Thoery Fighter: Volume 3: Offense and Defense 101

A little introduction: Given the amazing success of Street Fighter IV already (it was sold out in Japan on day 1 and is tough to find a launch copy in Canada/USA) and the massive influx of new players, the Street Fighter community is bigger than ever. Even though the game is new, there are already a lot of very good players out there, but for most people, this will be their first Street Fighter in over a decade! To help those people, I welcome you to "Theory Fighter." In each installment I will try to explain some of the concepts that seperate a noob from a pro using practical examples and setups for varying characters. For the most part, these are concepts that can be used in any Street Fighter game, and in some cases, any competitive game period.

Note that this series of articles will very much be geared towards newcomers, so if you're a Street Fighter Veteran the information here may be of limited use. Also note though, that these articles will assume you're at least familiar with the Street Fighter (IV specifically) core mechanics.

Remember, there's a huge difference between a noob and a scrub. A noob knows (s)he's a beginner, but willing to learn. A scrub is convinced he's already good before (s)he's learned anything.

Don't forget to read Volume 1 and Volume 2

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Lexicon

Here's a short list of words I'll be using that you need to be familiar with. You can skip this section if you're confident you understand this terminology.

Wakeup

A situation when one player has been knocked down and is starting to stand up and the other player is bearing down on him/her.

Crossup

An attack aimed such that you hit them on one side of their body, yet land on the other side.  This is useful for confusing your opponent.

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Theory Fighter: Volume 3: Offense and Defense 101

Now that you know the compositions of your moves and the different ways you can alter them (see Volume 1 and Volume 2) we're ready to start setting up our approach to the fight. Before we get into the specific strategies you can use in the game though, it's worthwhile to spend an article examining the principles Street Fighter was designed around.

At its heart, any competitive game is a test of one human will versus another. This is true of Street Fighter, poker, hockey, chess, even Monopoly (both the board game and the business world - har-har aren't I so clever?). Remember that Street Fighter is just the tool, the real competition is happening between you and your opponent. Street Fighter is an exceptionally well designed tool, but it is still just a tool. Ryu doesn't beat Ken. You beat your opponent.

Yomi
(Note, this section borrows heavily from David Sirlin's "Playing to Win." Check out his online book if you have a chance.)

Yomi is a Japanese term which roughly translates to reading another's mind. In Street Fighter, knowing what your opponent will do and when (s)he will do it is key to forming the right counter strategy. You're probably already using Yomi without even realizing it. You see your opponent jump a lot, you predict a jump, you counter with an anti-air. You realize your opponent always does a Shoryuken when he stands from a knockdown, you block it, and punish with your bnb combo. These are both examples of Yomi.

However, Yomi exists in different "levels." Predicting an opponent's jump is called Yomi Level 1. But what if your opponent predicts you prediction? (S)He can use an appropriate counter to that! Then you need to find an appropriate counter for that and so on and so on.

Street Fighter, more often than not, exists in a CIRCULAR YOMI LEVEL 3. Before explaining this, let's look at an example.

Example # 1
(This is a greatly simplified example but will work for the purposes of demonstration.)

Let's say Ryu has Ken locked in a corner and is pressuring with repeated fireballs just inside half a screen distance. If Ken continues to block the fireballs, he will get chipped to death (because blocked special moves still deal a bit of damage). If Ken tries to throw his own fireball, he'll probably get hit on startup. However, Ryu's repeated fireballs are predictable, so he jumps forward over the next one and attacks. This is Yomi Level 1.

Now let's say Ryu knows he's being predictable, or even doing this on purpose. He knows Ken will jump, so he looks out for it. When he sees it, he uses a Shoryuken to hit him out of the air. This is Yomi Level 2.

Now we get into the fun part. Say Ken wants to jump, but knows Ryu will Shoryuken. In this case, Ken can jump straight up. An antsy Ryu will Shoryuken and miss him, giving him ample time to counterattack while Ryu recovers. This is Yomi Level 3.

Finally, say Ryu expects everything we've outlined above. How does he deal with a straight up jump? He throws a slow fireball. This way, Ken will land on it when he comes back down from his jump. This is Yomi Level 4.

