How does it feel to know that you're playing a(n arguably) bottom-tier character?

Classic Fighting Games Ultra Street Fighter IV
1

Hi Hakan people.

Let me start this off by saying that I love everything about Hakan. I love how the character designers made him a loving father and husband so that american audiences wouldn’t associate oil wrestling to homosexuality. I love that he doesn’t seem to take himself seriously. I love that his moves are funny to watch. I love that he has unique mechanics like crisco-ing and oiling. I love how his moves look. I have not come across a single thing about Hakan that I don’t like.

I currently main Chun-Li, but I’ve been having a character crisis since about six months ago, when I started becoming a competitive player and taking the game seriously. I don’t feel the same way about Chun-Li that I do about Hakan. I was playing CitizenCIA in a tournament this past weekend, and seeing Hakan in action renewed my interest in him. However, I came to the realization that I associate with “bad” (putting that in quotes because that is the prevailing opinion, not my own) characters: in MvC2 my team had Servbot on it. In the SFIV series, my favorite characters are (in no particular order) Hakan, Dan and El Fuerte. I played Twelve in Third Strike. When I get an Xbox and Ultimate MvC3, the team that I want to play is M.O.D.O.K., Arthur, Hsien-Ko. In Mario Kart Wii, I like playing King Boo.

Sorry, I have a tendency to ramble a bit. I’m getting to my point, I promise.

Do any of you like/play Hakan purely because he is viewed as a “bad” character? Do any of you share my apparent attachment to “bad” characters across all games? I also wonder if any of you see any correlation between how interesting a character is (though I understand that this is subjective) and how likely that character is to be viewed as “good”.

To summarize, I want to play Hakan, but I want to make sure that I want to play Hakan because he is the right character for me, not just because I think it’s funny (which isn’t to say that shouldn’t have any influence on my choice; don’t we all play the game to have fun, to some extent?).

TL;DR: convince me that I want to play Hakan.

2

I’m a bit like you I picked up Zangief back in SF2 day but not competitively. In Alpha series I used birdie, sodom, zangief. SFIII Hugo. So like you said there is indeed an attachment to the characters labeled as “bad” but mainly there is an inherent attachment from me to play heavy damage dealer type of character and I love wrestling. So anything that relates to that I like very much.

I have to be honest sometimes the character label and tier get me hooked up first their tricks, learning, and other part of their character mechanic utilization comes in much later on. After all, I think, it’s best you play a character that you have an attachment to not because they are simply labeled incompetent but you find something worth digging in there. I hate people playing a character because they follow the guideline of tier. However I am fine with people who finds an attachment to a high tier character but to use them blindly and side with them childishly because they’re listed as high is just stupid and irrational.

No one can convince you to play Hakan. You have to try and pick him up yourself and he will pick you up…

3

i’ve been playing him since super. from the beginning i don’t think he’s been as bad as people say. hakan technology hasn’t been delved into by the masses, and I honestly think there is this misconception that anyone vs. hakan has the ‘right’ to win. the tools are there

4

When I heard him announced for Super, I said to all of my friends, “That is my new character.” Unfortunately, when Super dropped, I didn’t have the skills to learn a character like Hakan, because when I was messing around with him I didn’t see any possibility of him being good. Now, however, I see that he definitely has the tools to deal with a lot of situations.

Well said! As I stated above, I have actually used Hakan: when Super first came out; and a second time that I really tried to get good with him just before I started playing competitively (I made the decision that I was already half-decent with Chun, so I’d stick with her).

I feel the same way; I am of the opinion that one should pick a character that they like and learn to adapt to that character, as opposed to picking a good character or a character that he/she can play well with and then learning to like him/her.

Perhaps a more direct question would be why do you (the proverbial “you”, meaning all of you who play Hakan) play Hakan?

