Other Japanese Players

Classic Fighting Games Super Street Fighter II Turbo
1

Here’s some random notes on some Japanese players I know and in response to nohoho’s post in the SBO5 thread, better to take it up here?

I’m not familiar with 2ch, can you maybe send specific links from there to what you read about sf players if you still have them/bookmarked? (I don’t even see a “search” button on the site). I’m curious to see what people said of Nomura or anyone else really in my local area. He may not be as good as Muteki, but his distancing is often very perfect. He’s definitely been “standoffish” in a social sense. I passed out CDs of the Wrectangles program I made esp for ST players and he didn’t even want to take a look, I couldn’t quite figure it out. Being good doesn’t give anyone the right to be rude, yokozuna or not.

Most of my interests in the past few years with ST (/AE) has been Dhalsim/Guile, because I feel that there’s practically some formula that dhalsim can employ to shut down guile for a guaranteed win. One of the things I found after playing Nomura the first few times was that I was typically merely intimidating guile players with yoga flame, but he could consistently nail it if I was too close- even top players won’t chance it often enough. He also plays a mean dhalsim, though rare, but he must know both sides of the match very well cause of that (my guile is terrible).

I probably can’t comment much on Blanka vs. Dhalsim yet- nothing comes to mind and I just know I’m forgetting some essential basics at the moment. For one I’m pretty sure I don’t employ yoga fire fb right or as often as I could. I think Shinryu (ST Blanka player) is our best player but he just got robbed at the qualifiers to rep us due to other players’ CE shennanigans. (fwiw I used to love the old HF and held it up as my favorite game, because it was so balanced but eventually came around to favoring ST for reasons mentioned in other thread.) You mentioned Blanka’s bite, hell yes, if you can get in with that, I’d say you’re way ahead of the game with Blanka. Several nightmares can be employed, the bite being one of them if Blanka can get in. If a ryu has your number, he’s probably got his low strong down right? and the fb to push keep you just out of range besides that. Precise positioning when trying to get in is key. fuck your charge, always value your position most of all, eg when fb thrown, walk up to block it if you have to, even if you get hit by it sometimes, just don’t get pushed too far back. After playing and watching Shinryu, it really seems like he’s got more of a zangief game strategy, even more than if he was playing as zangief and employed a typical zangief strategy, if that makes any sense- the point is, you just gotta get in, and most of the time you can’t but you gotta be patient. The opponent is up by 75% life? You’ve been blocking/jumping over 30 fb’s? That’s typically an even situation for a Blanka… never, ever underestimate that combo he’s got.

I think Shinryu really might be better than Komodo but it’s been so long since I’ve played Komodo and I am a lot worse than either one of them so that statement doesn’t mean much. AE’s CE bullshit prevented us from finding this year in any case.

I used to play Camera-ya just about every single day over the course of the year 2003. He and his ken were definitely the best, but I never heard/knew Umehara said he had that good a footsie game. He seemed to wreak the most potential out of that tiny extra window of ken’s dp timing and you’d watch it like, how is he getting away with that shit so often? Then you played him and it was like uh nevermind.

btw I just ordered anniversary collection for xbox and a PS controller converter- happy to play folks but in my experience so far with cvs2 and doau, the lag is definitely there. c’mon don’t let me play too much cvs2, dhalsim’s fierce doesn’t even go under guile’s sonic boom, makes me think I’m playing CE guile.

XSPR (my gamertag)
David Boudreau

2

What combo is that?

I am sure I have seen it in videos, and as soon as you say it, I’ll probably say “Oh that combo…” :sweat:

But, I am not sure which one your talking about.

3

that Blanka combo

I’ll reply to this one now, nohoho’s later with more scoop update soon (had a late night session at Chance last night, got back around 5 or 6am this morning).