Whoa whoa, back the truck up. Didn't we just say this was a 3 level system?

Good observation, I just broke the design of the game. Or did I? Look at the solution for Yomi Level 4. Notice that it is exactly the same as Ryu's initial move (repeated Hadokens). If Ken wants to counter with a Yomi Level 5, he would jump over the slow fireball. But then that means Yomi Level 5 = Yomi Level 1! This is why we call it a Circular Yomi Level 3 system. You and your opponent can read eachother's intentions over and over and the system won't break down. As long as you know what move your opponent is going to do, there is a set way to counter it.

In general, Street Fighter is nothing more than this situation over and over and over.

Street, Paper, Scissors
(Note, this section borrows heavily from user "Derek" on the capcom-unity forum)

In terms of Circular Yomi Level 3, Rock Paper Scissors is the perfect competitive game. The game is designed in such a way that if you know what your opponent is going to do, there is a way to counter his/her move with 100% certainty. If you are at a higher level of Yomi than your opponent, then you are rewarded. In a similar way, you can think of every situation in Street Fighter as a Rock Paper Scissors standoff.

Well, almost.

The fundamental flaw in this logic is this. You could play 10 games of Rock Paper Scissors and if you win 6/10 games, you win overall. However, in Street Fighter, winning more confrontations does not always win you the match. If I manage to counter your missed fireballs with MK 5 times, but then leave myself open to your Ultra combo once, it is more than likely that will put me behind.

You must always be mindful not only of the damage you can potentially do to your opponent, but of the damage that can be done to you as well.

Example # 1

Let's examine a situation on wakeup. A wakeup occurs when you've been knocked down and your opponent is bearing down on you as you stand up. More often than not, if you stand over a beginner as they wake up, they'll go for a Shoryuken or other anti-air. This works well to stuff opponents who want to push an attack, because the Shoryuken is completely invulnerable during its startup frames.

However, the Shoryuken is a risky commitment, particularly if your opponent is not jumping in. There's no guarantee your opponent is going to attack you. In fact, it's just as likely they're trying to bait that high risk move out of you so they can go for a punishing counterattack. The Shoryuken is one of THE WORST moves to have blocked, and against good competition can cost you up to half a life bar.

Dan scores a knockdown on Ken, then baits an EX Shoryuken which he punishes with an Ultra

So what other option do you have?

Wake up and block.

Yes, sometimes you'll miss out on the opportunity to hit a homerun with your Shoryuken. However, if you stand up and block, what do you lose? Nothing. In fact, you may even catch your opponent off guard long enough to land a throw. No it isn't as damaging as a Shoryuken, but it is a much safer option that still has the possibility of scoring you damage.

This is not to say never do a wake up Shoryuken. What it does mean is to be smart about your options. If you see your opponent jump infront of you, that is an obvious situation to use a wake up Shoryuken. If your opponent has a tendency to stick out a move as you're getting up, then a Shoryuken is probably an acceptable risk. However, too many players go for risky Shoryukens on every wakeup, hoping for big damage, and then getting slammed on a reversal. Whatever work they put into the match up to that point suddenly doesn't matter, because they're behind again. In this way, you can think of Street Fighter as Weighted Rock Paper Scissors. You want to choose the option that affords you the most gain, for the minimum risk.

Natural Selection

There is a natural culmination that emerges from both the concept of Yomi and the design of Rock Paper Scissors, and that is the notion of adaptation.  To win at a high level in Street Fighter, you must not only be aware of what your options are, but those of your opponent.  One of the most famous quotes from the Sun Tzu (also known as The Art of War) is: 

"To know yourself, but not your enemy, this is a half victory.

To know your enemy, but not yourself, this is a half victory.

To know yourself and to know your enemy, is to win 100 out of 100 battles"

Before we get into this subject, let's take a look at two videos from the same player.

