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Tomorrow night I’m attending a Street Fighter IV media event, the “highlight” of which will be a tournament involving a whole bunch of games journalists battling it out. Trouble is – gulp! – I’ve not played Street Fighter IV. In fact – sorry, it gets worse – I’ve never ever, not even once, played any Street Fighter game at all. Help!
What advice would you give to a total Streeties novice? Which character should I choose? What strategy should I utilise? And, erm… which button does what?
Generally, when I used to play Street Fighter 2 and was losing, I could turn the entire fight around and win by using the controller as a weapon to bludgeon the person I was playing against.
You will find as I did in my youth, that when standing next to someone at an arcade machine you are a perfect distance/height location to provide a crippling stomp kick to the side of their knee. Destroying the joint and putting them out of competition all together.
if its a sit down machine I’d suggest the precariously perched jumbo frozen coke that can be toppled with a flick of the wrist.
It is of these skills that arcade champions are made. Although the jumbo coke trick resulted in me once receiving a pool cue to the back of the head in an underground arcade in Perth. Watch out for that.
Use Ryu or Ken. E. Honda is one of the simpler close-fighting characters. There is a move list in the pause menu. Try mastering Ryu’s moves in Training Mode, then attempt Arcade mode on easiest. There is also a challenge mode which will force you to attempt a sequence of attacks that grows more complicated with each successive challenge. Beyond that, find another noob to fight against.
I think it’s time to hand in your video-game journalist badge. At least the video-game part of it 😛
Hahahaha…ooooooooh David, all those days reading Hyper, thinking you were l33t. No matter what character yoy play as it’s always a good technique to try and land a heavy kick in air while your opponent is on the ground and then follow up with a low kick when you land, a flurry of light attacks up close are also a good idea if the enemy is low on HP. Also, EX attacks are your friend. Last thing is use Ryu if you’ve never played before, everyone knows how to do a Hadouken.
Hey there.
Well, I haven’t played IV yet, but on the other street fighters, moves are pretty much similar. Stick with Ryu or Ken they have the simplest.
– Down, down forward, forward
(Or quarter turn forward) + punch = Hadoken.
– Quarter turn from forward to down, and quarter
turn forward straight after + punch = Shooooooooooryuuken!!!!
– quarter turn from down to back + kick = Whirlwind Kick.
O yes, and block a LOT. Blocking is moving away from the enemy (holding back the joystick. However this may be different in IV, I don’t know. Might be a block button..
Hope this was helpful.
While I’m by no means an expert on SF, we do have a MAME machine setup in the server room at work with some sticks and we do get plenty of novices coming in and playing during lunch-times and after work.
The secret is, novices can generally do as well as the moderately skilled players because novices stick to their strengths. Spamming attacks can be just as effective as getting off decent combos/specials/supers especially against people who can’t always pull off their moves.
Controls are really simple.
Joystick dictates movement and you have a set of 6 buttons – 2 rows of 3 – which dictate attacks. The two rows are separated into punches(top row) and kicks(bottom row) and go left to right from Light, Medium and Heavy.
If you press both light attacks simultaneously you will preform a throw. If you press both medium attacks together you will perform a focus move (introduced with SF4). Both heavy attacks will perform a personal taunt (don’t bother with this).
SF4 has two power bars which grow as you hit and opponent and as you get hit by opponents.
For the total SF novice I’d recommend Chun-li, who is quite fast. I’d recommend her mainly because she has an easy special, which you can just spam any kick. The great thing about this is that you can perform an EX special (more damage / but reduces one of your power bars in SF4) quite easily by spamming two different powered kicks together.
If you can get a few hours practice in before you a dropped in the tournament and you think you can handle some quarter circle moves (D->DF-F+Punch or D->DB->B+Kick), then I’d probably recommend Ken or Ryu, both who are generally considered the “average” characters in terms of speed/strength. I’d still recommend sticking to spamming, but try and get a few specials in their once-in-a-while to throw people off guard.
Goodluck!
Use Zangief and press all 3 punches / 3 kicks. Alot of people do not know how to counter this move, will proceed to get destroyed by it and call it ‘cheap’.
@ hayden
Never been a fan of fighting games, to be honest. My gaming youth was mostly spent playing console platformers and shooters and PC RPGs and adventures.
