Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo Player Interview with David Boudreau aka XSPR from Japan

[jpj1983]

it’s not about how the characters stack up and what match is winnable, etc etc, the dissent stems from these two characters being very strong while simultaneously requiring less effort on behalf of the player

nice read, reaffirms a lot of what i’ve heard from other people from japan regarding the scene over there and how peoples views on certain aspects differ, like komoda being regarded as the best (as opposed to the person with the best winning record - which back then would’ve probably been otochun or kurahashi)

[Pasky]

The potential is there for o.Sagat and claw to get advantages that are too good. With old/Super Sagat, it’s about two things, namely 1) the high speed of his tiger shot fb projectile, and 2) his recovery time (and those two things complement one another). His throw range isn’t any worse than just about anyone else except honda and sim. Yeah his dp move is something of an anomaly but if you get caught by it low it is very powerful. But that’s ok, you probably won’t get hit too often because you’ll be too busy blocking tigers most of the time. With claw, it’s mostly the wall dive, but he also has extras: extra range, damage, and speed. Dhalsim is very strong but slow and has NO reversal to wake-up attack with. Good all around almost as good as Chun Li that way.

Boxer’s super not so good?? It’s the best one in the entire game. throw him out of it?? yeah good luck with THAT strategy. Boxer is extremely strong, and his wakeup move does him just fine. However you can outguess the player but you’ve got to do it really well. Facing him on hdr speed or online it gets even trickier esp with dp characters. Chun Li is powerful esp when you have her beat by almost half her lifebar, but you know you can’t rest because in a couple seconds, two fast walk up throws can win her the round.

Totally agreed about ST’s longevity. When Alpha 1 came out people were all like why do you want to play that old game?

“WAIT everyone STOP, STOP the tournament from starting, Thao wants to practice Sagat’s dp first, he gets to do that because it was so powerful in ST and he needs to adjust!”

I don’t think boxers super is the best in the game, you can counter the pauses he randomly gets during the super, I think what makes his super seem broken is the guy builds meter so damn quick, because he has an endless amount of safe block strings and TAP’s build tons of meter. I’d say ryu’s super is best IMO, and chun/boxer’s probably next. Boxer’s isn’t always exactly safe on block and if I see a pause during his super, I almost always get the reversal…it’s not even a 1 frame window, you don’t even need to reversal.

All in my opinion of course…

[Sabin]

godlike interviews papasi keep doing them when you can. btw i remember that tourney xspr was talking about (the break alpha 3 one,) i was there. lol. jimmy fong and the other guys you mentioned dont play anymore though

[papasi]

@pasky

Boxer’s super is almost the undisputed best super in the game.

1. A lot of start up invincible frames
2. Long reach
3. Can hit both high and low
4. High damage
5. Available in relatively short period of time
6. Safe on block
7. Fast (compared to fei’s, etc)

You wanna nitpick the corner pauses of his super? Then you should also point out all the other super’s weakness like unsafe on block, cannot easily go thru fb, etc etc.

Ryu’s super is very very good. But dragon punch go right thru it and hit it. Or a good read and you can just get a clean jump in like regular fireball. If I want to nick pick ryu’s super? At point blank it won’t connect.

it’s not about how the characters stack up and what match is winnable, etc etc, the dissent stems from these two characters being very strong while simultaneously requiring less effort on behalf of the player

I agree with that (Damdai said similar things)

For example, boxer’s cr. mk meaty is just a crazy good bet. (not to mention it has good priority)

if they reversal, ok boxer eats a dp.

if they fail to reversal, you eat cr. mk, cr. mp xx dash lower

which does CRAZY good damage and knockdown for pushing 2 buttons + a sonic boom motion.

or if they block, hey, boxer is safe + chip damage to boot.

The dash punch bait into super, or headbutt thru fb into super are also super easy to do compare to other characters’ super setup.

Whiff dash into throw setup is super easy to do.

Of course there is also relatively safe on block headbutt that move him forward, and beat every reversal in the game.