Example # 1

Let's take a look at this Blanka.  I'm not sure who this is, but he posted his video publicly so it's fair game.  Beyond his talking, look at the actual way he plays Blanka.  It's not too shabby.  He certainly has the concept of cross-ups (attacks that force your opponent to block the wrong way), mixups, and hops into bites (3 strategies crucial to playing Blanka).  Especially considering Sakura seems to have no answer for the rush down, this guy is playing "his" game very well.

Now let's look at a second match featuring the same player:

Here is a telltale sign of the inability to adapt.  First off, some of his complaints are legitimate. There is a degree of lag in the game and in general, Zangief's Spinning Pile Driver (SPD) and Ultra are both very very good.  

That being said, neither of those reasons applies in this match.

The first indication that this is a player's fault is at the 1:00 mark when he HIMSELF calls the fact that his opponent is trying to pull an Ultra.  The Blanka player here has all the advantage.  He is at a higher level of Yomi AND he has the lead (health-wise).  Yet what does he do?  He presses his attack with both a risky slide AND a dash forward.  He claims he's done nothing wrong, yet he's made two crucial mistakes already.  This isn't even mentioning the fact that even had his opponent NOT used the Ultra, the Blanka player had willingly put himself in the corner!  In this case his Yomi is useless because he doesn't act on it.  He is locked into his own game and can't see options outside of it.

The optimal solution here would've been to stay back, poke with cr. HP, and Vertical Roll any jump attempts.  Even if Zangief managed to get within this perimeter, a simple jump would've avoided an Ultra or SPD.

Fastforwarding to 1:33, he claims that Zangief tricks only work online and then promptly eats a whiffed Green Glove into a 360 Power Bomb.  However, this isn't just an "online" strategy. Watch countless videos from SF4 tournaments around the world and you will discover this is a legitimate Zangief setup because the Green Glove scares people into blocking. There is a functional reason to use these moves in sequence; lag is not part of the equation.  The Blanka player doesn't realize this.  He assumes any strategy Zangief uses should be invalid versus his Blanka strategy, so instead he attributes the hit to lag.

Finally, at about 2:10, we see a similar situation to the 1:00 example.  Again, the Blanka player knows an Ultra is coming, and again, he slides multiple times and fails to recognize the jump-in. The result? He eats an Ultra. Frankly, I'm shocked he didn't eat an Ultra sooner off the blocked slides, but this final example puts a heavy exclamation point on his inability to adapt even from round to round.

Am I being condescending?  I'm not trying to be, really I'm not.  It takes a man to upload a video of himself losing (although I question his motives, I suspect he's looking for commentors to agree with his rantings).  From a game perspective, his Blanka sets aren't bad, he knows a few combos, he has some hop tricks, and against most other characters a poke slide is a perfectly legitimate and effective strategy.  However, that only makes the point even clearer. The Blanka player is only playing half the game.  He expects the same sets and strategies to work on every opponent, regardless of the matchup.  In short, he is very comfortable playing is own game, but if you take him out of it he is either unwilling, or unable to adapt.  Against Zangief you absolutely want to keep him out of SPD range, not willingly move yourself into it!  The sad thing is that, given the way he's talking, he doesn't seem to realize his mistakes and thus will be doomed to repeat them.  

On a personal note, I fought one such player recently.  Oddly enough he was playing Zangief.  He repeatedly tried to jump-in and SPD, so I repeatedly hit him out of the air with a simple c. HP. This lasted two FULL rounds until I won the match.  Shortly afterward I received a personal message asking if I enjoyed being "cheap" doing the same move over and over and that he was going to report me.  I simply sent back a message that read "I don't mind."

Conclusion

There are a lot of ways to play Street Fighter.  You can play a rushdown style, a turtle style, or a zoning style.  We'll touch on the specifics of these later, but the important thing to realize is that your style is only half the game.  To play a full game of Street Fighter, you need to consider not only your options and tendencies, but the options and tendencies of your opponent.  You need to get into their head, figure out what they're thinking, and when you do that, you need to devise a counter strategy and execute it.  Once you've done that, you can ride that strategy until they figure it out and use a counter on you. This is the absolute base of Yomi. If we were playing Rock Paper Scissors, and I only ever chose rock ("Good ol' rock, nothing beats that"), why would you have any reason to choose anything but paper? Would that be "cheap?"

