Happy Halloween! After many unexpected delays, here is the last remaining episode of my Street Fighter IV Biweekly Tool-Assisted Combo Video series. It’s hard to believe that i actually made it through the entire cast, but Guile was the only character left undone. I’m pretty happy with how his combos turned out, so this is a good way to close out the project.
The strangest thing about working on vanilla SF4 Guile combos in 2012 was knowing that his capabilities are vastly inferior to every other version from SSF4 onward. Reducing Sonic Boom charge time from 55 frames in SF4 down to 50 frames in SSF4 made a world of difference! Moreover, DF+HK was upgraded from a simple knockdown to a free juggle setup, F+HK frame advantage was boosted from +4 to +5, and he was given a combo-friendly secondary ultra in Sonic Hurricane. Many clips in this video would’ve turned out quite differently with those changes. Yet i still found SF4 Guile to be an interesting combo subject, despite his drawbacks.
0:11 Both hits of Guile’s EX Sonic Boom carry a juggle potential of two – making it possible to follow up a regular Sonic Boom knockdown with two EX Sonic Booms, provided the first EX Sonic Boom only hits once. Cammy’s vertical j.LK trades with Guile’s lvl3 Focus Attack, creating a free juggle setup for the LP Sonic Boom and allowing just enough time to charge the first EX Sonic Boom and buffer the motion to begin pre-charging the second EX Sonic Boom.
0:18 Guile’s close s.HK has 3 active frames and normally yields only +1 frame advantage. Seth’s HP Tanden Storm avoids the first active frame and provides a counterhit bonus; both necessary to link into far s.HP, which is cancelable into Guile’s MK Double Flash super because Seth’s superfreeze provides ample charge time. Interestingly enough, the airplane wing on the Small Airfield level can’t be broken until the plane comes to a complete stop and finishes bobbling. This combo deals 696 damage and 450 stun, which may be Guile’s maximum.
0:31 Guile’s HK Flash Kick is interrupted by Akuma’s LP Zanku Hadoken, followed immediately by EX Flash Kick with a juggle potential of one, and capped off by Guile’s Flash Explosion ultra. The main trick is completing Guile’s c.LP xx HK Flash Kick input before Akuma’s Raging Demon superfreeze occurs. That’s possible because the SF4 engine only allows kara-cancels on the first frame of a normal move. If a special move command is received any later than that, it gets stored until the normal move connects and then comes out automatically. In this case, Guile is able to recharge for EX Flash Kick before his c.LP even connects, by performing the HK Flash Kick input before Akuma’s superfreeze. Optimal spacing takes care of the rest.
0:44 Guile’s F+MP misses Dhalsim’s Yoga Tower until Dhalsim cancels into s.HK, creating a convenient counterhit meaty setup for c.MP xx HP Sonic Boom, which requires near-perfect charging as well. More importantly, Dhalsim’s hitbox shape is perfect for the rest of this quirky sequence. Almost every other character can block the HP Sonic Boom after the s.HP, c.MP link. Furthermore, Guile’s s.HP becomes active on the 5th frame whereas F+HK only provides +4 frame advantage. Dhalsim’s crumple stun animation actually allows F+HK land meaty, enabling that link. Lastly, Guile’s s.LP connects on its second active frame after the LP Sonic Boom, increasing its frame advantage from +5 to +6, thus making it possible to link into c.HK which connects on the 6th frame. This combo inflicts 440 damage and 625 stun.
0:54 Honda whiffs c.HK to create a meaty setup for LP Sonic Boom, giving Guile’s j.HP a little extra time to catch up. Normally Guile’s EX Sonic Boom produces only +4 frame advantage, but Honda’s extremely wide crouching hitbox creates a gap between those two hits, increasing Guile’s frame advantage by varying amounts. The difference isn’t much at close range, but it’s enough to link far s.MP, which connects on the 5th frame and moves Guile forward a sizable distance every time it’s canceled into Sonic Boom. Obviously the separation between EX Sonic Boom hits becomes huge at long range, providing a great deal of extra charge time on top of the existing extension gained by using EX Sonic Booms instead of normal Sonic Booms. Yet all five charge windows are essentially airtight. This combo yields 464 damage and 630 stun.
