Alright here’s the deal. For reasons unknown, nobody has stepped up to explore the SF4 combo engine to its fullest potential. Usually by now someone in Japan would’ve broken it wide open, but i’ve seen nothing particularly impressive thus far.
So to get the ball rolling, i’m going to be posting some SF4 combo clips recorded with programmable controllers, Sai-Rec style. Except i won’t be working on any comprehensive SF4 combo project in the meantime, so what you see is what you get.
0:11 The first hit of Ryu’s j.MP creates a free juggle state every time, so if you can avoid connecting the second hit, you can follow up with anything. Dhalsim’s j.LP is a useful setup because it allows you to hit him at the top of his arc from the end of yours. It would’ve been nice to juggle with a Focus Attack but it’s too slow, so i went with Ryu’s c.HK instead. Juggling sweeps is always cool.
0:17 Same setup as before, except with a flashier finish. Using the slow LP version of Shinkuu Hadoken gives Ryu enough time to recover and connect Metsu Hadoken midscreen. There aren’t too many chances to use supers in SF4 combos because FADCs are such a big deal.
0:28 Sakura’s EX Shouoken trades with Ryu’s lvl3 Focus Attack which allows him to combo a lvl2 Focus Attack (but not a lvl3 Focus Attack). The last lvl2 Focus Attack connects after she falls into airborne state, but Ryu gets a free juggle out of it which is why his EX Shoryuken connects twice, setting up the EX air Hurricane Kick.
0:41 Honda’s far s.LK trades with Ryu’s lvl3 Focus Attack and the rest is fairly straightforward. It would’ve been possible to add another F+HP series at the end, but it wouldn’t build up enough meter to combo into ultra. Also i decided it would be cooler to go for the fifth Focus Attack, which needs to be a lvl1 because the lvl2 version causes opponents to hit the ground sooner. Even though the lvl1 Focus Attack doesn’t create a free juggle state, all eight hits of the Metsu Hadoken still land.
0:59 The counterhit bonus on Ryu’s j.HK causes enough extra stun to dizzy Akuma in the end. Unfortunately there’s not a whole lot to do afterwards. Even with access to full ultra meter, the ridiculous damage reduction makes it totally impossible to finish him off. So instead i made Ryu’s right hand repeatedly punch Akuma in the gut.
This is a tool-assisted combo video recorded with two ASCII PAD V Pro programmable controllers. Absolutely no cheats, hacks, or game-altering devices were used in the making of.
To clear up any misconceptions, let me explain the program pad situation briefly. I happen to own an Xbox 360 and the Xbox 360 version of SF4. Unfortunately even after spending an unreasonable amount of money on converters, i still can’t get my PSX program pads to work on it. A friend of mine was nice enough to let me borrow his PlayStation 3 for about a month, because all it takes is a $10 converter to get these digital PSX pads magically working on a PS3. There are still some issues with dropped inputs, but all that means is each combo takes twice as many tries to record. I’ll do what i can within that time frame, depending on how much interest these clips generate.
Great job on the video! Hope you make more. What program do you use to edit your videos?
Thank you sir. When i started out i was using Adobe Premiere, but the last few years i’ve been using Adobe After Effects exclusively (plus VirtualDub for capturing and basic chores like deinterlacing). Actually i have AfterEffects 5.5 which is all sorts of outdated now, but it does what i need for the most part.
this is some really cool stuff, and like you said, it’s a shame not many other people are stepping up. en mi opinion, the damage scaling makes a lot of the combos look less impressive, so maybe the lack of TOD turns people off to a game that’s supposed to be a throwback to a game that had no scaling whatsoever. i look forward to any endeavors in this format – short, sweet, and most importantly, opening up possibilities for future combo artists, by investigating the combo system’s limits.
and i’m still hopeful some japanese tinkerers will come out of nowhere with glitches that break scaling and juggle limits or 58 hit raging demons or whatever.
Dude why are you looking at lifebars? That’s the old way of judging combos. You don’t need that stress in your life.