Now don’t get me wrong, I was just kidding when I say we should ban boxer (although he is extra good online).

If I can use a analogy, in a danisen battle, if you use boxer you almost automatically start from dan 5 while all the other characters need to struggle from dan 1. And I’m pretty sure that if people do play danisen ranbat on ggpo, there will be a lot of high dan boxers in no time.

No offense to all the boxer players out there though, I’m sure bhop, ritual, czar fighter can beat me easily with other characters too, I’m just agreeing with jpj and damdai that boxer is kinda easy mode.

I guess it’s inline with the idea that good move should be more difficult to pull off (like 360 spd).

Maybe if o gat’s tiger is a HCF motion, or claw’s wall dive always require the guile super motion are enough to even things out.

nice read, reaffirms a lot of what i’ve heard from other people from japan regarding the scene over there and how peoples views on certain aspects differ, like komoda being regarded as the best (as opposed to the person with the best winning record - which back then would’ve probably been otochun or kurahashi)

Yeah, mostly I enjoy high level flawless / clutch / solid play from a character specialist than just the player who won the most tourney. Komoda, Aniken and Noguchi fei (different person than noguchi claw are my kinda guys =]

Like all I can remember is the two man hawk team’s crazy play from x-mania 7. I can’t even recall who won the tourney. (Or in fifa world cup, I only remember the impressive goals rather than the overall play by the winning team)

And I like this quote from Ganelon

Official SSF2T: HD Remix General Discussion Thread

In matches, I like watching match dynamics and clever play, regardless of characters. Sloppiness (of which I’m certainly guilty of) and obvious match unfamiliarity is a pain to see.

And that’s why shiki’s boxer is fun to watch ^^

[Pasky]

@pasky

Boxer’s super is almost the undisputed best super in the game.

1. A lot of start up invincible frames
2. Long reach
3. Can hit both high and low
4. High damage
5. Available in relatively short period of time
6. Safe on block
7. Fast (compared to fei’s, etc)

You wanna nitpick the corner pauses of his super? Then you should also point out all the other super’s weakness like unsafe on block, cannot easily go thru fb, etc etc.

Ryu’s super is very very good. But dragon punch go right thru it and hit it. Or a good read and you can just get a clean jump in like regular fireball. If I want to nick pick ryu’s super? At point blank it won’t connect.

Every super in the game has invincibility frames, Most are invulnerable throughout the entire super, boxer’s isn’t. Jump back + kick beats it for most of the cast if you can predict it coming.

The reach I’ll agree, damage wise, it’s about the same as most supers that connect and get full hits. Although boxers is damn good for chip.

I already agreed with the short period of time, I think this is what makes his super seem broken is because he always seems to have it within no time.

Safe on block, gonna agree, I hate supers or any specials that are safe on block they should all have risks. All supers are fast…Chun’s is pretty quick and also safe on block.

You can dp rog’s super just like Ryu’s fire ball. I’ll agree its one of the best supers, I just dont think its the super itself that makes it ridiculous, just how fast rog builds meter. So you see it used a lot and since it’s safe on block he can just throw it out.

[Seraphin-Angel]

I heard people complained about srk forum being a unfriendly, unfun place to spend your time online. I was not convinced or bothered by it for a long time.

But some of you people really make me believe this is indeed the case. There are so many positive things that you can take away from this and yet some of you loved to take all the fun out of it.

I’m renaming all the titles of these interviews to “Super Street Fighter II Turbo Player Interview”. I don’t care whether these people ever won EVO or SBO. For me getting to know about them are fun by itself, except if they are jerks to begin with.

VF4 created cigarbob’s thread so I cannot rename his nor I will without consulting his opinion. But whatever guys, if you don’t want these I’ll just stop. My time are very limited nowadays anyway.

Dont take into account all these weabos and life trolls , the people that respect and appreciate this interview will take the good benefits from it like I have . please do more!

