The Roles that Gouken and Gen fill

Tye@l

Couldn't find just a general discussion threat for Street Fighter, so I figured I'd ask here.

I've learned that every character in SF has some kind of role to play, a play-style that they fulfill. Ken, Cammy and Guy are more rush-down oriented, Sagat, Guile, and Ryu are more about space control with specials and strong normals. You get the idea. But two characters I've always been fascinated by, are Gouken and Gen.

I don't play either of these two with any regularity, but I only know from the little I've read on them. Gouken doesn't seem to have any obvious combos, or really strong normals outside his S. HP (His chop, basically). His counter is actually pretty interesting to be, but unless you have EX, seems like a big gamble. What exactly is Gouken's play-style? I've seen some Bullkat gameplay and he looks like fun to play. Just not fun to learn.

Gen, I've heard, is supposed to have very strong normals. I once saw his buttons compared to Chun's and were claimed to be even stronger than hers. And I've seen some high-ranked Gen's take off huge chunks of life in one or two combos. But I don't see what role he falls into. Is he rushdown? Mix-up heavy? Zoning? And the fact he has twice as many buttons as any other character with his two stances sounds like a technical nightmare, having to keep track of what stance you're in and how that effects your normals.

So, that's my question. I'd just like to hear an answer from players that play Gouken and Gen with some regularity, and why they enjoy playing a couple of the more unique cast members.

Mickles_86

I main Gen and I can tell you that at first he is a nightmare to get used to, figuring out his low/medium/high wall dives are a pain but once you have got used to that you have won half the battle! In regards to whch kind of fighter he is.....well that's down to the person using him, personally i'm a rushdown player with a sneaky defensive side because Gen has many safe options and his Mantra/Crane options can be the difference between a loss and a win.

In regards to your post about Gouken not having many obvious combos, just google Messi_Old_Snake a guy I have fought many times. This guy pulls some combos off that I have never seen anyone else do. I suppose it's got to do with who is controlling the character in use but Gouken is a character that is very dangerous in the right hands.

yomipower

Their role is to be low tier and lose to better characters.

eltrouble

Not sure this kind of higher-level discussion belongs in the newbie section, but i'll give my 2 cents regardless.

Gen is a momentum-based character, meaning he has no role to play other than simply being adaptive, depending on the matchup. He has extremely good normals that he can use, decent damage off of basic OS's, and while both opponents are standing, you'll want to be playing the ground game. Once you knock your opponent down, however, it's time to go for ambiguous cross-ups into hit confirm combos, and lay on the pressure at the close range, in order to continue knowing your opponent down. Once you lose momentum and your opponent has successfully backed off, it's time to play the turtle-game again, and maximize damage potential on each moment of the match.

Gouken is an oddball of a character, but I generally see his style favoring defensive turtles. He has limited close-range options, so his greatest strength is in his ability to arc his fireballs in a variety of directions, and his mobility, to zone his opponents. He doesn't traditionally zone out his opponents like a Ryu or a Guile, but he has to be much more fluid and adaptive in the way he controls space, using his variety of blockstrings and attack strings to keep opponents at bay, as well as going for cross-ups or fake cross-ups, going for mix-ups after his EX dash punch. He's very meter dependent, so his zoning helps build him meter, which gives him EX options, which opens up his playstyle to be more offensive when he has advantage.

Vulpes

Gen is a footsie character with good okizeme

Gouken is a zoner with heavy damage punishes

Pair of Rooks

You could also throw Juri into this discussion, as she has the same set of special moves as Gouken. The Juri forum calls her a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. As in, her playstyle is whatever her opponent cannot deal with. I presume Gouken would be similar.

XthAtGAm3RGuYX

Pair of Rooks, post: 7840296, member: 82657 wrote:

You could also throw Juri into this discussion, as she has the same set of special moves as Gouken. The Juri forum calls her a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. As in, her playstyle is whatever her opponent cannot deal with. I presume Gouken would be similar.

It actually depends on how you play her, to a fault. Juri isn't much of a rushdown character, but when you know how to use Feng Shui Engine it's another story entirely. When you have Kaisen Dankairaku ,she is more reliant on punishing since she has many setups into that revolve around the opponent fucking up. Like if they jump, punish with jump forward strong two times into U2. Or if they are button happy, EX kasatushi jump forward into crossup roundhouse which you cancel into U2. And then there's always fuzzy guard, but it doesn't work on everyone.

omfg

yomipower, post: 7753913, member: 53955 wrote:

Their role is to be low tier and lose to better characters.

in other games i've seen worse chars with worse chances of winning that still win when played by good players. to say something like that and have the name yomipower kinda shocks me..

