Author: James "Bafael" Maule

Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition is out, and every character in the game has gotten extensive balance changes. Not only do players need to know the new adjustments to their own character, they need to know their opponent’s new tools. In light of this, I’m doing a series of videos on ShoryukenTube showing off the most important gameplay adjustments for each character. I’m doing one video a day in this series until I’ve covered all characters!

I’m doing the characters in the order they appear on Capcom’s official patch notes. The order seems to be SFV’s twelve returning characters, the four new characters, the first season of DLC, and then the second season of DLC, in order of release. My first five characters are Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, Cammy, and Nash.

In addition to their balance adjustments, each character also received a new selectable V-Trigger. These new V-triggers significantly affect gameplay, and they have a lot of intricacies that are not well defined in the game’s demonstration mode. In light of this, I’m doing a concurrent daily series where I look at each character’s new V-trigger in detail and explain its uses.

I’ll continue with both series every day until I’ve covered all characters, which should take about a month total. Keep an eye out on the ShoryukenTube YouTube channel so you don’t miss out!

Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition just released, and schoolgirl series veteran Sakura Kasugano alongside it. I expect modern players to be most familiar with her SFIV incarnation, but the one in this game plays about halfway between her Street Fighter Alpha and Street Fighter X Tekken versions. Since she’s free to play for a week and because so many people would be trying her out, I worked quickly on this guide of her essential combos, so that players can quickly learn the basics and start developing their neutral game. Here are your best bread-and-butter combos that I’ve found for every common scenario. This video features anti-airs, punishes, confirms, counter-hit combos, crush counter combos, juggles, and more.

This Sakura bread-and-butter video is not the full Sakura tutorial I’m working on, but rather simply a guide to her basic optimal combo routes. The combos are all my own findings, alongside a few things I’ve observed from other players. Sakura’s combo routes seem somewhat straightforward, so I’m fairly certain that most of this footage is fully optimal. Nevertheless, I wholeheartedly encourage anyone watching to point out further damage or setplay improvements in the comments, for both me and the other players, so that I can amend them into the final video when I release it.

Last balance patch, I made a series of videos explaining the balance changes for each character and how they affected gameplay. Now, Arcade Edition has brought a much bigger change list. I’m going to start making a pair of videos a day for about the next month, each focusing on a different character a day. One video will be an explanation of the character’s 2nd V-trigger, with some basic VT2 combos. The other will summarize and demonstrate the balance changes that character received. I encourage everyone to follow along since it’s important to know what each character can do, even if you don’t play them.

Remember to subscribe to the Shoryuken channel so you don’t miss any of the awesome upcoming SFV:AE content.

Zeku, founder of the Strider clan and teacher to Street Fighter and Final Fight veteran Guy, has just debuted last week in Street Fighter V. Like his fellow aged master martial artist, Gen, Zeku is two characters rolled into one, using his ninpo techniques to swap between his current and his youthful body. Unlike Gen, however, Zeku seems to be two fully complete characters rather than two halves of a character, perhaps owing to the fact that he cannot switch as freely between forms. The two styles have different walk speeds, dash speeds, normal moves, special moves, and combos in general. This presents a challenge to any prospective players, who must learn twice as many combos. I’ve just finished doing the legwork so that you all can quickly pick the character up without having to worry about your lab work. Here are your best bread and butter combos that I’ve found for every common scenario. This video features anti-airs, punishes, confirms, counter-hit combos, crush counter combos, juggles, and more.

This is not the full Zeku tutorial I’m working on, but rather simply a guide to his basic optimal combo routes. The combos are all my own findings, alongside a few things I’ve observed from other players. Unlike most characters in SFV, Zeku has a number of different combo routes he can take depending on the amount of meter he wants to spend and the difficulty of combos that he can tolerate, and I’ve chosen the combos that strike the best balance between optimal and consistent. I wholeheartedly encourage anyone watching to point out further optimizations in the comments, for both me and the other players, so that I can amend them into the final video when I release it.

Remember to subscribe to the Shoryuken channel, and keep an eye out for future videos!

