Here are the last ten SF? Ryu Exhibition (Evo2k9+OHN8) combo writeups for your reading pleasure. Also works great as an all-natural remedy for insomnia.
3:20 / XvSF This is the only case where one clip transitions into the middle of another combo, but nothing happens before the Shinkuu Tatsumaki Senpukyaku. It always registers 18 hits. Like many characters in the game, Ryu can perform air combo links as well as chains, especially using light attacks. His j.U+MK is great for setting up throws due to the way it floats opponents upward instead of knocking them away. XSF lets you resuperjump after certain air maneuvers, including air pushblocking and air throws. Juggernaut is so huge that he gets hit by Ryu’s HK air Hurricane Kick in both directions. He also causes a lot of attacks to go the wrong way and then gets hit by these backwards attacks. Comboing into ground throws is possible if you make an airborne opponent’s last hit stun frame coincide with the frame where they bounce off the ground. The last two hits are escapable since Juggernaut can tech roll. The combo effectively ends with the second throw, but i just wanted to show how close Juggernaut was to getting dizzy.
3:36 / CFE As you can guess from Ryu’s sprite, CFE is based on the CvS engine. Shinkuu Hadoken behaves the same way here as in the CvS series. Making it pass through Hydron’s MK Tadpole Spawn strips away its first hit, which allows the remaining four hits to juggle after Ryu’s c.HK sweep. Hydron’s c.HK then reaches into Ryu’s LP red FB as late as possible. Combined with the counterhit bonus, Ryu has barely enough time to link into F+MP.
3:44 / SSF2 This clip illustrates three vastly different meaty setups. It starts with Balrog’s HK Dash Upper running into Ryu’s extended s.LK, which he links into c.HK. The second combo uses a basic wakeup meaty to eliminiate the gap between the two hits of Ryu’s close s.HK. This provides no extra frame advantage on the second hit, but does effectively eliminate the pushback from the first hit. Ryu stays close enough to link far s.HP to dizzy Balrog. In the last combo, Ryu extends his far s.MK in front of Balrog as he leans back due to his dizzy animation. By the time he leans forward to get hit, the s.MK is on its last active frame. This leaves Ryu with a lot of frame advantage, which he uses to walk forward and link far s.MP xx HP red FB midscreen.
3:55 / SF3:NG SF3 Ryu is a lot bigger and taller than SF2 Ryu, but the difference is much less noticeable when they’re crouching. This clip was built to show off my two favorite things about SFIII: Ryu’s forward throw animation and the step he takes during Joudan Sokutou Geri startup. The rest of it is made of interesting links and a little choreographed sequence between Ryu and Alex. This is the only clip in the video to use altered damage settings. The Damage Level is set to two stars in the Game Option menu and both characters are given a five star Handicap in Versus Mode. Otherwise Alex dies too soon, and the whole point of the combo is to show Ryu’s HK Joudan Sokutou Geri in slow motion.
4:43 / SFEX+a Ryu needed to start on the right side in order for his whiffed HP Shoryuken to face forward, matching the SF3 Shin Shoryuken sprite. The SFEX series has a lot of interesting links, such as Ryu’s s.HK, c.MK combo shown here. His Hurricane Kick maxes out at three hits, which becomes four in SFEX2. As a throwback to World Warrior, SFEX Ryu’s Shinkuu Hadoken randomly comes out red.
4:54 / SFEX2+ The SFEX series awards super meter bonuses for first attacks, reversals, and tech throws. Even though the Guard Break costs one level of meter and it’s done as a reversal after blocking Bison’s c.MK, the Gauge+15 reversal bonus doesn’t show up on the meter. However, both the Gauge+25 first attack bonus and the second Gauge+15 reversal bonus do. After j.MP, Ryu’s F+HP is a one-frame link. Canceling fireballs into themselves during Excel moves Ryu forward, but as the sparks gradually introduce slowdown lag as they multiply. The Excel consists of one s.LK, eight HP Hadokens, and two HP Shoryuken to pull Bison off the ground so that the first Shinkuu Hadoken only hits four times. That’s why Ryu is able to connect a second second Shinkuu Hadoken.
5:07 / SFEX3 When Ryu’s partner Sagat dies, Ryu inherits his three stocks of super meter. That’s why he can do two lvl3 Shin Shoryukens in one combo. The first one cancels Ryu’s landing recovery after the third hit of his HK Hurricane Kick and goes into its secondary animation because he’s too far for the primary version. It does less damage but creates a followup opportunity, which Ryu uses to juggle with c.MK xx LP red FB xx Shin Shoryuken. The red FB only connects once. Ryu can’t juggle after close-range Shin Shoryuken.
5:30 / SF4 Ryu throws an EX Hadoken because everyone likes bright lights, then cancels it into EX Focus Attack. It trades with Gen’s Zetsuei ultra which causes very little hit stun. Ryu recovers in time to combo another Focus Attack and finishes with an LP+LK throw.
