Wat.
Guile is epic, by the way, but I personally find charge moves inconvenient… oh wait, I main Chun-Li.
When i was a kid i picked bison because i thought psycho crusher looks cool and so im playing still with him.
Lol its frustrating when Gief cant get close to his opponent is what I meant.
I play Ken for a few reasons. I picked him up in third strike since he was pretty good in that game. Then I saw some early SF4 vids of Ed Ma playing Ken and I made my decision from there. His rushdown style fits me pretty well and he’s one of the flashiest characters in the game, especially if you know your combos.
Bison/Guile. Mortal Enemies…I will probably exclusively main Guile on SSF because I’m not really a rushdown player that Bison requires you to be. Guile is probably the most tactics based character on the game (IMHO) because he is given only 2 specials but has a ridiculous amount of great normals to keep people out/get in. I didn’t go/care for tiers when I first picked characters. I wanted someone who fit what I am best capable of doing. I was pretty scrubby in the beginning but I am a fan of charge characters so I started with Bison thinking he was the best (because he’s Bison damn it). His playstyle lead to me being jumped in on and crossed up alot till I learned he’s primarily a rushdown/footsies style of character. After a few months of trying to master the rushdown I gave up and went seeking a new character. It was a tossup between Claw and Guile. Guile has better moves on wakeup and better options across the board on stopping jumpins because of his range/zoning abilities. So here I am with Bison/Guile. Mortal Enemies.
~style~
Convincing argument towards me picking Guile lol, any bisons have a counter argument? lol
well don’t pick him cause I use em…lol. He just matches my game style. I’m not the greatest with Footsies and my execution sucks for the most part so pulling off complex combos with bison (as if I needed them) wasn’t really my style. I am great at anticipation, and my understanding of the game engine/character abilites is above par so a character like guile allows me to be methodical and calculating which I’m for. I know when I lose, “I lost” because Guile gives me all the tools to be able to do what fits my playstyle. Ya know?
And thats not to take anything away from Dictator. His footsies and rushdown abilities make him a great mind f*ck character. But I remember losing far too many games where I would be like WTF. There seem to be far too many unbalanced matchups Bison and if he couldn’t get in, he lost. Everything that was his strength is my weakness…I can’t win if I’m fighting an uphill battle.
~style~
I pick characters based on the following criteria in order.
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Looks - is a character design and moves sets are not attractive to me I don’t want to play them for hours and hours and hours and then more hours.
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Playstyle - is this a high risk character when I don’t like playing risky? Is this character a zoner when I don’t enjoy zoning?
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Power - Is this character able to compete well against all other characters? Will this character lose at the character select screen?
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Difficulty - is this character easier for me to use? Is it really frustrating just to do what I want? Does the extra effort feel rewarded?
I pick Cammy because she’s sorta like me–small and fast. 
I’m not a girl, though.
I got tired of losing to Ryu’s online with Abel so I thought…
Balrog is black… I’m black.
Balrog is trying to get paid…so am I!
Balorg is from Vegas… I’m from Vegas.
Then I started TAPing through fireballs. EX RU looping. Tick throwing people. You know being an ass in general. It got me a lot of hate mail so I stuck with it.
Abel is one of the fastest, scariest grapplers ever when played by an outstanding player. The only throw character I like more is 3S Makoto, and for the same reasons. People play very differently against fast, hard to zone characters that represent strike, throw, and command throw at point blank range.
Me and Dictator have the same eyes and laugh.
I think Zangief could be considered my main because I don’t really like using the rest of the cast. He’s the closest that fits the way I play also, and that’s alright I guess when it comes to SF.
I like big grapplers. It’s just a bonus that they’re good in SF4.
I felt like trying to learn how to play a charge character. Horray boxer!
same… always have played ken from a young age, because he is a little fly boy (just like me) and he has some great moves… Plus as you said people also look down on him but i too wont give up ^^
i dont pick a main, i pick someone that appeals to me first, and I play with them long enough that i’m most comfortable with them. Though this could mean that I could be missing a true potential for a character I’d really like, because I haven’t bothered trying them. I’m still in the works with Guile and Seth at the moment. Guile is still a hella big change for me, because he’s a charge character and his ultra is frustrating to perform on a pad + anxiety.
How I even got into SFIV was from pro ass videos of jpn players using Fuerte and Ken.
In HDR, I sort of bounced between Cammy and Bison because I just liked getting people into a corner and destroying them, which will win a decent amount of ranked.
Playing against EA Megaman woke me up to the fact that I sucked with Bison.
Playing against The Tarman woke me up to the fact that my Cammy sucked too.
After making more friends, I gravitated towards Zangief and Vega, and started sometimes winning randomly. One day, Tarman just said “Dude, I don’t see you playing Vega for much longer, how about you just use Honda?”
