The funny thing is, that it is just a 50% chance of having success.-_- If I’ve the time today, I try some other stuff against this SPD method. Anyway, I would like to see the two volumes for sure, too.^^
Ya I got the Sam Sho 1 and 2 collection for PSX. It’s pretty good missing some frames, boss and Kuroko playable in Vs. mode, remix music, loading times are long though. Not as bad as 3 for the PSx though and this is the only way to play Sam Sho 2 if you don’t have the NEo or roms.
Ya Ukyo is wicked on that one croching short link into strong slash two in one into Shadow slash too good.
Hi guys, first id like to say im very happy i found this forum cos i really didnt have a clue about what was going on in SS2. I mean i never knew Ukyo was the best and that there were FAQs and player guides. It really is fun to read that stuff even tho the game is 11 years old :=)
Id like to know where u play SS2, is it PC, emu, PSX?
Also, do u know where can i get more info about the game? Like old forum threads and stuff like that.
Thanks
Most people play this game on emu now, since it’s pretty much non-existant in the arcades (and arcades are rare enough themselves). MAME 0.64 is the emu of choice for most.
As to how to get in, I’d say listen to this simple beginner rule: DON’T JUMP. Almost all characters have a really really damaging anti-air that they’re just waiting for you to take to the air. Only a small number of characters can jump relatively “freely,” and even then once they do, they’ve made themselves quite vulnerable. Learn your characters best pokes on the ground… like what poke is safe when blocked, which poke should be used if they miss something, etc… and I think you can get pretty far on just that alone.
Just one more thing, is there anywhere i can find videos of tournies/championships or something like that of any of the Samurai Shodowns ?
iI play on PSX and emulator
Balance? Tier list?
Hey…I’m just beginning to get into this series, myself. I decided to start with this one, cos most people say it’s the best besides SS5…
I’m curious to hear opinions about the game’s balance, and seeing a tier list. Now, I know, I know…“tiers aren’t important, play who you like, blablabla” yeah yeah, I already hear the best player is Ukyo, and I’m not about to start using him 
I already have an idea of who I like. I’m simply interested in seeing how the characters stack up, and how fair the game is overall.
Top: Ukyo
Mid: everyone else
Bottom: Nic and Nak
Trying to tier the middle, everyone disagrees. Everyone has something they can whore out and pull out victories from.
Gen-An: Poison Puffs x infinity, no recover rolls
Charlotte: her AB and B slashes and other high priority attacks
Ninjas: SPD set ups and SPD/AB slash 50/50 mixups, Galford has Poppy tricks
Sieger: practically free, unpunishable Vulcan chip
Cham Cham: ambiguous Jumping Scratch cross ups, no recovery slides
Jubei: jump B owns everything jumping move and kara-canceled ground fireballs control the ground
Kyoshiro: safe ticks into pogo stick fire, big reach and damage from his spear
Haoh: AB slash of doom, uppercut super chips disgustingly
Genjuro: insane damage, can dizzy in so few hits, everyone is always afraid of getting hit just once with Genj
Wan-Fu: Pillar chip and ambiguous pillar crossup throw, cr.AB sweep
Earthquake: that disgusting chain, jump straight up AB to control the air; cr. AB to control the ground, not to mention butt bounce crossups with Jupiter-sized hitbox
Everyone has something that makes them viable. Just choose your favorite and go from there.
What makes Nakoruru low on the tier list? I don’t really understand the game well enough yet to know, but she seems good enough to me…I ask cos I really like Galford, Nakoruru, and Genjuro…especially Galford, though.
Nak’s low because of her crappy priority and range; as well as pretty much all of her moves leave her completely vulnerable if missed/blocked. Her best anti-air is meeting an enemy jumping towards with AB slash; and even that gets beat out by A LOT. cr. AB is a decent anti-air, but have it blocked and she’s dead because it doesn’t repel when blocked, and it’s priority is good but not that great either. Her bird is easily dodged and somewhat slow. Bird dive again only has barely okay priority, winning clean and losing out completely in about a 50/50 ratio; and again, when blocked, it’s peace out for her. Her Air Blade Runner is NOT a good anti-air; Ground Blade Runner can catch people not blocking low, but it is VERY risky. Get either blocked and she’s dead. Her Blade Runner moves are best used in combos; and even in combos, they don’t always hit reliably. And of course with that short knife of hers, anyone with a longer weapon (practically everyone else) will almost always beat her cleanly on range alone.