Mate, I’m afraid that unless you’re a video game savant, you’re pretty much screwed.
I’ve played SF casually over the years, bought SF4 as it looked fantastic, and holds a certain nostalgia. I’ve been playing the arcade mode on easy and it’s totally kicking my ass. The PS3 controller doesn’t help, I hope you have access to an arcade stick as this will help out a lot.
Let us know how you go 🙂
Resign yourself to a loss now. You can’t win against a hardened SF fan, of which I’m sure there are a few in the Aussie games journo community.
Mash the buttons and have fun! Block by moving away from your opponent. Ground sweep by pressing down and heavy kick. Pick up a couple of simple moves and try using them (with EHonda or Blanka, repeatedly tap one of the punches – with ChunLi repeatedly tap one of the kicks). Don’t jump, it’ll get you killed =)
Oh.. that reminds me: http://www.splitreason.com/blog/?p=1343
If you’re using a controller and a simple character. I’d recommend binding Light Punch, Heavy Punch, Light Kick and Heavy Kick to the pad. Focus attack to left bumper, grab to left trigger, triple punch to the right bumper and triple kick the the right trigger.
If an opportunity presents itself to grab the opponent, you can just quickly press left trigger. Having focus attack bound to a single button also makes it easier for new players, otherwise they tend not to use it!
Oh I forgot to mention: don’t get too close to someone, you can’t block throws! So either throw them or get the hell out of there =)
mash light kick..
mash it while in the air, while standing or while crouching 😛
Use Sagat if you want an advantage. He’s statistically superior, and his ultra is pretty easy to pull off.
The old saying rings true here. Keep it simple! Your NEVER going to master all the intricate strategies/commands in such a tight timeframe – that can only come with YEARS of practice! My advice would be to pick ONE character- Possibly someone like E.Honda or Blanka, learn their basic moves and combos (this can be done easily enough via the challenge mode), and play against the computer in arcade mode for a while until you can (a)pull off the moves/combos and (b) do so in a ‘real world’ situation (its pointless to master a combo in training mode, only to panic and not be able to pull it off against a moving target). Advice – Make sure you keep your eyes focused on your opponent. If you are using a ‘charge’ character (such as the ones I suggested) make sure you hold back on your joystick/pad as much as possible so as you can pull off a move at a moments notice. Charging down/back (crouching) is a good idea, as you are not constantly retreating AND you can pull off a back – forward move or a down – up move.
Above all else have fun!
Choose Blanka. Hold Down+back and wait.
If they fireball press down+forward+Heavy Punch, you’ll slide under the fireball and maybe hit them.
If they jump in start mashing punch to get electricity.
After they realise fireballs don’t work, hit forward+2 punches after holding down+back for blanka ball.
Works great for me online!
Hey mate, I’d suggest you sit down with the game and a mate and practice. That’s the easies way to get better. I’m a ryu player for well over 13 years now so he/ken were v.easy to pick up in SF4. Tying to play as any of the new characters though was like haveing NO previous experience at all the moves and strats were so different.
I can now report that after 3 nights of playign online and with mates I’m a pretty adequate C.Viper player… whereas when I started I couldn’t even land a hit most fights.
It’s a pretty intuitive game once you get going… just need to prac.
Go Ken or Akuma… though Akuma might be a bit tricky cuz he takes so much damage.
Here’s my cheaps from Champion Edition days:
Choose Guile.
Hold back and down for a couple of seconds, then push forward and a punch button at the same time to do a sonic boom.
Hold down and back again straight away, and get ready for another. This way, you’re already blocking if the sonic missed, unless your opponent jumps at you. If they jump at you, you can either move to hold back (not down and back) and be in the standing block position to block the high shot, or you can go from holding down and back to pushing up and kick at the same time to hit them with a blade while they’re in mid air.
First thing first is to buy a decent controller. That is if you can find one. Have not been lucky in Perth yet!
Pretend you’re playing DOA – mash a bunch of buttons and hope for the best. I managed to beat my gf who was a veteran at Tekken 2 on PSOne and that was the first time I played it. It was also the last and she never let me touch the game again…she made me sign a contract
I’m hoping I get drawn against you tonight in the first round. It’ll be easy to make it to the 2nd round that way. And then I hope I get drawn against Darren in the 2nd round so I can make it to the third, and so forth.
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