Post subject: Tool-Assisted Combo Videos
Maj
Joined: 9/9/2007
Posts: 66
Location: Los Angeles
I've noticed a few fighting game speedruns posted on this website, and they're all pretty good. But i don't think the speedrun format is ideal for showing what's possible in a fighting game. You can't really manipulate the CPU into creating the best setups, nor is it particularly challenging beating up on the stupid AI. Recently there has been a surge of tool-assisted combo videos being produced in the fighting game community. I figured some TAS makers/fans would enjoy checking them out. Here are a couple of fresh ones that have been receiving positive feedback. ---------- SF? Guile Exhibition (Evo2k7 Edition) This video was premiered last month during the Evo2k7 fighting game championship in Las Vegas. It took me slightly over a year to put together, using imported Japanese programmable controllers and several different emulator tools. Everything in it is meant to be innovative in one way or another, so that none of the content is repeats of anything found in an older video The SNES and GBA stuff was done using the techniques described on the TASVideos FAQ. The arcade stuff was done using an unreleased emulator that my friend is working on. I'm not allowed to go into detail about it until it's released, but hopefully that won't take too long. Anyway everything in the video is legit so i'd be happy to explain anything that looks confusing. ---------- Variable Atmosphere This crazy MvC2 situational video was also premiered at this year's Evo event. It was created by Magnetro, Vega Omega, and Dj-B13 - going by the group name of Inventive Flow. Basically it goes through a bunch of insanely unlikely scenarios that could actually come up if both players were experts at the game and they were playing it at nearly frame-by-frame speed. It was performed using a pair of the same type of programmable controllers that i used to make the Guile video. Even though DC emulation is improving, there are still some graphical issues so all of this was done on an actual Dreamcast console. Lots of cool stuff happening all over the place. Worth downloading for the custom surprise ending alone. I'd say more but i don't want to spoil it for anyone. ---------- Since many people here don't play fighting games much, i figured i'd explain what types of guidelines are typically used to rate/evaluate them. Basically it comes down to two criteria: technical achievement and style. The biggest component of technical achievement is creativity, as in coming up with something that nobody has seen before. The other part is execution, as in actually pulling off something difficult. Lately that's been somewhat diminished because the availability of programmable controllers and emulator tools has made it possible to do crazy stuff without manual dexterity. So most of the focus is on the creativity end. For example, in this excellent SF3:3S Makoto video, that last combo against Urien is very inventive. It involves using several different feint moves to cancel her attacks early. That whole sequence is very original, which is a big deal considering how old the game has gotten to be. On the other hand, style is a bit more difficult to pin down. It includes everything from unusual choices, to elaborate coreography, to professional editing, and lots more. Even some combos that don't present anything groundbreaking can still be impressive if they're arranged in a cool way. Using another example from the Makoto video, there's a clip where she hits Urien with 6 Jumping Fierces in one combo. It would have been possible to get more hits by using different attacks, but they wouldn't have shared such a unified theme. The editing also contributes to this by making the goal clear via an on-screen counter. There are some other minor issues to consider but these two are the main ones. I've noticed that the choice of soundtrack is also really important. There are some videos that i can watch over and over because they just flow really well. Then there are videos that i have to mute because i hate the music, and i never watch them more than once. But it's a relatively minor point because you can't quite judge a video by the author's taste in music. Anyway you get the point. It's mostly common sense and after you've seen a few videos for any given game, you get a good sense of the field. Any comments? Questions?
http://sonichurricane.com Tuesday = new technical/combo video/article | Thursday = new screenshot | Saturday = new strategy article
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Fighting games make the most entertaining videos... THAT'S OBVIOUS! but since the movies here must go from the beginning to the end of the game, you'd have to go through the whole game with the same character... like in the ssf2 movies by saturn. And that sucks. The Kof games would be better, because when you do a random select, the character changes every stage... By the way... I WANT THAT ARCADE EMULATOR!
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself. It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success." - Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
Drama, too long, didn't read, lol.