She can still win, like everyone else. You can still get people to jump at you by baiting them with the bird; then anti-air with jumping AB or jumping air throw or cr.AB or cr.CD for a nice chunk of life. Then go for a crossup jump C, into her throw game. Actually, run-up throw (always throw with B, it has the most priority with her and is the fastest), works more than it should. Her super is actually pretty good at long range; it’s fast enough to catch projectile throwers at far range, or if they tried to jump in at max range (it’ll antiair them out of the sky). I think she can even combo it against Earthquake with running point blank standing CD xx super.
But overall; Nakoruru is fighting an uphill battle.
Her boyfriend Galford though is at the other end of the spectrum. A really easy and dangerous mix up is just the following:
Knock the enemy down:
- meaty SPD (f,d,df + kick) exactly when they get up
- standing far AB slash xx Poppy rush
Option 1 will catch them if they just block or try to reversal on their get up. It even catches A and C spammers. The only way out is for them to jump away. Option 2 takes away that solution by hitting them for very big damage if they tried to jump away. There’s one guy online that revolves his entire game around that very effective strategy, and it’s basically a 50/50 guess; where one wrong guess pretty much gives you a win. If they get SPDed; it starts the mixup all over again. If they get AB slashed, they’ll probably get dizzied.
On the ground, his Plasma Blade fireball is one of the better projectiles in the game. Fast, quick startup, decent recovery. It’s better (like most projectile throwers), to kara-cancel a whiffed slash into the Plasma Blade. I think most people use standing whiff B xx Plasma Blade. Or wiff B xx Poppy Rush. Both of these control the ground very well.
If they jump, you can always meet them in the air with jumping AB. It’s got above average priority and will win clean/lose out I’d guess 75/25 of the time; well worth it.
Poppy, there’s 3 moves. Poppy Rush, where she charges really fast right at the enemy. Poppy Drop, which makes Poppy fall right above the enemy. And Poppy Bite, which is kinda like Rush, except she’s slower and if she hits, she mauls them in place for a while. Rush and Drop are the only ones you should use. Rush to control people on the ground and stop them from advancing. Drop to keep them from jumping at you. It’s another 50/50 mix up.
If they expect the Rush, they should jump at you, which could get you in trouble. But the Drop will counter them if they jumped. If they expect the Drop, they should run in, but the Rush will counter that. Guess wrong, and the mixup starts all over again.
That’s Galford in a nutshell.
Cham Cham’s lunge throw is just wrong.
It out prioritizes almost every other move, and it’s impossible to tell whether it’s going to cross you up half the time or not.
I used to be fairly good, and I can say that the game is played much like a fine game of chess.
One wrong move, and you’re done; part of the reason why I lost interest actually. The gameplay was a little too unforgiving of small mistakes for my tastes.
I will say this though. Ukyo will slaughter you (I should know, he was one of my better characters), and for inexperienced players, beware of Charlottes standing AB. It makes for a deadly anti-air. She also has nasty range on her jumping CD.
Yeah, SS2 is very unforgiving with mistakes; just like Super Turbo. One wrong move and you very likely will lose the round against a player who knows what he’s doing. Which I think is why I like the game so much. There’s nothing gimmicky or “get-out-of-jail-free” custom combo/super/parry/alpha counter that’ll save you when you’re in trouble. You lost because of your own fault. Some would argue that promotes turtling; and yeah, turtling can be very effective in SS2. But I think the best SS2 players have carefully calculated offensive plans and 50/50 mixups.
