What defines each character?

Helvetica

Hi! :) I'm a new player to SSFIVAE, and I have a long question to ask.

I don't know what character to play. However, this is not going to be a "choose my main" thing.

There are a lot of characters and I don't know what makes each one special or what defines each character.

Would it be possible to post maybe a short bit about the unique qualities of each character? That way, I can make a much more informed decision on who to main and I can discover for myself what my playstyle is.

Thank you very much! :)

Trouble Brewing

Check out the SRK strategy guide. There are brief write ups on everyone that has what you're looking for.

http://wiki.shoryuken.com/Super_Street_Fighter_IV_AE

Helvetica

Thank you so much! Can't believe I forgot about that.

Komatik

Some corrections/addenda as I see them:
Gouken - zoner with great fireball game that can punish opponent's mistakes big time. Deals stun by the boatload. Vulnerable on wakeup.
Gen - A solid footsie/fundamentals character, a good amount of gimmicks that work on many because people don't know the gimmicks. Very hard to learn.
Sakura - Is that combo still going? I guess I might go grab a coffee while hoping she drops her combo.
Oni - A guy who does everything, but not anything quite well enough. Doesn't really win vs. anyone, but doesn't lose horribly either. A bit of an uphill battle all around. Has the potential to go batshit insane with long pressure strings if he manages to open the opponent up.
Dhalsim - You must be on point all match long. One mistake can make you lose. One of those characters that seems to have a limitless skill ceiling if you put in the effort and are able to stay calm.
Bison - As an addendum he is hell to pin down if he has meter simply because he has so bloody many wakeup options nothing can cover them all.
Hakan - a pretty mobile grappler. Unexpectedly hard to zone.
Yun/Yang - Yun is the straightforward character, Yang the more technical one. Yun rushes you down, Yang plays a bit more balanced game.
Evil Ryu - Looks like a traditional shoto, but isn't. Other shotos are typically strong in close-mid footsies range, whereas Evil Ryu is awkward at that range but strong farther away (good zoning game, extremely long-ranged focus and crouching medium kick that can combo into ridiculous damage) and right in the opponent's face where he, like Oni, can just go nuts with long combos. ER does absolutely ridiculous amounts of damage, easily the highest in the game. Can be initially played in a basic, simple manner like Ryu (so good for beginners), but needs mastery over those long combos to truly come to his own. Forget Akuma, this guy is Ryu gone mad.
Guile - Like Ryu, he has solid fundamentals and little else, combined with Dhalsim's bent for defense. Easy to play early on, lack of gimmickry means you have to be really solid at a high level and able to keep your cool.
Blanka - Forget the description. Blanka may have a bunch of gimmicks, but they eventually just stop working. Blanka's true character is that of a solid footsies/fundamentals character with a smidge of trolling thrown in.
Zangief - From the Gief subforum guide: "You have to think differently as Gief. You have the grabs, sure. Your goal is not to land the grabs. Your goal is to PUNISH people for trying to avoid the grabs."
El Fuerte - People will hate you for playing him. Hard character to play. Please do not play him.
Vega - Addendum: Actually has good antiairs. They are just specific, so you have to know what to use when.

The Breaker

No, no, NO. Do not use the Wiki to give you a brief run down on any character. Every "In a nutshell" section is inaccurate to varying degrees. You can literally point out one flat out wrong statement in every profile and a few are just completely invalid. To add onto this, they're littered with uninformed opinions and pointless "information" (x is straight forward! x is tricky! x is hard to use! x is technical compared to everyone else! you have to be on point with x!)

Helvetica

Oh, ok. I was a little confused because the wiki gave some overall things, but many characters had bad defense, good mobility, lots of damage, etc. without much further differentiation and many were very vague.

Thank you for the input, and that addendum is incredibly well thought out and useful! :)

Circus

Check out eventhubs.com for good guides on each character plus explanations on each character's best moves and really common bnb combos. They are super basic but it really breaks down the fundamentals of each character in a easy to read way. Keep in mind that these are just the typical ways to use each character. A lot of high level players will use many of these characters differently. You will figure out that a lot of the pros and cons are extremely true but there are ways to get around them. A Gen player just won Canada cup as an example. You should read the guides, and then do the trial modes for the characters to figure out what all the trials could be used for. Hope this helps.

doubleoh

I define Abel.

