Ultra Street Fighter IV

[Qazimod]

I'm enjoying reading the Elena notes by people. I never really got on with her in 3S but the versatility of her moveset makes her someone I keep coming back to. Way back when I started picking up Juri I didn't know what I was supposed to do with someone who had various fireballs, divekicks, a parry, etc. and I get a similar feeling here. I've started calling Scratch Wheel a dragon kick because it's a rising attack that uses a similar motion, but it's a great response to pressure even though it feels so risky. EX Spin Scythe still seems like a gamble to me because it looks so unsafe, but it's nice for creating some breathing space. Oh, and Rhino Horn is the best but I keep wanting to surprise people with it from long range and inevitably get fireballed for my troubles - as mentioned, the EX version makes this a lot better.

I had a number of good lobbies with Curtis and co. lately so I might share some notes on those games later. Another theory I picked up whilst playing is that Pit Stop 109 isn't as obnoxious as it once was, but I no longer have Strekken to compare

[Revival]

[englishbob]

Did offline Survival mode make it into this version?

[Goemon]

GGs with peeps last night. Some tricksy stuff going on!

Not used to using the new mechanics yet...

I don't find red focus comfortable to do; surely there was a better button combination?

I don't know how to do delayed wake up.

Still convinced this game wasn't ready to come out

I saw Yun's dive kick go through Elena when she was trying to anti air :wtf: this kind of thing isn't just restricted to Elena too

Anyone think some the the new characters audio sounds too loud? Decapre's blade sound is ridiculous!

Also I think Poison's bloodcurdling scream on KO may well outdo Vipers!

[Plopboy]

Anyone think some the the new characters audio sounds too loud? Decapre's blade sound is ridiculous!

Not sure about the other tings, but a match I had against Decapre last night, the audio was all over the show. It kept fading in and out and was generally a big old mess.

[joffocakes]

Did offline Survival mode make it into this version?

Nope; other than the five new characters and intro and outro cutscenes for them in the standard Arcade mode there is no new single player content. There aren't even new Fight Your Rival cutscenes for them (though they do have unique mid-fight dialogue).

The combo trials are just those from SSFIV ao they're based on those old versions of the characters and have nothing for characters introduced from Arcade Edition or beyond. New trials are expected to be patched in later.

Wonderful write up Jellum; I'll watch the videos later. I'll also be applying some of you day one Poison thing so let me know if anything from day 2 or 3 has outclassed them.

STREET FIGHTER.

[Spuck]

I was too thirsty for more Streetfighter last night after EHU, thanks for fun, random games Quazi, Curtis and ...Wood-something?

So EHU yesterday was a blast. A lot bigger than I'd thought it would be, 32 entrants for Streetfighter from across the north. I kinda got lucky in my first two matches not to go against anyone using a new characger, as I'd barely played Ultra before the tournament.

-Faced a Poison player first, basically won on Fei-damentals. Her fireball game is tricky as hell, jumping in over them is a real risk of you landing on a hp ball and eating an ultra for your troubles.

-Dudley player next. I've played this matchup a fair amount, and could hear the guy pressing crouch techs loudly when I had him on the defensive, one of the thousand little things thats different playing offline. Won the first match and he switched to his man, guile, which had me cursing under my breath. I'm definitely getting more patient in my old age, as I won it pretty handily, walked him back into the corner and had him worried to press buttons. second round he adapted well, and we ended up with a draw game. At which point I realised there were a half dozen people watching us :3 Won the final match with a combination of a scummy chip ultra and the most ridiculous walk up tenshin throw I've ever had the balls to attempt.

-aaaaand then I just got massively outplayed by a Juri player. I need to practice this matchup, her fireballs are a huge pain in the ass, and the guy I was against knew enough to not stick out random pokes to eat with Rekkas. Still took a round but was beaten convincingly.

-In losers got faced against the infamous FSP, and despite knowing exactly how he plays Rufus, fell for everything. Definite tournament nerves there, next time I play him I'm going to go dumb with the uppercuts, he constantly divekicks after a blocked divekick and has no footsies game to speak of. Still, took a round with a cheeky overhead, only to lose the last one trying the same and eating Ex Messiah deservedly.