Maj
Joined: 9/9/2007
Posts: 66
Location: Los Angeles
Well, it'd be a little bit better but still not ideal. I mean, random select that refreshes every match was a really cool idea on SNK's part. It'd be like those published Mortal Kombat speedruns which use a different character every round via Shang Tsung. But still, you can only show so much and you can only manipulate the CPU into doing so much. Once you get to a certain level, the combo setup becomes as crucial as the combo itself. With the speedrun format, you would end up showing the best combo you can do against a dizzy opponent which really isn't anywhere near the best combo possible. Why would anyone watch that when they could watch a KoF combo video instead? If you look through the Guile video i mentioned above, most of the really cool ones can't be done against a sitting-duck opponent. Most of them require the opponent to do a bunch of elaborate stuff to set up the combo opportunity. ---------- This is a cool trailer for a CvS1 video that was released on some Japanese website over a year ago, but nobody bothered uploading it to youtube until just now: CvS1 Combo Video Storm Zero Trailer by T-7 He invented that crazy Mai/Vega projectile setup which is super useful in games without advanced movement options like dashes and rolls. CvS1 actually has both options, but it's still the fastest way to cover distance, so imagine how useful it would be in the old Alpha games. I'm sure it'll start popping up in newer videos any day now. Anyway about half of the stuff in this video was new at the time, which is a crazy high amount of content for a game like CvS1. I really like that first Ryu combo and that Dhalsim combo. The Vega combo and the Mai combo are both really stylish too. Like most combo video makers in Japan, this author used programmable controllers to perform everything in this video. And nearly every combo requires a very precise setup involving opponent participation.
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I like it
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Maj
Joined: 9/9/2007
Posts: 66
Location: Los Angeles
Cool, thank you sir. Btw i wasn't trying to say that fighting game speedruns are pointless. I just think it's pointless for them to mimic combo videos or even glitch videos. I definitely think that it would be possible to make a very entertaining fighting game speedrun, but i don't think they should focus primarily on combos or glitches.
http://sonichurricane.com Tuesday = new technical/combo video/article | Thursday = new screenshot | Saturday = new strategy article
Joined: 6/5/2005
Posts: 139
Being a huge fan of fighting games and the site www.combovideos.com I think a seperate TAS combo section for this site would be a most welcome addition (or perhaps add it to the "concept demos" section) . It would definitely draw more interest to this site and add to the overall variety. DO IT!
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Joined: 5/30/2007
Posts: 324
I post on and read SRK regularly, so it's awesome to have the great Maj, creator of one of the most amazing combo videos ever, posting here. I agree that the two Super Street Fighter 2 videos on this site are very unimpressive for anyone who knows much about Street Fighter, or watches combo videos/top player matches. This is largely because of the format itself. I think a combo exhibition for this site would be an excellent idea.
Maj
Joined: 9/9/2007
Posts: 66
Location: Los Angeles
Ha, thanks. I'm flattered. Lol @ "the great Maj" Would it really work though? Posting replays would be kinda tricky/chaotic, cuz most combo videos have over 20 distinct clips. It might be too difficult to manage and organize. For now i'd be happy if people just discussed combo videos whenever an interesting new one was released. They're not speedruns but i think they contain a lot of elements which should be interesting to speedrunners too. As far as those SSF2 speedruns, i liked the Zangief one a lot but i didn't like the Ken one at all. All of the combos in both videos are at least 10 years old, cuz they've all been in TZW videos forever. There's no point to duplicating existing/outdated combos. To me the most interesting parts of those videos were the actual fighting, cuz with tool-assistance you can do a lot of things to embarrass the CPU. For example the Zangief vs Bison match was really fun to watch, cuz he was using all sorts of buttons to beat Bison's attacks. It's way less fun with Ken because Dragon Punch beats everything. The strategy in the Ken video was incredibly boring, because it was very one-dimensional. He would just wait until the opponent attacked, use instant DP to knock them down, then do a basic jump combo by manipulating luck to make the opponent not block. It was literally the same thing over and over, every match. The only thing different was the actual combos, and like i said, i think that's the wrong thing to focus on. Zangief doesn't have one all-purpose invincible move like the Ryu/Ken Dragon Punch, so he actually had to figure out which counterattack to use in each situation. That variation made it really interesting to me. I think maybe Dhalsim has that potential too. Maybe THawk as well, simply because it's entertaining watching Gief and THawk grab people from really far away while they are trying to do special moves. Anyway i don't want to babble too much. Just throwing in my 2 cents.
