Hello, and let me first say thank you for taking a look at my page. As you may’ve guessed, this thread is mainly me showing off my online matches with (blue) Ken on Street Fighter III Third Strike: Online Edition via Youtube. My name on Youtube is Violenteers, and if you’d like to see the matches click on this link: http://www.youtube.com/user/Violenteers?blend=9&ob=5.
Why show these videos, you might ask? Well, while I am familiar with the game–(in fact, I have a copy of it on the PS2)–I only started getting serious with Third Strike and want to better my skills as Ken. If you have any suggestions as to how I should better myself, then please comment either on here or on Youtube. Also, if you’d like to challenge me online–on the PS3–then look me up; my username is The_Anthem1.
Again, thank you for taking an interest in this thread, and I hope that we can have a fun time on here.
there’s a lot I can say, but the biggest thing is you need to stop whiffing so many moves, and learn how to punish your opponents whiffed moves. probably most of the opponents at your level will let you get away with whiffing moves, but its still a bad habit.
randomly doing tatsumaki isn’t such a good idea. the payoff is low, the start up is slow, and almost every character can duck underneath it.
also, should go without saying, but learn all your combos. Ken is easy to learn speaking strictly about combos. he doesn’t have a lot and the aren’t typically situational.
I can see a few bad habits that you should try to either fix or stop doing:
Regular Tatsumaki. This isn’t safe against characters with quick far-ranged Supers, especially Ken’s SA3. Ground EX Tatsus aren’t that great either, they should only be used to shave off last bits of damage during a combo. You should utilize Superjump Air EX Tatsus, since they are not only great for air-to-air situations, but also to escape the corner.
f.MK/f.HK and holding f.MK/f.HK. These are terrible in 3rd Strike. His regular st.MK and st.HK are good enough mid-range pokes to work with and they will both help him advance a bit forward.
cr.HP. I see you doing cr.HP a lot, but in situations where it wouldn’t make sense to use them. It’s one thing to get unpredictable with them or using it as a counterpoke, but you shouldn’t just throw it out there since an opponent with decent enough reflexes will just counterpoke you. Learn to utilize cr.HP in footsies since you can cancel it into Super if it connects.
Other than that, I can see that you’re being hesitant on punishes or advancing in general. I’m not sure if you’re trying to go for a super defensive style, but remember that Ken has the ability to move forward since he has the tools to do so. You don’t have to try and be super rushdown, and I see that you can get cautious about range, which is a good thing. All I’m saying is don’t be afraid to go in either. Take advantage of the pokes that can get cancelled into Super. In the mid-range/footsies game, he can beat pretty much everybody except Chun because they’re gonna be afraid to hit a button if you have a Super bar stocked.
This is just part of Ken fundamentals. It may seem kinda lame to restrict him to maybe half his repertoire, but you’ll be able to expand your options with just those tools because Ken is one of the most flexible characters in 3S.
I’ve been practicing combos after that match, but I sometimes don’t know if they’ll work in an actual match. You know what I mean? The best I could come up with was this one: st.MP>st.HP>HP or EX Tatsumaki. I’m trying his other combos out as well, but it tends to be difficult to go from a standard attack to his SA3. I just gotten used to the arcade stick, so I know it’ll take a while to get used to.
Again, thank you, and I’ll be sure to put up more videos as I progress online.
You should do MP->HP->LP Shoryuken instead of Tatsumaki or EX. If you want to play it safe then replace LP Shoryuken with EX Fireball. You want a knockdown with Ken to be able to move forward and just a b&b combo like MP->HP->LP Shoryu does decent enough damage.
If you’re not feeling confident in your execution, then just head to training mode and practice those combos over and over. I know that switching to stick may take some getting used to, but just keep at it.
I’ll be looking forward to more of your vids. Keep it up!
The strange thing is that I could do it fine on a D-Pad, but on an arcade stick it gets tricky go from HP to LP. Not that I’m complaining or anything, because I am trying. I understand what you mean, though, and I appreciate it. I will take in what you said and practice. It does get frustrating when practicing combos–and I’m sure many people on this site can understand–but I know it pays off when I go play against other players online or casual meetings and hear that I’ve improved since beforehand. Trust me: Watching those videos–and the ones that I haven’t put up yet–make me happy because I see that I do better.
Oh, sorry–got too deep. LOL Anyways, thank you for your words, and I won’t let you down!
Thats good! Small steps in improvement are the name of the game pretty much, so just keep working at it and you’ll get there. It’s pretty common to struggle getting used to stick, but I think once you get to stuff like kara srk you’ll be thankful you switched. I can’t imagine doing kara anything with a pad. Even just supering in general its nice to have easier access to all the buttons for pianoing.