[mrdhalsim]

Sagat has the second shortest throw range in ST. …
I can’t believe that you’re complaining about O.Sagat when you use Dhalsim, who is generally considered to be a better character than O.Sagat. I’ve seen more people rate Dhalsim as the best character in the game than I have O.Sagat (Claw as well).

It’s like jpj1983 said, you just get a lot more with easier moves/less effort with those characters. Generally I don’t mind if I am Ryu or Dhalsim with that match-up (o.Sagat), but it’s sort of like Akuma, most of the players don’t take full advantage of what he is able to do. Tokido did like 10 wall dives against Justin Wong recently in some tournament, almost winning in that top 8 match, and the announcers are like “what a great game that was”. Great game??

You’ve got some good points for overall balance comparisons though, maybe I’ll change my mind at some point… for what it’s worth, whenever someone picks claw on me I try to pick claw as well so maybe I’ll find some weakness that way. His crouching strong punch alone is really good though, and his jumping roundhouse/forward kicks suit his fast walking speed well. So many options, I can’t decide which one sometimes.

As for Sagat’s throw range, I doubt most people are taking advantage of the difference unless they are using sim or honda, in actual practice. Sagat’s light kicks are pretty good, or standing med to keep them outside.

it’s not about how the characters stack up and what match is winnable, etc etc, the dissent stems from these two characters being very strong while simultaneously requiring less effort on behalf of the player

nice read, reaffirms a lot of what i’ve heard from other people from japan regarding the scene over there and how peoples views on certain aspects differ, like komoda being regarded as the best (as opposed to the person with the best winning record - which back then would’ve probably been otochun or kurahashi)

Thanks- btw their comment, if I recall was just for those players there at the table or around Tokyo, but there are great players from all over the place, you go into some random arcade out in the middle of nowhere and see some really strong blanka or old fei long player you can hardly manage to get any wins on… Kurahashi is definitely good but I don’t think playing at the top levels these days. Otochun is well outside of Tokyo but yeah, he is about as good as it gets and can rip it up with other lower tier characters as well.

Every super in the game has invincibility frames, Most are invulnerable throughout the entire super, boxer’s isn’t. Jump back + kick beats it for most of the cast if you can predict it coming.

You can dp rog’s super just like Ryu’s fire ball. I’ll agree its one of the best supers, I just dont think its the super itself that makes it ridiculous, just how fast rog builds meter. So you see it used a lot and since it’s safe on block he can just throw it out.

Jump back and kick his super, or dp it?? When landing from a jump maybe but on the way up, in actual practice that is probably the worst thing to try to do unless you have no life, and even then… boxer just has this huge hitbox of red, best to block or get the hell over it completely, don’t contend with it at all. As Papasi said the ease/risks of boxer’s attack with super don’t compare too well to the other characters. Next in line would be Fei Long’s, Ryu’s, then I’d say Chun Li’s supers I guess. But Boxer’s super is complemented well by his other moves, which can change up speeds and that’s really hard to track sometimes with TAPs or rushes.

[VirtuaFighterFour]

As for Sagat’s throw range, I doubt most people are taking advantage of the difference unless they are using sim or honda, in actual practice. Sagat’s light kicks are pretty good, or standing med to keep them outside.

You think Zangief and Hawk players don’t tick Sagat out of throw range when they set up for a command throw? Even Taira and Oonish use a trick that ticks O.Sagat just outside of his throw range so that he has to reversal uppercut if he expects a throw. And Blanka and Boxer players can do a throw range trick as well if you know what normals to tick with. This is pretty standard stuff.

[Pasky]

You think Zangief and Hawk players don’t tick Sagat out of throw range when they set up for a command throw? Even Taira and Oonish use a trick that ticks O.Sagat just outside of his throw range so that he has to reversal uppercut if he expects a throw. And Blanka and Boxer players can do a throw range trick as well if you know what normals to tick with. This is pretty standard stuff.

Do people seriously listen to you…?

[mrdhalsim]

You think Zangief and Hawk players don’t tick Sagat out of throw range when they set up for a command throw? Even Taira and Oonish use a trick that ticks O.Sagat just outside of his throw range so that he has to reversal uppercut if he expects a throw. And Blanka and Boxer players can do a throw range trick as well if you know what normals to tick with. This is pretty standard stuff.

