Combos were around since the dawning of SF, however it didn’t dominate the strategical aspects of it. He does not like SF4 because of all the tide turning Ultras and the juggles. Which are very frequent and common in current SF games.
Case and point here, footsies and zoning do apply in SF4, however can you claim it would apply as much as SF games without such universal systems? Look at Wong vs Daigo at Evo2k9, Wong’s footsie game was vastly superior to Daigo’s, however Daigo compensated his lack of footsies with Ryu’s options to land Ultra.
Even myself as a Ryu player, obviously I’m not as good as Daigo, but even I can compensate my poor footsie games with the accessibility to Ultra. I can lose much of the round, however one SrkxxUltra can shift it to either my advantage or break even with my opponent. In a game such as SFII:HF, if I don’t bring out my A-Game footsies, I’ll struggle or lose flat out, because Ryu players have to rely on this far more so then in a game such as SF:IV, where fishing for that Ultra is one of the Top-3 or Top-1 best option for him.
In OG SF games were Supers did not exist, as Jeff stated “winning by a sliver was huge”. Any game where Supers start to apply, this no longer is the same case, because if you land that Super, or in SF4’s case, that Ultra. You can literally change the tide, and the mistake of throwing out a whiffed poke is huge in such situations, with these added additions.
So take SFII:HF, if your losing to me by a few pokes worth of damage, and without any easy access to juggles or landing big damage, it’s far far more difficult to comeback from your mistakes. However in SF4, it doesn’t matter if your winning by 50% more life, because one mistake can lead to you sucking in an ultra and that 50% advantage can be gone on a whim.
Those differentials are what makes most players of the past dislike current SF games, where you can easily turn the tide of a match up, even for your poor gameplay throughout that round.
Footsies are also not the same as they were in the OG Era, and not to “downplay” current players however footsie games for Top SF players today are not on par to the footsie games that were being applied in OG SF era. In fact, the average current SF player’s footsie game is nowhere near as good as the average SF player back in those days.
Why would players like Jeff, Watson, etc, etc of that time need to “make shit up” about Tomo’s abilities, or their own?
Jeff clearly stated himself that his younger in his prime self could reaction uppercut Headbutts from the distance of the start fight of a round. Tomo was stated to even have faster reactions then Jeff. Tomo is also the only player that I know who could literally abuse Ryu’s 1-Frame start up inv. hurricane kick. Listen to Jeff talk about how Tomo beat his HF. Blanka Train’s strategy with it…up against normal pokes.
That’s nearly impossible to do in a real top competitive match up, but the guy does and not only that, but he flat out, takes out Jeff’s Blanka. Even in one post, I remember Watson saying that Ryu’s inv. hurricane kick was arguably the greatest move in HF. However, to make it become that #1 best move, your reaction time would have to be absolutely amazing to make it that effective, so it goes to show how good OG players of that time really were.
So no, these things are not bullshit, and are not some random garbage to make these players better. They simply were just that good. The highest lvl of competition will almost usually breed out the best players, case in point during WW/CE/HF with Tomo.
Also, reaction times do falter as you get older, even from my own experience, I simply cannot react the way I used to back in the mid-90’s where I was at my prime. So yes, I can relate to their statements and agreement.
However, it’s a factor of alot of things as well, if your not playing 24/7, and you lose your dedication, plus you do not have the same reaction time, it all factor’s in. This is hugely apparent today, just look at the current Watson to the in his prime Watson.
Watch the 94 Super vids of Watson in there is an astronomical differential in his footsie, zoning, reaction time in contrast to his latter versions. It’s just not the same, so even if Jeff, Tomo or whomever decided to get back into SF, and play 24/7. They still would not be at the same level as their younger counterparts. Jeff even talks about how fast his reaction time was at the height of his prime in this thread (go look it up, because I won’t do it for you), and I guarantee you he would not have that same ridiculous reaction time today.
There is absolutely no need for the top players at the time (Jeff, Watson, Kuni from Japan etc, etc) to lie about Tomo’s feats and abilities. Hell even James Chen in one interview spoke of Tomo’s unmatched Street Fighter skills when he went to two World’s Finest Tournaments. Tomo during that actual tournament stated that he would only use the short to defeat his next opponent.
Tomo picks Guile and does nothing but shorts, but more importantly he destroys his next opponent doing only this. Again…which top player today would just randomly do this during the biggest tournament and make it look like childsplay? Tomo was the truth back then, and so were the other Top OG players, and what they did sure weren’t fairy tales.