Look at the opponent's health bar. It flashes red, and when it goes back to yellow, it's too late.

I really hope they patch in the ability to turn on/off Fight Req at any time. I like to play with it for a little while, but then after a little while I get tired of it and just want to finish up arcade mode without worrying about getting interrupted.

Agreed. I'd also like double blind character matchups at some point. I'm tired of picking someone only to have them pick someone better against me.

Agreed and /signed to both above changes.

I'll be on again tonight if anyone wants to play.

Martyn : Like yesterday I'm home at 4pm if Izzy doesn't hold dictatorship over the teevee. Idealy let me know on here if you can play or not. I don't usually switch on the xbox as soon as I get home, but can if you want to play.

Jep: Another good round of fights. My personal favorite was when we timed out in the middle of your Akuma ultra rape, and I got the technical victory.

I'm working on pulling my ultra out of being on the ground. I've been practicing it online, and when I can get it to work, it hits 100% of the time. The problem with Chun-li's ultra is that it's really easy to dodge, and if you're 1 inch off the ground, you only take one hit and dodge the rest.

Interested in playing; but you guys.... uh I'm getting schooled by the CPU. lol
I feel very out of practice in Street Fighter.

It comes together very quickly. I was barely able to beat it on easier my first playthrough. I lost my first 14 online matches. Jep beat me 8 times out of 10. Play through the trials with different types of characters, experiment with what moves work for you, and just play around.

I'm always up for an online match, if you want to test your skills. (And I'm hardly even good at this game yet, but I'm getting 60%+ in ranked matches now.. so I'm feeling better)

Sorry I didn't make it last night - Jeppy: I'll keep you abreast of my teevee situation at all times on an evening

So I just saw what is required to unlock Akuma and Gouken. What the hell, this is absolutely retarded!

Can't lose a round, no continues, all the way to Seth? Must get at least one perfect?

And that's just for Akuma!

For Gouken, you must use Akuma, beat the game, watch the ending, and in doing so:

Can't lose a round, no continues, must get a perfect, must get 3 super or ultra combo finishes, must get a certain number of "first attack".

Oh, and those perfects / ultra and super finishes? Those numbers only apply if you are doing 1 round matches. You'll have to do even more if you player with more than one round per match.

I don't see myself ever managing to unlock Akuma, much less Gouken. That's absolutely ridiculous. Why the hell do they have to screw over casual players with this sort of ridiculous unlocking crap?

As far as I know, for Akuma you need 2 Perfects, and 2 kills with Ultra powers, no loses, no continues. And must beat the game.

And you can just do it on the easiest setting. I did it on Easy without realizing there were 2 more tiers below easy (Very Easy and Easiest). It seems like a tough task, but it really isn't. I unlocked these characters on the first night I was playing. And I'm a casual player. I only play a few matches a night, excluding for the first day I had it. They are also not screwing anyone over. Gouken and Akuma, or Seth for that matter, are in no way the end all be all of SF4. As a matter of fact, they are not even in the top tier. The top characters are unlocked from the start.

My explanation was correct, this came from Capcom's website:

http://www.capcom-unity.com/s-kill/blog/2009/02/24/sfiv_the_real_story_on_how_to_unlock_akuma_and_gouken



Easiest better be "tap me I die" sort of easy, because I hate this sort of unlocking crap. I don't care what tier the characters are, I'm not a professional player. I just want to play as anyone I want to. If they want to do ridiculous levels of hard unlocking stuff, do it for stuff that doesn't impact the game, like clothes.

Oh cool, then thats even easier than what I did.



That is a ridiculous attitude. You just want everything handed to you and thats not the way things work, not in games, not in life. You can pick up the game and play it, and beat it perfectly well without any of the unlocked characters. The game is not affected by locked characters.

However, it adds another level of challenge and greatly needed replay value for those who like to unlock characters and devote more time to a game. Without it, it would get boring fast, have no depth outside, pick a fighter, beat people up, be done.

Replay value is important to any game, moreso to a fighter.

"because I hate this sort of unlocking crap" just means its not for you. Not all games are designed to accomodate all tastes.

No, it's more like I bought a game with all the characters, I prefer not to have it held away by some inescapable skill-plateau that cannot be achieved without memorizing a bunch of combos and lowering the difficulty to it's lowest. Not all players play the game to become twitch crazies.

No it doesn't, it doesn't add replay value, it adds frustration. They're holding back a significant piece of the game, namely, actual fighters, behind a wall that, to the uninitiated, is like a mountain.

If they want to add unlockables for "replay value", then do something else. Soul Calibur 4 is a great example of this. The characters there are all unlocked by simply beating the arcade mode a few times. That's it. No perfecting, no combo finishes, continues allowed.

But that game has far more replay-ability than SF4 does. There's a ridiculous amount of character clothing, weapons, challenges, etc. Some of them are pretty damn difficult. But I don't mind it, because I have all the characters. I can play as whoever I want, whenever I want, and if I can dress them how I like, all the better.

Honestly, getting a perfect on easiest mode is not hard. You should honestly try it. Characters barely even attack, haha.

As for the rest, think what you want, really. I personally like it, and liked the challenge of unlocking Akuma and Gouken. In the end it comes down to whether the game is for you or not. So far, it don't sound like it is.

I don't like having my purchasing decisions based on whether a game is hard or not.

If easiest mode is really that easy, then maybe it won't be so bad, but the requirement for super/ultra combos and such is incredibly annoying. Super Smash Bros Brawl didn't have any of these sorts of requirements, and yet that game constantly garners my attention. And there's still a few trophies I haven't unlocked, namely ones that are incredibly difficult to get. But they're not characters, they're trophies.