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IronSlayer wrote:
I agree that the two Super Street Fighter 2 videos on this site are very unimpressive for anyone who knows much about Street Fighter, or watches combo videos/top player matches.
The guy obviously has no clue what he's talking about. To refresh your mind, this is the original SNES version of SSF2, not any of the modified copies that were released later, which allowed for more combo possibilities. I used all possible combos in this version and still tried to be entertaining as much as possible. Zangief is probably the better fighter for this, as he has more variety to offer in both, throws and general combos. I think Maj noticed it well. Other than that I want to say that I have watched your Guile video, Maj. Too bad most of the combos (I think there were some infinite ones as well) are not possible on the original SNES version as mentioned before. Still, I enjoyed this movie alot. If you plan on doing some more of such demos with other characters someday, I would definitely look forward to see them as well.
See my perfect 100% movie-walkthroughs of the best RPG games on http://www.freewebs.com/saturnsmovies/index.htm Current TAS project (with new videos): Super Metroid Redesign, any% speedrun
Maj
Joined: 9/9/2007
Posts: 66
Location: Los Angeles
Saturn wrote:
I used all possible combos in this version and still tried to be entertaining as much as possible.
How can anyone make a statement like this? Not even the very best combo video makers ever claim to know "all possible combos" in any game. You left out entire categories of combos in your SSF2 videos. I don't think i ever saw a single meaty combo in either of your videos (hitting the opponent in the middle of an attack to shorten recovery time). I don't think i ever saw a single combo using a backwards-facing attack. It looks like you didn't even know about jump-canceling rapid fire light attacks. Most importantly, you didn't use Ken's fireball in any combo setups whatsoever, which is exactly what i meant when i said that the speedrun format severely limits combo setup possibilities. Also i think you have the Ken vs Zangief versatility comparison backwards. Ken is a MUCH more versatile fighter than Gief. There are countless strategies and traps at Ken's disposal which Zangief can't duplicate. Ken has a more diverse set of normal moves, can control his air trajectory using air Hurricane Kick, has access to projectiles, and way more ways of controlling the match. I think the primary reason your Gief video turned out so well is because Zangief DOESN'T normally have a lot of style, but you succeeded in making him look like a very versatile fighter. There were many unexpected moments, which made it entertaining to watch. By the way, i think it was a great idea to showcase every one of Zangief's different throws during the speedrun. It's much better to focus on creative mini-goals like this than focusing on combos.
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Of course it's impossible to know all combos. What I meant was I used all combos that look different enough to warrant entertaining, non repeating fights, because having 24 battles to pass makes it not easy to keep variety in every fight. There are of course other combos available, but they would only be slightly different from the ones I already used, making them worthless, since in that time you can better show some other strategies or throws. After all my goal was to show entertaining and cool looking fights in the movies, not just focusing entirely on combos. I agree that Ken has more possibilities to win a fight because of many different techs he got, but when it comes to show variety, he is limited and you won't be able to avoid repeating some moves (fireball techs can be used one time, after that they get repetitive as well). Zangief on the other hand has enough different throws and "near fight" combo possibilities, making him superior to Ken when it comes to show variety.
Maj wrote:
I don't think i ever saw a single combo using a backwards-facing attack.
Are you sure this is possible on the SNES version I used? As far as I know it only works on the later versions of SSF2 (not SNES), and only with a few characters.
Maj" wrote:
It looks like you didn't even know about jump-canceling rapid fire light attacks.