I saw ShinRyu last night but he wasn’t playing Blanka, at least not that I saw. I wanted to confirm which combo it usually was and (I think?) it’s just the 3 hit jumping fierce, low forward, ball (?) but I also mentioned the 4-hit, which has a standing jab snuck in before the last hit I think it is. He said that one only works on tall characters I think including dhalsim (zangief, sagat etc) but he has that down cold and applies routinely where he can. I was hoping to get into more detail about his Blanka skills after another session like last night but that’ll have to wait I guess. He just has a patient Blanka that maintains very good position and also good strategy when things get tense over the course of the round. There’s a tournament in two weeks so maybe he’ll bust it out then (I’ll be taking more notes).

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June 9 Session

Interesting, thanks for the links (would take me a long time just to get through a small part of either of those, let alone tracking them down!)… I just finished reading Wisdom of Crowds so I can’t say this for sure, but I see those numbers with a big grain of salt, especially with our group, where it seems each time we meet, someone different has their day. I’ll say this though, the T.Hawk player they’re probably talking about, is Suzuki san, he beat me in the last tourney (single elim, non-SBO qual) and wound up getting second I think. I had my doubts but after last night, this guy is definitely above me and gives me tons of problems now. But he’s also the guy that (to me) has shown the most improvement ever since our group started meeting semi-regularly. Maybe he used to be this awesome player and it took him a good year or so to get back into the swing of things but I was winning against him with just like, the roundhouse button then. A session or two before that tourney he beat me, he started winning more against me probably, I can’t remember, but even after the tournament I was like, well I’m not totally convinced yet- but as of last night, now I am. I don’t think I got any wins at all with my dhalsim against his Thawk, and even his Zangief gave me lots of problems. Like 15 or 20 wins him, me 2 or 3 wins with my dhalsim/ryu. He switched to ryu after that and I even lost a game or two with my sim- blasphemy! I got psyched out, the fear is there now. His Thawk is now on that level as this one Thawk player that sometimes played in Yokohama (well both scare the hell out of me in any case); forget about my dhalsim against them, sim is completely, utterly dead against their T.hawks- perfects were common. ryu, for the reversal dp, ok at least I have a chance, still not much though. his zangief now never misses the grab of most of my poke attempts, in addition to the fundamentals/footsie games, he’d just nail those on the regular. had to bust out all the tricks, but those big chars can really roll with the punches.

hm on ryu’s strategy for blanka, I try to employ both- keep out of range with fb, but when he gets in (just a matter of time if patient enough and capable of landing that combo so consistenly) and as the final wall of defence, the crouching strong. For me, I’d never let a good blanka just waltz on in just to get into range of a c.strong but I probably get my fb’s jumped over more than I am remembering. :slight_smile: but there’s that subtle distance where, the blanka has to avoid the c.strong so blanka doesn’t walk in THAT particular nano-second on a crouching ryu in the corner cause he MIGHT bust out c.strong, but you can tag him on its recovery time-- in those instances, blanka seems to be in a situation where he can either wait for a low strong and try to capitalize on the recovery time (grab?), or stay and keep the pressure, but even if he STAYS to do that, he often can’t help but get smacked by a fb (if he blocks, he still gets pushed back by it). tough match for blanka, it must really pressure you guys to the limits.

So I was hoping to tell more specifics about Shinryu’s blanka, but I don’t have much this time. I did well with ryu against his other character last night though, even got a perfect in game 2 or so. he switched to guile and even got a win or two against my sim (more blasphemy!!) until I got back into it. I could play just sim/guile for days, that’s a whole other game to me.

Those guys left, and lastly, I played some local guys and BUY san. He played vega (claws) and went on some huge win streak… I can definitely see why this char had a ban, soft or hard, there’s so much bullshit… he doesn’t need that wake up, you’re like totally dominating the round and all of a sudden, his super grabs you from some ridiculous distance or claws reach you with tiger shot-like speed, fuck that, I’m bitter. So when I finally win he plays bison (dictator), ce. he has the 5 hit combo down, and I’m just like no, I don’t even want to spend the money on brokenness, we can play that but let’s do it on xbox or something.

XSPR

5

Here’s a quick report from Saturday June 23rd’s local tournament. Like most tournies, about 16 player/single elim, 2 out of 3 games but the arcade has a solid number of very strong players who play from about 8 to 9pm Sat night, tourny starts around 10pm I think but a lot of us stay until the wee hours, I left last night around 4 or 5am Sunday morning. Arcade is open 24 hours and even has an in-house restaurant on the first floor but I don’t make use of that as often as I want, since my stomach gets confused that late. If I eat before the tournament then I’m feeling sloggish.