Tye@l, post: 7753790, member: 47694 wrote:

Couldn't find just a general discussion threat for Street Fighter, so I figured I'd ask here.

I've learned that every character in SF has some kind of role to play, a play-style that they fulfill. Ken, Cammy and Guy are more rush-down oriented, Sagat, Guile, and Ryu are more about space control with specials and strong normals. You get the idea. But two characters I've always been fascinated by, are Gouken and Gen.

I don't play either of these two with any regularity, but I only know from the little I've read on them. Gouken doesn't seem to have any obvious combos, or really strong normals outside his S. HP (His chop, basically). His counter is actually pretty interesting to be, but unless you have EX, seems like a big gamble. What exactly is Gouken's play-style? I've seen some Bullkat gameplay and he looks like fun to play. Just not fun to learn.

Gen, I've heard, is supposed to have very strong normals. I once saw his buttons compared to Chun's and were claimed to be even stronger than hers. And I've seen some high-ranked Gen's take off huge chunks of life in one or two combos. But I don't see what role he falls into. Is he rushdown? Mix-up heavy? Zoning? And the fact he has twice as many buttons as any other character with his two stances sounds like a technical nightmare, having to keep track of what stance you're in and how that effects your normals.

So, that's my question. I'd just like to hear an answer from players that play Gouken and Gen with some regularity, and why they enjoy playing a couple of the more unique cast members.

you got it. Gouken's a turtler. took me the longest time to figure that out because he does such good damage. he doesn't really specialize at breaking in and attacking. I mean he can do that, but it's not really what you want to do with him. he seems to be more about countering. he's got a nice bit of life to do it with, and his counter, palm, and flip are all invaluable for the job. using the fireballs he can zone for a bit till you get in range to use your normals. being hit by him sucks and that's definitely his greatest strength, but as I said before, he doesn't specialize at breaking defenses. so I assume the high damage combos are mostly for when he breaks an opponents' attack. Gen on the other hand is a pure attacker. I don't know if I want to call it "rushdown" because I don't think he really forces his way in there, but he does want to be close to deal damage and fuck you up as soon as you go down.

Chewmandinga

Mickles_86, post: 7753817, member: 81492 wrote:

In regards to your post about Gouken not having many obvious combos, just google Messi_Old_Snake a guy I have fought many times. .

Does this mean you're a PSN player? I've also played MOS and he is a fantastic opponent. I play Makoto if you'd like to get some matches sometime?

Black-Toof

I would like to chime in on the Gouken side of things.

I like to think he's a punisher of mistakes.
I find you have to play quite defensively until you get momentum then jump on the opponent until you lose it, retreat and repeat.

His parry, while being a gamble sometimes, benefits from your experience (ironically), knowing your opponents combo tendencies will help you use it effectively.
Take Bison; during scissor kick pressure, he often does a cr.lk /cr.mk > scissors.
Take Akuma; far.st.HK > cr.MP

Using Demon Flips pressure to disorient your opponent into making mistakes.
Predicting and punishing fireballs, jump-ins and flowchart combos are where he excels.

Where he falls down is when you take him to very high play, opponents know their character and are less likely to become disoriented and make mistakes.
This makes getting big damage opening more tricky.
It also doesn't help that 'very high play' involve a lot of 'safe characters' espcially those with safe armour breakers, rendering Parry invalid.
(I'm looking at you Akuma / Adon)


Although I don't play Gen to a high standard I've always considered him a patient barrage of normals > combo kind of guy.

Mickles_86

Chewmandinga, post: 7842580, member: 45491 wrote:

Does this mean you're a PSN player? I've also played MOS and he is a fantastic opponent. I play Makoto if you'd like to get some matches sometime?

Yes I am a PS3 player but I have been playing on my fightstick account for this past month whilst I get used to it. I think I have come up against you before no? Don't remember if it was Yun or Yang you were using but you were pretty badass

Chewmandinga

Mickles_86, post: 7901007, member: 81492 wrote:

Yes I am a PS3 player but I have been playing on my fightstick account for this past month whilst I get used to it. I think I have come up against you before no? Don't remember if it was Yun or Yang you were using but you were pretty badass

Possibly, Yun's my secondary guy at the moment but Makoto's my top gal. What stick you got? When I got mine it took about 2 months before I felt properly comfortable with it.

If you wanna add me I'll be on tonight about 6pm British time, we'll endless.

Mickles_86

Don't think it was Makoto you were using but it was just a match or two on endless not too long ago, was under the name SHINDLERS-F1ST. Got a TE2 fight stick before xmas as i'm trying to improve my game but it's still tough getting used to it, not fully comfortable with it just yet. I'll add you no probs