If you mean by this a hit cancelled into another special move (like a Hurrikan Kick) while being in mid-air, then yes, I knew that. I just didn't feel that it would be worth to use, since the light hit makes almost no damage, and would only waste some time to finish a opponent. I mostly aimed for hard combos that do alot of damage. Finally I have a suggestion. Since you are that experienced with Street Fighter and combos, why don't you make a Super Battle TAS yourself, and show us what crazy combos you could do for example with Ken (when you say he can be that versatile in every fight)? I know the SNES version like the back of my hand, so I would certainly be interested if you could show some combos I have never seen before on it. I dare to doubt that though, but would be glad to be proven wrong. :-)
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Joined: 6/5/2005
Posts: 139
Hey Maj, are there anymore "variable atmosphere" videos out there? I found this one to be EXTREMELY entertaining because it wasn't just one sided combo action (don't get me wrong I still like those videos too). Thanks!
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Maj
Joined: 9/9/2007
Posts: 66
Location: Los Angeles
Saturn wrote:
Finally I have a suggestion. Since you are that experienced with Street Fighter and combos, why don't you make a Super Battle TAS yourself, and show us what crazy combos you could do for example with Ken (when you say he can be that versatile in every fight)? I know the SNES version like the back of my hand, so I would certainly be interested if you could show some combos I have never seen before on it. I dare to doubt that though, but would be glad to be proven wrong. :-)
Haha nice try. But you already know my opinion that Ken isn't the best candidate for a speedrun. I wish i had enough free time to let myself get baited into making a Ken speedrun just to show you all of the things that you overlooked, but it would take forever because i'm honestly way too busy. I spent a few hours making some combo clips for you though. Enjoy. SNES SSF2 Ken sample combo 1 | combo 2 | combo 3 | combo 4 Most of these combos can be optimized or improved but i just wanted to show you the basic concepts that i mentioned earlier. ----------
phunqsauce wrote:
Hey Maj, are there anymore "variable atmosphere" videos out there? I found this one to be EXTREMELY entertaining because it wasn't just one sided combo action (don't get me wrong I still like those videos too). Thanks!
Actually "Variable Atmosphere" is just the name of that one video, not the name of the concept. I don't know if the concept has a name yet. Believe it or not, there was another video premiered at Evo2k7 that used the same concept, but without tool-assistance. Volume X - Evolution 2007 Special - Super Turbo Shenanigans by NKI As far as i know, NKI and the Inventive Flow crew came up with the idea of making a video showcasing situational craziness independently of one another. Both of them turned out really well too. Variable Atmosphere is more elaborate but it's entirely impractical, whereas the stuff in Super Turbo Shenanigans can actually be used in real matches whenever the opportunity arises.
http://sonichurricane.com Tuesday = new technical/combo video/article | Thursday = new screenshot | Saturday = new strategy article
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Maj wrote:
I wish i had enough free time to let myself get baited into making a Ken speedrun just to show you all of the things that you overlooked...
Not just me, but everybody who likes SSF2. There are alot of such people around here.
Maj wrote:
SNES SSF2 Ken sample combo 1 | combo 2 | combo 3 | combo 4
Wow thanks for the nice combos! The one from video1 isn't applicable in a run though, since it requires to take damage, making it a non-perfect run. Video2 was best, as it proves that a backwards attack is indeed possible, though that would probably require very good position and luck optimization to execute this on a 8-Star CPU opponent. 3 and 4 were also cool to see, though I knew them as well. Also I should note that you had equal stars on both fighters (4 VS 4 as it seems), and in a Super Battle the CPU has 8 where you still keep 4, making your attacks weaker and thus wouldn't allow for 100% life bar combos like they worked in your vids. Though it might still be possible to execute one with alot of optimization there. The backwards facing attack you proved to be possible makes me seriously consider to do another Ken version in the future. Thank you for that.