The first step to developing good Yomi is realizing when you don't have it. If you're so locked into your own game that you can't see the moves of your opponent, you're doomed to make mistakes and lose matchups where you're disadvantaged. Everyone loses, that's not something that should concern you. Your Battle Points shouldn't concern you. What SHOULD concern you is losing and not understanding why you lost, especially if you kept losing to one "cheap" move. More often than not, being "cheaped" means you weren't able to adapt to the situation, so there was no reason for your opponent to change it.  In these cases, I suggest you take a step back from the game and, while the memory is still fresh, think about what exactly you were doing and what your opponent was doing.  Form a counter strategy. Then challenge again. If you win, then you came up with the right counter strategy. If not, then there's absolutely no shame in going back to the drawing board.  With time, you will learn to make and adjust strategies in mid-match.

That's when you start to unearth the game within the game.

Next time: Defense, defense, defense

Happy bday to me

Theory Fighter: Volume 2: Bread and Butter combos

A little introduction: Given the amazing success of Street Fighter IV already (it was sold out in Japan on day 1 and is tough to find a launch copy in Canada/USA) and the massive influx of new players, the Street Fighter community is bigger than ever. Even though the game is new, there are already a lot of very good players out there, but for most people, this will be their first Street Fighter in over a decade! To help those people, I welcome you to "Theory Fighter." In each installment I will try to explain some of the concepts that seperate a noob from a pro using practical examples and setups for varying characters. For the most part, these are concepts that can be used in any Street Fighter game, and in some cases, any competitive game period.

Note that this series of articles will very much be geared towards newcomers, so if you're a Street Fighter Veteran the information here may be of limited use. Also note though, that these articles will assume you're at least familiar with the Street Fighter (IV specifically) core mechanics.

Remember, there's a huge difference between a noob and a scrub. A noob knows (s)he's a beginner, but willing to learn. A scrub is convinced he's already good before (s)he's learned anything.

You can find Volume I here

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Lexicon

Here's a short list of words I'll be using that you need to be familiar with. You can skip this section if you're confident you understand this terminology.

Combo

A sequence of moves that, if the first hit connects, cannot be blocked by the opponent until the combo is complete. A combo can come in two varieties: Chain and Link. For this article we will focus on chains.

Chain

A chain occurs when you use one move to "cancel" the recovery animation of another move. If done correctly, this results in the first move never entering its recovery animation phase, and if you land it then you will get a combo. For example, Ryu can chain his cr. MK into a Hadoken fireball. When done correctly, Ryu goes right from the active frames of his cr. MK to the startup frames of his Hadoken, without ever showing the recovery frames of his cr. MK. For more information on frames, see Volume I here.

A correct chain with Ryu. Notice that he goes straight from his cr. MK's active frames to his fireball's startup.

There isn't really a trick to performing chains. Just press the button or do the motion for your next move while the previous move is still in progress. You want to time it so you complete the next command just after the previous move connects with the opponent (be it a hit or even if blocked). Note that not ALL moves are chainable. For example, unlike Ryu, you CANNOT chain Fei Long's cr. MK into any of his special moves. Finding chainable moves must be done through experimentation (or through Street Fighter IV's excellent Challenge Mode). Also note you cannot chain from a whiffed move. A move must connect (hit or blocked) to chain into the next move.

cr
Anytime you see the letters "cr" followed by an attack (LP, MP, HP, LK, MK, HK), this indicates "crouching." Otherwise, assume standing.

Main
Your primary and best character.

Priority
One move's ability to win when it comes into contact with another move. Contrary to popular belief, people do not get "lucky" when they hit you out of an attack with another attack. These are all predetermined by the priority of the two moves. For example, Ryu's crouching MK has higher priority than Blanka's crouching LK. Therefore, if the moves ever clash during their active frames, Blanka will always get hit.

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Theory Fighter: Volume 2: Bread and Butter combos

Before I start this article I'm going to make something abundantly clear:

Beginners put way too much emphasis on the importance of long combos.