5

I started using Hakan back in Super when he first came out, but not right away. Adon was my first get go on the new charecters. I have a thing for Muay Thai style so natually I was drawn to him. I main Sagat in SF2T/SF4. But as I messed around with him I didn’t really like how he played. Mind you I didn’t know anything about tiers since living up in Nunavut, things like that were never an issue. You play who you like, as most people here do. With all the new guys out, I thought I try out the odd looking one. I mean he looked cool but just very differnt. And that Bad boy was Hakan. I have never been drawn to any Grapplers just cuase I thought they were too slow. Trying to get in and do the whole 360 thing Wasn’t what I thought was fun gamming session. But Hakan is a differnt type of grappler. He fast, he’s got great footies. Plus I liked the whole oiling up thing. It made me feel like I was playing two differnt types of charecters. One was a speedy zipping around guy, and the other was a tough grappler.PLays compleatly differnt when Oiled. BUt the one thing that stuck out the most was just the amount of fun I was having with this very odd charecter. Lose or win, he was just such a blast to play. And OOhhh boy did did I lose a lot. I have naver lost so much when I played a street fighter game as I did while playing Hakan. BUt I really didn’t care. That’s how much fun Hakan was to me.
So only later when I started getting serious in playing SSF4 did I find out that he was concidered low tier. And I thought everybody was crazy. Yes it was Hard to win matches, but that’s just cause I thought I was still learning how to play Hakan. Now after a while I Noticed Hakan didn’t have some of these Powerful moves that can be easily mashed when in Danger. Nor did he have a jab that can keep people out ( like almost “everybody” in the game) So at this point I understood why people thought Hakan was low Tier. Still, My Fun while playing him didn’t change, so I stuck with him and had a blast. How old is Hakan now? 3 years? Well playing him this long, I now understnd that Hakan is a very complex charecter to be good with. Looking at him just on the outside, he does seem weak, but getting into what makes Hakan great you understnd that he is far from weak. You just need a lot more time with Hakan to understnd this. Now where in 2012, And Hakan has gotten a number of buffs. I would almost concider him borderline broken, just because he now has so many tools to work with. It still takes a lot of time and skill to operate Hakan and to be effective with him. But all of us who have stuck with him from the begining well understnd that Hakan has always been misunderstood, and he is nowhere near low tier as most of the Street fighter community belives him to be. It just saddens me that people can be so blind on such a rich charecter. I’m just praying that Hakan comes back in SF5. I mean if Dan can keep coming back Hakan should get a chance too :slight_smile:
Sorry so long. I’ve been home all day being sick, so I have nothing better to do, lol

6

hi Dagon, lol i m exactly the person you mentioned ‘Do any of you like/play Hakan purely because he is viewed as a “bad” character?’ :wink:

Technically i use low-tier characters and kill all noobs and medium/advance players.
Against the top players, if they turtle i would most likely to lose as i dont have 99sec game patiences and is a rush-down game play with any of my characters.

So the way i see this, is that if you can master his tricks and only limited to use them for the most surprise moment to land them, and play a good defensive into offensive dry-Hakan, then he is very legit imo even in the top player world.

I started using Hakan due to his inpopularity and the actual fact that there are some good tricks i saw in him.
And once i studied him more and thats it, i m all set, no more turning back. i just cant.
With all the uncrouchable setup options and now in v2012 he is much better than before, there is no other character thats so versatile like hakan.
Once you use him properly and is wining with FUN then you’ll be like me, no more other characters :slight_smile:

7

Because he’s different. He is the face of criticism and not just shoving a static image of a well rounded fighter who can handle everything with each of their special moves; although bitter and hard to use he forces a lot of knowledge into you. All this time Street Fighter has always mostly been about stationary attacks with active frames. Then third strike came and introduced parrying system to SF series, we had a similar system to “Just Block” KOF in World Heroes in the 90s but this is rarely utilized in Street fighter universe other than third strike. Once you realized that hakan can parry and then slide any of his normals like Fei Long’s Rekka you see that he is one of a kind in comparison to other SFIV rosters. His Focus can be moved around and pokes are reliable if used properly [the pokes actually forced me to value normals highly and not only see them as ‘addition’ to special, super, and ultra moves]

He forced you to understand tricks and game basics which i think is, in the end, giving me more value for money spent to purchase SSFIV. When I understand something better I simply feel I get back more from what I invest in and not just about winning all the time. That’s what I think personally anyway.

