In light of Ultra Street Fighter IV‘s inclusion in digital pre-orders of the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection, I’ve decided to dedicate some time to examining the most slept-on online-capable Street Fighter title: Street Fighter IV: Omega Mode. Packaged as a free alternate version within the edition select of USFIV, Omega uses leftover game files, recycled taunts, and repurposed animations to completely change each character’s toolset; it’s essentially a completely new and unique Street Fighter title built within SFIV’s engine, with an entirely different balance philosophy than Ultra.
Omega was not popular at release due to some easy infinite combos — not to mention players’ interest in Ultra as a more serious, competitive game. I personally think Omega went woefully unexplored for being an extremely interesting venture, and I’ve started a series where I document each character’s Omega changes, and then show off some basic optimal combos.
This week I’m looking at Fei Long and Guy. Fei Long has never been significantly changed since his debut besides the addition of a command grab, so it’s very interesting to see him overhauled. He has two new special moves that are both obviously inspired by Bruce Lee films: a short gut punch into launcher, and a stepping backhand. Both change his ideal combo routes significantly, so his burning kick becomes more relegated to anti-airing while his rekkaken are more frequently used as a distant conversion option. Perhaps the most notable change from Ultra is that EX rekkaken now costs one bar per punch, making it the most expensive special move in the game to do all three, however it’s seen massive buffs across the board to compensate for that price. This EX rekka makes AE Fei look like a joke.
I’ve noticed a general trend to reduce character complexity in Omega, so Guy was quite surprising. He now has three additional followups from EX run, so he can teleport on top of you, behind you, and launch you with a shoulder combo in addition to his low and overhead. Meanwhile, his Bushin flip has a new follow-up where he can attack you coming down with his foot, and it uses a different trajectory than his elbow drop. Guy received a counter which teleports behind the opponent on activation, allowing him to surprise unwary opponents. He seems to have many launching and juggling options, so his combo routes are actually very deep with a lot of room for creativity even before considering resources. I’ve played Guy in Alpha, SFIV, and SFxT, but his Omega version is my favorite by far.
Click here for a playlist of all Street Fighter IV: Omega videos I’ve released thus far. I’ll add future videos to this playlist as I finish them.
I plan to go through the entire roster over time, so subscribe to the ShoryukenTube YouTube channel if you don’t want to miss out!
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