Before you start, watch a few videos and try and get an idea of who you want to main. Once you have that, start searching the top players of the character you picked. Practice THOSE combo’s, their much more practical and not ridiculously hard/flashy. Once you master practical combo execution, watch those videos again and see when he uses combos, try to understand why he hits buttons and when to hit them. Remember that you honestly have everything handed to you on a silver platter, matchup discussions, practical combos, setups, ect ect, the majority of that is on SRK. Then you have Japanese top player videos that are still pumping out every damn week. I still find myself lucky to be the new gen, I don’t have to work as hard as the OG’s.
I can’t believe people are saying Gill is hard. If you jump to him, he almost always does does a sort of anti-air which you can parry and punish every time. Also, he barely parries anything himself, so you could just anti-air him as well, lol.
good advice. Each individual bolded sentence pretty much outlines how you should practice, and probably represents months of work per sentence.
jesus, am so glad to hear you say that. i really really hate him.
Using Ryu. He is mid tier. But I just feel like using him. Im shocked at how functional the tourney players make every move of his.
Gill
I really hate Gill. I always feel like I am developing a strategy for CPU Gill, because I will beat him with relative ease when I use that strategy. Then I pop the game in again, and that same strategy doesnt work so it feels like luck.
On average I can beat him with 4 quarters. But there was a period of time where I could almost always beat him in 2 quarters.
Here are strategies Im used to with Gill that may apply to other characters:
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There is a strange angle at which you can Jump (not D,U jump in, just regular lazy jump) and HK him without any tradebacks. I cant seem to find it anymore, I have to try it again. I remember getting near double perfects on Gill with Ken just by Jumping Forward + well timed HK, then immediately Jump backwards + HK. After Gill got hit with the first powerful HK, he would try to retaliate right away, but the Jump Backwards HK would always hit him. I need to find this and exploit this one more.
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Just a lot of jump HK’s will work in general (especially if he’s in the air.) Definitely not enough to make a huge difference, just an option thats open. I think same goes when you jump in deep with a HP, he seems to be vulnerable to those as a CPU.
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Strategy from today, not so well tested: I do the F+MP double hit while he’s in the corner (for some reason the computer gets hit often by the last hit of it) and then duck down and HK. Repeat. You will not link the two together, there is a gap. But with the way he moves after the F+MK in the corner, often he will trip over the D+HK.
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Poke with a Down + MK and go directly into Tatsumaki. Horrible in the corner since, if he blocks it in the corner (which he often will) it brings you so close he’ll grab/ piledrive you. But in the middle of the ring getting to the corner, it pushes him back even if blocked. Whats nice is that this is a great way to fill meter. I dont often hit him with this combo but, even if blocked it builds meter and it sends him to the corner (where you have to stop doing this technique, or he’ll make use of the close distance and grab you.) Also it is one of the easiest motions to perform.
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Cheap and noob trick: With Ryu, jump in deep with HP and fiddle the joystick as if to do a Shoryuken motion a bunch of times before you land. Press the HP repeatedly like a beginner trying to do a dragon Punch. It often does Jumping HP-> D+HP(uppercut) -> Shoryuken… not intentionally. Because Gill is vulnerable to jumping HP or HKs, this will often connect (but not everytime.) It’s really more beginners luck or beginners guess and check. I remember the only time I ever beat him in one try with Ryu was getting lucky with this and I remember he didnt get to resurrect himself it killed so fast.
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Cheap down + HK trip: Gill is notorious for that horrible footsie combo where it feels, no matter what you do he always smashes you into ice. At a certain distance though, similar to SF2 the way you can attack Dhalsim’s limbs, you can sweep Gill from afar. His attack (if you’re lucky, since this is hard to do 100% of the time) will bridge the gap and you can trip him from a far distance.
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Dragon Punch on wake up??: I used to do this a long time ago but now I cant seem to get it to work. Either I have to work on the timing or this is just better done with Ken, since I remember last time I did this repetitively with success, was with Ken.
Really nothing new just discussing what Ive been using lately against the CPU.