Menat, the Egyptian fortune teller and apprentice to series veteran Rose, has made her playable debut in Street Fighter V. Her gameplay style is fully unique, and is a long-awaited departure from the rushdown character archetypes that litter SFV. Because she’s so different from the rest of the cast, it’s taken me a while to compile her optimal combos. Here are your best bread and butter combos that I’ve found for every common scenario, so players can focus on developing her optimal strategies without worrying about combos. This video features anti-airs, punishes, confirms, counter-hit combos, crush counter combos, juggles, and more.

This is not the full Menat tutorial I’m working on, but rather simply a guide to her basic optimal combo routes. The combos are all my own labwork, alongside a few things I’ve observed from other players. Unlike most videos I’ve done, I’m absolutely certain many of the combos I show are not fully damage optimal, but because Menat’s combos are very easy to drop in a high stress environment, and because easier versions of her combos lose only a very small amount of damage compared to her optimal ones, the combos I show draw a balance between being very simple and consistent while being close to optimal. I wholeheartedly encourage anyone watching to point out other potential combo routes in the comments, for both me and the other players, so that I can amend it into the final video when it comes out.

Remember to subscribe to the Shoryuken channel, and keep an eye out for future videos!

Street Fighter V Season 2.5 is out, and I’m here with another character tutorial. I’m putting emphasis on characters whose combo options changed significantly between the updates, so today’s video is the Kung-Fu cop and series veteran Chun-Li. This video contains all of her bread and butter punishes and confirms, counter-hit setups and damage optimization, tools against fireballs, frame traps listed by delay, meaty pressure, setups, and more. If you want to learn Chun-Li, everything you need to know should be right here.

My initial Chun-Li bread and butter video was one of my first for Street Fighter V, made using footage recorded from my time in the 3rd beta test. What’s more, Chun-Li is one of the most changed SFV characters since launch, as she was seen as overpowered in the first season and perhaps underpowered in the second, and has received many balance patches that actually affect her gameplay and goals rather than simply her damage. This new character guide should be up to date for every optimal and practical Chun-Li combo as of season 2.5, and includes everything I initially missed, plus many advanced combo routes other players have unearthed. As usual, I’ve included an enormous guide in the video description. This video is intended as a supplement to that guide, so make sure to check it out.

Currently I’m trying to release one of these tutorials every other week, until I’ve covered all characters. I originally intend to do the characters in order of most to least popular, however as I said, I do want to prioritize characters who were heavily affected by Season 2 and Season 2.5 balance adjustments. Remember to subscribe to the Shoryuken channel, and keep an eye out for future videos!

The “enthusiastic” motorist Abigail has just made his playable debut in the Street Fighter series this week. While fan reactions to the character’s design were mixed, I don’t think anyone anticipated the technicality and depth of his toolset. This naturally has made Abigail ridiculously difficult to optimize, but I’ve worked hard to compile only the most optimal practical combos, so that players can easily learn his combo routes and start focusing on his unique footsies. In addition to the usual demonsrtations for ideal anti-airs, punishes, confirms, counter-hit combos, crush counter combos, and juggles, this video features two new sections devoted to Abigail’s unique mechanics: Parry Confirms and Guard Crush Combos.

This video is merely centered around Abigail’s optimal combos. Consider this video a precursor to an eventual full Abigail character tutorial. The combos are all my own labwork, alongside a few things I’ve observed from other players. I’m fairly confident that most of these combos are fully ideal, but due to the precise nature of his juggles and abundance of conversion options, I’m sure I’ve missed some optimizations somewhere. For both me and the other players, I ask that those viewers somewhat acquainted with Abigail point out anything I might have missed in the comments, so that I can amend it into the final video when it comes out.

Remember to subscribe to the Shoryuken channel, and keep an eye out for future videos!

Street Fighter V Season 2.5 is out, and I’m here with another character tutorial. I’m putting emphasis on characters whose combo options changed significantly between the updates, so today’s video is the teenage ninja Ibuki. This video contains all of her bread and butter punishes and confirms, counter-hit setups and damage optimization, tools against fireballs, frame traps listed by delay, meaty pressure, setups, and more. If you want to learn Ibuki, everything you need to know should be right here.

My own Street Fighter V bread and butter combo videos are by far my most popular YouTube videos. However, the vast majority of them were made during the third SFV public beta test. While almost no serious balance changes were made between that beta and release, certain damage values were incorrect and the players have had a lot of time to develop. The initial videos were made based on my own training mode findings and nothing else, and were fully featured around combos. I asked around, and have decided to flesh them into full character guides, now including a basic game plan I’ve summarized from watching a lot of pro matches. This is the full scope of my observations on Ibuki. As usual, I’ve included an enormous guide in the video description. This video is intended as a supplement to that guide, so make sure to check it out.