8

I just happened to notice this in recent posts.

I played Vega in Vanilla when he was definitely bottom-tier. He sucked in that game, period.

  1. Couldn’t do EX FBA combos off of poke hit confirms very often because of pre-buffed EX FBA hitbox
  2. No invincible reversal (Ultra 2 since Super)
  3. Ultra 1 was incredibly unreliable largely because of
    a. The dependency of screen positioning to dictate actual time of punishing (I had Cammy, Honda, and Rufus after blocking their ultra, all at one point block my reversal ultra off the back wall) - Now it hits on the way up, thereby allow for sick damage, and also the guarantee of the same punish
    b. The wall dive bug, where the screen would sometimes pan with you, causing the barcelona to whiff in some cases, take a long ass time to get to wall others. One time, I hit Sagat with an EX FBA combo. On the way up, the glitch happened and I couldn’t get to Sagat in time to actually follow through on the combo. Sagat did a quick rise and ultra 1’d me to punish me.
  4. It was REALLY hard to stop people from just walking back out of your shit, because your fastest low didn’t combo and c. mk was 8 frames, sweep is highly unsafe at any relevant distance
  5. The mask - the biggest one IMO - when you lost it your health decreased by 25% - FAR too much obviously - now it’s 10%

everyone has horror stories when maining a bottom tier character… fact of the matter is, choosing to main a bottom tier character will guarantee somethings, pending your commitment

there’s no way you or your character can actually get worse - disregarding the few times odd low tier characters like fuerte have actually gotten nerfed - but there’s no way your mindset as a low tier player can’t grow if you’ve really made a commitment to win with them

i just play vega because i have a passion for SF, Vega is to me incredibly badass, and his playstyle fits with me perfectly. I’ve never played a fighting game where I had the character jump out at me like that. I just knew I wanted to play with him and went it came to not liking losing, i worked SUPER hard at all of the matchups to find every possible way i could level the playing field

like, sagat in vanilla punished you for one mistake for like ~800 damage in vanilla if you had no mask. shit like this as a result has dictated my playstyle for a long time - though there was a period when i suffered from that mindset which you can see when i played daigo at CC2010. it was a massacre because i was so paralyzed with fear, basically - but the point is, I learned a lesson. would I have really learned a lesson playing a high tier character? I can’t tell - I mained Yun at the beginning of AE determined to tier up but the result was a disaster. it made no sense to me for a while, until i realized i play a ton of characters - Adon, guy, t hawk, dudley, evil ryu, oni, etc - who i have far better records with, also spending less time in training mode with, and the reason why was i just gravitated to characters i enjoyed and found a way t win with them.

with yun, it was like i took the character for granted, constantly, despite my efforts to find tech to level him up. i was just not interested and only wanted to face roll people, under the impression that so many people got away with doing that against my vega.

then, when i realized my yun was worthless, i came to realize two things

  1. passion is important
  2. people don’t just facemash me when they win, they’re out playing me

i realized that i didn’t give people enough credit for beating me, and i realized why that’s a destructive attitude - if you don’t give people credit for beating you, how do you give yourself credit for finally beating them? You can’t keep lying to yourself and thinking that playing a low tier and winning with them is something everyone is gonna pat you on the back for. In tournament, or even on ranked, or playing for pride in endless lobies, nobody GAF about whose playing the low tier guy. FAct is if you’re a monster you’re a mosnter and you should let it show by finding legit tech and using it to win, instead of hoping you can get some e-cred for repping low tier main

What i’m trying to say is that i have learned a lot playing low teir - but playing high tier at a point was also incredibly useful. As of right now, i know balance pretty well, and I know where vega is in the big picture (Better than most ppl think he is TBH), and also, I am pretty jaded about tier woes. Listening to ppl bitch about no TKCS Cammy drives me nuts - You don’t know how good you had it, seriously

At any rate, I guess that is how I feel about playing a bottom-tier character

Maybe I can get a guest-article - Memoirs of a Matador - for SRK Front page.