I'm not sure why this is. Maybe it's because they're flashy and impressive. Maybe it's because its the primary thing you can practice in arcade mode against the CPU. Either way, the fact remains that long, complex combos, despite being damaging and invigorating, make up a relatively small part of a Street Fighter match. Check any Street Fighter IV tournament video on youtube (you can find a ton here: http://www.youtube.com/user/Min0ra). I wager you see very few long combos. Conversely, I also wager you'll see the same 3 to 4 hit combos used over and over again. These small combos might not be as flashy, or do as much damage, but their effectiveness comes in the number of times you can land them, and the safety they afford if you miss them.

These are your "bread and butter"

The Bread and Butter combo (bnb)

When choosing a character to main, it is absolutely imperative you find a bread and butter combo. This is your all purpose go-to move to punish your opponents mistakes. Your bread and butter doesn't need to be complicated, it can be as few as two hits, but you must constantly work on it so that it becomes automatic. When your opponent whiffs something, or you block a move with a lot of recovery frames, you should automatically go for your bread and butter. You absolutely, positively must execute this combo with near 100% consistency.

Phew. I hope I got across the point that this is important.

So what goes into a good bread and butter? An optimal bread and butter combo starts with a move that has quick startup, good range, high priority, low recovery, and leaves you relatively safe even if blocked. A bread and butter combo also shouldn't use any of your EX meter, since you want to be able to perform it in any circumstance. By that same token, you should be able to perform your bread and butter combo from the ground without a jump-in. Jump-ins take too long which cost you many opportunities to deal guaranteed damage.

Example # 1
Ryu can chain his cr. MK into a Hurricane Kick. This is not a long or particularly flashy combo, but what it lacks in pizzazz it makes up for in consistency. You will land this, a lot. The cr. MK is a relatively high priority move with good enough startup time that it can punish many moves on block. If you connect with this combo it leaves your opponent on the floor, but if done at the right distance, the LK Hurricanne Kick is difficult to counterattack even if your combo is blocked. Thus, this combo fulfills our criteria of being simple, moderately damaging, yet also safe.

-

You can have more than one bread and butter combo. In fact, as you get better, its a good idea to have a number of them for different situations. In high level play, it is often smart to maximize safety even at the expense of losing some damage potential. Although the above bread and butter is relatively safe, a blocked Hurricane Kick can still be punished by very quick opponents.

Example # 2
An even safer bnb combo for Ryu is his cr. MK into his Hadoken fireball. True, this combo does piddly damage even compared to the combo in example # 1, but it's so incredibly safe that you can throw it out repeatedly without fear of counterattack, especially when done at a range just inside Ryu's foot. Check out this video from one of the best arcades in Japan and count how many times both players (Ryu and Akuma) use this simple combo.

A slightly less obvious but crucial thing you want to be careful of is that your bread and butter combo of choice works on characters of ALL sizes, whether they are standing or blocking. This is important because no matter how safe a move is on block, almost all moves are very punishable if you whiff them.

Example # 3

Consider Ken's standing mp, standing HP chain. This is an easy chain combo (unique to Ken) that doesn't have a lot of recovery that you can further chain into ANY of his specials. It seems like a pretty good candidate for a bread and butter. Unfortunately, the standing HP will completely whiff small to regular sized opponents when they are crouching. This is a HUGE liability, because even if you connect with the MP, it means you could potentially whiff the HP on a crouching opponent, giving them ample time during both your active AND recovery frames to launch a counterattack.

Changing the properties of your moves

Bread and Butter combos can have some unforseen advantages that you may not realize right off the bat. The three major benefits are confirming, hiding recovery, and block switch.

Confirming

Confirming is a technique in Street Fighter where you only finish a combo when you know the hits before it have connected. This is useful because combos often end in risky, high recovery special moves. This essentially lets you "fish" with the beginning of your bread and butter with significantly less risk.

