Some Positives About Street Fighter 4
Tuesday, February 24, 2009 at 3:05AM Yeah there's a lot of problems in SF4, but there are some good things too.
I don't know how effective Gouken is, but his design is interesting. No dragon punch, but a super and ultra dragon punch. A high counter and low counter that act somewhat like a dragon punch, but worse because he has to guess high or low and it loses to the "breaking glass" moves, like Cammy's cannon spike. The ex counter doesn't require you to guess high or low though. I beat Cammy's ultra once with an ex counter, but got hit the second time I tried. Not sure what's up with that. Also, using the counter drains your life and slowly refills it, like using a focus attack. This is an advantage for the most part, because it means your ultra guage is even more full than usual. Because his ultra is guaranteed off a normal throw (and easy), it's basically a throw super...that doubles as the occasional dragon punch super if you really need it. Ironic that landing it is so easy that it's a better "throw super" than Zangief's, at least for me.
It's painful dealing with Zangief's bad-feeling jump, as if he is a flea of some sort, and not having his hop move. And not having his low fierce from Alpha 2 and 3. But his SPD is good, with jab having ridiculously long range (great!) but low damage. SPD startup time is 2 frames, which is bad for any other Street Fighter but buff in SF4 because other throws are so slow. Opponent trying link combos on you? Mash out a jab SPD and force them to have perfect timing. Lariat is also amazing, as it always is in just about every version of Street Fighter. I could be completely wrong about this, but Zangief seems strong against Rufus and Crimson Viper (see below), but against most characters, I feel like I only win when they make mistakes. I hear he is considered very strong, but I'm not sure how you'd beat a good Ryu or Sagat. There must be a million videos on that though.
My friend plays Crimson Viper, who seems like Crimson Eddie from Guilty Gear. Eddie can invite hell (the ground spike thing), frc (cancel), instant air dash slash. The effect is you get hit from below, then a split second later, hit from above. C.Viper can do the same thing with that ground punch thing that makes dust fly up from across the screen, cancelled into a super jump then into her air flame kick thing. If you do it right, this stuff hits very fast, indeed. She can also do a bunch of bullshit crossups with that air flame kick that beat out even dragon punches if she does it right (goes behind the dragon punch and hits it usually). Not to mention her slidey punch, short, slidey punch frame trap. If you do almost anything, you get hit by short into slidey punch. I think that's how it goes, I don't know exactly. I found that picking Zangief and doing lariat negates her entire bullshit crossup game, which is fine with me.
After the initial shock of how amazingly terrible Vega is, I kind of like him in a Dan sort of way. Winning with him seems like some kind of joke to humiliate the opponent. His roll is absurdly slow ("hey guys, I'm going to duck down and start rolling, what do you think of that?"). His wall dive is also an april fools joke, moving so slow and being so vulnerable as to as to inspire actual laughter from my opponents. A terrible flip kick and seemingly bad ultra round out his moves. That said, at least he has a decent slide, good pokes, and his good jump fierce and jump strong. On the one hand, it's sad to see him in this pathetic state, but on the other, I have to admit I had fun trying to scrape out wins with him against an onslaught of focus cancel combos and links and so forth. I don't even know a combo with Vega.
Bison's safe scissor kick seems dirty somehow. I'm always up for abusing a safe attack though so doing it all day is great. You do have to low jab, low jab, low jab, low short, scissor kick to play him though (or stick a low forward in there). I can do it somewhat ok. His slide is good, his scissor kick is good, his headstomp is pretty good. Too bad his psycho crusher is worse than even the greatly toned down version in Super Turbo. Also too bad that I can't seem to do his ultra without accidentally teleporting half the time. What's up with that? His ex scissor kick going through fireballs seems like overkill. It's not like fireballs are as powerful as in SF2 series, and he didn't need it there. His stand medium kick is a decent poke and his stand roundhouse is a great poke even though it's angled up (boo). Luckily, it has a totally wonky hitbox that allows hit to hit as if the graphics for it were straight out, instead of angled up.
