Older Gamer Looking For Help With The Game

Newbie Saikyo Dojo
1

Hi! I’ve been playing on and off since SF4 was first released and I’ve gone through a whole bunch of mains in the process. I’d like some help in identifying my play style and which character I should main.

I’m an older fella, in my early 30’s, and I’ve loved fighting games for a long time, mostly as a fan and not an enthusiast. Back in the day when I was youngin’ I’d play SF2 with my friends and pretty much dominate them. It got to the point where no one in my little town would play with me. When the internet became a big deal we didn’t have access to it in a big way until just a few years ago (I lived in the boonies of the Canadian north) and travel was impossible. I was on a little island where no one shared my interest, and for a long time that interest faded.

When I finally started getting my life together I moved to a city and rediscovered my love of the game when SF4 was released. It felt new and familiar at the same time, I was hooked. And now, even though the city I lived in had no fighting scene whatsoever, I had access to broadband internet. I dove in and quickly discovered just how bad I was.

I wasn’t discouraged, in fact I was pumped. Now I could really start learning how to play. I decided that I needed to find a main. Here’s the history of how that went:

  • I first mained Cammy, enjoying her easy special move execution and her rushdown tactics. But I can’t execute her combos reliably.
  • I went through a short period of experimentation, trying out Sakura before realizing I cannot even comprehend her combos and thus could never punish or attack fully.
  • I then tried Ken, enjoying his aggressive but still relatively easy execution. But I quickly got bored of him for some reason I can’t put my finger on. I moved on.
  • I picked up Gouken, finding him quirky and fun, but grew bored of him like I did with Ken.
  • At this point I picked up Makoto, the character I stuck with the longest by far. Loved her rushdown, loved her feel, loved her design and character and everything, but after playing a long while (enough to get to B rank) I began to see just how hard she was to play. I practiced for months but grew no closer to mastering the execution needed to pull off even her simplest set ups. I reluctantly moved on.
  • At this point I realized how much I enjoyed aggressive characters and tried to pick up characters like Akuma but found I couldn’t make the combos work.
  • My next longest main was Ibuki. Again, loved the rushdown, loved the speed and the diversity of her moveset, I even began to get the hang of her vortex, but again I could not perform her best combos. I could do s.LP + s.MP + s.HP + Neck Breaker pretty reliably (it’s still the only combo I can perform reliably in a match) but not her better stuff. I couldn’t even combo into her ultra 2. Even though I loved playing her I felt demoralized. Again, I reluctantly moved on.
  • Most recently I picked up Decapre and she felt like a breath of fresh air. You’ll note that before this I never devoted any amount of time to a charge character but she felt different. I played her relentlessly for days before I began to realize that, again, I couldn’t execute her optimal combos and set ups.

So now I’m feeling kinda shitty because even though I love this game and even though I really enjoy playing it I just feel like I lack the ability to excel at it. I never feel like I fully understand the characters I pick up, and maybe that’s because my brain doesn’t jive with the game’s innate sense of timing when it comes to executing combos. Most of them are incredibly difficult for me (I’ve never fully completed a challenge mode with anyone) and I can’t even begin thinking about links without mastering what feels like the basics. I feel stuck, like I’m incompatible with this game even though I enjoy it so much. It’s possible that I haven’t found the character that is for me, and since I’ve never been part of a scene I’ve had to find out the things I’ve found out on my own, meaning it took way longer that it probably should have. I dunno, it feels like the most basic stuff about SF might be too challenging for me and maybe I’ll never get to a decent level of play. Maybe I should just stick to watching tournaments on YouTube and keep my hand out of the game.

What do you guys think?

2

I think that as long as you enjoy playing the game, you should continue playing the game regardless of your skill level. Executing the more difficult combos and other optimization is a small part of being good at the game. You get MUCH more mileage out of strong space control and other proper fundamentals, punishes can be as simple as just canceling a cr.hp into your most damaging special or a raw ultra and still be effective. Damage output and setups help supplement (and in some cases compensate for a lack of) fundamentals but they ARE NOT a replacement for them, nor are they an absolute requirement to be decent.

That said, if execution is giving you constant headaches you might want to consider some of the following despite your preference for strong rushdown:

  • Guile: Strong space control, more reliance on proper use of normals to control the pace of a match than doing fancy combos to maximize the damage (if you can pull off cr.lp > cr.mp into a flash kick you’re set for a basic punish)
  • Zangief: Again, strong reliance on normals but for the opposite reason (he wants to walk in!). You can get by with just spd/super/ultra as your punish, his buttons and grabs hurt enough as is to make him a threat to most of the cast at all but the highest levels of play.
  • Juri: Don’t get me wrong, she has some very high-execution stuff… but she can also be played effectively with a very basic combo level (her fireball release combos in particular are fairly easy once you’re used to holding/releasing a kick button) and her Ultra 1 combos are on the same difficulty level as ibuki’s lp xx mp xx hp xx whatever BnB (ie. they’re all chains, push the next button as soon as the first hits) which can allow for a burst of rushdown during a match.

In the end, it’s also possible that a link-heavy game like street fighter is just not for you, in which case you might want to look into some other fighting games where chain-combos are more prevalent? (marvel, blazblue or even SFxT etc)

3

That last part isn’t entirely true, he could play 3S and just learn to cancel low forward into super.

Other usf4 characters would be Baltic or chun-li, they can rely on fundamentals as well, and rushdown with them.

4

@Winterstride I wrote nearly the same exact post 6 months ago.

I played a few characters and had trouble finding a main because I’d get bored of them. Just keep playing around until you find one you love. I’ve hated Ryu from 1991- October 2014. Now he’s my main. He’s the last character I ever thought I’d main, so I guess anything could happen.

I’ve also felt like my brain couldn’t “jive” with the game and the combos, etc. But over time, everything will make sense. When SF4 came out, I didn’t know there were competitions, I didn’t know there was a community, I thought training mode was only for noobs practicing Hadokens. Now I realize that this game takes a TON of practice, studying, and learning. TONS of learning.

As for combos, I thought they were a pipe dream in SF4. I just picked Guile and threw 90 Sonic Booms every match. Then I quit until Ultra came out. Even though this is UNTRUE, I used to think combos were too hard on a pad and that “real” players only use sticks. I was planning on getting a stick so I didn’t try too hard until I finally got one. When I got my stick and I got comfortable using it, everything started to click a little more (although this probably had a lot to do with extra experience and motivation). You really just have to drill and drill and drill in training mode until you get them down. You CAN do it.

5

Thanks for the replies everyone. I’ll take your advice to heart when I sit down to play next.