Fighting E.Honda (Part 1)

~The Beast From The Eeast (Click It)~

If you were at all like me when I was first learning (and still earning) to play Sim, fighting Honda left me feeling like the little tike in the picture above. I felt as if no matter how hard I fought he was just smothering me with some part of his FAT SUMO BODY! Whether it be splashing, slapping, stomping, or squishing, I found myself losing the match very quickly.

I was very flustered, conventional ST knowledge stated, over the long run, Honda beat the non-fireball characters and the fireball characters (FBCs) beat Honda. Yet, I was getting stomped by head-butting, butt-slamming, hundred hand slapping, orochi-throwing spasm boys!

(I need to interject…. Most experienced ST players know that any player given any character can beat anyone at any time. Sure there are character mismatches, but with a little patience, technical skill, and ingenuity, every character can compete. So, conventional wisdom can be bunk!)

So, I started to think about why I was losing. I played ST for years already, and I was very on par with how most of the ST fireball cast beat Honda. Very generally the key to beating Honda was as follows.

*Step 1: Create Space
*Step 2: Throw fireball
*Step 3 A &B: (A) If Honda jumps forward or butt-slams to close the space created in step one*, step forward and use appropriate anti-air. Then go to back Step 1. (B) If Honda Blocks, go to back to Step 2.

* If Honda is able to close the distance, just insert your characters Flash-Kick (FK) or Shoryuken (SRK) type move to counter his close attacks where appropriate. Try to knock Honda down and then start again at step 1.

I was attempting to do execute this pattern with Sim, but was failing miserably. Why? After a bit, I realized that Step 2 & 3A were the problems. Every other FBC in ST has 2 things Sim did not have. Fast foot speed and a FK/SRK move.

If you think about Ryu for example, he throws his fireball from a distance and either SRKs or takes a step forward and sweeps under Honda’s attack. Both of which knock Honda down and allow Ryu to take a few steps back to create some distance, and then throws a meaty fireball on Honda’s get up. This starts the whole pattern again. If Honda gets through, Ryu attempt will probably attempt a psychic SRK during Honda’s up close poking/ throwing pressure to try and score a Knock Down and start everything over again.

Sim can’t do this; he lacks the foot speed to properly make quick positional adjustments and lacks the SRK/FK type move to get out of sticky up close pressure situations. So, began to realize that position and avoiding a knock was MUCH more important in Sim V. Honda match up than any other FBC V. Honda.

I had to complete rethink how I approached the match. I had to step back and begin to look at things differently. I have thought about the best way to describe what I am about to discuss but found this image to be more helpful.

This should help you begin to organize your thoughts and strategies when approaching this match up. Every quadrant is very instructive in the sets of options you need to employ throughout the match. The axes describe Honda’s positional height and distance from Sim. Each quadrant is broken down further on whether or not Honda is charged^ or not.

^ Where being ‘charged’ is indicative of Honda being in the ‘Down Back’ position ready to Head-Butt, Butt-Slam, Orochi-throw, or Hundred Hand Slap.

I know this seem very trivial at first. And I am certainly not trying to say that everything in this match can be broken down into four clean little boxes. However, it really does help organize what attack you should consider using and when you should use it. As this blog goes on, we will really referring back to this image. It will help you know when it is safe to throw a fire ball, or zone with standing normals. Or whether to use Jump back + fierce or a crouch back + jab for a AA (or various other AAs) when Honda jumps.

The key to winning this match is to create a strategy (NKI wrote a great tib bit about this in the SRK Wiki) using the thought process above and trying to observe little details given on screen. I.E. If you see Honda standing or walking back wards (even of a fraction of a second) far away on the ground without a super, you can throw a fierce fire ball with very little threat of being damaged. He can’t butt-slam (he is not charged for it) and he can’t jump forward (He will not reach you), so he is left with jumping straight up and using the f+ fierce to move over the fireball. Which if you concider it is a worthy exchenge for the chance to hit him with a FB.

There are many little things that will give you clues on if he is charged and how he can change his position on screen. Once you learn to organize your thoughts and identify his current action and how it limit his next possible action, you can cut him off his approach and slowly corral him to where you what him to go, which is a far away from you as possible.

Thanks for reading! Keep an eye out for part 2! Every part of this write up will get more and more in-depth. ~fatboy

I really hate Chun Li....

~Beast the B*tch!~ (click it)

I am currently working on a very cool post regarding Honda. In the mean time though, I thought I would give you a little something to chew on.

These are the finals from a hard to find DVD. It could be only downloaded. Many have asked to see them after the fact. I But it seems no one donated at the time (I did) or cared, and I do not think you can get them anymore. However, since there has been a resurgence in ST interest (Namely due to GGPO and HD remix), many are looking to get their hands on these.

~Match 1 0f 3~

Note the use of:

• Ducking jab> fireballs.
• Yoga flame to punish whiiffed 'Up-kicks.'
• Flame tick > throw.

~Match 2 of 3~

Note the use of:

• Standing stong as an anti air.
• Up flame as an anti air with follow up.
• Cross up drill into head-butt on wake up.

I know this is not the best round but there are many little tid bits in there for you if you know where to look!

~Match of 3 of3~

Note the use of:

• Yoga Noogies. (You need to land these)
• Noogie traps. I.E. Noogie > late RH drill> Noogie
• Noogie follow ups. I.E. attemped Yoga Noogie > Cross up HK drill >Head-butt.
• Again the use of crouching jab and standing strong for an anti-air.