Ignore the fighters, ignore the lifebars. Focus your eyes on the ground. Check out how much dirt Ryu kicks up while beating up Akuma! Some of that dirt wasn’t even on the boat to begin with. Ryu created it with his chi. True story.
dude you’re right
race to the inkiest dustiest combo
Awesome combos, Maj. No. 2 & 3 were insane.
omg. that was insane!!!!
Hey so i just got an invitation to join the YouTube Partnership Program. I’m not sure what that means exactly, but i’m gonna give it a shot because i’m curious. Cool?
It means they put ads on your vids and you get money off clicks from it – and YouTube will also try and give you “advice” on how your vids should be – under 5 minutes and more appealing to people etc. I’d say just keep it real, they can’t kick you out of the program and if they do, you’re back to where you are now, which isn’t so bad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_t-Sgx9Ob4A <- MrChiCity can be a bit ridiculous or paranoid, but he goes into it a bit here.
Ha, i recognize that kid from a Chicago Bulls courtside seat video that got posted in NeoGAF’s NBA thread a while back. None of those guidelines sound like they apply to me. I’m gonna make videos as long or as short as they need to be. I’ll post them when they’re done, however long it takes. And i’m not gonna ask for comments or subscriptions.
I don’t think there’s any danger of getting kicked out of the program, though i think they delete whatever videos they don’t approve. If that happens, there’s always vimeo and dozens of other clones.
I’m still confused about the music issue, because i see tons of videos where the soundtrack is not only copyrighted but it’s actually being sold as a digital download while the video plays. Luck of the draw or what?
Thanks for the info btw.
Partnership already, I thought you needed thousands of subscribers for that. The main advantage to partnership as I see it is not having the 10:59 time limit.
The digital download link is for videos that have been AudioSwaped I believe. You can do it on the edit video page. But you can only use one of u2bs preselected songs and it replaces the existing track.
Yeah i was surprised too. When i first signed up a year ago, i tried applying for their partnership program but didn’t have enough combined views/subs or whatever. My guess is this video got a drastic spike in viewcount so u2b automatically thought it might be a big deal.
Anyway getting rid of the time limit is enough of a benefit for me, though that audioswap thing is a big disappointment if it’s true. Who’d want to mute their whole video just to pimp out some radio single? Anyway i’ll look into it whenever they get around to approving my vid. Hopefully it’s at least a little customizable.
yah 1,000 views a day is pretty impressive, the most I’ve had is a few hundred a day but 73 subscribers is pretty pathetic. I think it has to do with them seeing you as a content creator. Like OfficialTASVideos really needs partnerships but the videos are created by so many different people, if all that’s involved is lots of views quickly it’s a lot easier to get then I thought.
Looks like u2b can’t decide whether it wants this video or not. When i was filling out their form, they stated a warning that either the video would be accepted or deleted. Apparently that coin flip somehow landed on its side.
Whatever, i’m tired of thinking/talking about them. It’ll happen when it happens.
my god that combo against honda was beautiful
So uh, this is a little spooky. Right before i went to sleep, the viewcount jumped from 6k to 10k. When i woke up it was at 20k. The number of ratings, comments, favorites, and subs barely changed though.
I think these guys might’ve been the reason. Kinda wish i knew what they were discussing.
click on Statistics & Data on the video’s page. Among other things it has a map that shows most of the views are from America
Yeah, that map is definitely wrong because YouTube Insight is telling me that 12,590 views are coming from blog.livedoor.jp via embedded player.
great vid!
Are 3 j.MP juggling possible on anyone other than dhalsim?
I don’t know man, the timing was pretty tight. Maybe it’ll work against Seth’s j.HP but even that’s doubtful. Maybe you could ghetto it up like:
j.MP (first hit), j.MP (first hit), DP FADC, j.MP (second hit)
That might work against everyone, but then you can’t do as much afterwards aside from ultra.
I want to see you do a combo video with Fei Long.
Me too, but for better or worse it’s not up to me. On Thursday i’ll post another screenshot caption contest and the winner will get to choose the next featured TACV character.