But is that any different for other characters, or just something specific to o.Sagat? If Zangief/Hawk gets that close just about everyone is stuck for the same reason I think, could be wrong but I don’t think this is specific to o.Sagat. The hardest thing to deal with is his fast laser speed tiger shots and recovery time, that’s my main issue.

[ultracombo]

If you wanna play theory fighter I guess you could say that Sagat with CE tiger shots and far standing kicks cancels is broken… but would you come to this conclusion without actual matchup knowledge? I’m curious because the Japanese have really only started using O.Sagat for a few years now, and I see matches of top old sagat players like Muneo and Guts losing to lower tiered characters.

Reading that O.sagat vs gief or even against Chun is 6-4 is really shocking to me. I always thought that both of those matchups were incredibly lopsided but hearing that these matchups aren’t that terrible makes me wonder about all the other matchups that people consider unreasonably lopsided. Blanka, Cammy, Ken; I’ve had people tell me these matchups are 9-1 in Sagat’s favor… no joke. Maybe some of you guys are exaggerating a bit? I know Old Sagat is powerful but can we try and be scientific about it and actually play and study the matchups? There isn’t that much footage of O.sagat vs lower tiers, I’m guessing because most people didn’t even bother to put up with it over all the years of ST. I’m not saying Old Sagat isn’t OP I’m just saying we should find out first.

It’s like jpj1983 said, you just get a lot more with easier moves/less effort with those characters.

Honestly, it doesn’t matter if you consider some characters to be easy mode. I think in terms of mind games/ decision making Balrog is definitely the easiest… but nobody wants him banned. His high execution barrier makes him seem difficult to use when that really is not true (this is all imo). But even then It doesn’t matter who’s hard to use or who’s easy to use. In the end what matters is how powerful these characters are in their maximum potential. If you want O.Sagat and Claw banned, then it would make only be right to ban Dhalsim, Balrog and Chun as well. All these characters have a high amount of favorable matchups.

I don’t think it really makes sense to ban 1/4 of the cast. You’d be missing out on N.Dhalsim for one, who I think is a very well designed and fun character (even though he has an easy mode super, noogie loop, and drill game). I think the controllable limbs were an excellent idea. But you gotta keep the other top tiers in to give him some contention.

All I’m saying is that there are people who like to use O.Sagat, Rog, Claw, Chun, and Sim, so telling half the players that they can use their OP characters while the others can’t… makes it seem that you are afraid of the matchups or that you have some sort of superiority complex.

We all have opinions. I fuckin hate Balrog. But I wouldn’t ban him. I’d just complain about him. Which I do (childish I know). But if you wanna use him go ahead.

[VirtuaFighterFour]

But is that any different for other characters, or just something specific to o.Sagat? If Zangief/Hawk gets that close just about everyone is stuck for the same reason I think, could be wrong but I don’t think this is specific to o.Sagat.

It’s the same with every character and not O.Sagat specific (though throwing O.Characters who can’t soften throws is an advantage). You’ll see Honda and Blanka, and anyone else with a larger throw range than Dictator, constantly getting free throws on him. That’s why slide, hold, slide, etc. works on Dictator with Dhalsim. Dhalsim has a larger throw range than Dictator and can repeatedly set up free throws. Just watch any Gian versus Dictator match to see the carnage.

Dictator has [media=youtube]cxKi_IYyhqI&#t=3m19s"]vertical jump short, st.short, throw on Guile that is an infinite on O.Guile (or CPSI Guile versions in AE). You can also do j.short, st.strong, throw in the corner. [URL=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7s9X0ENiiw&#t=5m36s”[/media], then throw, puts lots of characters out of throw range while simultaneously keeping Dictator in his throw range. It’s a neat trick that can dizzy and can be used on many characters without having to have the execution level to pull off Dictator’s big four and five hit ToD combos.