BOOM BABY

The Breaker

Circus, post: 7669739, member: 69250 wrote:

Check out eventhubs.com for good guides on each character plus explanations on each character's best moves and really common bnb combos. They are super basic but it really breaks down the fundamentals of each character in a easy to read way. Keep in mind that these are just the typical ways to use each character. A lot of high level players will use many of these characters differently. You will figure out that a lot of the pros and cons are extremely true but there are ways to get around them. A Gen player just won Canada cup as an example. You should read the guides, and then do the trial modes for the characters to figure out what all the trials could be used for. Hope this helps.

fuck no to that too

TurboNewbie

Every time I look advanced players like Tokido, Daigo or Justin Wong playing their mains (Rufus, Ryu or Akuma) it makes me want to main those characters but there are other 36 players to choose from!

eltrouble

TurboNewbie, post: 7676126, member: 80268 wrote:

Every time I look advanced players like Tokido, Daigo or Justin Wong playing their mains (Rufus, Ryu or Akuma) it makes me want to main those characters but there are other 36 players to choose from!

Play them all briefly just to get an overall feel for their moveset. Trial modes are great for this, since they'll teach you basic move sets and combos. There's nothing wrong with picking up characters like Rufus, Ryu, or Akuma, they're great characters, but still require some work to be able to control well.

Play who you love to play. If you're new, I would suggest characters that don't have high execution requirements, and favor a solid strategy combined with strong fundamental skill use.

The Martian

First, I'd decide this.

Do you want a grappler, rushdown, or keep-it-lamer?

rickie82

Does strategy and playstyle mean much in pepoles choise thou? Basicly what I do in most games I play, I first sort em out after looks, then their general feel (story/personality). And then after having narrowed it down I start looking at the actual gameplay of them.
Nowadays games are more balanced then they used to be so you usually stand a chanse despit your pick, and if you dont there is a big chanse the game aint worth playing anyways.

Havent been in to streetfighter since SF2 days and checked the wiki for the story on some of the new faces for me atleast and saw Pullum Purna. If she had been in this game I would have played her even if she was the worst and hardest char in game. Really like her design...

TurboNewbie

eltrouble, post: 7676440, member: 50728 wrote:

Play them all briefly just to get an overall feel for their moveset. Trial modes are great for this, since they'll teach you basic move sets and combos. There's nothing wrong with picking up characters like Rufus, Ryu, or Akuma, they're great characters, but still require some work to be able to control well.

Play who you love to play. If you're new, I would suggest characters that don't have high execution requirements, and favor a solid strategy combined with strong fundamental skill use.

What are some examples of characters that meet these requirements? Maybe Ryu/Balrog?

eltrouble

The Martian, post: 7676448, member: 80076 wrote:

First, I'd decide this.

Do you want a grappler, rushdown, or keep-it-lamer?

The majority of new players shouldn't really focus on playstyle, since they don't know how to control their characters, they don't know the basics, and thus will never be successful in any style since they have no basic foundation. I think once they find a character that they enjoy playing, despite whatever reason they have for choosing that character, they'll be better motivated to learn and improve at their own pace in their fighting game of choice. Developing and fine-tuning a style comes later in the process.

rickie82, post: 7676449, member: 46019 wrote:

Does strategy and playstyle mean much in pepoles choise thou? Basicly what I do in most games I play, I first sort em out after looks, then their general feel (story/personality). And then after having narrowed it down I start looking at the actual gameplay of them.
Nowadays games are more balanced then they used to be so you usually stand a chanse despit your pick, and if you dont there is a big chanse the game aint worth playing anyways.

Havent been in to streetfighter since SF2 days and checked the wiki for the story on some of the new faces for me atleast and saw Pullum Purna. If she had been in this game I would have played her even if she was the worst and hardest char in game. Really like her design...