Also one more thing. Just being honest. I’m not a big fan of Hakan. What do you guys like about him? Appearance, style, etc?

One more one more thing. Word of caution. Hakan is pretty decent and has been for a while - Vega was bad, in the vanilla version. Someone like Phoenix Wright now, after the nerfs… I would not advise playing them, no matter how you feel, if you wanna win. Street fighter bad is nothing compared to marvel bad. Same goes for a lot of game. Balance is relative.

9

This is one of the best posts I’ve read in some time.

10

Breathes…

ok. I play Hakan because he’s a fresh breath of air in a tired old series. Actually the four new characters from vanilla (Abel, Rufus, C.Viper & ElF) plus the two new ones from Super (Juri & Hakan) are nothing that has been seen in any other SF universe game ever. All of them play like KoF style characters. If Hakan didnt come out, I would just play Abel or Rufus or just waited till KoFXIII to come out. However BEFORE they even shown a single pic of the Oil King I said i would main him. Why? because in Capcom SF games I always main grapplers. If you go to my youtube channel (darth48076) there are three videos I have up ( i would post them here now, but Im at work right now);

  1. my reaction to the Hakan trailer. Priceless reaction. you should check it out. Once I saw Hakan, I was like WTF? Im not using him. Then after Seth-Kill shown what he can do, I was like. I’m using him, which lead me to my next video 2) Hakan going to be top-tier. Yea on paper, Hakan has the tools to be a beast. Unfortuantely it hasnt translated over to tournament play, which made me make my third video; 3) my reaction to the “5 gods” thoughts on the weakest character in Super. Mago, momochi, Daigo, Tokido & ??? all said HA-KAN in unison that he’s the weakest in the game. SO THAT’s It? should i just listen to those guys and pick another character? At first I was like NO! So I trained and trained and trained. Even took him to 3 majors. Even though I got some wins, i was still getting destroyed by the likes of Justin, KDZ, ComboFiend, Wolfkrone, Banana Ken & Liston in actual tournament play. I was also maining my favorite grappler T.Hawk all through Super and AE. So 1a is Hakan and 1b is T.Hawk. Tired of losing, I even counter pick with my weakest matchups ( I would pick, Oni, Yang, Sagat, Rufus and Abel). However that still took away from my Hakan play.

Right before AE patch, I was going to give up on this character, was tired of losing to not only good players but to bull S#&@ shennaginans that online players were using due to limited options in my favor. If it wasnt for WildCat815, proving every single day that Hakan can be viable, I would’ve quit this character a long time ago. Then after the AE patch more Hakan players came out of the fold, Samurai Drew, TofuJam, Capt. Rocket, CitizenCIA, Liqiugen, Morodakai, Daturi, El Kalem, El Azure, etc. Wonderful Hakan players that has shown not only us but the world that this guy is a threat.

Also these very forums keep me playing him as well. Ive been on several character specific forums (Zangief, T.Hawk, C.Viper, Cammy, Rufus, Oni, Abel, yang) and out of the ones I been too, I never seen so much… unity here then I seen in the rest… COMBINED (NOTE: Even though I still say Hakan is the best unitified forum here on SRK. It is NOTHING compared to the CLAW and Dhalsim community worldwide. Those two are like some secret society cult or something judging by the way they interact with one another in person or online)! Sure they try to help each other in the other threads, but half the time its more bickering on who figured out what or who’s the best [insert character]on their forums while here its all about getting better. I think that is due to the fact, we’ve all took our lumps online, offline, at casuals and at majors. We all want to see the oil king get his due and be respected by the FGC, if not the world.

11

Man, everyone’s got good things to say. Thanks, everyone. I’m getting a lot of good perspective. I really appreciate people taking the time to spin their respective yarns for me. It helps to know that other people out there wonder about the same things that I do. I am left with a couple of further questions, though:

Do you mean FACC (Focus attack, crisco cancel)? Focus, absorb, dash, cancel the dash with a normal?

