Welcome to my blog!
That cheesyness out of the way, let’s get to business. This blog is about Streetfighter IV, M. Bison (in it!) and my exploits thereof. Let me give you some of my fighting game background so you can see the perspective this blog is comming from:
I have been a competitive Super Streetfighter 2 Turbo (ST for short) player since around February of 2007. I have been an active member of shoryuken.com forums since 2001 so I have been aware and interested in the competitive aspects of fighting games for a long time, but it was not until then that I was able to join/build up a local scene so I could play a fighting game with the express purpose of getting as good as possible at it.
Prior to this, my main competition was scrubbing it as a kid in various SF and SNK games at the arcade, and actually making a somewhat decent name for myself (Airthrow) on kaillera playing randoms in KOF 98 and KOF 2002. I still am pretty decent at KOF, and will always have been an SNK player first, but for tournament purposes I think Streetfighter is one of the best fighting game series of all time.
You can find some videos of me playing ST on my youtube account, though all of those videos are pretty old and even in ST I am a dictator player instead of a boxer player now.
Now, onto SFIV:
My first experience playing the game was the beta arcade Viewlix cabinet that Capcom setup for play at Evo 2008. The lines for these machines were SWAMPED, and I was either too busy with my ST tournaments and casual play/practice or I just was too exhausted to wait up to an hour just to get one turn at a game I didn’t know how to play. Being a boxer player back then, the only two games I got in were with Balrog, and I lost both due to trying to use ST tactics with him. This is impossible due to how much slower Boxer is in SFIV than ST, and things like d/f kickrush>throw trick not existing in the game, and the timing on all of the combos being radically different even if the notation was the same. Needless to say my impression of the game was very hesitant, but I knew I would wait for a wider arcade release before passing judgement. My friend Paul Lee got a huge win streak at Evo with Rufus, so I was expecting him to be broken as hell. Oh, how naive we are when a game just comes out.
Fast forward a bit, and Narrows bowling alley in Tacoma gets an SFIV cabinet, and people organize Monday Night Fights. Huge crowds gather to play the game, and the rotation takes roughly 45 minutes before you get another turn. But this is with all Seattle local fighting game scenesters, so it’s hilarious and worth the wait. I have real trouble adapting to IV’s nuances though. For one, this cabinet is FAR, FAR from ideal. It has a hybrid American/Japanese control scheme where it has a Happ joystick and a curved Japanese button layout, but with Happ buttons. Also, the stick and buttons are EXTREMELY far away from each other, so it feels very hard to coordinate buttons with stick movements at first. Plus the sticks just aren’t that great.
At Tacoma Narrows I think my highest legit winstreak is still maybe 5 or 6, not bad but not good either.
Skip ahead a bit, and now Console SFIV has been out since February 17th for two weeks or so. I requested the 17-20th off from work, taking two extra days off of my normal work week so I could practice for the tournament on the 20th. With my custom Sanwa stick and an SFIV TE stick at my disposal, I finally learn a few combos, stop using Akuma, and focus on Bison Bison Bison, so that I can be comfortable with my character come tournament time.
I get a few bread and butters down such as cr. mk>scissors, J. Rh, cr. jab, st. lk, cr. mk, scissors, and a few others, learn to abuse the HELL out of EX Headstomp for extreeeeme amounts of invincibility, cheese damage, and priority, and also learn how to run the heck away with Devil’s Reverse and teleports. I go into the tournament pretty confident.
I did decently, making it to tie for 7th out of a 32 man tournament where a lot of the top 8 had more experience with the game than I had, due to not being able to justify spending $60 a night on SFIV at the arcade anymore. I also learned a lot about Dictator on the fly as far as what makes him different from his ST encarnation:
Zangief Matchup: This matchup is harder in some ways, easier than others when compared to ST. In SFIV, it seems ridiculously easier for Gief to throw you than ever, if he blocks any of your jabs or light kicks at all, he gets reversal SPD effortlessly. Also unlike ST, Bison slide loses to lariat, which goes against all of my ST instincts. Punishing lariats with headstomp is still the same, but cr. mk seems more dangerous to throw. Spam st. RH to snuff…everything short of greenhand.
Ryu matchup: It is MUCH more hazardous in SFIV to jump at Ryu than it ever was in ST. I have experienced things that I find ridiculous, like meaty crossing up Ryu on wakeup, trading with my jump in with one of his attacks (it came out too fast to register which one), me bouncing away, and then him getting a free ultra juggle. This is a completely ridiculous situation for me as an SFII player, where I should be rewarded well with little risk for deep-dish crossing up Ryu, but there you go. I feel like Ryu punishes harder than Bison when they do exchanges in this game, giving Ryu a hefty edge, but maybe I am missing something.