I don't know what's up with Rose's links. Either I can't do them or her combos from Alpha 2 don't work anymore, I don't know. She seems ok. Her low strong is no longer the terror it used to be in Alpha 2, but her new semi-broken abuse is her Ultra. It slices, it dices, it makes toast. It hits jumping opponents, attacking opponents, throwing opponents, ultraing opponents. It's everything you could ever ask for in a move. Too bad I get qcf x 2 + PP instead of PPP half the time, which wastes my super meter and gets me killed because the super doesn't have a practically half screen hitbox like the Ultra. Remember kids, you always have an ultra in Street Fighter 4, so you might as well have one that hits anything on the screen, cleanly.
Some characters I'm pretty unhappy with, but at least some are fun. I really wish I could play a version without wonky jumps, way too floaty air recoveries, way too long knock downs, and the general "stuck in jello" feel that runs through the game. That would let the good parts shine more...
Reader Comments (102)
What's funny is that even though Sirlin is trying to say nice things about SF4, people are still stuck mostly on his criticisms. I have to say I'm glad Sirlin is commenting on SF4 in this manner because maybe the people in charge will start listening. (Which also happened when Sirlin pointed out flaws in WoW's design)
As for Fei Long in HD Remix, I gladly accept your challenge any time, any where. Maybe I'll become believer when I see you use him, but I doubt it. I'm not really afraid of him. My gamer tag is the same as my user name here.
I completely agree with your opinion that SF4 is very difficult on a technical scale. Many of the combos done in the Challenge mode are near impossible on game pad, which is aggravating, but from a market standpoint, this makes the arcade sticks very tempting to buy.
I personally would have put a buffer window at the end of non-cancelable attacks (about 1 or 2 frames) and made the dash out of Focus Attack only take one tap. I think that alone would make the game play feel more natural.
I also agree that the game play feels slower overall than other SFs. The strategy and tactics though are still there, so the speed doesn't actually bother me. It simply feels toned down.
One more thing I would like to say. Has anyone else been able to magically grab Balrog (Boxer) out of his charge punches? I was kidding around one day and tried to grab him out of it, and actually did it! I repeated it several times to be sure that it wasn't a fluke that I just happened to do this and I was able to. Anyone else been able to do this?
Man so many comments already.
It takes effort to make Vega win. His wall dive is completely new, but I've gotten used to it and I can hit people out of flash kicks, shoryukens, and occassionally beat Zangief's lariat but it might be random, dependant on whether his arm is extended towards you at the exact moment you swipe at him. The key is to get above the opponent (except for the lariat which you have to hit from the side), then Vega has great priority. Even his izuna drop has great priority if you're in the right position, and you can grab people out of jab shoryukens. After almost 200 matches online I still don't know exactly where I should be to grab someone in a wall dive or when to hit the button, but I know you have to be more above your opponent than in previous games.
His flip kick is pretty much dead, because he's vulnerable at the start now, and even at the top of the flip, some normal moves actually beat it outright, like Balrog's jumping fierce (I think, hard to tell when they're all punches).
Fierce roll is useless, but jab roll is fine.
His UC is powerful but hard to use. Since Vega is all about faking the opponent out and anticipating his reactions, the UC fits right in, because they can be doing any move almost anywhere on your screen and the UC will hit. If you're really fast I think you could react to an opponent throwing a fireball and hit him with the UC before he recovers.
At first I thought his Super was a complete waste of meter, but I figured out that you can hit punch way before you're in range of the throw, and when he gets in range he'll automatically start the suplexes. It's like he has a magical throw-range bubble around him. But again, you have to be above the opponent for it to grab.
The best use of EX meter has to be the EX wall dive. It's easy to surprise opponents with it and get a free izuna drop. Also Sagats get caught by it more easily because he's so damn tall. Vega's most damaging combo is probably MK into EX wall dive, but it's buggy right now and doesn't always go in the direction you press.