I’m curious because the Japanese have really only started using O.Sagat for a few years now, and I see matches of top old sagat players like Muneo and Guts losing to lower tiered characters.

The Japanese have been using O.Sagat just as long as any other country has. You can find older O.Sagat footage on YouTube. And Daigo was regularly using O.Sagat in U.S. tournaments. So it’s not like Muneo just came out of nowhere, we’re just seeing more O.Sagat because we are seeing more match footage period. It’s not like years ago when it was EVO DVDs, SBO DVDs, and A-Cho video service and that was all you got all year round.

Reading that O.sagat vs gief or even against Chun is 6-4 is really shocking to me. I always thought that both of those matchups were incredibly lopsided but hearing that these matchups aren’t that terrible makes me wonder about all the other matchups that people consider unreasonably lopsided.

Chun’s Super is very good in that match and she can build meter without having to take too many risks. Her instant overhead is powerful and her throws are absolutely deadly against O.Characters because they do so much damage and cannot be softened. Against O.Characters Chun’s throws are practically command throws except you only have to hit forward+punch to execute them. I’ll have to dig out my old EVO DVDs to see, but I remember Ohnuki beating a bunch of O.Sagat players in years past. And at EVO2008 it’s not like John stomped all over Ohnuki without him getting some wins.

[media=youtube]jobJrqIwNak[/media]

Watch this set and pay attention to spacing from the corners. Every round that takes place mostly at mid-screen you’ll see Muneo win as he can control his opponents distance from him with ease. The rounds where Muneo is cornered, Jodim is always able score heaps of damage almost unchecked, because Muneo has nowhere to retreat and has no breathing room for mistakes.

Also Kuni at EVO 2004 beat Valle and Justin (O.Sagat) so convincingly with Zangief that when Choi ended up having to face him he switched to Guile (and won). The only video I can see of those on YT is Kuni versus Justin (mislabeled as Valle).

[media=youtube]MseoSZO7hAY[/media]

Blanka, Cammy, Ken; I’ve had people tell me these matchups are 9-1 in Sagat’s favor… no joke. Maybe some of you guys are exaggerating a bit? I know Old Sagat is powerful but can we try and be scientific about it and actually play and study the matchups? There isn’t that much footage of O.sagat vs lower tiers, I’m guessing because most people didn’t even bother to put up with it over all the years of ST. I’m not saying Old Sagat isn’t OP I’m just saying we should find out first.

O.Sagat wrecks Cammy probably on the same level that Cammy wrecks Hawk. 9-1 is probably not that much of an exaggeration. But yeah, everyone freaks out about O.Sagat, and there are lots of people who perpetuate the myth of him being soft banned in Japan which only contributes to his status as some nearly broken character. O.Sagat was never soft banned in Japan but that myth persisted so long in the U.S. SFII scene that it is almost impossible to debunk at this point. When the hive mind on SRK is constantly saying “O.Sagat is soft banned in Japan because he is too powerful” then it is no wonder that everyone is always placing him as the best character in ST and overrating many of his matches.

Lastly, I think one of the reasons that ST has stuck around for so long, is because of those powerful characters. O.Sagat and Claw and Boxer and Chun and Dhalsim have such wrecking power that it is exciting to see them just unleash a fury on the rest of the cast. People love seeing huge damage scored in a matter of fractions of a second, mere frames elapse and someone loses 50-80% of his life. You blink and it is over. It’s entertaining.

But it is also exciting, probably more exciting to most players, to see those characters get beaten just the same. People love seeing the underdog come out on top and shutting down a top tier character. People love seeing Honda take out a Shoto or Guile or DJ. People love seeing the O.Hawk team at X-Mania annihilate wave after wave of teams that are composed of better characters. I think even Muteki said that he plays Guile because he likes overcoming the ‘impossible’ matches because it is more rewarding.