Since I currently main Chun, I understand the versatility and power of normals. When you say that you value his normals, do you mean as pokes, in links, or both? Because I’ve tried to do his trials, and some of his normal link combos are scary difficult. I’m sure that I could get them with time, but they’re all :lp: and :lk:, which means that they can’t be plinked. Any advice here?

You seem to go back and forth a bit here. At the start, you say that Vega jumped out at you, but you go on to say that you switched to Yun with AE because he was top-tier. I understand the idea that you play better with a character with which you are familiar, but, as Yun is pretty gdlk in AE, why didn’t you stick with him and learn how to use him to his maximum potential?
You also go on to say, at the end, that you wouldn’t advise playing Phoenix Wright post-nerfs if you want to win. Are you saying that, though Hakan is (arguably) low-tier in Street Fighter, that it isn’t a big deal? Where would you say that low-tier characters are just not viable? MvC3? MvC2? 3S?

Thanks again for all of your input guys, you have no idea how helpful it is.

12

What I love about Hakan, that even though he’s considered low-tier, he still has the ability to make your life a misery with just a couple good guesses. I like characters with style, and Hakan definitely has that, he can certainly do stuff that has people ooh’ing and ahh’ing, but the great thing is that to pull that stuff off you need that little bit of dedication.

13

I didn’t play Yun, because his style didn’t mesh with me whatsoever. I guess I didn’t say that

look, i’ll be clear about one thing - it takes an IMMENSE level of skill, IMO, to be good with any character you choose

I just wasn’t good enough to force myself to get good with Yun - but with Vega, it came 100% naturally

Well, from my understanding of fighting games, the only game I know well enough to say it isn’t worth playing low low tiers is MVC3. SF4 is the first fighting game I took seriously, although i was pretty damn good at brawl. I think you might be able to get away with playing captain falcon in brawl… maybe… at any rate, it’s a lot more viable now with metaknight out of the picture, cause metaknight vs captain falcon was definitely an 8-2

but yeah, phoenix wright, with no invincible assist now, totally not worth it. he’s a Dan now, I guess that’s what they wanted. His viability was already pretty low, now it’s 0. He offers nothing to a team.

but yeah, in SF4, the balance is tighter, so playing a low tier isn’t as handicapping as it is in marvel.

although, handicapping is a word i actually wouldn’t use… because as i said, playing low tier can be good, if it means you’ll do everything in your power to level up, as opposed to take your character for granted. which, personally, i can’t help but do.

You have to give credit to ppl who tier up in an effort to win, because i’ll be honest, from my experience it’s not something everyone can do

14

This is sort of contradictory. Obviously it takes a lot of skill to be good, regardless of if you choose a bottom-tier or a top-tier character. Yet you say that with Vega, it came naturally. To use your Brawl example, I played MK 'cause I thought he was cool (I had no idea about tiers) and considered myself pretty good. I still got stomped because I didn’t practice.

To play devil’s advocate, if it takes an immense level of skill to be good with any character, why choose a “bad” character if you can be better with less work by picking a “good” character? (Note, this isn’t actually how I feel, I just figure it might spark some interesting responses.)

15

Because, it’s as i said earlier,

passion is important

if you don’t have passion for the character, then you probably won’t be passionate about the game

my style is running away, blocking a lot, and poking, situationally comboing / pressuring opponent and forcing them to make mistakes

with yun, i just couldn’t get a proper mindset, because i wasn’t as interested in using all of his tools

IF by chance you think Yun looks cool then you’ll probably be a monster

i don’t think yun is cool… he’s pretty lame

so, choose a bad character, if you’re passionate about the playstyle / character. my advice, always pick who you like to play. Unless as I said they are as bad as phoenix wright

and i thought metaknight was pretty cool as well, but TBH, it’s basically an impossible sell for me, because Ike was in it =D

16

This sentiment is why I consider Hakan; as I said, I love him, I just didn’t want to cripple myself by choosing him. It’s very apparent that this is not the case, so I think that I have my new project =D

Once I found Olimar, I never went back to MK.