I'm not sure if his backflip is better than in HDR, but since he's weaker in general I'm using it much more often to trip opponents up, and escape corners. Without a respectable flip kick, he's got no other recourse.
The main thing about playing Vega is that the opponent can make many more mistakes than you can. I think I hit one opponent with 5 or 6 wall dives and he was only half dead. A mild damage boost to most of Vega's moves would bring him back to a competitive level.
''Did you ever consider that maybe all jumping in 2d-2.5d based fighters is going to be unnatural - I mean in real life a guy would just take one step to the left to avoid a projectile coming towards him or her! I think another factor is they look odd as the graphics are so heavilly updated and in 3d, whereas these jumps are regimented on a fixed plane.
Response by Sirlin: What? There's plenty of 2D fighting games with reasonable feeling jumps. There's no reason this game couldn't set velocity and acceleration values similar to some of those. It has nothing to do with whether the characters are rendered in 2D or 3D.''
You missed my point. You feel like the jumps are 'in jello', and you don't like that, fine, but not everyone feels the same. I think any fighting game fanatic's opinion on the subject is valid - so my point was made to find out why you don't like it. I now know the answer that, being that you don't like the velocity and acceleration values. Maybe I was coming across too literall to make the point clearly. It didn't call for 'What?' I mean come on man, I can almost see the screwed up face of dismissal you were pulling when you typed that!
I'm all over your forums, a long time lurker and fan - a quick question - do you not care about what people such as me think about what you write? The fact that you have a blog that people can comment on would say yes, but your tone sometimes says the opposite.
Response by Sirlin: I thought you were saying that "maybe it's impossible to make jumps feel right in 2.5d" which I took as a very crazy statement. I see that you didn't mean that though. Anyway, you have to understand that is a sea of people who have no idea what they are talking about, or who are purely full of ad hominem attacks for who-knows-what reason, so no I don't care what they think. There are also good thoughtful posts by some, so I hope the ratio will increase. It seems to only decrease over time though.
The problem is I really think Capcom wants to go away from Sirlin's direction, as do most other Japanese fighting game makers. A SF4 CE is very likely to come out, we'll see what changes are made. Hopefully they fix the motions and the other nagging issues, though I expect they'll just add some stupid gimmick that breaks the game. For a first effort, SF4 is excellent.
Part of me wonders what Sirlin thinks of KOF98UM. That game turned out very similar to HDR in its changes and balancing, though it kept AG in (2k2 UM didn't). AG was a way to avoid grabs by standing and crouching rapidly. They also really managed to improve the balance. Krauser was a dominant char- but not by that much.
Really, KOF98UM was a really well done and balanced game, one I'd like to see Sirlin review.
''Response by Sirlin: I thought you were saying that "maybe it's impossible to make jumps feel right in 2.5d" which I took as a very crazy statement. I see that you didn't mean that though. Anyway, you have to understand that is a sea of people who have no idea what they are talking about, or who are purely full of ad hominem attacks for who-knows-what reason, so no I don't care what they think. There are also good thoughtful posts by some, so I hope the ratio will increase. It seems to only decrease over time though.''
Well I appreciate the response - you couldn't really be blamed for thinking I was adopting the attitude of the people you describe above if you didn't quite get what I was saying (which I admit was a bit too literal and was I suppose meant to be read as 'jumping in 2.5D fighting games will always feel unnatural as the characters are not making use of the 3D space'') - and couple that with the fact your dead right about those people existing, and I understand your slightly riled response to my comment . Hopefully you've read some of my posts on the forum and know that's not true of me.
Anyway let me try and add something a little thoughtful: I think so many people our enamored with SF4 based on their relationship with the series growing up, that hearing such succinct criticism - fair or not -so close after the release burns them, and they spit the dummy. That aint your fault man. These people wrongly take your words about SF4 as a personal insult, instead of a positive thing, as I do - that being that without someone who knows what they are talking about (and who people listen to) pointing out what could be better about the game, future iterations will not make those improvements. I think if you want to avoid the mindless hating you’re getting in spades with articles, you should make that point, that you want the game to be as fun as possible, in your writing.