Guile: I don’t think this matchup is the same because I think that SFIV characters start a bit farther away from each other than in ST. For example IMMEDIATELY after “Round 1, FIGHT!” in ST, if Bison hits St. RH and Guile sonic booms, Bison will either kick Gilly cleanly out of it, or at worst, trade hits where they both stagger away from each other, but Bison does more damage in the exchange.
This meta-game doesn’t exist in SFIV. Also Bison’s heavy st. RH no longer hits a ducking Gilly…I will have to analyze the match more. I think Bison rapes more in SFIV in this matchup than ST, simply because Gilly does crap damage and because EX headstomp punishes booms for FAT damage. Also, when Guile does the 2 hit cr. RH, after blocking the first hit you can either ULTRA the heck out of him, or stuff the second hit with cr. lk, which is good to know. The matchup seems heaps easier in this game just because you can SADC booms from a distance if Guile doesn’t Guilty Gear it and chase after it.
Sagat: Recovers amazingly well from tiger shots to Tiger Uppercut you for trying to headstomp him. I get the feeling that good Sagats will be very difficult to get around, but I definitely need to study this matchup.
Boxer/Balrog: I think the proper way to play this is probably to run away, but that sure hasn’t worked for me against a good boxer player locally. All of Boxer’s moves seem to break armor, so saving attacks don’t work well at all, his rushes are all super fast and I’m not sure whether scissors consistently beats them or if it’s a tossup based on timing. Because of Dic’s crap horizontal range on his ultra it’s very hard to punish Rog for poking. I feel like boxer has the definite advantage, especially with retarded things like buffalo headbutt> ultra which rapes all my floaty jumps. I definitely would like advice on this match.
Blanka: I hate fighting blanka more than any other REAL character in all of fighting games (HDR Akuma is not a real character). His bite throw has ridiculous magical properties in every game. In SFIV he seems easy enough to handle with bison though. Jab beats even EX horizontal blanka ball(? WHY?)… electricity beats EX and regular headstomp admittedly. This matchup is probably roughly even I would think, pretty fun to play actually.
E. Honda: in HDR fighting Honda with Dictator is only moderately worse an experience than going to the dentist and getting a root canal while the dental assistant randomly kicks you in the balls at varying intervals. There was no intelligent way to go about it: Try for a crossup combo and if you land, you should win. If Honda isn’t an idiot and blocks properly, he will command throw you and probably win. The onus is on Dictator to actually do something, because Honda can just sit on jab headbutt all day and enjoy the nice weather on the fighting stage. The only surefire move you have that beats his is jab psycho crusher against headbutts, however you have to do yours psychically because if he headbutts first your startup is too slow to beat him out, in which case you will eat at least 3 more chips for your mistake, or worse.
This matchup seems much easier in SFIV possibly due to a more complex game engine, or maybe I am just fighting sucky random online Hondas. Time will tell.
Today was a progressive day skill wise simply because I actually bothered to learn how to do my combos off of saving attacks. I knew there was a trick to saving attack> dash forward>(insert normal attack)> Scissors or Psycho crusher, but I actually bothered to learn them:
Charge your saving attack, and either input the dash motion as you hit the opponent (to hit confirm), or just input the dash when you see Bison step forward for the saving attack. Only input the dash command ONCE, then immediately hold back. Since you buffered the dash, as soon as Bison lands the SA, he will dash, and by that time you will nearly have your charge, then do either st. fierce, low forward, or cr. jabx2>cr. MK and then Scissor kick.
On top of the scissor kick, in ANY combo (saving attack or not) you can cancel the first hit into his super. However, the player has to consider that in most cases, having stocks of EX meter for Headstomps is almost better than the damage from the super. So consider:
-Will the super in this situation really decide the match, or should I save my EX for later rounds?
-Will the super impede my defensive options on wakeup later?
-Do I need an EX move to trade or beat an opponent’s EX move?
I would say in most cases the Super is worth it for damage alone, but I can also imagine situations where I would keep the meter for insurance policy in later rounds. Sometimes you really NEED to do multiple EX headstomps in a row.
In summary by far my most powerful character right now is Bison, and I am having a blast using him. I think his pokes are amazing, his runaway game is actually better than Akuma’s, his super and Ultra are great, and he has realistic and fun combos. He can be played both aggressively and defensively when needed.
Are there better Saving attack combos that don’t take any meter? What is the biggest damage crossup combo Bison has? Which matchups does he RAPE in, and which does he have the toughest time in? What uses do his neutral jump normals have?
Provided by the IT training and IT trainingteam at computer training teams.
