only a few cases where cool characters suck, which is a dissapointment. Get me shoryuken?
Saw a preview on 1up.com with Richard Li, IIRC. They were demoing Dan Hibiki.
I was all up in that shit after that.
I saw that as the versions of this game progressed from Vanilla to 2012 that my character was getting more and more nerfs yet he was going higher and higher on the tier list. Every now and then I stop playing Seth in favor of a more well rounded character but I always end up back at Seth again.
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Picked Juri the very first time I played the game at my friends house before I had my own copy. Juri was the kinda girl that I like so when I got my own copy, I just kept rolling with it. Plain and simple.
Throw a rock at the TV. Wherever there’s a crack, that’s your new main character. The crack may or may not disappear.
Serious answer: Pick whoever you enjoy playing the most, and run with it.
I wanted to play Chun-Li, but not Chun-Li.
So I picked Rose.
Basically I just like to pick the character I like the most in design, aesthetic, personality, etc. so long as they can match my general playstyle.
For example, I generally like to zone, so I’m not gonna pick Makoto even though I like her a lot. But I’m also not gonna pick someone like Guile, Sagat or Dhalsim because I just don’t like them. So I went with Vega and Juri, because I like both their playstyle and their character.
IMO, both are important when choosing who to main.
I just stopped there 
Got a piece of advice from Sanford Kelly.
In sf2, originally chose Dhalsim, because I thought he seemed like a pretty cool character. My friend mained Ryu, and after a few years of losing pretty handedly to him, he suggested I try out Ken as a main. And I haven’t looked back.
But the idea of going through the trials and seeing who feels best is ace. Do that.
Just play who you enjoy the most and like the look of. You should want to play them, you know, they should feel cool when you’re using them, like it suits you and like you’re having fun, it shouldn’t be a struggle.
I’ve played Honda since SFII as I was a kid when I used to play SFII and I was ass, Honda’s hands was the only way I could actually win games. After a while I figured out how to play but I still used him.
Well, I always pick the main protagonist or the deuteragonist/rival, and then I’ll try to learn how to enjoy using that character.
I always keep going through characters in training until i find one thats fun to play as, and then i learn more about that character
My mains now are primarily Ibuki and Yang. The ONLY reason I started playing Ibuki in the first place the first alliteration of SSFIV was to make winning easier for me on ranked - she has the right set of tools to get the job done accordingly. Then, I ended up started going to small tourney’s in Franfurt, Germany doing a really nice job and earning some pretty good friends in the process. When AE came around, I developed an interest in Chun Li and Viper. Bison is really consistent as well, though his s.HK sucked in AE but his flying hand was… SAFE (understatement). I started playing Yun and Yang for obvious reasons…
Nowadays… if my signature implies anything, I variate between Ibuki, Yang, Viper, Seth, and Chun.
People will occasionally see Bison, Cammy, Honda, and Yun.
There was only one nigga in the whole game. Gotta represent.
Seriously though, I like boxer characters and I liked his playstyle. Wasn’t hard to choose.
2 factors contribute to my character choice, 1 being, do they look cool? and 2, do they do all them damages?
I usually like to look through character overviews and combo videos to see who naturally has the flashiest and damaging combos. It was a toss up between seth and dudely so I went to training and practiced their flashy combos and trials n sided with dudley since he felt more fun(and I use to use steve in t6). Later found out that dudely was considered low tier by many but its just so satisfying hitting a FULL dudley combo needless to say I never look backed 