"you have to understand that is a sea of people who have no idea what they are talking about, or who are purely full of ad hominem attacks for who-knows-what reason"
Now, now, when I read your comments, in general, many people aren't all that offensive. Sometimes comments can, and should be, somewhat provocative, because they want to bait out reactions. There's a difference between that and it being ad hominem attacks, however. Although many people do, it cant' al be:
"We respect you, and we don't mean harm, but maybe, just maybe, perhaps could you possibly look into this arguement..."
Okay, that might be exaggerated, but you get the general point.
Then again, there are always gits who can't post and add no value to any discussion or topic with their mindless rants.
That said, it's amazing enough you'd take time to read through all these messages, but after all, that's why there's the ability to comment, and somewhere I'm thinking you're more than happy to... ;)
I'm really wondering what it would feel like when it wouldn't have an 'in jello' feel. Not that I think it HAS an 'in jello' feel, they just don't jump as fast as they used to. I'd just like to be able to see what you consider to be NOT in jello in motion to grasp the concept and ideas behind your criticism. The same as they used to be? I'm trying to get my head around how that looks, but can't, really.
Response by Sirlin: These things would make it less "in jello"-like. Knockdown doesn't last ridiculously long. This stops the action uncomfotably long. Recovery at the end of throws isn't so long. Takes too long to get back into the action. (Really, look at vega's throw and how even when the action part of him throwing is over, it takes an extra half second or or second or something before you can fight. This contributes to a sluggish feel.) When you get hit out of the air, you flip around in place, then fall. This increases the time between the hit and the time when the victim character will eventually land and be ready to fight again. Even though it's a small time difference from falling in other games, it contributes to a sluggish feel. Making the playfield much smaller would help too. Try fighting a cammy who can dash back, dash back, over and over and see how faaaaar you have to move forward to actually get to her. The length of time it takes to even get to a runaway opponent is unusually long, and this makes it feel like "why...haven't...I...reached...opponent...yet." Those are few examples at least.
Firstly want to say that I think you did a 95% great job with HDRemix (except that Sagat, Akuma and Honda are too powerful).
Regarding SFIV; I can appreciate a lot of your points but at the moment I'm still trying to learn the game. I think for casual players there's a lot to immediately like about the game. However, I do miss the "crispness" of HDRemix; where you can have a frantic and fast game of Street Fighter. The pacing of SFIV is (probably intentionally) much slower and considered. I'm also finding the hitboxes a little harder to predict; sometimes it appears that a low kick should be hitting your opponent but doesn't (Cammy immediately springs to mind).
What they've done to Vega in SFIV makes me wanna cry. Not only have they made him a much worse character (possibly the weakest), they also seem to have camped-up his victory yodel.
hahah hella people don't get the main points of the posts.
oh well.
there are so many shit capcom could have done to make both the single and multiplayer games much much better. however, i'll go with the unofficial word that capcom was too pressed for time to release this ASAP (both for the arcade a few months ago and console a few weeks ago) that they really didn't have too much time to make it as great as it could have...
hoping everything that's been brought up so far could be fixed in the next version.. a patch perhaps?
Randoms,
I tried him, and the people I played with seemed to agree. I should note that we're all scrubby casual players, but I just couldn't get him to work for me. Every character has changed to some degree, sure, but Vega isn't a "good different" to me. Honda also feels all wrong to me.
Again, this isn't coming from anything approaching a high level perspective.
So where are the positives? ;)
Response by Sirlin: I explained the various fun I had and neat things like Gouken's design...
Capcom didn't use the proper networking architecture (lags and delays in the online experience). Why on EARTH wouldn't they? If I didn't know better, I would sum that up to being absolutely ignorant on their part. That button press lag is laughable. Idiotic. It's worse than idiotic.