See my perfect 100% movie-walkthroughs of the best RPG games on http://www.freewebs.com/saturnsmovies/index.htm Current TAS project (with new videos): Super Metroid Redesign, any% speedrun
Maj
Joined: 9/9/2007
Posts: 66
Location: Los Angeles
Cool, i'm glad you liked them. Hey i'm gonna be really busy for the next couple of days and it would take me a long while to write out all of the explanations for those four clips. Unfortunately writing combo explanations always seems to take me forever. Since you say that you knew about the third and the fourth combos, would you mind explaining the various techniques used to perform them? Cuz there are a lot of subtle rules being bypassed in those clips and people who don't play SSF2 probably won't notice what's really going on.
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Sure: Video 3: Everything clearly noticeable until the last combo. You jump straight up instead of forward or backward, which allows you to make this half-turn hard kick in midair. After hitting the opponent, you immediately cancel it into a air hurrican kick to make a 2-hit combo. This cancel isn't possible out of the forward/backward jump hard kick. Video 4: A like you call it "meaty" hurrican kick followed by a light punch cancelled into another air hurrican kick (like the one I used against Sagat in my movie). After that combo follows a "meaty" standing hard double kick which allows for a 3rd low hard kick. Though I now noticed that you use the crouching light kick 2 times before cancelling into the finishing dragon punch. As far as I know you can only cancel a hit after it is executed once. Since you do it 2 times in the same position though, the cancel actually shouldn't work, but you still did it somehow. That must indeed be a weird tech I don't know about, so if you clear this up someday, that would definitely be helpful for a possible TAS.
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Wow this is really cool, Maj! Thanks for the link! edit: i think the concept would probably considered a playaround
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Saturn wrote:
The guy obviously has no clue what he's talking about. To refresh your mind, this is the original SNES version of SSF2, not any of the modified copies that were released later, which allowed for more combo possibilities. I used all possible combos in this version and still tried to be entertaining as much as possible. Zangief is probably the better fighter for this, as he has more variety to offer in both, throws and general combos. I think Maj noticed it well.
Not only are you deeply ignorant, but you pad it with a healthy dose of arrogance. Yeah, I'm well aware what you were playing, condescending bullshit aside. Like any of the tens of thousands of people that read and post on SRK, I've played all the versions of Street Fighter 2 (including Rainbow!), and I've had Super Street Fighter 2 on my SNES since I was eight years old. Based purely on your silly posts in this topic, I'm not even sure you know more about the game than I do. I certainly agree that the Zangief playthrough was much better, but that's only because I saw absolutely nothing interesting or amazing in the Ken video whatsoever. Jump-in kick, c. mk, + hadouken? WOW, that's an original combo. And like Maj noted, the Dragon Punch is an absolute monster, with insane priority, higher number of invincibility frames, range, and the ability to be linked to numerous combos. It would be impressive if done in real life, but with a programmable pad? Please. Save your grandstanding for someone who doesn't know a thing about the SF2 franchise. You're not fooling anyone here.
Saturn wrote:
Other than that I want to say that I have watched your Guile video, Maj. Too bad most of the combos (I think there were some infinite ones as well) are not possible on the original SNES version as mentioned before. Still, I enjoyed this movie alot. If you plan on doing some more of such demos with other characters someday, I would definitely look forward to see them as well.
Well, perhaps that tells you that a Ken playthrough on the SSF2 on the SNES simply isn't exciting for anyone with interest and knowledge of SF2. I don't know, just a thought.
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Alright, I didn't thought you knew about the SNES SSF2 differences. Regarding combos, even if the j.hk + c.mk + fireball was known, showing it at least one time in a run is always good to increase variety. I still prefer SSF2 over SF2, because it has 4 new fighters, more techs, better sound, better graphics, and just is the best of the SF series on SNES (which was always my prefered console). You are certainly one of the minority of people who prefers SF2 over it.