1:04 Much like the combo against Akuma, the input for c.MP xx LP Sonic Boom is completed before Sagat’s HK Tiger Genocide superfreeze, letting Guile recharge before c.MP connects. Guile’s normal Sonic Booms connect on the 9th frame and his LP Sonic Boom generates +10 frame advantage. That extra frame is used to kara-cancel far s.MP into HP Sonic Boom for a movement boost. The spacing for this combo is perfectly aligned to bring out Guile’s far s.MP instead of close s.MP before the third Sonic Boom, because canceling close s.MP doesn’t provide any forward movement at all. The fourth Sonic Boom requires near-perfect charging from the beginning. The command for HK Flash Kick xx FADC, Flash Explosion is as follows: charge D, c.LP, tap U, charge DB, DB+MP, DB+HK, DB+MP+MK, F, F, DF, DB, U+KKK. The trick is buffering the Flash Kick input before pressing c.MP to buy a little extra charge time for the ultra, which means the Flash Kick must be fully charged by the time c.LP connects. Adding any extra hits would deny the cross-under dash. This combo inflicts 398 damage and 450 stun.
1:21 Counterhit s.HP provides just enough hit stun to FADC into s.LP, and burning super meter so early allows Guile to rebuild a fifth bar by the end of the combo. It’s fairly easy to combo s.HP into lvl2 Focus Attack using a trailing LP Sonic Boom, but unfortunately there isn’t enough combined hit stun for a jump attack instead. The triple Sonic Boom sequence at the end of the combo requires perfect charging, and obviously it’s more impressive than the prior double Sonic Boom sequence, but it seemed boring to repeat the same string twice. Balrog might be the only character wide enough for three Sonic Booms and tall enough for DF+HK. This combo deals 503 damage and 810 stun.
1:40 This combo is all about spacing, based on my favorite part of error1’s SSF4AE Guile vid. Sakura’s HP Hadoken extends her hitbox into Guile’s j.HK and establishes the perfect distance for Guile’s j.HP to lead into close s.HP at maximum range. That creates the longest possible gap between s.HP xx LP Sonic Boom, giving Guile just enough time to recover and manually dash into s.LP without requiring a counterhit boost. Sakura’s distance from the corner is also optimized to delay the LP Sonic Boom hit while minimizing its pushback, so Guile can follow up with s.LP, s.HP xx LP Sonic Boom. The rest of the combo is relatively straightforward, although it’s interesting that Guile can use close s.MP after c.LK -> c.LP against Sakura. This combo inflicts 519 damage and 800 stun.
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.
Huge thanks to the fighting game community for all your support and encouragement – and for staying patient between releases, even when they slowly started to take months. It’s been fun (more often than not).
I’ll have the customary transcript written up this weekend. As always, please don’t hesitate to ask questions about any specific combos in the meantime.
Congratulations on finishing this awesome series.
Hey, congratulations! It was this series that made me pay attention to combo videos. I still remember being blown away by the ridiculousness of El Fuerte’s first combo.
So, when are you starting the SSF4 TACV series? :P
Defied my expectations as usual.
that mid dash you managed in that sakura combo was awesome, I suspected it was possible mid combo, that’s some crazy spacing that requires.
As usual, I’m blown away by these combos. Well worth the wait. The Seth and Sakura combos have to be my favorites.
Congrats on finishing up the whole cast. I’ll just take this as a one-day-early birthday present. :P
Thank you sirs. I’m sorry that it took so long. My crazy work schedule left me with less than hour of free time per day over the last few months.