Keep in mind that, having used Zangief, Bison, and Cammy, I had a semi-rational hatred of all things Honda. Nevertheless, I felt like trying him out just because, and wound up with my main in HDR and ST. I just meshed with him really well.
As far as my others, it goes like this:
Sagat: Picked him up as a secondary after hearing people complain that HDR Sagat sucked, used him for a bit, switched back to Honda and applied that knowledge to finish 4th at Michigan Masters 1. Loved him to death and still use him in HDR, and sometimes O. Sagat in ST.
Dhalsim: Was drawn to him when I started playing ST on MAME, picked him up to cover Honda’s horrible matches (Ryu, Ken, Guile, Dee Jay), and he’s becoming my main in several games (A2, A3, co-main in HDR, ST and SF4) just because he’s so much fun to use.
Bison: Came back to him after a while with Honda and watching videos of Taira’s Bison tearing shit up in ST; I didn’t touch him when I was playing pad, but once I got my stick I felt better about trying his TOD combos. He’s becoming one of my mains in SF4 right now (along with Sim and Rufus) partly because he’s getting so much fun shit in SSF4.
Now, I’ve never expected myself to get into the game, attend tournaments or any of that. I’ve never read up on anything, I’ve never watched any videos or anything about the game before it came out (like we’re all doing for Super Street Fighter IV). Street Fighter IV didn’t look appealing to me at all. The only thing I knew was that it was going to be in 3D, so the first thing that came to my head was the Street Fighter EX series and how that failed. The only fighting games I was playing at this point were Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Capcom vs. SNK 2, Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike, the King of Fighters XI and…you know, good games like that. So Street Fighter IV comes out and all my friends are telling me, “Hey you should buy Street Fighter IV. We’re all getting it and we’re going to play it” so I was just like, “Ah, alright. Fine, I’ll get and play with you guys”.
The first day Street Fighter IV was released in the US, I picked up a copy real quick and went over to a friend’s house who was having a release party in his basement with a bunch of people and a bunch of setups. I hopped on a setup and the first character I selected was Chun-Li, because I remembered how godlike she was in 3rd Strike and I told myself, “If I’m going to start getting good at this new fighting game, I’m going to start with a top tier character”. So I pick Chun-Li and quickly realized that she was not top tier. She was way different from her 3rd Strike counterpart. She was weak, she was missing her good command normals, her Kikoken was changed to a charge motion, and I couldn’t figure out a way to combo her Ultra (I later found out that she juggles it after EX Legs in the corner which was still wack). I gave up on Chun-Li and moved onto C. Viper because I thought she was hot, lookin’ all sexy in her suit and all.
I watched some Street Fighter IV videos with Japanese Viper players and I realized how hard a competitive Viper is to play. I was like, “Damn, I don’t know if I can be that good with Viper”. Everything she does require a bunch of stupid and strict execution. I didn’t want to do all that work just to inflict damage when a character like Ryu and Sagat can cause even more damage with much less effort. So one day I attended an SFIV session with a different group of friends that I normally don’t hang out with. This one guy (who’s really good at 3rd Strike and uses Chun-Li) actually used Chun-Li in SFIV, so I watched him play with her because I’ve never seen anyone use Chun-Li. I was really surprised at how good he was doing with Chun-Li. I learned that she actually has some useful pokes and normals.
So after that night, I said, “You know what, Chun-Li isn’t as bad as I thought she was.” I was certainly inspired by the guy’s Chun and left Viper for her again. Even though I knew Chun-Li wasn’t one of the best characters in the game, I felt like it was more rewarding to win with her since not a lot of people use her. And until this day, I still main Chun-Li. If it wasn’t for that guy, I have no idea who I would’ve mained today, but it certainly wouldn’t have been Chun-Li.
Damn, that was like a long-ass story. Sorry about that, LOL.
Don’t tell me you got that from that flash video, LMAO.
My dad first bought me SF2 back in xmas '92. I spent 2 hours on ryu’s stage using blanka, e. honda and guile since I didnt understand how to do ryu’s combinations yet (and couldnt beat ryu nor knew how to change difficulty…) (I was 9 and the snes was my first real advanced console). A few weeks later I started playing around and finally was able to produce a hurricane kick. After that, Ryu and Ken were characters I devoted myself to use. A few years later I made the decision to choose one and chose Ryu due to his backstory and what he represented: the disciplined traditional martial artist. Ken had a gf which I didnt even have at that time (troll elsewhere on that topic) so I figured might as well go with the single dude who’s more focused on the fight. Some more years later they distinguished the characters a bit and in SF 4 I complained with Ryu a bit since he was a bit unfamiliar (i also had been away from games for a while) but now that I spent some time, I kinda understand him a bit more and guess I can say that I am glad with my choice.
Note: Looking to try Makoto (for my first female sf main ever) and DeeJay since he is the only Caribbean character available (check my location)…