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What makes a good Ryu?

Most characters in the game by their very nature have an implied mandate as to how they 'should' be played; Guile is focused on  defense , Sagat is a zoner and the twins excel at solid, sustained  rush-down . Ryu however, does not come with any such disclaimer. He can turtle just as well as Guile, or zone in a similar fashion to Sagat . His rushdown may not equal that of the twins, but in the hands of a master he can come very close. Having played against a plethora of styles and templates throughout the past three iterations of the game, the writer is of the firm belief that the best players are able to use him aggressively .  This is of course  the greatest challenge of all since Ryu does not possess any reliable 'get-in-quick' moves to fluster the opponent at will. This is a fundamental shortcoming of the character that opponents are all too well aware of. Almost every other character in the game has one or more such moves to position themselves (often safely) wi

The Player Stack (Part 1)

What are the core traits of top-tier SF4 players? The community often finds itself observing the gameplay habits of more well-known players in order to adequately define a formula that defines a 'top' player. This is a subject of intense debate and efforts to distill these traits in to one definitive 'stack' vary considerably. For the purposes of this article, the writer has restricted the discussion to  in-game  traits, that is, traits that players exhibit while playing. This deliberately omits practice which is arguably the most important trait of all. YouTube videos provide a wealth of consumable information. Never before in the history of fighting games have players had such a vast library of recorded matches at their fingertips. Yet these videos only provide half the story. As spectators, we are limited to making educated guesses regarding the thought processes unfolding before us. Steve Jobs once remarked the following to writer David Sheff in an interview

The reactive Ryu

Ryu can be played in a myriad of different ways. The included flowchart is just one example. T his is merely a high-level overview of basic Ryu play and is  not intended to address all scenarios.  Note however, that this play style can remain  very effective given how well you read your opponent. Figure 1: The Reactive Ryu Ryu has two primary specials (we are going to ignore the tatsumaki for the moment). Hadouken, which controls horizontal space, and Shoryuken, which controls vertical space. Due to the nature of these specials and the space they control, Ryu can theoretically win using only these two moves. Given this, Ryu's gameplan can be distilled down even further: Figure 2 : Ryu Gameplay (Simplified) The above assumes you are at your opponent's jump-in range. It could be argued that this degenerates Ryu's gameplan into a game of rock-paper-scissors, thereby leaving too much to chance. This is a fair assessment, however one must acknowledge that

A minute to learn, a lifetime to master

Using Ryu represents a purist (and arguably sadomasochist) approach to Street Fighter 4. Whilst he was acceptable in Vanilla, his competitiveness as a character peaked in Super then rapidly diminished with the release of Arcade Edition (AE). This is not to say he is not a viable character option; rather, he represents a style of play that is heavily reliant on a competent understanding of core gameplay fundamentals in order to evade some of the more tricky situations players might find themselves in (Dan is somewhat of a more extreme example of this). Fists of Fundamentals Capcom seem determined to paint Ryu in AE as a "bridge" character for new players to use solely as a platform to become confident in the use of core gameplay mechanics and execution. By giving the player only a basic set of tools that don't excel in any particular area, the player is forced to fall back on their understanding of gameplay mechanics in order to remain competitive against much of the c

Who is Alex and why is he so angry?

Alex is a long-time Ryu SF4 player dating back to Vanilla, with well over 15,000 matches played in arcades, online and local tournaments including most recently Shadowloo Showdown 2013. He can often be found in the bowels of an arcade yelling expletives at Akuma, Cammy and Seth players. Main : Ryu Alt(s) : E.Ryu, Ken GFWL : Gigadeath22 PSN:  Gigadeath22