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Maj
Joined: 9/9/2007
Posts: 66
Location: Los Angeles
Ok, finally i have a little bit of free time to go over those clips. Sorry about the delay. While making those Ken combo clips, i tried to focus on concepts that Saturn left out of his speedruns. Here's some of the stuff that i'm guessing he didn't know about ... ----- SNES SSF2 Ken sample combo 1 A lot of advanced combos involve trading hits. In fact it's more boring to do a "perfect run" because it reduces the possibilities. Anyway if you are that adamant about avoiding damage, then you can do the same combo by throwing a slow fireball from full screen away and catching up to it using air Hurricane Kick. Ken can definitely do LP fireball, whiff air Hurricane Kick, s.HP xx LP Dragon Punch as a 3-hit combo. The other combo in the video requires very strict timing and spacing, and even then it doesn't always work, but it does look cool. I'm surprised that it wasn't used in the Ken speedrun because although it's difficult, it doesn't involve an elaborate setup. It only works against a small number of characters though - Guile and Bison for sure, dunno about others. They have to lean back a certain way after the c.HP in order to delay the fireball's impact. ----- combo 2 Again, the concept of meaty attacks is something that Saturn overlooked in his videos. They open up a lot of possibilities for comboing after attacks with a lot of recovery, such as Ken's fireball. Every character put two fireballs in one combo using this technique. ----- combo 3 Backwards facing attacks are triggered by very specific setups and character combinations. Timing is important but not nearly as important as using the proper setup. It also depends on the character's jump arc, because some characters' jumps simply have too much horizontal speed to land in the right spot. With Ken, you're basically forced to use a vertical jump but Zangief can do a backwards attack following a standard crossup j.D+HP splash. It's much easier with Gief, and works against a much wider selection of characters. The best opponents for this technique are Guile, Honda, Blanka, Chun Li, and Ryu/Ken. In almost all cases, they have to be crouching for it to work. Once you get it to work, you still have to find an attack that will connect because most backwards facing attacks will simply whiff. After Guile gets dizzy, Ken does a crossup j.HP which isn't normally possible. Some characters actually lean back and forth during dizzy animation. You can use almost any jumping attack as a crossup if you time it right, jumping from behind them so that the attack connects while they are leaning forward. It adds a little bit of variety to typical combos. ----- combo 4 Lots of interesting things happen during this clip. First of all, Ken does an air Hurricane Kick against a cornered crouching opponent, which actually puts Ken into the corner briefly. This is important because in SSF2, the Hurricane Kick always pushes the opponent away. In fact if you do this exact same thing midscreen, making the Hurricane Kick hit Sagat in the exact same way, Sagat will get pushed away from Ken. However, in the corner, the game gets a little bit confused because it assumes that Ken is in the corner behind Sagat, so the Hurricane Kick impact pushes Sagat to the left. But as soon as Sagat gets hit by a special move he automatically stands up which prevents Ken from getting past Sagat and landing in the corner. So Sagat ends up getting pushed towards Ken. This combo contains 3 air Hurricane Kicks and it's all because of this setup. The next interesting thing in the combo is the low jab followed by the third air Hurricane Kick. Getting that to combo requires a technique that i mentioned earlier, but Saturn didn't know about it so he misinterpreted it as something else. Any character with a rapid fire light attack can jump-cancel it by holding UF, U, or UB while chaining into the next light attack. Here, Ken does LP, advance 25 frames, D+LP, advance 17 frames, D+LP, advance 17 frames, UF+LP, advance 1 frame, D, DB, B+HK. This rapid-fire light attack jump canceling trick was also used in the combo against Guile after he got dizzy. I did crossup j.HP, s.LK -> vertical j.HK xx HK air Hurricane Kick using the same method to jump-cancel the s.LK attack. The meaty s.HK combo is interesting because it's not a simple meaty setup. Normally the goal of a meaty setup is to shorten recovery to link some slower attack afterwards. For example, meaty s.MK, s.HP is a 2-hit combo although s.MK normally recovers too slowly for the s.HP to combo. However, the second hit of s.HK produces plenty of frame advantage, because it's possible to do crossup j.HK, s.HK, c.HK as a 3-hit combo against crouching Ryu with the first hit of the s.HK whiffing. The problem is