ST vs SF4 characters's versions

Classic Fighting Games Super Street Fighter II Turbo
1

Hi guys,

first - this is NOT about st vs sf4.

I really enjoy both SF4 and ST - actually these 2 are the only fgs I play seriously and follow. I came here because I want to learn more about the differences between sf4 and st characters.
I know many of you don’t like sf4, but I think most of you at least tried it, and maybe some are playing both games.
To be more clear:

What are the differences between say - Fei Long from ST and Fei from SF4 ?
Leaving the game engine differences (FA, slower speed, more windows reversals, etc,) - I’m curious how much different are the sf4 characters from their ST incarnation, and why - different playstyles, different archetype, goals, specials being better, other properties, etc.
I’m interested in all 16 characters, but on some especially:

  • Fei Long: why is Fei considered bad and difficult to play in ST, but top tier and quite easy to play in SF4 ? (well, I know about sf4 - I’m interested, what makes him good in sf4, but he doesn’t have/ doesn’t work…in ST. And why ST Fei is difficult to play ?

  • Honda: my character. What are the differences between his sf4 and st versions ? As far as I know, sf4 Honda is quite similar to st Honda. But I’m very interested, what are the differences between these 2.

  • Dhalsim: why is he so good in st, but quite bad in sf4 ? (I know zoning is not that strong in sf4, but is it something else, too ? like - some specials being more useful ins ST, etc)

  • dee jay: quite good in st, pretty bad in sf4

  • o. Hawk vs sf4 Hawk - why Hawk is quite good in st, but really bad in sf4 ?

And all other characters:

  • st Vega vs sf4 Vega
  • st Bison vs sf4 Bison - big difference here from what I know
    etc, etc.

I would be gratefull for any info you can provide.
btw, i’m not an english speaker, so my apologies if my english sounds a little…rusty.

2

Why not play more?

3

The differences between them are so grotesque it is actually easier to point out the similarities. Pretty much every single move has major differences in terms of frame data (start-up, active, recovery, cancellable frames in rapid-fire moves), cancel windows, hitboxes, etc. Walk speed, jump arc and gravity value, states (impact freeze, hitstun, blockstun), sweep-knockdown and full knockdown recoveries, life, damage, etc.

4

I play st, since I really like it, but unfortunatelly al I have is the hdr - where I live arcades are dead for more than a decade, so all I have is online hdr/ classic version. The fact that I live in eastern Europe doesn’t help either.
Plus, the info for st is quite scarce - I checked the wiki, but frame data is weird (missing, ???, I have a difficult time to understand it).

Hmm.
Ok, if you don’t mind, lets’ take one by one.
Fei Long.
I really like this character, and I’m interested in character differences. I don’t need a list with frame data differences :razzy: (I wouldn’t mind either), but some general stuff.
Ex: in SF4, Fei is top tier (arguably top 5) because he has some of the best normal moves in the game, Rekkas are fantastic for whiff punnish, punnish, corner carry, his pressure is fantastic, and also a very good defence (fadcable dp).
I don’t main Fei, and i’m not a good player either, but I think in general this is what makes Fei great in sf4.
Now, what about ST ? - why is he low tier here ? his normal moves are worse here, his specials are not that good…something else ?
And what are the differences between say - sf4 CW and ST Cw ? From what I understand, they have different purposes (and the animation looks different).
Also - why is Fei so difficult to play in ST ? in sf4 Fei is usually considered one of the easier characters to learn - not many combos, not many setups, you just need fundamentals - spacing, footsies, whiff punnishes, etc.
So, why is Fei in ST considered more difficult ?

E. Honda
My main. I play him both in sf4 and st, and from what I understand, he is quite similar - still a defensive monster, still has trouble with fbs, same specials that generally have the same properties.
I think the only difference I know is his Hands - in st hands are much longer and have a different purpose. Are any other important differences, in style, moves, etc ?

5

What’s the issue?

6

Seriously, as much as SF4 was originally played up to be the spiritual successor of ST, the 2 games are like polar opposites imo.

On a very superficial level, most normals “look” the same, but they have vastly different properties, startup, recovery, etc. Jumps feel completely different. Moves have tons of blockstun in ST whereas they have next to none in SF4. Pushback in huge in ST, whereas it’s practically non-existent in SF4. Hitreels are completely different. Hitboxes are all over the place in SF4. In general, links are probably more lenient in ST, but they are also more limited because of the huge pushback. Reversal windows are different. Move inputs are different etc etc etc.

Most special moves are also vastly different.

Let’s take Guile’s flashkick as a quick example:

In ST, it’s relatively easy to safejump whereas in SF4 it’s right at the cutoff, so you need frame perfect setups.

In ST, it’s a great anti-air with lots of invincibility, giving you a lot of leeway to hit people out of the air. It even beats many crossups since it hits right above Guile’s head. As a tradeoff, it’s fairly mediocre at hitting ground attacks, making it not so great as a gtfo move on the ground.

Now in SF4, you have to hit it fairly deep against jump ins to get a clean anti-air. It also has a huge dead zone above Guile’s head. Conversely, it has a gigantic horizontal hitbox and faster startup making it a really good punish move.