Example # 1
One of Cammy's primary bnb combos is cr. LK, cr.LK chained into her Spiral Arrow special. However, her Spiral Arrow has a lot of recovery time if it gets blocked, making it rather dangerous to use her bread and butter. However, with enough training and good reflexes, a Cammy player can learn to perform the Spiral Arrow only when they've confirmed the cr. LK, cr. LK has hit the opponent. Most people do this by performing the first cr. LK and then performing the motion for the Spiral Arrow (down, down-toward, toward), but ONLY pressing kick again if/when they confirm the second cr. LK has hit. If the cr. LK is blocked, then the Cammy player simply doesn't press kick for the Spiral Arrow, leaving her relatively safe since the cr. LK has very short recovery time. This essentially allows you to hide bad recovery moves behind much safer, short recovery moves.

Example # 2
Let's take a look at that Ryu vs Gouki match again (above). Notice at 4:20, Ryu jumps in and fishes with his cr. MP, cr. MK and then his cr. MK again without getting punished! If any of these hits connected, you can bet he would have confirmed into a Hadoken or Hurricane Kick.

Confirming can be difficult even for elite players. There are always scenarios where players inevitably read a hit/block wrong, or act before they've confirmed, which leads to blocked specials (hence why you'll still see this even at the elite level). However, even if you only confirm with a 50% success rate, that's 1/2 fewer combos you will eat as a result of blocked bnb combos.

Hiding Recovery

This is basically the opposite of confirming. By chaining moves together, you can hide long recovery moves by chaining short recovery moves to them. This is important because it gives you a use for some moves that would otherwise be too slow and dangerous to consider.

Example # 1

Rufus's standing HP leaves him at a considerable disadvantage if blocked. Conversely, Rufus' special move "Galactic Tornado" has unusually good recovery time (it only leaves you disadvantaged for 1/60th of a second!). Therefore, whenever trying to attack with his HP, it is generally a good idea to tack on a Galactic Tornado, which leaves him significantly less vulnerable if he gets blocked.

Rufus' HP is blocked, but he chains a Galactic Tornado to hide the recovery.

Block switch

Block switch isn't real Street Fighter terminology, but its a relevant topic that many players take for granted. By chaining moves together, you can effectively change the way these moves must be blocked. This is very useful for confusing your opponent with mixup games.

Example # 1
Let's examine Ken's Hurricane Kick. Normally, Ken's Hurricane Kick can be blocked high. However, if you chain cr. MK into a Hurricane Kick, this must be blocked LOW (because his cr. MK must be blocked low). This essentially gives you a Hurricane Kick that must be blocked low.

You can also think of it as adding free extra hits/damage to your cr. MK. Either way, the result is the same, you are getting more damage than a Hurricane Kick or cr. MK individually, but stealing the "block low" property of the cr. MK.

Example # 2
Now let's look at this the other way. Normally, you would block Rufus' cr. LK by crouch blocking. However, Rufus has a command normal called the Dive Kick, which allows him to drop very quickly from a jump at an angle. This move MUST be blocked high. By jumping and performing this move while you are still very close to the ground, you can surprise a crouch blocking opponent and then combo into his cr. LK (which you can further chain into a Galactic Tornado).

Rufus performs his dive kick very low to the ground, which hits a crouching opponent. This is often called "Instant Overhead"

Like the previous example, this changes the property of one move by "attaching" it to another.

Note: I have just discovered, much to my embarrassment, that Rufus' dive kicks can actually be blocked low. Now, this doesn't completely invalidate the above example, because you can often catch characters when they attempt to poke you back, but I would be remiss not to mention my mistake.

Conclusion

The key to playing a successful game is consistency, consistency, consistency. Flashy combos are great when you have a solid, obvious opening. However, more often than not, you will need to rely on a short, sweet, non-risky combo over and over to get you consistent damage on your opponent. This combo is like your best friend. Even as your game evolves and you learn new tricks and strategies, it will stay with you all the way to the end. It will give you a way to poke at your enemy's defenses, it will give you a way to punish their mistakes with a healthy amount of damage.

In short, it will make you a threat.