I konw the Chun Li match up is a hard one for Sim. I beleive you'll have to work a little harder than she does to earn your 'W.' But don't be fooled, Chun Li will be just as afriad of you as you are of her. She is no push over and neither is Sim. In my opion this match is up for grabs (5-5), a really good Chun will make you want to break your controller. But, don't lose your mind (or patience) and try the things listed above.

Hope this helped a little bit.

~fatboy

Boot Camp - Basic Training!

~ Let me see your War Face! ~ (< Click it!)

As with most things in life, I think it is important to learn 'the fundamentals.' Before we start looking into how Sim wins many of his match ups, I think we need to understand more about Sim himself. Time for some basic training (click above).


For the most part, many of us see Street Fighter like this:



There is nothing exciting here: many people will just see Sim standing in the corner of Chun Li's stage. But if you think about it.... What is really here? If you can humor me, try to think of the game from a computer programmer's point of view. How would you have to program a 2D fighting game.

Street Fighter is just simply a game about moving geometric shapes across a 2D-Playing Field. (Check Out Sirlin's ST tutorial video off of Capcom's Collection 2 PS2 Game)

The programmer and even the ST game engine itself sees Sim's geometric representation look very similar to this:

Even further:

They see no graphics, no images, or backgrounds, but in simple polygonal shapes. To them this yellow box is Sim. It is very important to try and see the game this way. If you don't, the next few sections might not make much sense.

Here's another example of the above concept here.

In this image we see Sim executing his standing jab. The image is broken down into 2 components: a blue box and a red box. The blue box is Sim's damage sprite and the red box is his attacking sprite. If an opponent's red box ever overlaps Sim's blue box, the game considers the overlap a 'hit' and Sim takes damage. Conversely, if Sim crosses his opponent's blue box with his red box they are consider 'hit' and take damage.


So what does this mean to us, right now? Take another look at the above photo. Sim's jab has excellent priority. Where the priority of an attack would be defined as the percentage of Red Box overlapped or intersected by Blue Box. The lower the percentage of overlap the better the priority. In other words, priority is the ability to deal damage with out receiving damage. Think of a Shoryuken, it has the ability to deal damage without taking ANY damage. It offers the best priory non-super combo attack in the game. In our image of Sim, his standing jab extends far out side his damage sprite which allows him to hit the opponents while keeping is own body safe.

I like to think of it as a electric protective fence. If the opponents tries to cross the barrier they'll get hurt while the item inside is still protected.


~Electric Fence~

OK... So I am sure many of you all ready knew all this, and I hope many of you clicked the on the "Beer" image above... LOL

But honesty, I bet a few of you are thinking, "Hit boxes? Damage boxes? This is kindergarten stuff." Very simple and very boring. Or is it? Let's have a look here:



Above you have all of Sim's high priority jabs. Crouching Jab (1), Standing Jab (2), and BOTH hit sprites for the Back + Jab (3). The black out line is the damage sprite on the (1), the green out line is the damage sprite on (2), the blue out line is the damage sprite on (3), and the yellow out line the the damage sprite as seen above from the neutral standing posture.

If I have done my job in explaining priority so far, you'll see just how great these variations of jab are. They cover the entire top and front half of his body while protecting much of his damage sprite. They create a variable wall/ dome of defense. Learning to use Sim's Jab's is very important in many of his match ups. Knowing where and how to use these three moves will help you beat nearly all of the jumps-in the game, not to mention the amount of things you can do with the crouching jab (a post for another time).

Now don't get me wrong, there are many other attacks Sim needs to use to complete his game, and I promise will get to all those in time. However, the Jab attack and all of it high priority variations cannot be over looked.

Sim does not have a easy "go to" counter attack when he has to defend himself. He has no shoryuken type, flash kick type, or any other invincible attack (other than super combo), to throw into the "fray" when playing. Every move has to be strategically placed before it is even executed.

Learn those jabs, try to find the places to use them. Lean how they move the character's sprite forward, down, back, out, and up from the neutral position. Look at how the jabs protect Sim body at different angles. Try to see where your opponent is attacking from and think about which box shown above would best counter hit their attack. In the coming posts I will be referring back to the image above, so it is best to spend on time on them now.

Thanks for reading!

Here's to the Begining.

~Welcome Yoga Friends~

Well, I have been thinking about this for a while now. I check the SRK forums constantly, I search YouTube daily, Nohoho's site hourly, I always review NKI's ST posts and community contributions, and I play Super Turbo all the time.Since everything has been done already: Videos, ST Blogs, frame data, glitches, and etc; I decided to just make a blog about my favorite character in ST: Dhalsim.

For however long I decide to keep this blog, I will be journaling my development as a Sim player. I am going to be making some pretty in-depth post/faqs about Dhalsim and how to play effectively in ST (Ok... at least moderately well).

Many know me from SRK as fatboy. I have been playing fighting games as long as I remember. I am not the greatest player, but I sure love to play! I grew up in the Bay Area, and have made many friends through the Street Fighter community, and have always had a great time. So now I wish to give something back, and do my little piece to keep the scene alive and well.
I will always be open to suggestions.

Feel free to email me @ fatboy.srk@gmail.com. If your even in the San Diego Area and would like to play some ST, don't be afraid to let me know.

Special Thanks to Eraserfoot for the sick Sim photo.