Month: February 2016

Back in June, several top players got their hands on an early build of Street Fighter V and, as top players are wont to do, did their best to break the game. One of the most important discoveries during this period was the ability to perform a crouch tech-style option select through a markedly more intricate input than what’s present in Street Fighter IV.

The buttons themselves weren’t difficult, but the timing was. The window between button presses required to net the desired effect was devastatingly small, but the option select still existed, much to the chagrin of many players. Capcom was, however, able to cleanse their in-development title of this dreaded technique before it launched.

Sadly, some victories are fleeting. Late last night, we caught word of a Street Fighter V option select which allows players to cover a jab with a throw tech, serving much the same purpose as a crouch tech did in Street Fighter IV. Evil Geniuses’ Eduardo “PR Balrog” Perez, who attributes the discovery of this tech to I-No (explaining its name) uploaded a quick video showing this technique in action.

If you take a look at the input display on the left, you’ll notice Eduardo’s button presses bear a striking resemblance to a plink input without actually needing one. After running some tests of our own, we were able to replicate the effects in Eduardo’s footage by pressing a jab, then delaying a (very) specific amount of time–exact frame counts to-be-determined–before giving the game a throw input. When successfully executed, our character stuck out a jab. Harmless enough, sure, but, when confronted with a throw tech chance, this same input allowed our would-be jabber to keep himself from being thrown.

Just like crouch teching, this option select affords users the added benefit of a hit-confirmation chance. Granted, there’s not a lot of damage to be had from a jab that doesn’t connect as a counter-hit, but light punches can still generate limited offense and the option select still removes some of the guesswork from a fight.

So what do you think? Should Capcom do their best to nix this new way to confuse the Street Fighter V engine, or should they let things settle a bit more before taking such drastic steps?

Source: PR Balrog, I-No, special thanks to PR Balrog for assuring us our testing yielded correct results and to baSick for sending this our way.