Anyone that thinks that Cammy is anything but top 5 still really needs to see SBO Fuzzy play, good lord. The matches between Gunslinger, Fuzzy and Benners in top three were all incredible. I'll leave the writeup to JLM, but grand finals was immense (If not as entirely epic as the Hugo player who nearly took out Pro Flukes Fuerte).

Tekken was a complete wipeout for me, got no chance to practice the week before or at the event and just got anihillated from the get go by manchesters finest. Going out from losers to a guy wearing a man united shirt was a little gutting.

FIGHTING GAMES

[Spuck]

And it was cool to finally meet one of you in the real world. JLM is a lovely bloke, sadly we didn't get to play

[ah]

When I said I was feeling optimistic about this game potentially having more focus on footsies and meter management, I forgot that I am terrible at footsies and meter management.

[ah]

Ranked matches are still a thoroughly unpleasant place to hang out, by the way. Here is my first USF4 ragemail:

[DC]

Not sure about the other tings, but a match I had against Decapre last night, the audio was all over the show. It kept fading in and out and was generally a big old mess.

Phew. I had this on release day and thought it was my setup.

[carlito]

Can confirm that Quick Go at Training Mode XX Wasted Sunny afternoon still works in Ultra.

[ah]

If you want, you can also cancel Plans directly into Wasted Sunny Afternoon as a target combo, but they balanced it by making it so that you can't usually juggle with the Girlfriend Apology special move at the end unless you spend a meter on it.

[IgTerminals]

I have had no time to play this wonderful game since Wednesday. Goddamn work all day. So wish I was wasting my sunny afternoon.

Jellum - still haven't discovered joystick yet. Some stuff still boxed from moving so am continuing to search. I know I've got one somewhere.

[Lyrical Donut]

New Dudley things

[joffocakes]

Had a quick ranked fight so I could try the replay upload feature. It, uh, takes a fair amount of time. One in-game second seems to take around 12 seconds of reality time from real life, at least.

It's still going.

EDIT: with the first part of that post it had reached almost the end of the first round. at 17:45, half an hour later, it finally got to the part where it actually uploads to youtube, reached 2%, and an error occurred. Utterly wild.

EDIT 2: I've started the process again, at 18:30. Let's see what happens!

EDIT 3: On the slow-mo replay of the first round, still, at 18:45. While I wait here's a ludicrous combo taking advantage of Hugo's ridiculous hurtbox with Rufus' Snake Strikes:

EDIT 4: First round has now ended. The xbox 360's fan has whirred into louder action. 44 seconds left on the in-game clock at the KO, 18:56 in the Real World as the second round begins.

EDIT 5: The 2nd round has now ended. 50 seconds on the in-game clock and it's 19:17 in Realityville. Just starting the Youtube upload part now.

EDIT 6: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand:

[Spuck]

Ranked matches are still a thoroughly unpleasant place to hang out, by the way. Here is my first USF4 ragemail:

Capture1.PNG

Impressive to get a time displaced rage mail from 2008

[wretcherd]

Based on the actual ingame revenge gauge instead of wultra we should call it ultraw.

[lewismistreated]

If there's a better feeling than pulling off two completely uninterrupted Elena Heals in a single round then I don't want to know about it.

[strawdonkey]

Based on the actual ingame revenge gauge instead of wultra we should call it ultraw.

Could also stand for "Ultra Coleslaw" in that configuration.

[Plopboy]

So I've managed to win a game with Chun Li, but by god I'm awful.

Walking into repeated fire balls, jumping around with clearly no idea what I'm up to and throwing away life leads, but luckly for once I managed to pull off the most basic of Chun's combo, the most basic!

I did swear out loud though

Look see the horror

Once in a life time I actually managed to do what I intend at Street Fighter

Scrubbing the bottom of the barrel Fighter.

[englishbob]

Did offline Survival mode make it into this version?

Nope; other than the five new characters and intro and outro cutscenes for them in the standard Arcade mode there is no new single player content.

Still don't understand the trend of omiting offline Survival mode now. I used to enjoy it.

[joeplus]

So irritatingly I'd completely forgotten about a job application deadline, but I just got that done and I still have two more days off work so I shall be all over this tomorrow

[JLM]

GGs with peeps last night. Some tricksy stuff going on!

