Most noobs will pick C groove with SF characters, and as long as he plays against people roughly at his level, it wouldn’t be that bad.
pherai: Yes, I realize SF4’s mustache is nowhere nearly as curly as 3S’s in terms of how long you can keep somebody reeling in the air (love those dizzy juggles), but mechanically in terms of what picks up at what ranges, I think it’s a lot closer to SF4 than ST and its extremely limited-case juggles. Plus, you have the modern SF rule where juggles tend to work BETTER in the corner, where as in ST you often have the reverse happening (see: Bison j. MP juggles in ST).
I stand by my CvS2 reccomendation because (a) I don’t think it’s nearly as hard to learn as people make it out to be, depending on what characters you choose to play (although as you can see in my sig, I gravitate readily towards the low-hanging execution fruit), and (b) more importantly, CvS2 rewards good poking and footsies more than any other SF (it’s SF with SNK characters and -isms thrown in, close enough). As long as you’re not horribly outmatched, it is entirely possible to win CvS2 on footsies alone, which to me is pretty great incentive to work on your sick-ass walking skills.
Other fun things you can learn by way of CvS2:
- Zoning without fireballs. Even the almighty Sagat has to swallow his pride and throw Tiger Shots honestly and less frequently in a game where there are so many ways to punish predictable fireball chucking (super jump, roll, roll cancel, parry, JD, level 3 super).
- Baiting and punishing rolls. If you can consistently bait and punish roll spammers in the Deuce, bad Abels the world over are going to automatically hate your GUTS. Use that hatred to fuel your Psycho Power, which is as limitless as it is purple.
- DPing without autocorrect. Jumps are less floaty and inputs are less forgiving, so if you’re going to DP from a crouch or DP a crossup, you’re gonna do it the right way. Not nearly as hard as it sounds, and it makes it even easier to exploit the retarded reversal power of SF4.
- Tighter lnks. You improve your rhythm and learn how to use counter hit to your advantage, with a tighter execution requirement.
- You can actually use meaties. Sure, they’re not worth much in SF4, but it’ll teach you at least a little bit about the practical application of frame advantage, and give you a better sense of why x normal is good and what x normal might be able to link into/off of. Plus, it’ll be a valuable skill to have if Capcom ever makes another game where meaties aren’t suicidal.
- How awesome Vega is. Don’t let SF4 fool you into thinking Vega’s a bitch. That yodeling motherfucker is going through some stuff right now, but he’ll be fuckin’ BACK in Super 4 and motherfuckers are gonna get SHANKED. Bank on it.