CM doesn't like a challenge!

Super combos and ultra combos are piss easy. Most are either quarter-spin, quarter-spin, button or charge back, forward, back, forward, button.

I can't do the charge supers and ultras I suck at charge toons. I end up pressing up or down ever slightly, screwing up the move.

I couldn't do any of them until I actually looked up the length of a charge, since the manual doesn't really tell you that I could find. Then when I read that it was 2 seconds, I never really had any trouble with them again. It seems to me like they didn't require charging as long in SF2, but I could be wrong because it's been 15 years or so since I last played it...

I'd never played Street Fighter before playing getting 4 this weekend, beating it on easiest was pretty tough for me initially. But I've managed to get perfects and ultra finishes on easy now. I've found that doing the challenges has been very helpful, though I still can't do any of the combos

The combos are rock. Darth - charges vary in time but they're generally more like 1 second. Usually they're about 50/60ths of a second!

Yeah, I've noticed that it seems to vary, but I guess 2 seconds is more around the upper limit.

One thing I did notice while I was speeding through the game on easiest to unlock everyone, it seems if you lose and then continue that sometimes the difficulty resets itself to medium (at least it seems like medium to me) until you restart arcade mode. I noticed it because normally on easiest, I don't think the AI uses their super or ultra combos ever. Then I got lazy on a fight and actually died. After that everyone started using ultra combos and just seemed to be more difficult. They still weren't unbeatable to me, cause I normally play on medium, but they seemed better. I've read other people claiming the same thing, so I don't think I'm imagining it. It seems like something that would be really frustrating for someone who plays on the lower difficulties.

Doesn't the difficulty increase gradually throughout arcade regardless? The only time I beat it was where I didn't continue at all until Seth, it seemed easier than the previous times.

Other fighting games scale as you progress. SC4 will start off at ridiculously easy, but the last two fights seem much harder as they start countering like animals >.>

Here's how to do it: Play as Zangief, spam Double Lariat (Triple Punch) on the easiest setting. The computer seems to have no way to combat this, I got like 8 perfects in a row doing it. Then switch to a character you like to pull off the ultra. (I did it with Chun-li).

Man, I completely owned this guy playing Ken as Chun-Li. I made a couple dumb moves early on, and ate a EX Hadoken and a nasty Shoryuken. I played defense, built up some EX, let him knock me down, and pulled my Ultra combo off the ground, hit him with every hit. He tried to do a hadoken afterwards, and I did my Super Combo, hitting him again. He sent me a message afterwards saying I was "a f*cking corner f****t." I have no idea what this meant.

That's how it is in SF4 Arcade. Its not very apparent on the easiest levels, but on medium the first few opponents are easy pie, but by the time you get to the last two its much more difficult.

It definitely scales normally, as the rival fights seem a bit more difficult, and when fighting Seth, he becomes much more of a ***** after you beat him for the first round, so beating him for a second round is much harder.

That's not what I'm talking about though. The difficulty seems to be bugged to a point where on Easiest (and maybe Very Easy and Easy, never really played those), if you lose throughout the course of arcade mode, there's a good chance that the difficulty ramps itself up to Medium for the rest of arcade session, so until you quit and restart or until you beat it.

You can play through on Easiest and never lose, and no one will ever use an ultra combo on you and they'll mostly just sit there like dolls and take punches all day long, but if you manage to lose, they'll start using ultra combos and actually fight you better. It's completely different from the standard difficulty increase throughout the progression of arcade mode.

This has been my problem, but I have even less luck with the quarter-turn moves. I think I've pulled of Ken/Ryu's ultra combo like once, ever. I've been getting slightly better and better. I practice doing chun-li's fireball, and it's a charge back -> forward, and it's good for getting the timing and movement down. I just do it 10+ times in a row to get the movement down, then transition into online play.

Just checked this out from work and started playing it.

It seems a lot easier to pick up than the other street fighters, but a lot more difficult to master (especially with the ****ty 360 d-pad). I think if I buy this game I'm going to have to also buy one of the fight pads, but I don't think I'll be doing that for a while.

Oh definatly. The D-Pad on the 360 is mediocre at best. I use the joystick, but its not the best either.

The thumbstick is >>> the d-pad on the 360. Fightstick is best though

I totally read Fightstick as Fishstick XD

Yeah, I only use the analog stick. I have an arcade stick ordered, but who knows when I'll actually get it since it's backordered...

I dunno about SF4 but in 3rd Strike the AI was smart enough to adapt to your playing style (e.g. it'll start anticipating certain mixups and combos or guard patterns) so that the more times you died and had to restart a match the harder it got.

i rented it so i have it until monday... haven't played yet but will sometime tonight

(gamertag=SgtPnkks)

Anyone down to play a few matches? my live name is supcap, hit me up if you're wanting to.

Yoshibuns, I sent you one yesterday but some scrote jumped in my game room. If I see you online I'll set up a protected room and we can see what our lag's like (it's been fine with Fishy and Jeppy so far).

EDIT:

FYI, it's 6:15am and I'm going to work in 30 minutes

sounds good!

Woop woop! I'll bring out my Vega for you

(low tier main ftw!)

Yoshi it'll be a pleasure to play a few matches! What timezone are you in? I'm usually available anywhere between 4pm and 9pm EASTERN, though my presence online is random. I'm usually writing in the evenings. Let me know if theres a time you're more likely to be on and I'll pop my head in to check.