that s.HK normally pushes the opponent too far away for a follow-up attack. The first hit connects which pushes the opponent away, then the second hit connects which pushes the opponent even further away. Thus, the goal of the meaty setup is to reduce the time between the first and second hits, so that the pushback from the first hit is almost entirely nullified. This leaves Ken close enough to link c.HK afterwards. Finally, the four-hit combo at the end uses two interesting concepts. Not many people know that the first hit creates one frame of extra hitstun compared to any hits in a combo. So Ken is able to combo s.MK, c.LK whereas he would not be able to combo crossup j.HK, s.MK, c.LK. As Saturn pointed out, the game usually prevents players from canceling multiple successive chained light attacks. For example, Ken's c.LK xx HP Dragon Punch works but c.LK -> c.LK xx HP Dragon Punch isn't supposed to work. You can bypass this restriction using what's called renda kara canceling: D+LK, advance 17 frames, D+LK, advance 14 frames, F, D, DF, LK, HP. Ken chains the second c.LK into s.LK (which never connects), and "kara-cancels" it into HP DP. It costs (at least) one frame more than a standard cancel but in many cases it's the better option. ----- Well, that's everything for now. Hopefully this gives you some more ideas to play with. By the way, it's universally accepted that the best games in the SF2 series are SF2: Hyper Fighting and Super SF2 Turbo. Obviously SF2: World Warrior was a huge deal because it was the first in the series and it revolutionized the genre, but in retrospect it simply has too many balance problems. SF2: Champion Edition has a few cool things, but the balance problems are still there because Bison and Guile are too strong. When SSF2 was released in the arcades, it absolutely devastated the SF community. It was much slower than HF, the new characters were useless, nearly all of the old characters played the exact same way, and it brought no gameplay changes to the table. By the time SSF2T was released, it was too late and other fighting game franchises had begun to take over. Still SSF2T is a classic because they added a LOT of new things to the game and also to each character, plus they addressed the speed issue. The only good thing about SSF2 is that it has a combo counter, which makes it a lot easier to impress people who don't play the game enough to judge whether or not something was a combo. Other than that, the vast majority of people prefer SF2:HF. Haha, told you it was gonna be a lot of text.
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Awesomeness! Thank you for the detailed explanation of this combos. Never in hell did I know about such crazy workaround tricks to fool the cancels. In fact I even doubt most of the SF2 experts know about such crazy stuff. Your knowledge of this games is very special, and I, as a SSF2 fan for more than 12 years, am highly impressed by this rare stuff. Great job Maj!
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Maj
Joined: 9/9/2007
Posts: 66
Location: Los Angeles
That's why you gotta do a little combo video research before you start making a fighting game speedrun. A lot of people have made a lot of very good discoveries in these games and you may as well take advantage of them. Like i said earlier, SSF2 was an unpopular game, but SSF2T (also called ST) still has many fans. So you can find a lot of ST combo videos and borrow a lot of the concepts. Obviously there are a lot of moves in ST that don't exist in SSF2, but you'd be surprised at how much useful stuff you can find in ST videos. Here are some of the more famous ones - tool-assisted because they used programmable controllers: SF2 Combo Movie Vol.1 by Tosaka (homepage) SF2 Combo Movie Vol.2 by Tosaka SF2 Combo Movie Vol.3 by Tosaka Combo Movie Vol.7 -Super Street Fighter 2X- by zerokoubou (homepage) In fact if you look closely enough, you can spot a lot of the same concepts that i used in those Ken clips i made. You just have to know what to look for and then find good ways to combine the ideas.
http://sonichurricane.com Tuesday = new technical/combo video/article | Thursday = new screenshot | Saturday = new strategy article
Player (206)
Joined: 2/18/2005
Posts: 1451
Yeah, I will test which of the SSF2T combos will work on the original and which not. Thank you again for the nice videos, I have seen some more new combos from them. Since there is much work ahead to study them all, it will take a while for me to finish a improved Ken version. So if anybody of you experts wants to do the Super Battle movie themself (I still think you could get the best result with your large knowledge, Maj), please go ahead anytime. I would be glad to see a new movie from somebody else, as my version most likely wouldn't be done until next year.
