How to get good at Street Fighter IV, a beginners guide

[Tin]

Just thought I'd share a few tips on how I think you should approach Street Fighter IV!

First off, read through this: http://www.sirlin.net/ptw

Basically a guide on playing to win, written by David Sirlin from the SF community.

Second, watch Sirlins videos:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/d0cFs5mHQC4&amp;rel=0&amp;fs=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/d0cFs5mHQC4&amp;rel=0&amp;fs=1</a>

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/OoILSEQL9jE&amp;rel=0&amp;fs=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/OoILSEQL9jE&amp;rel=0&amp;fs=1</a>

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/jCapuhsOMcg&amp;rel=0&amp;fs=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/jCapuhsOMcg&amp;rel=0&amp;fs=1</a>

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/YzS_bNeKLrQ&amp;rel=0&amp;fs=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/YzS_bNeKLrQ&amp;rel=0&amp;fs=1</a>

These videos are for Super Turbo, but alot of it is relevant for SFIV. It goes into zoning, negative edge and other things which are key in IV.

Then after you've read/seen all of this, which is general Street Fighter advice, go onto read this issue of Hardcore gamers magazine ( http://www.o-sd.com/hardcoregamermag/publicPDF/HGMDownload.php?file=HGM34.pdf ). It's great, but if you dont understand the above then I dont think it will really sink in.

Happy reading and I hope atleast some of it improves your game!

[negrito]

Nice, it distracted me for a bit

[Q]

Cool, should help most people here in the community!

[Jenta]

Pretty helpful for beginners. Good job finding these

[Boke18]

Definately should help alot of people willing to learn and level up their game. Once people get their execution down this tips will definately help alot.

[Xgrayninja]

I'm hoping to step up my Street Fighter game, and SFIV will be a good launch point for that. I'm familiar with most of the techniques mentioned here, but it was still helpful to see them mentioned again in the context of Super Turbo, especially with such good examples. Though the intermediate/advanced videos were the only ones I found very useful, as most of the ideas mentioned in the beginner level videos are pretty obvious to me at this point.
One obvious way I can get better though, is to start setting up for grabs more. In both HD Remix and 3rd Strike, I'm far too hesitant to grab for fear that I'll screw up and get punished for it. I have to work on that.

[Tbag08]

Although these may be good for background information on where all of the street fighter champs came from, lets not deter the newcomers.  Street Fighter IV was designed for easy pick up and play while also catering to some advanced levels of play, but all of these advanced techniques are not complicated, it just comes with practice.  If you want to get good at Street Fighter IV, watch Street Fighter IV related videos and techniques and above all practice the combos and focus attack dash cancels.

Even higher levels of gameplay can only come with experience.  It is impossible to fully describe the mechanics, intuition, and what kendoka know as 'the perfect striking distance' without having first experienced it and practice it.  Each game that comes out will have differences in these things, so refering to old Street Fighter games I think is irrelevant.  Once you master the game through experience alone, it then comes down to reading the opponent, not the game.  Knowing what the opponent can do, or will do and then retaliating with something of your own designed from you yourself in that moment will then be an instant in which you can say you have achieved such level of play.

At least that part of my philosophy, sorry for wall of text, haha, I'm just toooooo excited about this game

[howtoread]

Already read/watched everything on Sirlin's site, its good stuff.

[Monir]

nice

[Jake-Kun]

Very nice.
Thank you for sharing all of this with us.

[devoted2sf4]

Thx I've been looking for somthing like this!

[NoctisRhythm]

Thanks a lot for posting this, I'm hoping a noob like me can learn a lot from this.

[GoldNT]

Tin > Thank's.

[Lance]

The Reversal Piano method is so cool, I wish I knew that earlier.

[Xgrayninja]

A good tip for improving your game: play against some far superior to you. No joke, I played online 3rd Strike against a user who had an unbelievable Win/Loss ratio, and though he was clearly much better than me, I learned alot of useful tactics/counters just from playing with him. Near the end of it all, I was at least winning 1 round  against him (we played best 3 out of 5), usually two, and even though I lost at least 90% of the matches we played, I wasn't making it easy for him to beat me. Again, I can't stress enough how much it helps to play against people who are much better than you. It may sound cheesy, but it's true: a defeat learned from is more important than an easy victory.