Street Fighter: Get Hype? GTFO.

My name is Ryan Truman, also known in many fighting game communities as Kurai Ryu. I hope to use this medium to educate and inspire fighting game players across the country, perhaps internationally, to take the next step in their fighting game careers, and learn how to play Tekken right. In order to do so, we need to take a look at the competition – the most popular of which is Street Fighter IV. I will do my best to observe this topic objectively. In the end, you may even be able to use SFIV as not just another fighting game, but a stepping stone into the 3d fighting game world.

Let it be known that this is the first and only time I will be comparing any two games to each other preemptively on this site. This is my rant on Street Fighter. Check this out: I have been playing fighting games since before I can even remember – wait, no I can remember. I had the option when I was in elementary school of picking up Vectorman or Super SFII for SNES at the local retail store, and I opted for Street Fighter. This may or may not have been a pivotal moment in my fighting game career. I got sucked into the game immediately, even though I was playing on pad etc. I could do hadouken, tatsumaki, and every now and then even scrub out a shoryu. I liked the game because it seemed pretty easy to me at the time. I will reflect upon this notion later.

Moving on, point is: I’ve been playing a long time, and they’ve always been my favorite games. Now, if anyone’s going to hate for this little rant of mine, so be it, but know that I love all fighting games (for the most part) and I mean everything I say sincerely, so hear me out.

Street Fighter is mad easy – especially Street Fighter 4. Oh snap, provocative material, eh? Yeah I figured. Why is it easy? Let’s break it down:

- Lack of versatility in the move list.
- Over-usefulness of special moves.
- Panic Moves/Get out of Jail Free Cards. AKA the EX cancel system.
- “Match-ups”
- Ridiculously simple execution.
- Parlor tricks, and how easy they are to pick up.
- The gap between Beginner, Intermediate, Expert, Pro, and JPN
- Damage Scaling and the problems therein.
- Lack of reward for the “harder” characters to play/No way to play one character unless it’s Sagat. See also *Matchups.

I’ll be reviewing all of these as much as possible. Not all will be covered in this blog in particular, mostly because it will just take too long – but I want to speak from the heart and not just college essay style blogging. It’s difficult to talk about it because a lot of my friends love Street Fighter very much – they took me under their wings when I was picking the game up for the first time and I learned with them. To be honest, though, I’m already sick of the game. I’ve totally lost all hype I had for it. I even look down upon it now that I know the system well enough. The fact that I’ve picked up one of the hardest characters (Crimson Viper) in such a short amount of time, can do any “pro” link or string I can find after just a couple of tries (even though I know it’s not the same as doing them in a tournament or whatever, but it’s still a bit of a turnoff that it’s so incredibly easy to pull off). The execution is, again, simple as hell. If any of these players picked up Tekken and saw the amount of movement you need to survive all the time, they’d probably just shrug the game off like they were too good for it (I’ve seen it happen). I’m not even going to start on VF, a game that I don’t play seriously anymore only because of the lack of scene.

Because of the lack of simplicity Tekken and VF have, the mind games become deeper. It becomes more than a cute little game of rocks/paper/scissors, which is what I currently consider SF. I know that’s really harsh, but I used to think the same about Tekken when I first picked up VF. I know the mind games get extremely deep, and your knowledge of the system and each character’s specific moves can make SF incredibly complex, but the line between Intermediate and Pro just seems like it isn’t really that big. Learn a few tricks against a certain character, and be able to somewhat hit confirm a few things, and suddenly you’re an anti-(insert character name). I don’t know… It just doesn’t spark my fancy. In Tekken, you can pick any character, and the tier list isn’t determined by what special moves beat out the biggest amount of other characters’ special moves. It’s based upon the quality of their moves as a whole – meaning who has the widest range of tools. Who has good quick tracking moves to catch side-steppers, who has a safer launcher, does it launch crouchers, who’s moves stun on counterhit, do they have good wall carrying moves, do they wall splat, do they crush high, crush low, sabaki (or parry) punches or kicks, give a certain amount of frame advantage on block or on hit, set up for a free hit, slam down for a bound combo, and more. See how many things I named just now off the top of my head? All of those things are natural things we (3d players) have to worry about all the time. You need to know every single move in any particular opponent’s arsenal, and their attributes. You literally have to memorize the frame data of everyone’s moves – or at least the practical, most used ones. It may seem unrealistic, but you just memorize as you go – you ask questions when you get hit by something, try to react, and suddenly you’re getting juggled. That’s how you learn: Trial and Error.