Shinryu took it, and as usual had to fight his way there, taking out a CE ryu player for the last match, but earlier (due to poor seeding?) defeating Nomura- who used CE Guile this time. I say poor seeding cause the staff runs the tournament- nice that they organize it, and have it all set up great with dvd recorder/raised stage/mic commentary play-by-play but one half of the bracket contained Shinryu, BUY-san, Nomura, and the THawk player (and me, but after last night, I think I’m less than average now). The second half of bracket had CE characters but not on the level as those in the first. Without seeding, the best players take out each other early and others can advance further.

My first match was against a Balrog (boxer) player, someone I “should have” won against but lost marginally to. First I chose dhalsim, but feel more comfortable playing it with ryu so switched. I think I was relaxed and had a good strategy but just missed too many reversals/specials that I expected to nail but missed.

During the warm-ups and afterwards, I played against Suzuki’s T.Hawk a little and still ran into the same problem… I really really need to figure out a way to deal with his jumping fierce (hand clasped), and even if I can do that, probably have to nail a good teleport once or twice a round to avoid the hell out of the corner. At home, on (lousy) training mode, I thought I had something with holding back+standing forward kick. but it seems that it really has to be a very precise stand jab. Most of my attempts with stand jab traded (badly). If you can sorta see the jump coming, maybe a slide roundhouse will be the best option, because even if it misses, you’re clear on the other side of him (not cornered=still alive). I will try to hook up with BUY-san and practice this on console, cause if it were arcade I think I’d just rather try learning a decent enough guile (or honda?) strat if I ever face him in a tournament setting… don’t want to have to do that though.

That training mode sucks so bad, esp compared to 3rd Strike’s.

Anyway if it weren’t for THawk, I might have run into a Honda player who has been getting good- and I wasn’t even remembering how to play that match until well after the tournament ended. The only strong games I had were probably against Nomura’s Guile, and his ryu once or twice with my ryu. I asked Shinryu about his 4 hit combo- jumping fierce (or was it strong? or roundhouse?), cr. forward (can also be cr. short sometimes?), cr. forward, ball but now I also think he mixes things up, too. The first time, he goes for the one with the most dizzy potential. against the ce character, if he lost a match, it involved a long time of fb’s… when he won, it was like jump-in bam ce ryu almost dead. the bite once he gets in is good, but it’s also dangerous for what he can do after this. On the honda player he often dashed or jab ball after it and jump (back?) for jump short/fwd kick, setting it up again. I suspect his whiffed throw attempts resulted in the punch where he lifts up his hands. When he had to reversal, he didn’t always nail it but when he does, to me it seems like I have to blink cause I expect a miss- he also dashes back immediately after that to escape when necessary. Also make sure not to underestimate his standing short kick… he says this is great to beat pokes and other attacks (and although he gets me with it I am happy to engage in that kind of a poke game as a big part of my sim strategy can revolve around that- just gotta watch out for the jab ball->bite/electricity when he does it but he can also just walk right up to you and throw it out where needed).

XSPR

6

Hi Mrdhalsim,

Just curious, where is that game center you’re talking about? I live near the Shinjuku area in Tokyo so I’d be interested in participating in the next tournament. I usually play over at the Sega Club in Akihabara. I’ve been a huge fan of ST for like 13 years.

Thanks,
Charcoal

7

not tokyo

heh, I’m way up past Nagano- stay where you are, you can find even more and better players there! but I’ll be in Tokyo at the end of next week, from July 5th (Thur) until 8th (Sun). Maybe we can meet up, I know some arcades there but I think it’s changed over the years somewhat. PM me your keitai if that sounds good?

David

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That sounds great. PM sent.
Anyone else in this forum living in the Tokyo area that want to meet up anytime let me know!

Thanks,
Charcoal

9

just want to say it’s great reading these posts and knowing that arcade game communities DO still exist (even if they are all the way over in Japan)