Games are not "more" balanced than used to be. This implies that games made in the past weren't balanced at all, and that's simply not true. But consider the fact that 'balance' is only discussed at the top-players level, and doesn't apply to the VAST majority of people who are not at that level. A tier list for beginners is different from the tier lists for intermediates, and different from the advanced tier lists. Not only that, it's already an extremely subjective topic, so add that to your calculation, and you should fine that tier lists shouldn't even really matter at all unless you're playing at the meta-game.

TurboNewbie, post: 7676463, member: 80268 wrote:

What are some examples of characters that meet these requirements? Maybe Ryu/Balrog?

Anyone from the SF2 cast is generally a good pick, since they were designed in the days when all you had were basic principles of fighting games to use. I always highly recommend Ryu. He's the perfect all-around character, and teaches a lot of core skills, while being easy to play initially, but difficult to master. It's said that all top players know how to play basic Ryu, because he requires a lot of foundational skill to play well at higher levels. Balrog is also a good pick. His reliance on the ground, combined with good anti-airs, but weakness to knockdowns, really forces you to learn the ground game, while avoiding risky moves that put you on your back. Dhalsim is a good choice, but he's difficult to control for new players, and I recommend him more for intermediates. Ken, Chun, Fei, Deejay, Sagat, all good choices.

TurboNewbie

Thanks a lot for the info. I will start with Ryu's trials today.

EDIT: Ok, I've finished almost all characters to around 15-18 trials and after that it gets pretty hard with an x-box pad. Oh well, gotta practice my links :)

Komatik

Not all of the trials are links. Some involve cancels too. Sadly, the trial mode doesn't tell you what it wants you to do.

eltrouble

TurboNewbie, post: 7676694, member: 80268 wrote:

Thanks a lot for the info. I will start with Ryu's trials today.

EDIT: Ok, I've finished almost all characters to around 15-18 trials and after that it gets pretty hard with an x-box pad. Oh well, gotta practice my links :)

Honestly, most of the combos past trial 15 or so start to become impractical, and more of an execution challenge. It's not the end of the world if you don't know those combos. Focus on the basic combos. The simple 3-hit, 4-hit, 5-hit combos, and make sure you can get down ten times in a row without fail. At that point, you can probably be able to start to use those combos during a live match.

Of course, combos aren't everything, but you can't really learn spacing and defense within the confines of training mode. You're not going to be a godlike player starting off, but it's extremely important that you begin to think and analyze your matches NOW, so that you're able to improve and level up on your own, without having to have someone hold your hand and tell you what you're doing wrong. It's okay to ask for help and advice now, even better if you can show match footage of yourself playing, but I really want you to begin to learn to think independently and be self-disciplined and motivated to improve to whatever level you want to be at.

Kikuichimonji

If you want to see what characters are like, watch tournament videos of top players with those characters. Just know that they still make mistakes and don't play perfect.

Lots of characters have lots of different potential playstyles depending on the player.

Tig3r-san

To answer the question, what defines a character is simply its strengths and weaknesses. It's one of the reasons why Ryu
is such good character to start playing with; he doesn't have major weaknesses, though he has calculated risks he has to take.
Then when you start trying out other characters you'll know exactly what strengths and weaknesses you've gained by the transition
.
A simple switch from Ryu to Ken, for instance, doesn't look like much, but you can easily tell what you've gained and what you've lost.
You've gained several offensive options like his forward med. kick which has far more reach than any normal Ryu has, but your fireballs are slower
and have more recovery, thus making Ken less suitable for zoning.

You can derive a gameplan from the characters attributes (and watching vids ofcourse) and use this information to pick the character you like most.
Like to zone? Then a zoner like Dhalsim, Guile, Juri or Gouken is a good choice.
Do you have an intense hatred for zoners? Then a anti-zoner/rushdown character like Adon, Ibuki Viper or Cammy would do fine.
Do you like turning a good read into massive damage? Then a grappler like Zangief, T. Hawk, Makoto or Abel will do.
Like to be f*cking annoying? Then pick Blanka (and brace yourself for the hatemail)
Hate people that fight f*cking annoying? Then set the right example and fight like a gentleman and pick Dudley

Or if you just like to BEAT THE CRAP OUTTA EVERYBODY, then Taokaka....oh wait, wrong game.