The reason you're likely finding your signal to noise ratio going down from posters is because you're now 'gaming news' since you released HD Remix. Whereas before only people who cared about discussing game design and competitive gaming may have come across your site you now have gaming news blogs and other sources linking to here with potentially sensationalist headlines causing people who are quick to judge or unable to understand what you are saying to jump on you. Perfect example are mentions like: http://www.destructoid.com/hd-remix-designer-has-beef-with-street-fighter-iv-122783.phtml
Response by Sirlin: that's pretty sad. Almost every post is an ad hominem attack. Disappointing to see everyone's inability to respond to a claim by talking about the claim itself. It seems very popular to say that I'm somehow not allowed to make the claim in the first place. People are also very confused by me being involved in SF HD Remix. My posts on SF4 would be exactly identical if I had never been involved in any SF game at all, but that seems lost on everyone too.
The ratio of bad to good comments will always rise. That's just the nature of the internet - most people are dumb and even the "smart" people only think they're smart.
A SF4 question: Have you messed around with Rose standing forward? It seems really absurd, like crazy fast with bs fast recovery, like a Balrog normal or something, and has a very nice hitbox. You can probably link something after it too, it recovers too damn fast.
Can someone please explain to me why old school 2D players think that any game that doesn't play at meth-addict speed is too "slow" or "floaty"?
SF4 (HD?) Remix!
I would pay for it. The changes you made to ST were great. If Capcom plans on making another version of SF4, I think everyone would like for you to get involved in that. Simplifying the inputs and technique required would make it easier for new players, and I think pros would have more exciting matches. If things stay too difficult to do, SF4 will end up like MvC2 where a select few who can do these outrageous combos will take everything.
One thing you didn't mention that may be the best thing about Street Fighter 4 - It brought about this resurgence into fighting games. SRK is always flooded, copies are flying off shelves, and joysticks are selling like crazy. I don't doubt that EVO will be huge this year. The game's not perfect, but it's definitely what the genre needed.
Response by Sirlin: I'm definitely happy about that, yes.
just a quick tip on character selection, you never know when the opponent actually select his fighter. you can select a guy (x on ps3 pad) and go back (square) real fast wait for the opponent choose his guy : color, quote and personal action to select another... i'd have preferred a simple and fast blind selection but this tip kind of fix the problem. select sagat go back wait (as long as you feel needed) and select the fighter you want to use.
Response by Sirlin: Just a note that many people specifically requested that HD Remix NOT support deselecting your character after you select it (and it doesn't). SF Hyper Fighting did allow this and it lead to endless counter picking on the character select screen in online matches. Note to the people who have trouble understanding these comments: my point isn't some sort of proof of the relative quality of HD Remix and SF4. My point is that deselecting characters after they are chosen in online matches was considered a very bad idea by everyone I asked last year.
Hi David,
I agree with everything you have said.
P.S. - I hope you are involved with the SSF2 HD Remix patch. Hopefully you can make that an even better game (fixing glitches like Dhalsim's teleport, I hate teleporting and reappearing in the same place :-(
"Response by Sirlin: Tournaments in the US (meaning tournaments where you do not have to play the same character the entire time) are double blind. Anyone can request a double blind pick during game 1. So double blind in ranked matches would more closely represent a tournament, not less closely represent it. In game 2, the winner must stay and loser can switch. There is no game 2 in online ranked matches though."
Sorry about that. I played in a couple tournaments a number of years ago and they didn't have double blind matches, but the tourneys themselves weren't all that official, now that I think about it. My bad.
Great post. Hopefully a number of these changes will find their way into the inevitable Street Fighter 4: Championship Edition.
the only thing that i absolutely hate about the game is the link timing; doing some of the hard-trial combos makes me want to shove an icicle through my eye. although, if they were easier people would actually be using them, and i'd be bitching about the average length of usable-combos in the game being too long. but this way it just feels like a vestigial appendage that at no point became genuinely core to the game nor cancerous enough to be cut out. maybe a few years of play will change my mind.