[jpj1983]

soft-banned is a misleading term, it doesn’t mean you can’t select that character. why do you think historically that there have been so few top japanese o.sagat players over all these years despite how good he is, or why yaya only plays n.sagat? you mention daigo using o.sagat in american tournaments, and yet he doesn’t in japanese tournaments. x-mania 7 had 105 entrants and not a single o.sagat player. etc etc

[djfrijoles]

or why yaya only plays n.sagat?

I’ve been trying for ever to find where it was that I read that yaya originaly was an o gat player but to many people were bitching that they couldn’t beat him so he switched to n gat.

edit

lol whats up XSPR.

[otakugamer223]

great article, informative and helpful!!

[VirtuaFighterFour]

soft-banned is a misleading term, it doesn’t mean you can’t select that character. why do you think historically that there have been so few top japanese o.sagat players over all these years despite how good he is, or why yaya only plays n.sagat? you mention daigo using o.sagat in american tournaments, and yet he doesn’t in japanese tournaments. x-mania 7 had 105 entrants and not a single o.sagat player. etc etc

Gian said that N.Sagat is just more popular and people prefer him. It had nothing to do with how effective the character was. Look at Japan’s HSFII scene, they load tournaments with CE.Characters, including tons of people using CE.Dictator every chance that they could get. And Daigo was using CE.Sagat a lot during AE’s big year in Japan but used N.Ryu at EVO2006. O.Sagat is great, but he’s not CE.Guile nor CE.Dictator. Lastly, if you ask any Japanese player if they frown on O.Sagat being used, they say ‘no’, which indicates that a soft ban never existed. There is no evidence of a soft ban in Japan, Ganelon made a post after coming back from SBO2010 talking about how no characters are or were soft banned, it’s just a myth that people refuse to let go of for whatever reason.

[papasi]

I think even Muteki said that he plays Guile because he likes overcoming the ‘impossible’ matches because it is more rewarding.

VF4, that’s great only that we don’t live in Japan. Majority people here don’t care about that.

yet he doesn’t in japanese tournaments. x-mania 7 had 105 entrants and not a single o.sagat player. etc etc

jpj, I’ve been nodding my head to most of your recent posts :tup:

As ultra said, if we were really going to ban characters, theoretically we should ban characters based on the maximum potential of the character regardless of the execution barrier (which I disagree, execution barrier matters… if claw’s dive require guile super motion I think it’s great for people who can pull off perfect dives with that motion).

let’s say o sagat and chun are equally strong and are in broken tier. Here’s the thing that I have trouble with o sagat, he’s fucking boring to watch and gives ST such a bad rep everytime ogat is on stream!

tiger tiger tiger tiger tiger tiger tiger tiger tiger tiger tiger sweep tiger tiger tiger tiger tiger tiger tiger tiger tiger upper cut tiger tiger tiger tiger tiger tiger tiger tiger tiger st short x2 tiger tiger tiger tiger tiger tiger tiger tiger tiger tiger tiger tiger

I had heated debate with Roybisel when I was joking that o gat should be banned in US. He said I was trolling and that if o gat should be banned, sim should be too, and refused to listen to what I have to say above.

And even then, Roybisel himself said o sagat is boring and he mainly uses him in tourney.

I was watching [media=vimeo]18430319[/media]

and here’s what daigo said about Japanese player (can’t remember exactly but it’s something like this)

he said that Japanese player play the game because they loved the game (though he said that more japanese players are playing because they want to be famous)

And in the same interview what mike watsons said about US player? US player plays to win. And that if you lose, doesn’t matter how good you play, you lose. And that you shouldn’t be friends with your competitors since then you’re soft and your chance of winning is lower.

Which I completely disagree. As I said before, I don’t even remember who are the winners of most tournament, but I DO remember outstanding play!

(same reason why Daigo will be forever more famous than Jeff or Tomo, just because we’ll never see much Tomo & Jeff footage but there are plenty of Daigo’s and people remember that)

Most Japanese don’t have the same mentality to treat their competition as enemy yet they are top tier in fighting games. You just gotta be focused when you’re playing in a tournament.