17

Hey, point Wright has some good stuff. Too soon to call him Dan. >_>
I digress though. Play who you want and make it work.

18

No and yes, I mean the DNC (dash normal cancel / crisco) he can also cancel his dash into any normal attacks. But DNC itself is part of what you mentioned above anyway DNC is part of FADNC hehe. So yeah if you think about it, when everyone has to finish their dash animation before putting anything hakan can inch forward and close in with his attack active frames on given proper move used and appropriate timing.

And with the backdash it retains the invincible start up on dash before transferring the animation to the normals of your choice so if you choose a heavier and slower attack to cancel the b-dash to youll get stuffed still. So if you look at Samurai Drew’s video a lot of times he handles jump in with backdash cancelled to Lp needs a lot of training anticipating the attack cause only a small window of invincibility is available before cancelling to normal. I personally don’t have the bravery (or nerve rather haha) to well time bdnc into normal i feel alot safer with FABDNC / FADNC but that’s my weakness I’m much more predictable than anyone else.

As for normals.
I think handling opponent normals is more important than link normal for starters. Yeah they’re scary difficult it took me a year before I can start even trying to get my timing right for links Most of his anti airs used to come from mainly normals since you cant have U2 on all the time but with 2012 patch now you can react to ppl jumping in with oil dive. So if you draw a big square box infront of hakan sprite thats where his preferred area is he has no c.HP like ryu or guile that does vertical upward hit. The only similar one to that is standing HP which sometimes trade sometimes hit clean, hard to master the timing. But yeah hes better at handling ppl that lands in front of him when grounded but not above him. Then you can start considering jumping lp, lk, air grab etc… too many things to tell

19

well …
i would like to announce that today marks the official attempt at ranked with hakan …
i was a juri and dhalsim main … and my pp was well over 4300 so i knew what the hell i was doing …
today i played him all the way to D+ and i dropped my PP from 4300 to 3300 LOL … and you know what ?
its hard learning someone new and you cant expect instant results … its all about dedication …
i expect my PP to further drop to something silly like mid 2000s or even boarderline 2000 … but looking back … thats how i started with juri …
and when you start from that low … really the only way is up … the more you play the more you learn …

i’ve mentioned in another thread that its not about tiers … and the fact that hes at the bottom of the tier list does not mean he is destined to lose …
it simply means that he probably requires a set of skills which are harder to pick up than other characters …

i didnt pick up hakan cuz he’s low tier… i picked him up because i just like his personality … and i like his gimmicks and i feel there is alot to explore … i tend to be attracted to characters with strange mechanics … (like rock and his 50/50 throw style mixups in soul calibur iv)

the only advice i can give is this …
if you want to learn hakan … or any new character for that matter … you MUST rely on that character ALONE … going back to your old main as a safety net will not allow your character to develop … because you will never look into the work arounds specific to your new character …

and you know whats more interesting ? once you reach a high enough level with that new character … when you go back to your old main … you will start considering things from a different perspective … and both your characters will eventually level up together …

thats what happened when i learned juri …
i decided to stick to juri and ditch sim …
and then when i went back to sim i realized that i became utter shit with him
but it only took a few days … and i became even better than i was before with him … and after one year of nothing but juri (yes it took me a year ) … i became good with both …

and i intend to try the same with hakan … although its probably gonna be alot harder (infused with rage and frustration … but thats how it should be )

what im trying to say that old knowledge never really goes away … it just gets burried in the back of your head somewhere … then it resurfaces new and improved with what new knowledge you have !

another thing is that learning hakan extensively made me realize the most strangest thing …

the current hakan has alot of similarities with cammy !!