Not used to using the new mechanics yet...

I don't find red focus comfortable to do; surely there was a better button combination?

I don't know how to do delayed wake up.

The red focus input is a bit annoying, but I think they specifically chose those buttons to stop people doing The Forbidden Technique (four button tech-ing). You can only do that if you don't have two bars now, which is nice.

Delayed wake up is done with the same timing as a quick rise, but you do it on hard knockdowns instead.

[joeplus]

I'm still crap at remembering to quick rise, so delayed wakeup will be a whole new level to practice my ineptitude.

However! I just had a wee session on ranked, where I landed cr.hp xx hp reflect into EX spiral twice. Twice! I also finished one round with an enormous piss-taking red focus.

I still love Wubbletra, I played around a bit with buffering Soul Illusion during footsies and actually managed to whiff punish a random Decapre uppercut. Decapre seems kind of bullshit but weirdly fun to fight against. Nate's advice about Rolento's unsafe things won me a couple of matches too.

[lewismistreated]

After spending two days on ranked, random thoughts:

- I love Elena. She is my new character. Her high-low shenanigans and meaty pokes fit my style of play perfectly, and Healing from the other side of the screen will never, ever get old. In one match, I managed to get the opponent's Decapre to whiff her Ultra not once but twice as he desperately tried to catch me mid-regen. Not today, Scammy.

- I don't know how to play against Hugo with Elena. Or probably with anyone. My footsies don't work because after the first one he smashes me around, jumping at and/or away from him doesn't work because he catches me and then smooshes me around, and he's just a grotesque freak whom I despise the very sight of. Clap clap.

- I have yet to play a Rolento. Why is this? I don't know.

- My Rose game has definitely been bolstered - the extra damage on c.mp and the reduced recovery on Soul Sparks both help, but for the most part it's business as usual. The business of me losing more than I would like to.

Beats in mah head.

[Escape]

For Elenians:

[Judgement]

After spending two days on ranked, random thoughts:

- I love Elena. She is my new character. Her high-low shenanigans and meaty pokes fit my style of play perfectly, and Healing from the other side of the screen will never, ever get old. In one match, I managed to get the opponent's Decapre to whiff her Ultra not once but twice as he desperately tried to catch me mid-regen. Not today, Scammy.

- I don't know how to play against Hugo with Elena. Or probably with anyone. My footsies don't work because after the first one he smashes me around, jumping at and/or away from him doesn't work because he catches me and then smooshes me around, and he's just a grotesque freak whom I despise the very sight of. Clap clap.

- I have yet to play a Rolento. Why is this? I don't know.

- My Rose game has definitely been bolstered - the extra damage on c.mp and the reduced recovery on Soul Sparks both help, but for the most part it's business as usual. The business of me losing more than I would like to.

Beats in mah head.

Been playing a few of them. I've been using him and really like him.

[Plopboy]

For Elenians:

down back?

[Fitzcarraldo]

Ibuki comprehensively flattened inside 97 seconds or your pizza is free. Also, I know it's the xbox live special, but what kind of mad man do you have to be to throw out a random neckbreaker against Hugo? Alucard's punishes make me cry manly tears of joy. Fitzcarraldo, you should seriously watch all of Alucard's replays. He is finding all the right buttons and figuring out the match ups and generally being fucking excellent. The man is an utter beast and should be all the early inspiration the discouraged Hugo army needs to keep plugging away.

Oh, don't you worry about that - I've been following his progress quite a bit. If it was real life, I'd have my arms clasped around his neck and my legs wrapped around his waist as he went from tournament to tournament. I'm loving his heavy clap punishes which I can do but my brain gets so excited when I've blocked a DP I'm still going for his SPD at the moment just out of instinct.

He certainly makes it look easy. Hugo is seriously rough going online at the moment. If a character has a fireball it is obscenely difficult - I think if you were to compile a list of the ten worst match-ups in Ultra, Hugo would be in about half of them. Of course, it is still early days and the man does far too much damage to ever be counted out.

Oh, and I'm still 100% on Hugo's Meat Squasher off a cr.lp in the corner. No one is blocking it.

Edit: Well, everybody is blocking it which is the problem.