Hello, As you can see by the title of this thread, I am indeed new to the game. I currently don’t have the game on PS3, still need to buy it, so I’m settling for the PC version at the moment. I’ve taken a liking to Cammy and Sakura, who would be a better choice to start out with, as someone new to the game. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks. 
Cammy is actually a great character to start with, aside from the more apparent choices (Ryu, Akuma, Ken, ect.).
She has a lot of options. Great normals, great anti-air, and her pressure is incredible. A lot of people seem to fall for her spiral arrow on wakeup, and she can crossup like a motherfucker.
I have a question myself, is this the first Street Fighter/Fighting Game you’ve ever taken seriously or? How much do you know about FG’s in general?
I play Dead or Alive 5 competitively, in my area, and know a bit about Street Fighter, from the older generations. I have a general basis about FG’s, but I did want to learn this one as well, and plan to take it seriously too.
I think sakura and cammy are actually pretty hard for beginners. both rely on not so easy link combos and frame traps. you maybe wanna pick up a char which is good at offense, defennse and zoning. so the obvious choice would be one of the shoto characters. I also think that chun-li could could be picked up by beginners. very easy ultra2 confirms and strong normal moves where you have to learn the fundamentals of footsies.
there is a good article by justing wong on eventhubs about character selection too:
http://www.eventhubs.com/columns/2012/jul/24/step-your-game-chapter-7-super-street-fighter-4-arcade-edition-v2012-dedication-character-selection/
Alright thanks spooky. Only problem with chun-li is that I’m not sure how charge characters work, so I’m not too comfortable using her EX or Supers.
A good number of people online have been playing SF4 since 2008, you’ll find that the level online is pretty high even among low ranked players. So yeah don’t get discouraged if the first couple of days you get beat. As for charge characters, i’ve been playing SF4 since it’s release and I still have no clue how to play them, it’s not a necessity, most of the combo heavy characters aren’t charge anyway.
charge characters aren’t too difficult (hardest thing is to get a feel for the charge time). first thing to remember is that you can charge whenever you want. during jump-ins, while crouching or even performing normals and special moves. the other thing is that charge characters have normal moves too. you don’t sit there the whole round and just charging, that doesn’t gonna win you the round. for chun-li, I see her as a mixed char in contrast to for example boxer or guile since she also has command special moves (legs, hazanshu, ultra2).
even against some experienced players you can pull off some lazy bullshit rounds with honda and blanka. so those two are always good for a laugh but also challenging to play against opponents with this matchup knowledge.
If you want a solid character that doesn’t charge you should pick up the most well balanced character in the game.
Who’s got two thumbs and kicks insane ass?
This guy:
But make no mistake. The power of Saikyo-ryu is not something to be wielded lightly. It takes a real man to use Saikyo. If you think you don’t have the nuts, the guts or the focus , then steer clear.
But rewards of ultimate pwnag3 to one’s enemies await those select few who use Dan like a baus.
chubbyfingerz, I’m also new to SFIV4 and after playing around for a little bit, I’ve been looking for a main. I was considering Dan after hearing all of UltraDavid’s praises on UltraChen TV. Everyone says he’s a terrible character… Would he really be appropriate for a beginner?
I agree with Onslaught X about Cammy. Except for a fireball, you got almost everything that makes a good character. Another important thing about Cammy imo, is that - and I consider you do react to hitconfirms, since you have been playing DoA - you can combo almost everything into Spiral Arrow (and c.mk is indeed your friend here). Even tho that doesn’t deal a ton of damage, if gives you 1) a knockdown, 2) a crossup possibility, 3) the opportunity to continue pressure where Cammy really shines, and 4) get them further to the corner, where Cammy will make a grown ass man cry. She also says “fuck fireballs” with her U1.
About Sp00kyFox’ advice on Chun, I agree that you’ll certainly learn footsies with her, and that U2 is hella easy to connect, I do not think that she’s that good to start up with. For a beginner Chun is very meterheavy, since her only decent reversal requires meter, as well as EX lighting legs-combos (spamming two kick-buttons combo), for her setup. She is also a hybrid, with both charge and quartercircles, which maybe can confuse a bit. While she is very fun to play indeed, I think you’ll need solid fundamentals about SSF4 in the first place. But that’s just my opinion.
While Dan is not that bad that alot of people think, fx his damage output is pretty decent, and his pressure is very good in the hands of a good player… he is certainly not that good of a character either. If you like the “Dan-type” character, I would pick up Ryu instead. In many ways, he do what Dan does, just a bit better for a beginner, until you understand the “deeper” parts of the game, so to speak.
Welcome to the game
Dan is not for beginners. Hell he isn’t even for most advanced guys. I was kidding.
Thanks a lot for the info. I’ll do what I can to get up to speed in this game. Thanks for welcoming me also.
O__o’
I don’t get when people say that Akuma takes skill to use. You must be joking.*** Makoto***, takes skill to use. Sakura, takes skill to use.*** Fei Long*** requires skill also.
Akuma however is ridiculous from your first little Battle Point.
You got: air fireballs, dive kick mixups, fireballs, teleports, crazy fast walk speed, dragon punches, hurricane kicks, easy as pie combos and oh yes cheapass anti air ridiculously damaging Raging Demon…
Maybe you need skill to play Akuma at the highest level but that applies to every character. But don’t stand there and act the the #1 broken character in the game is some sort of high-execution insanely difficult character to use.
It’s a farce.
Akuma isn’t a super high execution character as such, no. You don’t need super fast fingers or ability to hit 1f links to do damage. Yeah. But he’s stupidly knowledge-intensive with all the damn setups, you need to be able to space air fireballs correctly because your air normals don’t have any active frames, your armor breaking game is poor and you’re generally made of paper which means you make a mistake or two and you promptly keel over and die. Newbies make a lot of mistakes and don’t have the spacing and footsies skills to set up the myriad mixups the character has, taking away most of the reasons he is scary. You can kinda do something with him, sure, but in practice you’ll just be a watered down Ryu who sucks at breaking armor and is made of paper, with an extra gimmick in jumpback air fireball.
You want goodness at low levels, you want Ryu.
Lol, I’m not a Ryu/Ken fan, never have been. I’m doing fairly well with Sakura at the moment, considering I’ve only been playing for about a day or so, gotten the link and chains etc. Down quite well. Hoping to go to a casuals sometime soon in my area, to get some offline practice / get some more knowledge from some top players in my area. Thanks for the input though guys.
No choose my character threads. Get the game and play. Read the sub-boards. Play some more. Repeat.