Next time: Offense and Defense 101

Theory Fighter: Volume 1: Breaking down normals and specials

A little introduction: Given the amazing success of Street Fighter IV already (it was sold out in Japan on day 1 and is tough to find a launch copy in Canada/USA) and the massive influx of new players, the Street Fighter community is bigger than ever. Even though the game is new, there are already a lot of very good players out there, but for most people, this will be their first Street Fighter in over a decade! To help those people, I welcome you to "Theory Fighter." In each installment I will try to explain some of the concepts that seperate a noob from a pro using practical examples and setups for varying characters. For the most part, these are concepts that can be used in any Street Fighter game, and in some cases, any competitive game period.

Note that this series of articles will very much be geared towards newcomers, so if you're a Street Fighter Veteran the information here may be of limited use. Also note though, that these articles will assume you're at least familiar with the Street Fighter (IV specifically) core mechanics.

Remember, there's a huge difference between a noob and a scrub. A noob knows (s)he's a beginner, but willing to learn. A scrub is convinced he's already good before (s)he's learned anything.

------------------------

Lexicon

Here's a short list of words I'll be using that you need to be familiar with. You can skip this section if you're confident you understand this terminology.

Frames

A central principal in Street Fighter is understanding that the game runs its animation in frames. What is a frame? Street Fighter IV runs at 60 frames per second. Therefore, a frame is 1/60th of a second in game time. When you perform a move, it takes a certain number of frames. In this series of articles we will NOT get into specific frame counting, but it will refer to the duration of moves in both frames and seconds (you'll see why in this article).

Normals

A normal is any move you get when you press a face button on your pad/stick. The normals are Light Punch (LP), Medium Punch (MP), Hard Punch (HP), Light Kick (LK), Medium Kick (MK), Hard Kick (HK).

Command-Normals

A command normal is a character-specific move you get when you press a certain direction + a face button on your pad/stick. For example, Ryu's overhead punch is toward + MP.

cr
Anytime you see the letters "cr" followed by an attack (LP, MP, HP, LK, MK, HK), this indicates "crouching." Otherwise, assume standing.

Specials

A special is any move that requires a joystick motion and a face button. For example, Ryu's Hadoken is done by pressing down, downtoward, toward + punch.

Blocking/Guarding

Blocking is your primary defensive technique in Street Fighter, and is performed by holding away from your opponent. There are two kinds of blocks: a standing block and a crouching block. Standing blocks will block any move that hits high or mid. Crouching blocks will block any move that hits low or mid. It is important to note that most jumping attacks hit high and most crouching KICKS hit low. Therefore you must block these accordingly.

Whiff

To miss a move completely.

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Theory Fighter Volume 1: Breaking down normals and specials

In this first installment we will be looking at the composition of each move in your repetoire.

Every move (normal, command, special, super, ultra, you get the idea) in the entire game is composed of three parts.

• Startup - The number of frames from the time you input a command (i.e. press a button) to the the ACTIVE time (see below). These are non-hitting frames.
• Active - The number of frames that a move can actually hit someone.
• Recovery - The number of frames after the active time to the time when you return to a neutral stand/crouch at which time you can perform another move.

Understanding these three factors is VERY important, and the first barrier to shedding some common bad habits. Contrary to popular belief (among noobs), not EVERY move for EVERY character is useful. Some characters have moves so bad you don't ever want to touch them. Strictly in terms of time (there are other factors like range and priority which we will leave for a later article), a GOOD move is one with short startup, long active, and short recovery.

Example 1

Let's compare Sagat's Tiger Upper and his Tiger Knee. Both moves have near instantaneous startup time. Both moves also have a very long active time. However, if you miss a Tiger Upper, it leaves Sagat far off the ground. The time that it takes him to fall from the peak of his uppercut to the floor again (and for the half second it takes for him to gather himself after he lands) is the recovery time. At any point during this recovery your opponent can (and should) exploit you and attack since you cannot block during recovery. This makes the Tiger Upper a very dangerous move to spam indiscriminately.

Sagat whiffs a Tiger Upper and gets comboed even AFTER he lands.