7

This is what I wanted :). Very interesting, and I thought Guile is one of the characters that is very similar in both games.
I would really like to hear something like this about Honda and Fei - but any other character is good, too.

well, for starters, some of it is missing - there are a lot of ???. Then, I have a difficult time to interpret it - it took me quite some time to understand sf4 frame data (and I still don’t understand some things), so I ahve trouble with st - for ex., in sf4 a 3 frame start up move means a godlike poke. But i’m not so sure in st…

8

Fei Long: Mainly because getting around zoning in ST is much harder than in SFIV. If you compare the two characters directly ST Fei is much more powerful than SFIV Fei, but he has a hard time getting in against some characters.

Honda: ST Honda and SFIV Honda are nothing alike. f+HK doesn’t knock down, jab torpedo has no invincibility, HHS has better frame advantage but is much slower and less damaging, overall lower priority and damage, throw whiffs, etc. etc.

Dhalsim: Sim’s normals in SFIV are garbage compared to ST (this applies to every character actually). In ST you have an anti-air for every situation. Drills in SFIV are useless, too.

Dee Jay: Completely different characters. SFIV DJ has nothing of what makes ST DJ good (normals, priority, damaging combos, ambiguous crossups).

Hawk: Main difference is that throws in SFIV are crap. In ST they are instant, and Hawk’s 360 has no whiff, which lets him do very powerful option selects.

Vega: Crap normals, walldive is much slower and less ambiguous.

Dictator: another character that plays completely differently. In ST he is a pure offensive character most of the time, with no good reversals aside from super, lots of mixups, high damage output and killer knockdown game, whereas in SFIV is mostly a defensive character with low damage and not much in the way of offense.

But most of the differences come from the radically different engines. SFIV has slower speed, lower damage, worse normals, wacky jump arcs, crap throws (they have whiff animations, do low damage, are easily techable for no damage), different knockdown game due to ground recoveries and auto-correct reversals, focus attacks and armor moves, etc. Specials and supers don’t behave the same either. They are just very different games and characters interact differently in them.

9

You can check T.Akiba’s frame data (links in the begginer thread, GF is pestering me atm so I ain’t got time) for stuff that’s missing. It has a few errors, while the stuff in the Wiki has been double-checked, but it has worked for us for quite some time.

Good pokes are usually a combination of start-up, active time (attack boxes), recovery, overall recovery (start-up + active + recovery), range, “priority” (can be summarized as big attack boxes and small/nonexistant hitboxes) and canceling options. It usually becomes very clear which ones are better, specially when getting hit by them, that is, you learn it one way or another.

10

I only feel comfortable discussing claw so here’s what I can think of:

SF4 Disadvantages:

-SF4 in general has different wakeup speeds, focus attacks, and more lenient inputs (for reversals) that make regular wall dives significantly less effective
-SF4 wall dive has much less maneuverability
-SF4 izuna drop positioning is a lot stricter
-SF4 super loses meter immediately and, along with wall dive’s problems, is quite ineffective
-SF4 flipkick has noticeably weaker invincibility for anti-air
-SF4 normals are all much slower, esp. slide, and relatively shorter range
-SF4 roll is slower and much less safe, especially since reversals are easier
-SF4 punches do less damage when his claw falls off (in addition to the lost range in both games)
-SF4 mask can fall off
-SF4 throws do little damage and can be teched much easier

SF4 Advantages:

-SF4 new cosmic heel move adds maneuverability and leads to quick combos
-SF4 has damaging combos during punishment situations

Basically, just because moves look and roughly feel the same doesn’t mean much when it comes to placement. Just giving SSF4 claw a c.MP with ST style speed and priority in SF4’s engine would likely be enough to move him into top tier.

11

Here are some things that Fei Long has in ST that he doesn’t have in SF4. Disclaimer: I hardly play SF4 and I’m shit at it

  • Rekka pressure. In ST you can just throw out a rekka as a poke and if you do it at the right spacing, against most characters you can be almost completely safe on block by following up with the correct strength rekkas. And you can hitconfirm into a 3-hit rekka knockdown combo. I main Fei and in most matchups this is the foundation of what I’m trying to do. In SF4, only the first rekka is safe on block and doing this kind of rekka pressure basically doesn’t work.
  • Chicken wing is an overhead and you can combo out of it at a lot more ranges
  • You can do a chicken wing semi-loop against some characters that can be hard to get out of
  • lk flame kick is safe on block against most characters when you do it near maximum range. In sf4 it’s not safe on block ever

and the hitboxes and frames on the normals are all pretty different of course

As for why ST Fei is difficult to play, here are my thoughts. I guess you have to spend some time figuring out how to make rekkas safe because it depends a lot on exactly what distance you’re at; you have to practice it enough to get a feeling for it. The chicken wing motion is hard to do because the frame window for hitting kick is very small. And fei is really easy to zone because of how big his boxes are, so he has a lot of unfavorable matchups where it’s hard to get in. (like against any fireball character except sagat. interestingly the sagat matchup is not so bad because you can chicken wing over his low tigers for a big damage combo)

12

Didn’t hawk have like a thow loop in ST?

13

Honestly, it’d be easier to list things that ST and SF4 characters have in common. Differences are pretty vast.