I tried to work on Seth and Guile material piece by piece every day, but most of my combos usually take around 5-10 hours (each) to discover, develop, and record. That’s like getting halfway through reading a paragraph on Monday morning, then trying to pick up where you left off on Wednesday night – but only getting through one sentence. Very frustrating.
Anyway the last couple of weekends have been much more normal, so that helped a lot. It feels good to finally be finished!
And i’m happy there’s no weird ads overlayed on this episode. I think maybe Sony ATV Publishing recently started claiming all the SF4 stage themes, but not the “SF4 Arrange” character themes? That would explain why u2b only put ads on the Seth episode. In any case, it’s a relief.
Next i’d like to compile the whole SF4 TACV series into one gigantic video, but i want to fill in a few blanks first. That’ll probably take a few months and will probably force me to buy a new hard drive, which is tricky because my editing desktop is still running (don’t laugh) Windows XP. I might try to make a few quick PASBR combovids in the meantime.
I love that Guile takes out the airplane wing vs. Seth as well.
Very nice, as usual.
Now that its done are you going to revisit the idea of touching up some of the older combos and do a DVD? I would pay for something along the lines of the one gigantic video plus the originals.
@Maj
Must feel so good to finish this series – for me it was fantastic from start to end and I was extremely proud to be a very small part of it! I long to see the day when a damage scaling system can recognise style and reward it. Although that kind of AI can be dangerous (see terminator).
Long live XP!
At some point, i would like to revisit some of the bonuses i had planned for that Combo DVD, but putting out the DVD itself isn’t on my mind anymore. It would be too much of a hassle. I’ll just do whatever i can in my free time and post it on u2b for everyone.
I’ve added transcripts for the first five combos, but the other three will have to wait until tomorrow. Good night!
Updated again with the remaining three explanations, so that’s it for this transcript. Please don’t hesitate to ask questions if anything is still unclear.
A couple quick notes …
I spent a lot of time trying to use c.MP xx Flash Kick against Akuma, but c.MP caused longer impact freeze and more pushback than c.LP, and required more sparation from Akuma’s Raging Demon. He always fell slightly out of EX Flash Kick range, and kara-canceling s.MP caused the ultra to end up whiffing. As far as i can tell, that combo is just too damn fragile and there are too many strikes against c.MP to make that substitution.
The combo against Dhalsim starts with a little gap between the characters, but it actually doesn’t matter because Guile’s F+MP pushes him away from Dhalsim’s Yoga Tower anyway.
You might notice Guile walks back slightly then steps forward before the last Sonic Boom against Sagat. This seemed to help Guile dash under Sagat, but i’m not exactly sure how. Maybe the spacing for crossing under is more quirky than it appears, or maybe it didn’t make any difference at all since Guile basically ended up Sonic Booming at point blank range anyway.
Setting up the DF+HK finisher against Balrog requires Guile to take a tiny step back before the last s.MP xx LP Sonic Boom. Letting the Sonic Boom travel further before connecting gives a little extra frame advantage, and DF+HK baaarely connects on a specific frame of Balrog’s reeling animation.
Lastly, here are some damage trials against Seth:
Guile counterhit LK Double Flash super, Flash Explosion ultra (585dmg)
Guile counterhit j.HP, s.HP xx HP Sonic Boom xx LK super, ultra (650dmg)
Guile counterhit j.HP, s.HP xx LK super, ultra (669dmg)
Guile counterhit s.HP xx LK super, ultra (670dmg)
Guile counterhit meaty s.HK, LK super, ultra (682dmg)
Guile counterhit meaty s.HK, far s.HP xx MK super, ultra (696dmg)
All of his supers share the same damage, but sometimes the LK version doesn’t move forward far enough to follow up with ultra. HK super recovers too slowly for ultra, so MK Double Flash is usually the best option.
SSF4, please! And possibly Marvel! Haven’t missed a single one of these. Thanks for all your work, Maj! You’re a beast:}