IMO T. Hawk takes more execution than Gief because T. Hawks normals are very situational. There isn’t any T.Hawk normal you can use as a panic button, it takes a mix of low short, low strong, low fierce, stand jab, stand roundhouse, etc. (I have to say in those vids I didn’t see low strong very much and low roundhouse much more than I would have thought.)
With Hawk it really feels like you are trying to just keep up until you can unleash an SPD, whereas Zan can win without his SPD. With Zan you can always get a low roundhouse into crossup and go from there, and in general Zan’s low roundhouse will trade with or beat a lot of stuff.
I think Hawk is a lot of fun to play, but you have to work really hard. It’s very taxing.
Blanka and Ken didn’t really impress me very much. I’m not sure if that’s the same N. Ken I’ve seen cleaning house in other vids.
spear lock him whenever you get the chance, jumping rh if he goes off wall or standing jab. If he jumps at you block or slide under him then throw, use spears or jump back fierce as anti air. dont do much on the ground just wait for him to attack or spear him.
A lot of that stuff I do, but the tip about not doing much on the ground is something I should probably work on. I’m so used to being able to abuse most of the cast with his pokes, or fake a poke and then punish with a poke.
But that brings up another question, what should I be doing on the ground? Just sitting and waiting for him to make a move? Fake a lot of lp’s like I’m going to do something? Do some slides? Or get off the ground and try to rush him down with drills? I’m guessing probably a mix of the above depending on distance and whether he seems more offensive or defensive.
Also, when you say “spear lock him” are you just talking about fast repeated spears? Or some spears mixed with throws, low forward, etc?
I appreciate your wisdom
NKI,
Nice vids! A couple of those matches are just plain ill :rock:
On another note, those videos reminded me of something I’ve been wondering for a while. It seems like more people play Ken and N. Sagat in Japan than they do here. Is that just my perception or is that really the case? If that is the case, does anyone have any idea why?
Well, since O.Sagat isn’t as apparently derided in the US as he is in Japan, there’s no point in picking N.Sagat over him. As for N.Ken, I have no idea about that one, though he is fun to play, especially once you start the Knee Grab shenanigans.
Some tournaments in Japan allow the players to choose the speeds. Most of the time though it’s like American tournaments where the speed is decided by the tournament organizer.
Although it didn’t show in this particular batch of vids, there are actually quite a few Gief players. I’ve only seen maybe three real Hawk players total in all of Japan (Toutanki, Mayakon, and a guy from More whose name I forgot). By the way, I think Gief is better than Hawk over all. Gief has MUCH better normals, as margalis pointed out.
Yeah, Blanka vs. Hawk is an exceptionally boring match. I know it doesn’t show in those vids, but that Blanka is really good…probably the best Blanka there is. (But no matter how good the player is, it’s still Blanka…)
You might be thinking of M-tsun (or Mattsun, or whatever he goes by these days), who plays purple N.Ken. He plays HELLA risky, always going for the DP, doesn’t care if he’s one hit away from being dizzied, still up in your grill.
Slight correction: Komoda Blanka
That really is the case. In my entire year there, I can only remember seeing one O.Ken, and I’m not 100% the guy was Japanese. I never saw a Japanese person play O.Sagat. I know they don’t like O.Sagat 'cause he’s too boring/too good. I think the reason they don’t use O.Ken is simply because N.Ken is just better.
mix of both, if he just sits there then approach on the ground and either do a forward slide, a standing or low strong, or a forward or short spear if you must attack. Try not to be too offensive, this is in case you’re losing.
NKI: Do you know if “Pony Zangief” is in the Insanity DVD? I heard he’s supposed to be the best Zangief in Japan, better than Kuni even. I’d love to see how a great Zangief player approaches some of the match ups.
In the corner I like to do:
(Close) c. MK > Low RH Drill > (Close) c. MK, (Close) c. MP (Far) c. MP > Low Spear > c. MK > Low RH Drill > Repeat.
You have to change it up depending on how your opponent reacts though, and this tends not to work very well on anyone with a DP or Honda for that matter since he’ll just throw you to death. The spears are mostly there to stuff any attempts to jump out. If you’re expecting a DP, it might be wise to use c. MK > Yoga Flame/Fire instead of a drill for a repetition, then move back in with a slide or a drill.
But like Graham said, this is usually something you resort to when you’re losing as it’s very high risk. Although I do like to use it on people like Bison since he has a hell of a time getting out.
Hey Graham, by any chance do you have any other match vids of you apart from the EVO West ones? if not does anyone know a good Boxer player that i can DL some vids of, all the time i download ST vids there is never much Balrog in it, and id like to watch some matches so i get an idea how to handle each matchup.
I’m pretty sure his jab dp has more invinsibility, and also his jab fireball is really slow and his fierce one is really fast so it helps him fireball trap better, havnt tested it but thats what i heard anyway.
insanity dvd has some decent balrog players on it. I think one even wins the tournament. They arent bad and use non turnaround punch style for some matches so youll see some fast paced action, unfortunately all my vids from evo west were vs sim so i had to use slow paced balrog (turnaround punch long charge).
There are basically 4 styles of balrog play.
Fast paced = no tap or very limited usage of it (level 1 tap), so you can do dashing shorts and grabs alot, this style is good vs guile, blanka, and other chars without fireballs.
Fast paced tap = level 2-4 max taps mixed with occasional dash shorts and lots of consecutive tap+low dashes usually vs shotos.
Mixed = sometimes charging tap up to level 3-4 and sometimes playing without tap, this is usually for oddball chars like vs st chun.
Slow paced tap = charging sometimes up to level 5-7 tap along with alot of blocking and carefully selected low dashes, this generally happens vs sim
I should be getting paid to reveal this stuff =)
BTW there is also a defensive style with rog which is good vs gief, and honda. I dont consider it one of his 4 ‘stances’ though.
Yeah daigo does some textbook rog vs sagat here. Another char you dont use the tap on, and the reason you dont need to is because his standing fierce hits sagat crouching, whereas vs ryu it doesnt, so tap helps alot vs ryu.
