Rate how hard the learning curve is to reach high level play with Sakura out of 10. Then rate how well the learning curve pays off once you get really good out of 10. Rate like this:
Learning Curve:[Insert score here]/10
Payoff:[Insert score here]/10
I’ll let you know once I get there.
Coming from a shoto background, I’d say her moves translate pretty well.
Ex: Ken/ryu 3 fierce dp combo turns into sak’s multi-hit shouken combo
Tatsu over fireballs to punish turns into a well-timed shunpu to punish
Cr.mk~hado/shoryu are also present in her tool list (although i prefer cr.mp~hado)
what did take getting used to was the lack of aa superiority and less useful fireball traps
her learning curve to me was about a 6/10
she’s flashy
people underestimate her
she has good stun
good combos
excellent mix-ups
can combo into ultra
alt costume 10 and reg costume 9 (tan sakura) ftw
reward-wise, 9/10 because nothing’s more satisfying than taking friend money with everyone’s favorite schoolgirl.
Thanks for responses so far.
Personally, my Sak learning curve wasn’t that hard for me. Maybe a 3-4/10. Granted I’m not where I would like to be yet, but not because I don’t know Sakura, because I don’t know everyone else against Sakura, and my own faults are the reason. The only thing I have trouble with is c.MK SRK, and while it might add up enough to give me the win in close matches, I do ok without it. The basic combos came easy to me. I don’t have to do (m)any hard links (though if my execution was better it would give me a safer game, I’d have less whiffed Shunpus, but that’s my fault, not Sak’s)
Reward is 8-9/10. I love playing as Sakura, if you get your timing right, a perfect can be easy, and a comeback from no health is just as easy. I always get so hyped whenever the enemy is close to dominating me, perfect or not, and then one mistake and I’m in my groove, and he only has one chance before he is stunned, and delt with. I still have problems with a few characters, some due to Sakura’s shortcomings(always a hard battle against a good Blanka, though I am slowly improving against him.), some due to my own shortcomings(I still can’t deal well with EX headstomps… and once a person starts spamming headstomps, my timing isn’t good enough to consistantly stuff, or even trade with c.HP.)
I think her learning curve is easier if you didn’t play Alpha (or at least weren’t any good at it :P).
As long as you understand not to use her like your run of the mill Ryu she’s not that hard to learn. Hardest stuff she has are the link combos are they’re quite possibly the easiest in the game, there’s no FADCing stuff into Ultra, don’t even need to dash after EX Shunpuu to land Ultra (although I’d recommend learning it). So my rating would be 3/4.
Payoff: In what sense? Once you can do her harder stuff it’s very rewarding and she’s very fun to play 10/10. But even with the kickass combos and stuff she’s still a bit of a struggle to play against a compotent high tier character 5/10.
I ALWAYS miscalculate her s.hk range.
Learning Curve:7/10
Payoff: 8/10
She’s not too hard to learn, just a few things here and there.
Her payoff is great, but still not enough to top tournaments, but rather bashing your friends brains out.
^ This. So fun beating up a friend’s Zangief with a schoolgirl.
The only thing that’s better is to get a KO with Dan’s EX Gadoken…with Dan set to ENG voice. XD
As for ratings, I’m not good enough yet to give any. =(
If it helps, I have a TE stick.
6/10 and 8/10
Wow, are you going to go on every forum and make this thread? Play yourself and find a character and think.
I would say her learning curve is a 8/10, only because it doesn’t take long to learn a few combos with Sakura, but it takes a while to know which combos to use in certain situations, and how to mix up those combos to keep your opponent guessing. Not to mention, comboing into her Ultra may not be extremely difficult, but the timing is a bit tricky, especially considering that it’s different for most characters you face.
Her payoff is a 10/10 in my opinion. I may not be the best Sakura player, but I have started to elevate my game from a good Sakura to a great Sakura. The scary thing is that I still have a lot to learn with her. I am striving for the time that I can go into an ex-tatsu after almost any poke that I connect. I honestly don’t buy any tier list that has her in the bottom 4 (which has been every tier list that I’ve seen).
to learn to play her at a high level id say 5/10 she may have easy moves and easy combos but that doesnt matter in high level play. she doesnt have great moves so u are forced to rely on true high level things like good footsies, or how to act when being zoned, or option selecting the right things when needed, or conditioning your opponent. its a lot of hard work nothing she has is going to get u an instant result.
as for the payoff id say its also a 5/10. when you are playing good players with good characters its really tough. because they are doing the same things to you that u are trying to do to them but they have better tools. their is only one real reason why i play sakura and its because of her mixup game. i love it. i love to get a successful mixup and watch my opponent get dizzied. there is nothing more satisfying. but its a tough game for sakura for sure
From scratch, I’d say the learning curve is an 8 or 9. The last fighting game I played (casually too) was tekken 3 ages ago and, even for me, learning Sak’s links weren’t too hard to get used to. Applying them in a match against an opponent with superior abilities is frustrating to say the least. One mistake will cost you everything.
I’d say the payoff is a 10 depending on if I’m playing for fun or a 4/5 when I’m playing to win (which sucks since I’ve become kinda serious about SF4). I immediately gravitated towards Sak and Guile when I first played SF4 (dropped Guile along the way) but I wonder if I’d go the same route if I could go back.
Is that Yuri in your avatar?
Best KO is Dan’s Gadoken super cancelled to super taunt. No question. but back on topic, Sakura’s learning curve for me was 4/10, her normals and links are so easily accessible. I mean cmon, a 4 frame anti air that can even stuff things like Bison’s EX head stomp? ridiculous. and you can even start mixing it up without learning her 1 frame links. Her payoff, I’d say, is a 8/10. Her playstyle is just so fun and flashy, but she still has problems.
Coming from a very solid Sakura in myself I’m not going to lie about this. Sakura’s payoff is indeed 10/10, because you have to realize something. In SFIV, Sakura has NO matchups running in her favor. She either runs 5/5 with people who are at the bottom of the tier list to as much as 7/3 against the likes of Rog & Gief. Once everything clicks you’re pretty much set to run with the big dogs if you can constantly execute her tools in tight situations.
That being said, her learning curve is 9/10 and I’ll tell you why. It’s not hard to actually learn how to play as Sakura. She’s got a simple movelist (shoto-style after all) with her own quirks, and she doesn’t suffer from Viper-like execution just to be effective. What her MAIN problem is, is that her toolset is crap compared to practically everyone else in the cast. Her specials aren’t effective outside of combos unless you know how to react to things the moment you feel it coming (like HK Shunpu-ing/EX Shouoken-ing Hadoukens from half-screen). Her defense lacks a solid answer to rushdown characters (in the air of a Shoryuken in terms of priority), and her offense runs off being consistent with pressure herself, in which characters can easily shut down. Sak is all about work & grinding to figure out when and where to do things so that you won’t get screwed, and even more so since some of her key tools don’t work correctly even if they do hit or are used against certain characters.
Sak only scares people once you get all that down to a T and get inside their heads. Her payoff is great since it’ll make people respect you, but in order to get that, you’ll need to work on your game and make it pretty air-tight, and trust me, that is NOT easy in this game.
Barlog is 7-3 eh? Glad to know it’s not just me sucking that’s the reason I can’t seem to win that one then.:lol:
i think its a 9-1 personally. i hate that matchup