Here’re more random thoughts:

bhop told me that he were losing when he was using non top tier characters when he started. Once he switched to boxer he started to win more and more, and he loved winning, so he sticks to boxer. When I joked that he is a tier whore he said with a smile that he also play deejay

czar fighter is a monster with boxer online. His reaction is extremely good. Mind game, spacing, combo he got them all down. I told him he has skills and he should pick up another character like feilong and he would kick ass.

His answer? Nah, fei long has a lot of bad match up, why waste time?
BTW I joked with him that when I play his boxer, it’s like playing a RPS game and he had two scissor and a rock and I have two paper and a scissor ^^

Willdestroya… where to start? I asked him why he trolled so much online. He said that he was victim before and I wasn’t around to see what people did to him when he started.

So what is will’s main now? He doesn’t have one. But here’re the characters that he used in tourney - claw, boxer, chun

Preparing for NEC, Roybisel was practicing online with a new character that he picked up. His new character? Dhalsim. And I shitted my pants when I saw that knowing that he’s already a beast with boxer and o sagat.

I’m not saying that playing to win is not good. It is a GREAT motivation for you to get better at this game. But compared to play the game because you ENJOYED it or LOVED it, its effect is way less powerful.

Why shirts still hasn’t showed up in tourney when ST arcade is back on the scene? Coz he has to practice for 6 months first. Why? Don’t you want to play because it’s fun?

Why STP wanted to back out of the tourney after he already paid for it? There is a chance that he wouldn’t place high?

Would watson show up even though he might not win it?

And finally, why of all og, kuroppi is one of the few that lurks online to play a match here and there when he gets a chance? He also entered SCR but he plays honda and there is very little chance he would win. So what is driving kuroppi to play?

I think there is a reason why mars is popular. He plays guile with a style.

[djfrijoles]

Why shirts still hasn’t showed up in tourney when ST arcade is back on the scene? Coz he has to practice for 6 months first. Why? Don’t you want to play because it’s fun?

Why STP wanted to back out of the tourney after he already paid for it? There is a chance that he wouldn’t place high?

You know little to nothing about either one of these players. You haven’t the slightest fucking clue what you are talking about. Keep talking about STP especially and I’m gonna really lmao soon. You need to keep other players names out of your mouth. Really man. You are forever quoting someone. When are YOU gonna say something.

[jpj1983]

the first time i brought this up you tried saying o.sagat wasn’t soft-banned cos you’d seen him being played on youtube or whatever it was you said, and i thought fair enough, “soft-ban” is misleading and you got some other idea for what it means

but you just can’t ignore the fact that one of the strongest characters in the game has historically been so heavily under-represented. and no it doesn’t happen in hsf2, or 3S, or whichever games, it’s one of these curious things that seems to be exclusive to super turbo. same deal with the recent “ratio” tournaments where the characters were assigned point values

i dunno how you can look at the biggest ST event in japan during 2006 having 100+ players and no o.sagats and skirt past it so easily, but whatever. i’m talking to a brick wall

[Ganelon]

soft-banned is a misleading term, it doesn’t mean you can’t select that character. why do you think historically that there have been so few top japanese o.sagat players over all these years despite how good he is, or why yaya only plays n.sagat? you mention daigo using o.sagat in american tournaments, and yet he doesn’t in japanese tournaments. x-mania 7 had 105 entrants and not a single o.sagat player. etc etc

How many n.Sagats have you seen in JP events besides yaya? Sagat just doesn’t seem to be a popular character period, perhaps because of his mechanics. It’s sort of like inferring (incorrectly) that all o.characters are soft-banned in Japan because they’re used so little compared to n.characters.

If you consider o.Sagat soft-banned in Japan, that’s fine, but it’s pretty equivalent to saying he’s soft-banned here in the US as well, where some players mock the character for being good with relatively simpler tactics but the hatred isn’t ubiquitous.

That said, if we get some firsthand testimony from top JP players, we’ll be able to know for sure what the situation is. But as is, there doesn’t seem to be proof for soft-bans from what I’ve seen; repeating the same thing over and over doesn’t make something true.