5:36 / SF4 Ryu cancels his Focus Attack startup into backdash to avoid Ken’s Shinryuken ultra, which is easy because it’s so slow. The important thing about Ryu’s j.MP juggles is that both connect with the first hit only, which sets up a free juggle state, unlike the second hit. The first j.MP works because Ryu lands before the second hit comes out. The second one works because Ryu is too far above Ken for the second hit to reach him. Then Ryu whiffs one c.LP for style and juggles with HP DP xx EX FADC, EX FB, EX Hurricane Kick, Metsu Hadoken ultra. It’s all fairly straightforward except that the EX Hurricane Kick must juggle with the pattern shown so that the last hit connects, to minimize Ryu’s recovery time. This combo was performed starting from the farthest possible distance from the corner. Any further and the ultra FB would miss.
5:49 / SF4 Dhalsim throws an LP Yoga Fire and a Yoga Catastrophe ultra, then uses F+KKK Yoga Teleport to appear in front of Ryu. The white line crossing through Ryu’s Metsu Hadoken startup comes from Dhalsim’s reappearance. LP Yoga Fire interrupts Ryu’s ultra recovery and sets him on fire, which allows me to transition into his alternate “battle damage” outfit. Ryu takes a step forward and charges up a Focus Attack as the Metsu Hadoken hits Dhalsim seven times before the Yoga Catastrophe wipes out the eighth hit, avoiding the knockdown. At this point Ryu releases his Focus Attack, but the tricky thing is that his fist is about to touch the Yoga Catastrophe. When he cancels into forward dash, his fist disappears instantly. By the time Ryu travels to where his fist had been, the Yoga Catastrophe hitbox disappears. It takes a while longer for the flame animation to dissipate, but the threat is completely gone by the time Ryu passes through it. As you can imagine, this whole sequence had to be frame-perfect. Dashing twice before connecting with c.MP also had to be frame-perfect. Ryu’s c.MP to close s.MK link is lenient but his close s.LP to close s.HP combo is a one-frame link. There are ample opportunities for this combo to fall apart.
Well, that covers all the combos. It’s funny that i wrote so much yet still didn’t get to talk about where most of this stuff came from or how it evolved. If there’s enough interest, maybe i can make another post later on just trying to recall those stories.
Numsigmernen asked about Ryu/Gouken’s simultaneous superfreezes in the final scene, so here’s my explanation. Originally my intention was to find a range where they’d trade hits. Even though i was going to cut before impact, it would be a cool piece of trivia in case anyone wondered. Unfortunately Ryu and Gouken need to be quite a bit futher away for that to happen, so it’s impossible if they both dash forward beforehand. Gouken wins.
That actually turned into a surprisingly complicated mess. The audio continues way after the video freezes, so i had to record them (in Training Mode) doing simultaneous supers from much farther away simply to get both to whiff, so they could both finish their voice samples and avoid collision sound effects. Except after three hours of trying, i never got the superfreezes to occur simultaneously. It turns out that the time between when Gouken darkens/freezes the screen and when his spark appears actually takes longer than the time between Ryu’s darkness and his spark. So in order to get the sparks to happen simultaneously, Ryu has perform his super slightly later than Gouken. Trouble is, once Gouken’s super darkens the screen, the game starts ignoring everyone’s inputs so Ryu can’t finish executing his super. Even though Ryu isn’t frozen, his controller is.
Here’s the solution that i accidentally stumbled onto at the very beginning of this adventure without even knowing it: If Ryu buffers his complete super input into his dash, he’ll automatically do his super as soon as he recovers from dashing. Since Gouken’s dash is way quicker, the original sequence had Gouken doing his super slightly before Ryu recovered, which let Ryu bypass the darkness input cutoff because Ryu’s entire super command was already completed. Kinda ironic how the thing i dislike most about SF4 (easy mode SFTM-style input buffering) saved my video, cuz this all took place the day before the absolute final deadline.
What you see/hear in the final version consists of three clips. The main clip is of course the (silenced) continuous uncut video footage, while the other two are used strictly for audio. The second clip has Ryu throw the fireball and Gouken absorbs it, then both of them walk back and Gouken dashes forward while Ryu stands still. The third clip has Ryu dash forward while Gouken stands still, then both characters perform their supers so the sparks occur simultaneously. When Ryu dashes forward in this third clip, both supers whiff because he ends up roughly a character length farther away from Gouken than he does when they both dash forward in the main clip.
Had to take kind of a windy path to get to the final product, but it came out clean because there wasn’t any excess audio to edit out.
Interesting. I just assumed, from all frame data on SRK (which says things like “1+4” for startup), that all supers took exactly one frame before entering super freeze, and that all freezes lasted the exact same game time (which I assumed to be one single frame). Should have actually tested that after I discovered the super-vs-ultra situation. Now that you mention it, I can clearly see Gouken enters his super freeze before Ryu, and that he finishes earlier (returning to normal game time and thus looking frozen because Ryu isn’t finished yet).