To be fair, let’s look at some of the gripes Street Fighter players have on Tekken. First and foremost: the juggle system. Tekken is a game where certain moves called launchers have properties to send you into the air upon hit. This sets up for a succession of moves that, if performed correctly, put together a nice beefy little combo. These combinations can do anywhere from 20-45% of your life bar normally, depending on a vast array of variables.  A lot of Street Fighter players get pissed at the idea that launchers are such an easy way to win. Perhaps at low to mid level play, this is true. However, at high-mid to high level play, Tekken is a game solely based upon pokes. First, though, let’s make a comparison; what is more boring? Launching an opponent into an involving combo that needs variation depending on the wall location, breakable ground location, and whether or not you want to initiate an okizeme mix up? Or scoring an ultra, which takes up just as much damage, but is free. Street Fighter players would argue: “But you don’t throw out random ultras!” This is true, but think about this for a moment. You can score an ultra from a safe, hit confirmable jab string! You will never see any damage this easy in Tekken. Every launcher in Tekken can either be punished hard, or is quite evadable in one way or another.  There is a risk/reward system inplicated in every single move you do in Tekken. There is 0 risk of throwing out a jab string, realizing the string connected, then EX canceling out of a Shoryu into free Ultra damage. The only launcher in Tekken that you are allowed to complain about (other than Bryan’s taunt f~b+2, but you won’t have to worry about that until high level play) are Hop kicks. Hop kicks serve as launchers, and what are called crush moves. Hop kicks serve as low crushers, meaning that if you throw out a low move, and some crouching moves such as a low jab, the move will be crushed by the hopkick, and you will be launched. Hopkicks are still punishable, but the risk/reward factor is almost non-existant here. Of course, good players will almost always block random hopkicks, but there are always random moments in any game where shenanigans happen. I call this the “Shoryuken/DP(Dragon Punch)” of the game, because it is the biggest source of shenanigans in the entire game. Still, weigh that against Shoryukens, which can be EX canceled at any time as long as you have bar, and it just adds more inconsistency to the game mechanics, thus inspiring less solid play. In Tekken, you have to work for your damage through accurate spacing, poking, punishing, and throwing out launchers only when you’re certain they will land. If you’re satisfied with free safe strings into half life combos, then by all means go back to SF.

Continuing, every character has an average of … let’s say for simplicity’s sake, about 65 moves. That’s a lot of shit to memorize, considering there are about 40 characters in the game. But that’s what makes this fun. The amount of knowledge you have in the game and your ability to react and execute properly in accordance to that knowledge determines your skill level, not how many parlor tricks can you counter on reaction. It’s very execution-intensive, not that Street Fighter isn’t… I just think Street Fighter gives you too much time to think. Half of each match is either spent on the other side of the stage throwing fireballs to check your opponent, or in the middle of a bajillion frame throw-break animation, or spent half a screen appart dancing to what some people call “spacing” and “footsies”, but to me just looks like well-placed jumping or moving back and forward. It’s very boring to me after the first thousand matches or so. The block string system is pretty retarded. You use a combination of “one frame link” attacks that aren’t really one frame links to put imaginary pressure on your opponent, while the only thing to be feared is a tick into throw, or… wait, that’s the only thing to be feared. Pretty lame.

That leads me onto another subject that I will expand on more in one of my later submissions. Just Frames. This is a term originally used for an attack that has exactly a one frame window as your margin of error to execute an attack. Now, this may not sound that crazy, but let’s break it down a bit. Modern games run at 60fps (Frames Per Second) for the most part. Now, if you have one frame to execute an attack, that means you have 1/60th of a second. Yeah, now is it sinking in? I can’t name a single thing in Street Fighter that has that strict of a window to execute anything. MAYBE El Fuerte’s infinite, but even that might be double-tappable. The fact that double tapping even exists in a game means that just frames aren’t even possible. The rewarding things about True JF’s is you must execute perfectly, or your desired result does not occur, and often even backfires – so it’s a make or break situation. This means, if you miss your mark, you get no reward, and you’re often put at a disadvantageous situation because of it. Not in Street Fighter! If you miss the first tap, you can just tap that button again and it will register as a hit. RETARDED. This promotes zero execution proficiancy. You’re basically scrubbing it out all day. Can you tell people’s jabbering on this issue has caused me some irritation? Let’s move on…

I feel the only way I can really know what Street Fighter is about is to throw the “unique, fun, personalized” towel of the game in, and just say fuck it and pick up Sagat(aka God). Then, the real mind games can begin, because I’ll be playing against people with the same abilities – because anyone who wants to be really good, in the end, knows they have to either pick up Sagat or learn some really good anti-Sagat strats. I was pretty disappointed to hear one of the best players in New England, Nestor, dropped the idea that he and I shared, to be incredibly flashy C.Vipers who just say fuck it and rush down all day with crazy mix ups… basically like Makoto from 3S (my character as well, hehe) all to become another player in the much-adored Sagat Army. I suppose I can’t blame him. Viper’s game has too many holes. The amount of times you have to out-guess your opponent is far greater than the amount of times they have to out-guess you for the most part. Not even going to start on the balance issues – mostly because there will never be a fighting game without them.

My conclusion: Street Fighter is mad easy. I don’t like easy games. It gets boring, really quickly. People get frustrated for the wrong reasons in this game. It’s a game backed up by some of the scrubbiest of casual players in the fighting game world. Anybody can pick up Street Fighter. Anybody. Why don’t you challenge yourself, and TRY a 3d seriously? Or, stay in ignorance. It’s your choice. You will never know what it’s like to practice a True Just Frame for days – weeks, then finally nail it for the first time at a tournament and have the crowd go wild.

Get Hyped fellas… Tekken 6 is coming.

more coming soon…

-tekkurai