  • both have air throw
  • both have setups for safe meaty arrows and slides (although cammy players never use them and it boggles my mind why not … its a deadly tool)
  • both have setups for uncrouchable hooligan and dive …
  • both have some nasty frame traps ( especially with hakans new +4 on block LP… i might make a thread on that soon)
  • they are both non fireball characters
  • both EX arrow and slide go through fireballs …
  • both have relatively not so good anti air normals compared to the rest of the cast …
  • both have some of the most ambiguous crossups in the game …

i know this is like saying yeah well ryu and dan both have uppercuts whats your point ?!

my point is cammy is looked at as one of the top characters … and hakan isnt … but many of the tools are similar … obviously theres more to it than just that … (cammy has dive kicks, unblockable setups and an uppercut … and then theres the oil factor with hakan and command grabs) … but it just goes to show that the knowledge of one character can carry on to the next … and the knowledge of both leads to the improvement of both !

so …
never give up !

and keep the oil flowing !

20

Hakan is special, it takes a special person to use him, I think. He’s different, unique, technical, slightly gimmicky (Not to the extent some people will say he is to try and delegitimize your winand their loss to a “bad character”), But more than most many characters in this game, he needs a great knowledge of the game engine, spacing, timing and opponent reading to use. He’s slightly high risk high reward, with some resource management, and tricks mixed in.

Pretty much what I’m saying, is its not easy. No matter what level you are on, **Hakan is one of the hardest characters to learn in this game. **So, if you are going to give Hakan another go be prepared to lose, A lot.

Now why did I learn Hakan? I actually hadn’t really given Hakan a chance until a few months into Super. In Vanilla I played Sakura, and at the beginning I picked up T.Hawk because he was really easy when nobody knew how to fight him. But as the game matured, it was pretty evident T.Hawk had some awful matches, and with him and sakura, my game reached a stand still. So undecided on new characters, being bored with them, and not improving I was playing my friend in endless battle, and I decided to troll him with Hakan. Heres this character nobody ever uses, some people say is bad, and I wasn’t really sure why, and as I’m trolling my friend, I start to see a few things I like about hakan. So the next day I look up some stuff on here of Hakan, and match videos and stuff, and i see a character who is interesting, has his own sub game, and isn’t really combo intensive, which I liked. Nobody I knew played Hakan, so I decided to give it a shot. I was going to learn Hakan.

It took literally 2 months before I started actually beating people with this guy. :confused: I remember looking at my ranked win record there and seeing like 20% and being so discouraged. Going to tournaments with him and always going 0-2. My drive to stay with Hakan was the words from other people. I had to prove them wrong. Hakan wasn’t this useless character nobody could use. The wins, as rare as they were, were rewarding. The loses were educating. If anything Hakan taught me how to play SF. He taught me how to block,(Boy did you have to do a lot of that with Super Hakan.) how to throw tech, how to be patient.

Through super and AE, it felt the same. I was learning as I lost, and the wins were rewarding. As I got better and better, and peaked at a 7th place tournament finish, and 70-80% win rate.

Now in 2012, the wins feel right, they feel like what should be happening ,and the loses mean I fucked up. Its changed for me, I don’t know about you all. I feel as if AE2012 Hakan is the way he was always supposed to be. THIS IS HIS TRUE FORM. There is no more educating, no more excuses, this is the fully realized, fully functional Hakan. And I love it. And I think finally I proved to some my friends and the people I play with in the scene that Hakan is a strong character at this last tournament you, the thread creator was at. To come one wrongly chosen mixup away from putting Weirdo Neo, top 50 Evo placer into losers really early, (I hope you saw that match…it was so hype, and admittedly I was pretty nervous. :x ), and all the post tournament matches (Sadly I didn’t make it further because I CANNOT FIGHT T.HAWK FOR THE LIFE OF ME). This character, and my game is only going to get better. I know I made some people there scared of AE2012 Hakan, because after all was said and done I had like, 4 people who knew me wayyy before this scrambling to get matches in with me, when they never had before, knowing they need to learn this matchup, and fast.

Hakan is a SOLID mid tier character in AE 2012 I think. Is he in the top 15? probably not, but I’d honestly put him above characters like Dudley, Gen, Dan, Deejay, Guy, T.Hawk, and Vega if I had to make a tier list.