I think Zangief’s zenith was in SF2:TCE (or Special Champion Edition or whatever you wanna call it) and SFEX.
In SF2:TCE he had the quick lariat that went through lows. That’s all he needed to be competitive. No more simple fireball traps that basically neutralized everything he did. He had a fighting chance against the Guiles and Chun-lis. It wasn’t mindlessly easy…but still he had options.
Then some genius decided to kill that noise in SSF2…because heaven forbid a grappler be competitive. And, Green Glove in ST does NOT compensate. Sorry, Capcom.
In SFEX+a, Zangief was a crusher. No whiff animation for SPD…no lost meter for whiffed FAB. Stomping super which you could cancel into FAB. You could tell that the developers ACTUALLY PUT THOUGHT INTO HIS GAMEPLAY STRATEGY. Heck, they HAD to put thought into it, because of that awesome training mode that it had.
SF2:TCE and SFEX Zangiefs were the only times that I got a real sense of interest from the developers.
Maybe Alpha 3, too…until you face Dhalsim. At which point you just lose.
Gief was TOO GOOD in SFEX+a
His SPD was retarded good. After any blocked tick, you could SPD immediately. You didn’t even need timing with it, just do the motion and he would grab.
This is what really gets me about grapplers. For some reason, fighting game devs sometimes like to go out of their way to make sure that grapplers suck.
I’m just a scrub, so don’t quote me on this, but is that the reason why Alex in 3S doesn’t see a lot of high comp play? I’ve played a few really good Alex’s but not as many as I would expect, seeing as he’s supposed to be the main character of the SF3’s (Or at least, that’s what I was told).
Everyone just about prefers to play speedy, combo happy characters because they know they can get in fast enough to pull off chains. They feel comfortable doing that because it looks flashy and prefer showing off more than actually winning the match (or as i’ve seen many times). If it’s a slow character they wont go near them unless they had some speed attacks to jump start themselves.
Thats kind of a sad truth the majority of the time.
i dont think its a curse, its a gift. in most of the games i play, i mostly use only grapplers too (potemkin, zangief, hugo), except for smash brothers since there really isn’t a main grappler type character (closest would probably be bowser). i just love the fact that throws are unblockable. so until the day they change that, im happy with the gift =)
That’s the thing though, since SF2 Capcom seem to be so fucking scared of NORMAL throws that they’ve been various levels of nerfed in every single game. Now, given that their command throws are what set grapplers apart, meaning they can’t nerf those, they instead nerf everything about them BUT their command throws to compensate. In some games SPD is really the ONLY thing Gief has going for him.
true, he is the only one that could walk and throw at the same time but that is still his only grapple move. potemkin for example has quite a few and so does hugo. bowser has two so i was going for more of the variety approach.
Actually Gief is ranked first or second tier in A2. Though usually second tier, right below the top three.
But, It’s not like it never happens. Like epsilon_ said he’s also top in A3. 3S Makoto is definitely uppermid and definitely a grappler.
AH Kira is definitely either top or uppermid and definitely a grappler.
A lot of people consider Kouma top or at least uppermid in MB:AC ver.B too.
Diamon is top tier in a lot of KoF games, and I think I remember hearing that O.Yashiro was either uppermid or tops in one of the KoF games. But honestly I don’t really follow KoF, so I don’t know how good O.Yashiro actually is.
Considering the way his command grab works I’d even consider #R Eddie a grappler, and an SS-Tier one at that. Last I heard, GG:AC Potemkin and Eddie were top tier too, though I don’t know if you’d still consider Eddie a grappler in AC or not.
Last I checked Astaroth is like a grappler in SC2/3 and usually considered uppermid or top tier.
I remember before I lost total interest in CFJ that Leo and Zangief were really stupid good in that game too. Not that CFJ counts for anything.
Astaroth was top in SC1 and SC3. He was low mid in SC2.
Thing is you can’t compared 2D grapplers to 3D grapplers. Astaroth is tiered highly due to the overwhelming power of his pokes/tools. In SC1 and SC3, his bullrush (66K) is a tech crouching, hard to side step 15 frame mid that knocks down and is completely safe on block. It’s the fact that he can threaten with that move in situations where Asta has advantage that makes him top tier. Whether his grabs do 90 or 40 damage and whether they’re command grabs or regular grabs is irrelevant.
Daimon and O.Yash are both top tops in 98. Godly pokes, godly mixups, godly damage; hops, run, rolls. It was 98’s system that made all grapplers high tier in that game (ralf, iori, clark). Invincible startup on select throws made it nigh impossible to defeat certain setups. When you can time your throw on wakeup to beat uppercuts… mix it up with meaty normals that also beat uppercuts and combo for huge damage…
98 was so rough.
almost as bad as negative edge option select oochio reversals.