What do you guys think, which are the most well thought-out characters in the game? Which character does have the tools to do what he is supposed to?
And by that I don’t mean which character is top tier, or which character is the most powerful. I don’t judge by hitboxes or damage output.
I’ll explain what I mean with an example:
For me, Guile has a very good character design.
He is supposed to be a heavy zoner, and so he has the tools to be played like one. His Sonic Booms go from super fast (EX) to pretty slow, so he can manage spacing. His flash kick, air grabs and great AA-normals are there to punish the easy way to get in and over the projectiles (jumps). Also his good and far-reaching normals can frustrate you when walking forward and his command normals that can move him can catch you off guard.
But he is also pretty weak up close and his lack of reversal makes him vulnerbale once you get in, which is important in my opinion because his strenghts should come with a weakness.
So, who are the characters that are well designed in my opionion?
Guile
Dhalsim: Pretty much the same as Guile.
Jun: He is a rushdown character who needs to get his divekick-pressure going. His special moves are designed to catch people that try to escape that pressure.
Oni: Although he does have many bad matchups, he has many gimmicks and tricks that can mindfuck your opponent so you can overcome them. But he also has some solid options like good combos, so he’s definitely not a gimmick character.
Ryu: I like his design because he is so solid. Almost no weakness, he is the prototyical SF character.
Characters who’s design is flawed (in my opinion):
T.Hawk: Why do his normal throws and hp. command grabs put him so far away from his opponent? His mobility isn’t that good considering condor dive is highly punishable if you land in medium/short range, and if you land far away, what’s the point? Also his condor spire is not nearly as good (mobility wise) as for example Gief’s EX-GH or Hakan’s oiled dash.
I hope this thread has not been there already, because I hope to learn more about character design and how some of them work.
Saying Ryu is goddamn cliche, but hey. He’s solid, not oppressive to anyone nor oppressed by anyone to a terrible degree. He doesn’t have much bullshit to him. Pretty much the pinnacle of good design.
Other good stuff:
Dhalsim, Akuma: Large array of precise tools to master. Some matches played with these feel like works of art, Dhalsim especially because he’s so unforgiving. Akuma being balanced by health is… unsavoury.
Oni: Again, kind of similar. Many tools, bad-ish tools, so you have to read well to succeed. Has that same solid shoto base like Ryu and Akuma so has at least some options in most any situation.
Juri: No clue as to why, precisely, but the way she works has a good vibe to it.
Dhalsim has all of the tools to accomplish exactly what he’s supposed to accomplish, but his low speed and nonsensical vulnerability while zoning make some of his tools useless. A character with Dhalsim’s range and sheer range of utility should be top tier but they intentionally gimp him.
Oni is not a well thought out design. They basically took Akuma, turned him blue, and replaced all of his sensible tools with a bunch of thought up nonsense. He has one crossup gimmick, which is easy to read with experience. It’s no surprise 70% of Oni footage comes from online play, where the crossup is harder to block. There’s no plausible explanation for why he has a crappy fireball, no teleport or dive kick, a bunch of air dash attacks (why would I need to go up when I’m airborne?), an ultra fireball that shoots vertically into the air, and an airborne raging demon (that’s some stupid Kim Kapwhan shit; lands in the air, happens on the ground.) It’s no surprise he’s at the bottom of the tier list with Dan. If he could play a basic shoto game, he wouldn’t be so low. His fast normals lack range, and his long-range normals lack speed.
No character in this game was “designed” well. I once thought Capcom had secretly known what they were doing but then I remembered that they basically didn’t intend for Gouki to have a vortex in vanilla. So they just tweaked what we found and complained about from there.
I’m guessing Ono told the devs to just take all the complaints they could think about and add them to Yun and/or Yang for AE.
I think Chun Li is a pretty well thought out character. She kind of reminds me of Ryu in that she isn’t about flash or gimmicks, she’s about fundamentals. I like her footsie game, pretty good combo’s, okay damage-ish, and a decent ultra against projectile characters. I think the way she plays serves the intent of her character well, just a basic SF fundamentals game.
If so, Yang. He was pretty strong without being brain-dead easy/broken like Fei and Yun. He was very versatile and had a lot of tools to keep on the offense and render counter-attacks useless.
Now he’s pretty meh… the effort of playing him well doesn’t pays off.
Anyway, in 2012 I believe it would be Seth. His hitbox is obnoxiously big and his walk speed is slow (although he makes up for it with certain moves), but outside of that, as a Seth player not even the low stamina bothers me, as I have only myself to blame for not using the correct option out of his huge movelist.
I don’t think Akuma and Seth should be up for most well designed, nor any shoto besides the original Ryu. Since they all use Ryu as a basis and modify it to a varying degree, you can’t consider it Capcom’s best design work.
I would say Dhalsim, it is just such a creative yet well thought out design that in most games he is in, functions exactly as intended. Using his many normals to control virtually all ranges, someone who requires patience. People who grew up after the SF2 era, probably see the Ryu design and think boring…since shoto types exist in most 2d fighting games. Same with many of the original world warriors, despite being revolutionary for their time. Yet Dhalsim still (20+ years later) stands out still as wildly original and one of a kind.
Despite being perhaps the most unoriginal character in a while, Seth has more unique options and traits than anyone else in SFIV.
Tanden Engine is pretty much completely unique. Nobody has anything like it.
After the numerous nerfs to traps, his Super is in a class of it’s own as well. You don’t see it too often, but it’s probably the only true fireball trap left - and it’s REAL hard to beat it short of just blocking and eating chip damage.
His head stomps are basically a better version of Chun-Li’s, even after the nerf.
His Ultra 1 is the only full-screen strike attack in the game with it’s speed - can’t be stopped by projectiles normally, can’t be countered, can’t be focused. Have to block or jump over it at a certain time.
Hyakuretsukyaku is basically Chun-Li’s…but better and looks much different.
His DP is kinda weird. Take a lot of invincibility, but make it 5f. Then make it so you have to do 2 more inputs. This affects scaling, so it’s annoying sometimes. But few characters can stop their DP when they want to and get stuff from it.
The frames on his Booms are terrible, but they have big differences in speed travel. Works well with zoning.
SPD might not be 2f but it always puts him in a good position and does great stun.
Weird how that works.
Or how it still doesn’t qualify for good design.
for her archtype which is from my point of view (very long name) offensive-oriented // footsies zoning game…if we can call it that way:
950 health / 1k stun
low bnb damage / good damage off FADC combos / great damage off super combo / 500+ damage off U1 or from U2 mixup
great footsies (still think she could have her alpha 2 cr.strong back tho) + can handle fireball game very well
top 3 best backdash in the game, very good dash forward in terms of range when the opponent doesnt expect it
poor defense manoeuvres
very long reversal that be stuffed
In terms of well thought character, we could say that in term of offense, she might not have an overhead, 230+ combos into KD, etc but the mix of her grab / cl.mk / fast walk speed can make the opponent think twice before pressing a button when facing her up close. Her buttons are made to be used in mid ranges fights and from far ranges, she can take this to a fireball war, have long range normals.
In contrast we see how relatively poor her defenses are compare to a lot of the cast. She is easily safe jumped, she has a long reversal that can be hit in between, which leads to a lot of player to backdash with her, which to a certain extent can be countered on reaction