I cant parry any of his attacks functionally. I can parry his fireball so I dont get any damage, but he’s really fast and hard to parry.
Gouki
Another one I seem to lose consistently on. When I beat the game with 2 - 4 quarters, theres always at least one spent on akuma. I used to think I was finding new strategies against CPU Akuma but you try them the next day and realize its probably luck. Sometimes the CPU just dumbs itself down.
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Rarely throw him: Situations where you’d be able to throw other characters, the CPU seems to love Akuma and doesnt want him getting thrown. Always manages to cheaply parry your throw. Ie not trying to throw him really helped
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Holding down, Tap LK twice and then HK/Sweep. The tapping of the LKs will push you away from him safely. Like Gill if you try to Sweep with a HK, too close, he will just waste you. For some reason after two hits of the low LKs, he will try to advance and you can sweep him with HK here. I dont know why this works, but it does. So its pretty blind and noobish. You are just repeating this until you get lucky enough to sweep him with an HK.
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Sokuto Geri: If you judge the distance most of the CPU (even Gill) is vulnerable to this. If you judge the distance so that the end of the kick will connect right where the opponent will soon be it almost always hits. Sounds like common sense but what Im saying is even if you think the computer would see the donkey kick coming from a mile away, it rarely blocks. Whereas if you suddenly did this with a human player, they would definitely be able to see it coming and blocking it.
As for other cheap tactics against Gouki, I cant really remember any.
In General
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Also in general, the second I feel like I am making progress the next second that gets taken away. I cannot finish Level 2 Bonus Parryin Stage, is that a big thing I need to work on?
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In terms of effectiveness, I did some training and looked at the Attack Data. Often times when you can finish a juggle in the corner, with lets say either a Dragon Punch (which most guides recommend) or a simple standing HK I notice the Dragon Punch does a tiny bit of extra damage, where as a surefire simple standing HK seems to do almost as much. I thought DP would do much more, but the attack data shows relatively the same. …?
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Also what is the hardest difficulty in terms of CPU skill? I remember hearing 8 stars only makes the CPU do more damage, but 8 stars feels easier than 6. Is 6 the hardest skill-wise?
Not really
What juggles are you talking about? This is a character specific question.
Oh and thanks for all the input and advice btw. I dont have many friends who are into SF3, besides button mashing, and the arcades here dont really have it anymore, that is why I am putting off the VS training for now. Its not like Im gunna master the CPU and try to walk into a SF3 tournament. I need to find a way to play better players without driving far out to where they have tournaments. They dont even have many arcade tournaments in general in my area.
Lets say its Ryu, Shinkuu Hadouken in the corner. As they are in the air, you can Fierce Shoryuken them to juggle. Or you can press HK for a roundhouse that does nearly the same damage. That is what I was trying to mention.
Fierce shoryu will give you knockdown, RH will reset.
I’d personally go for the knockdown. I feel better about going for the wakeup pressure.
This all really just depends. This isn’t a religion, there isn’t any one way to do things. The reset would be my favored option in this situation because after eating a big combo (or super) people tend to freak and start using the little time they have to plan something (or uppercutting) but by using roundhouse you cut into their thinking time and set up for some more damaging situations.
Wake up pressure is a difficult thing to work on early on because you don’t exactly know all your options and a reset puts you back into the most familiar option for all HEAD2HEAD!
If you can look into playing live players online using 2DF or GGPO. This is much better than playing against the CPU who really isn’t a good barometer for how you’d fare versus people who are actually reacting to you. Like the CPU won’t punish you badly for being predictable while an opponent will. Playing the CPU a lot can give you a lot of bad habits that you’d need to unlearn to play live people. Nothing beats offline, but online beats CPU easy.
I don’t know where you live, so I don’t know if our connection would suck or not but if you ever wanted some causal games I wouldn’t mind playing with you online. We were all new once.
thanks so much guys. I will def use this information.
Right now my main goal is dealing with the computer to get a feel of the physics. I actually used to play for storyline purposes, its so much different playing to really be good and not just get that ending.
Yesterday I beat the game without using any continues, beat Gill twice with losing a round. I randomly lost one round to Ken and Akuma each. I think those are the only rounds I lost.
