Super Street Fighter IV basics, dealing with charge characters (3DS tips)

I've been seeing a lot of complaints online in various forums about rampant abuse of the touch screen shortcuts for charge characters in Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition.

The shortcuts were meant to be used to assist those who may have trouble performing certain moves, or perhaps for those of us who are more comfortable playing on arcade sticks to be able to play on the 3DS' smaller interface by allowing you to simply tap an icon on the touch screen to initiate a move. Unfortunately Capcom was a bit lazy with this feature and some people are using it to commit to shenanigans not possible in the usual Street Fighter setting.

For example, since all I have to do is press an area on the touch screen, I no longer have to hold back to charge for a Sonic Boom or Blanka ball. This allows Guile to actually walk forward and throw Sonic Booms. This removes any sort of negative trade off for Guile, he can now throw a Sonic Boom with no charge and still retains his nearly non-existent recovery time. In a traditional console or arcade setting, Guile is awarded with the instant recovery due to the fact that he cannot advance or throw out projectiles at will like Ryu or Ken, he always has to be storing a charge of some sort. The only way he could really advance before was from special normals that moved him forward while also holding the charge.

Thanks to the touch screen shortcuts, Guile can now throw projectiles around at will, much like Ryu or Ken, without having to hold a charge. Coupled with the fact that SSFIV already caters a bit to charge characters with it's shortened charge times and large stages to run away in, you can imagine the headache you're in store for.

This video illustrates some of the strange and rather unfair things you can achieve with this broken mechanic:



So what can you to do battle this tactic? Well, if your opponent is a seasoned Street Fighter player that understands fundamental fireball zoning then there's not a lot you can do but play defensive and be very patient.

Guile appears to benefit the most from this mechanic. What you can try to do is select a character that has a move that goes over his Sonic Booms and punishes him directly. The shoto example of this would be their hurricane kick, but a lot of the cast has their own solution. For my main, Chun li, if my opponent is being predictable with their booms I can hassanshu over them and land a hit that then combos into cr lk, cr lk, ex legs and then Ultra if I have the meter.

To defeat Guile you're going to want to keep the fight in his face. Stay on top of him and try different mixups to try and bait out flashkicks to punish. I wouldn't use any Focus attacks though as flash kick breaks them, which is bad since it's now a hair trigger move now too. If you can score a knock down try to abuse crossups since most of the cast can negate flash kicks this way.

I've not played many online matches on the 3DS version, but from what I'm seeing it mostly seems to be a lot of scrubs that were incapable of throwing Sonic Booms in the tradition sense and are now enjoying the freedom of not having to do the motion. In this case their booms are usually painfully predictable and can be dispatched with ease.

Sadly though, nothing is fool proof, as Guile can also flash kick just as easily. Keep in mind that as long as he has recovered from his Sonic Boom, he has a flash kick available. He's going to remain a very frustrating character to deal with in 3D Edition. Remember that he can only have 1 Sonic Boom on the screen at a time as well.

For the other characters such as Blanka and E. Honda, remember that you can stop Blanka Balls and Sumo headbutts using a crouching jab. Some characters, while a bit riskier, can use stronger normals to stop these specials as well, such as Ryu's cr mp.

The best thing you can do for this is to go into training mode and record a dummy to do random balls/headbutts and practice your timing. Try to familiarize yourself with the speed of these attacks and when you should counter them in relation to your position on the screen. Hopefully if you can stuff enough of these moves your opponent will switch to a more favorable tactic.

To wrap this up, I'll leave you with the ultimate tip for dealing with SSFIV 3DE shenanigans: play with the touch screen features turned off. You can actually change your online settings so that you will only encounter players that are playing without the touch screen handicap. This is the only surefire way to experience SSFIV 3DE in a properly balanced state. If there are some moves you're having trouble with that you needed the touch screen for, well, you and training mode should get to know one another a bit better.

I know a lot of this was very broad and basic but I hope some of it was helpful, there's just not a lot you can do against players that can now manipulate charge characters like the AI of SSF2T. Just remember to be patient, use focus blocks sparingly and try not to jump in unless absolutely necessary.