Now compare this to the recovery on the Tiger Knee. Not only does Sagat have less distance to fall, but he also falls faster. This gives the opponent much less time to think of a counter before you are in a state in which you can block again. In fact, the recovery on this move is SO good that often times you can block your opponent's counter attack and counter his counter!

Balrog blocks Sagat's Tiger Knee, yet Sagat still returns to his neutral stance before Balrog can act.

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Speaking in more general terms, LP/LK usually have few startup and recovery frames (and thus are safe to whiff or have blocked) while HP/HK can have long startup and recovery frames (making them very dangerous to whiff or have blocked). MP/MK is often somewhere in-between (obviously the tradeoff here is that LP/LK do far less damage than HP/HK).

This is also true of special moves. Special moves performed with LP/LK often have less startup/recovery than the same special move performed with HP/HK.

Example # 1

Consider Sakura's Hurricanne Kick. Performed with HK, this move is very dangerous to have blocked because she moves so far into her opponent and the recovery is quite long. It is almost a sure thing that getting this blocked up close will result in you eating a combo.

Sakura whiffs a HK Hurricanne Kick and eats a reversal combo

Now consider Sakura's Hurricanne Kick performed with LK. She travels almost nowhere and barely leaves the ground. However, she also spends barely any frames recovering from it. This means you can use it without much fear of retaliation. It's no coincidence that her LK Hurricanne Kick is considered her best special.

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It is KEY to recognize recovery times. Some moves may not look like they're in recovery when they really are. This is especially true of forward moving body attacks.

Example # 2

Consider Cammy's Spiral Arrow (also known as the Cannon Drill). In this move, she propels forward close to the ground with her legs extended out. The HK version of this move hits twice, but travels a very long distance. Although it does not look like it, it has fairly long (and easily punishable) recovery time.

The "active" frames of the Spiral Arrow. These are the ONLY frames that can hit.

Let's say Cammy performs a Spiral Arrow on you at close range, and you've blocked both hits successfully. AS SOON as you've blocked the second hit, the active frames of her move are over. The trick with this particular special move is that her recovery frames look VERY MUCH like her active frames. As a result, you may be afraid to counter her due to a fear of a phantom 3rd hit (which is impossible). The important thing to remember is that the move can only ever hit twice. Therefore, as soon as you've blocked that second hit, you HAVE to launch your counter attack despite the fact that she is still in her Spiral Arrow animation. In fact, this is the whole point, because she won't be able to block.

Despite the fact that the recovery LOOKS like it can hit you, it can't! Be like Fei Long and go for a reversal!

Note that in this particular example, Cammy can use her LK or MK Spiral Arrow, which only hits ONCE. You can still counter these versions, but if she decides to mix them up, then you need to be cautious.

Recognizing situations like this will be difficult at first, but with more experience it will become second nature.

Conclusion

So what does this all add up to? The core mechanic of Street Fighter, like any competitive game, is capitalizing on your opponent's mistakes. The most basic way of doing this is to abuse an opponent's recovery time. How many times have you fought scrubs that show off dragon punches at mid screen for no real reason other than to declare to the world that they can do them? Punish them in their recovery and, if they're smart, they'll quickly stop doing it. If you block a combo that ends in a high recovery move, punish them! The absolute key difference between being afraid of an opponent and not being afraid, is whether or not (s)he can properly punish you for making mistakes. If (s)he can't, then what's to stop you from going for risky high-damaging combos? What's to stop you from relying on a single strategy and riding it to a win? Why should you be scared?

If there's any takeaway from this first volume, it's that Street Fighter is about minimizing the risks you take, while maximizing the risks of your opponent. Play tight, don't put yourself in situations when your recovery frames will get you killed, but at the same time, actively LOOK for (or even better, predict) situations when your opponent will be in recovery. I stress again that it will take a little while to recognize these situations, but they WILL come naturally with time. It is also important to note that, although it is definitely important to recognize the recovery of specific moves for specific characters, you WILL form a GENERAL understanding of recovery which is applicable to all opponents. This is the first barrier to entering high-level play.

Next time - Bread and Butter combos