My next goal is to beat the game without losing any rounds. I remember I was frustrated, I got up to Gill without losing any rounds and getting to fight Q. Once I got to Gill, it was brutal took 5-6 continues. That totally sucks when you have been on a good streak up to that point.
After I beat the game once without losing a round, I will start to play purely against human players.
Gill is not a real test of skill, it’s a test of “knowing what makes his AI fumble”. Not to mention anything you could possibly learn about the matchup has no real gameplay use, as he’s not a selectable character.
um yeahh… you could say that about any CPU character. thank you wise one. gill is no real test of skill and your mom was no test of skill either.
i havent tried parrying the dive kick. for a while he just wasnt doing it too often, now i get it all the time. a strange thing with him is that after he gets knocked down with a SRK or anything similar, if you try to Dragon Punch on wake up the game tries to make Gouki the total badass and counters your DP. I notice, though if you leave some space between you and him, when he gets up he almost almost jumps up towards and you can Dragon Punch him safely.
i try not to get into a SRK war with ken. I tend to just sweep him when he lands his hurricane kicks and stay away from jump in fierces. I wonder if the CPU just turns up his AI because he’s supposed to be the rival you fight for Ryu. when you fight him in training he is dumbed down much more.
the double perfect every character with a DP on wake up- Ive done that before, but I can only do that with Ken and I think Akuma. With Ryu its consistent in a similar fashion, but not as easy as with Ken. I think Ken’s goes further and hits twice.
First off, I think I am generally bad with the SF games in general. That means against the computer AND human players.
But recently, I ve been trying to get peace of mind and just beat this game on the hardest difficulty like when I started this thread. Well it finally happened today. I took a long break and stopped playing because my Dreamcast wasnt working.
Beat the game with Ryu, highest difficulty, without losing a round. Finally, Im moving on to playing people where the real game is. ((I still HATE Gill.))
If anyone wants tips for the computer, (though idk why since most people only care about human players and since not many people play 3S like they used to,) I can write something quick up.
Also someone said you can just repeat DP gill, but I’ve tried that Ryu and I cant get it to work. I can get that to happen with Ken, Gouki, and maybe Sean, but Ryu I cant get it to work. Also even if you remember all of Gill’s moves its not always that easy. I also think depending on the character you use, they may or may not have an easy time punishing Gill’s whiffed moves.
Also what difficulty setting has the smartest CPU AI??
the cpu doesn’t get any smarter on higher settings. it just gets more health and becomes more likely to psychic super you and generally moves around more. i don’t see any reason to not play on the highest setting since the cpu is basically just a mobile target made of familiar characters for you to test out combos, setups, os techniques, etc. the more it moves, the more you have to pay attention, i guess. don’t treat it like an “opponent.”
ps. beating gill w/ repeated srk just means knocking him down, walking up to him and waiting for a moment before srking. the cpu is programmed to normally block meaties. don’t meaty srk. wait for him to barely stick out a limb, which he does every time, then srk. but since playing against gill conflicts with the first paragraph i wrote, i wouldn’t even bother doing it… unless you’re at the arcade and you’re trying to hold him off long enough for someone to put their coin in!
the cpu definitely does get smarter on the higher settings. it isnt just the health, stun, and attack damage. and it does play slightly different. attacks not parried in difficulty 6 or 7 may be parried on difficulty 8. also i know what is meant by just doing SRK to the limbs, but with Ryu I cant manage to do it. Can you or anyone post a vid of this with Ryu? Like I said I can do this all day with Ken but not Ryu.
I just got good success with Ryu’s Shoryu against highest-difficulty Gill. The times when Gill came out on top were because I either messed-up my timing or execution. So the only reasons it would ‘not happen’:
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You Shoryu early so Gill reacts by guarding and your Shoryu whiffs;
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You do it late and miss the opportunity because he’s already poked you;
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You mess up the execution of the Shoryu.
He also did wake-up Dash Punch a couple of times which seems to have enough invincibility to pass through Shoryus, but he didn’t do it much.