See my perfect 100% movie-walkthroughs of the best RPG games on http://www.freewebs.com/saturnsmovies/index.htm Current TAS project (with new videos): Super Metroid Redesign, any% speedrun
Joined: 5/30/2007
Posts: 324
Maj wrote:
When SSF2 was released in the arcades, it absolutely devastated the SF community. It was much slower than HF, the new characters were useless, nearly all of the old characters played the exact same way, and it brought no gameplay changes to the table.
Wasn't Dee-Jay mid-tier or even high mid-tier in SSF2? Obviously, T-Hawk, Fei-Long, and Cammy are arguably the three worst characters in the entire game. Saturn- To someone who has casually played the Street Fighter series, both of your speedruns look amazing. However, there's a giant community for SF and fighters in general (SRK), with thousands of people who have played the franchise for 15+ years, and know the priorities and frame rates for every character, as well the standard combos, charge partitioning, kara-canceling, etc, etc. Within that, there are people who spend time making combo videos, and investigating every single possibility for pulling them off. Basically, after watching a number of these, and comparing your speedrun to that standard, your Ken video isn't great. Perhaps it's simply the choice of game and console. Perhaps it's the idea of playing against a CPU, which limits your options. But without question, it can be significantly improved, as Maj (who knows infinitely more about this than I) has already mentioned.
Maj
Joined: 9/9/2007
Posts: 66
Location: Los Angeles
IronSlayer wrote:
Wasn't Dee-Jay mid-tier or even high mid-tier in SSF2? Obviously, T-Hawk, Fei-Long, and Cammy are arguably the three worst characters in the entire game.
Maybe, but i don't think any of those characters became interesting until ST. The new moves that DeeJay, Cammy, and Fei Long received in ST helped a lot in giving them unique play styles. In SSF2, DeeJay was basically just mini-Guile.
... know the priorities and frame rates for every character, as well the standard combos, charge partitioning, kara-canceling, etc, etc.
Actually combo video making is more about knowing attack properties rather than knowing their priorities or frame rates. In fact it's still really difficult to get good frame data for these old games. Also, charge partitioning only exists in one Street Fighter game: SF3 Third Strike. It always gets mentioned in any discussion about advanced SF tricks, but it's almost never applicable. Maybe the name just sounds too cool.
Perhaps it's simply the choice of game and console. Perhaps it's the idea of playing against a CPU, which limits your options.
In Saturn's defense, SSF2 speedruns are inherently limited as a combo showcase medium. First off the game doesn't have super moves or juggles or all of the extra attacks that were introduced in ST. Second, there's only so much you can manipulate the CPU into doing. I mean, maybe he can take some of these concepts we've discussed and improve the combos in his speedrun. But i still think it's a bad idea to concentrate on combos. It's going to be really difficult to reproduce certain Tosaka setups without direct control over the opponent's actions. The bottom line is that almost any character with a projectile is going to need advanced setups to maximize the combo potential of the projectile. If i was to make a Ken combo video, i'm sure that at least half of the combos would involve some elaborate setup to get Ken ahead of his own fireball. That's why i think it might be best to do a T.Hawk speedrun. First of all, he doesn't have a projectile so that's one less thing to worry about. Second, his normal moves aren't that good so it would be interesting to see what kind of counters you could find against the CPU's attacks. Third, he has a lot of throws and he has an SPD, which can be used in entertaining ways. Fourth, he has a small jump which makes it easier to do backwards attacks with him. I guess you could also go with the characters who do the most damage. Who would that be? I'm guessing probably DeeJay (cuz of the Machine Gun Punch) and Fei Long (cuz of the Rekka Kens). Though Fei Long doesn't have any convenient cancelable moves in SSF2. He'd be much better if he could cancel c.MP like O.Fei Long can in ST. Unfortunately Balrog's Turn Around Punch doesn't seem to do very much damage in this version.
http://sonichurricane.com Tuesday = new technical/combo video/article | Thursday = new screenshot | Saturday = new strategy article