Cham Cham’s Jumping Scratch is basically her whole strategy, but she has to be absolutely sure she knows what she’s doing, else she’ll get killed like any other. I think of her like playing CvS2 Morrigan. Both characters are revolved around a cross-up mixup game that sets up itself all over again. And both characters are punished serverly for screwing up the crossup (in Cham Cham’s case, having it blocked or missed completely). I think the key to killing Cham Cham is making sure to punish her for blocked Scratches (if your character can; some can’t); and making sure she misses a lot with it (either backdash back or roll forward to make her miss completely; punish accordingly).
Charlotte’s my best. Her AB slashes will get her pretty far actually. The characters that give her the most trouble IMO are those who can beat her standing AB anti-air and jumping AB cleanly, which I think are just Ukyo and Earthquake. She does fine against everyone else with just her slashes alone. And IMO, she really beats Gen-An pretty bad. The little green goblin will think twice about puffing a billion Poison Puffs after Charlotte low AB slashes him from over half screen away, completely winning out on the trade.
This Galford info is good stuff! A few troubles, though:
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What do you do about people who throw on wakeup? Strike Heads (SPD) doesn’t seem to work…I imagine it’s probly my timing, but in case is isn’t, is this what AB XX Poppy Rush is for?
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Just when do you Kara Cancel B Slash and AB Slash? I’ve been able to Kara Cancel like…every other move except these ones
How are you getting hit by a wake up throw o.o
Don’t stand so close when they’re getting up.
Didn’t Haohmaru have this secret dp that went for like 6 revolutions on the ground instead the normal 2? It resembled his shoryu-reppa style super from CvS2. All I remember is that if it was block, the opponent was guaranteed a rage meter and a free AB for fuckloads of damage.
In correspondence with the strategy that Strike told me (Meaty SPD upon opponent’s wakeup). Normally I wouldn’t try something like that, but I’m taking you guys at your word since I’ve never played this game before
How many of you guys play online? I’m playing this regularly now with a few other GTASF players so I’m in Godweapon Best Of Best quite a bit. If you see me in there then drop a line and we’ll go a round or 20. :tup:
I would only use the meaty SPD as a mix up.
If they’re expecting it, then it’s easier to counter.
Haohmaru’s secret move (aka: his uppercut super from CvS2) is done with: hcb, hcf, rdp + BC; where rdp = reverse dragon punch. It chips off around 10% of life; which is just insane. Obviously the best time to use it is when an opponent is getting up and has 10% life or less. They pretty much have to block, and thus die. They could try to “tech fall” (not a real term). Which is basically doing a BC hop so that they are hit off the ground and then IMMEDIATELY fall to the ground, avoiding the chip, and for some strange reason taking much less damage than usual.
Galford has two AB slashes. The crappy one is the one where he does a midair summersault. The damage is low, and it cannot be comboed. The better one is the two-handed slash. It does mucho damage and combos (and karas) into Poppy Rush.
In regards to meaty SPD; it should beat out almost everything if timed right. Timing is everything. Too early, and Galford will wiff a kick. Too late, and Galford will have gotten countered. Timed correctly, SPD will even grab out uppercut-type moves. So the only option is really to jump away or jump up; both of which will get punished hard by standing AB xx Poppy Rush. The xx Poppy part is in case they guessed right and decided to block as they get up. In that case, the AB will get blocked, but Galford will cancel into Poppy Rush and will push them away.
As far as kara-canceling, just do the move right after the normal whiffs. Some characters have all day to kara their whiff (Charlotte); some have to do it quickly (Jubei, ninjas). The whole point is ground protection and baiting. For example, Charlotte can purposely miss a far crouching AB slash right outside of the enemy’s reach, wait for them to retailate, then kara into her uppercut or super and nail them.
I used to play online a lot, now only occasionally.
That nearly all the others are mid is true, but Jubei and Charlotte would be my pick 2 and 3 on a Tier list. Jubei has a godly j.B (eats often anti air moves!), a great fireball game, a very good long range c.B, some good combos and of course his best move the sword counter! Predictable AB slashes and lot’s of jump ins are gone for good with this. Also Ukyo far s.B abusers fall for it a lot, sure he still has many other options but it’s good to know what you can do. So you can limit a lot of players in their Moveset with that little baby. Strike talked about Charlotte already, so no need to get into detail.