Currently I’m trying to release one of these tutorials every other week, until I’ve covered all characters. I originally intend to do the characters in order of most to least popular, however as I said, I do want to prioritize characters who were heavily affected by Season 2 and Season 2.5 balance adjustments. Remember to subscribe to the Shoryuken channel, and keep an eye out for future videos!

Been a little while since we’ve had a numbered episode of Rising Up. My first video was on the general mechanics of Street Fighter V, and my second video detailed the combo engine. Now, I’m back to try and tackle the most common question in fighting games: “Well that’s all well and good, but what do I actually do?” In this video I seek to explain the unexplainable, what exactly your objectives are in-match and how to go about accomplishing them. This is a video on what to do in neutral; specifically, how to approach.

The core of the issue is that what tools you’re trying to use are extremely variable and dependent on three main factors. Which character you’re playing, which character your opponent is playing, and how far you are from the opponent. Here, I focus on the factor of distance, and try to elaborate on general tools that players of any character can easily understand. In this video I go over the various intricacies of walking forward, dashing forward, poking, jumping in, anti-airing, using approaching special moves, and navigating projectiles, all with the fundamental goal of approaching a defensive opponent.

The video was originally intended to be a summation of playing at all ranges when offensive or defensive, but I quickly realized that video would be about an hour long. As such, I’ve split the script into four parts. Rising Up Part 4 will cover how to apply pressure and mixups once you’ve approached, while Rising Up 5 and 6 will cover defensive play. This series makes an excellent introduction to Street Fighter V or even the Street Fighter series as a whole, so feel free to recommend it your friends to subscribe to the Shoryuken channel and keep an eye out for future updates.

Street Fighter V Season 2.5 is out, and I’m back to releasing character tutorials; today’s is the sadistic taekwondo expert Juri Han. This video contains all of her bread and butter punishes and confirms, counter-hit setups and damage optimization, tools against fireballs, frame traps listed by delay, meaty pressure, setups, and more. If you want to learn Juri, everything you need to know should be right here.

My own Street Fighter V bread and butter combo videos are by far my most popular YouTube videos. However, the vast majority of them were made during the third SFV public beta test. While almost no serious balance changes were made between that beta and release, certain damage values were incorrect and the players have had a lot of time to develop. The initial videos were made based on my own training mode findings and nothing else, and were fully featured around combos. I asked around, and have decided to flesh them into full character guides, now including a basic game plan I’ve summarized from watching a lot of pro matches. This is the full scope of my observations on Juri. As usual, I’ve included an enormous guide in the video description. This video is intended as a supplement to that guide, so make sure to check it out.

Currently I’m trying to release one of these tutorials every other week, until I’ve covered all characters. I originally intend to do the characters in order of most to least popular, however I do want to prioritize characters who were heavily affected by Season 2 and Season 2.5 balance adjustments. I’ve got a secret project lined up for the alternating weeks that I can’t wait to show off. Remember to subscribe to the Shoryuken channel, and keep an eye out for future videos!

I just picked up Injustice 2 the other day and I’ve been enjoying it immensely. In the interest of helping to grow the scene, I thought I’d take a character and make a quick video tutorial emphasizing pick-up-and-play tools, so that people could quickly understand and begin learning the game without having to spend too long learning the character.

Firestorm seems quite simple, and has good capacity to zone and to rush down, so I thought he might be popular with many Capcom players looking to give the game a try. In this video I cover all his strings, the common uses of each special move, and some of his individual normals–plus all his optimal common combos, as well as a brief overview of his keepaway game from afar, and his mixup game up close.

I think one of the bigger weaknesses of Injustice–and other NRS games–is that there weren’t many hubs where guides were collected and distributed, particularly video guides. What guides there were would also sometimes become outdated, without updates from the creators. So, I thought I’d try my hand at creating a single location with video resources on mechanics plus simple guides for all characters, which I plan to update should they ever be affected by a rebalance. Additionally, there seems to be a lot of misinformation in the community about the mechanics of Injustice 2; I’d like to make a video before too long where I attempt to dispel some of the information and drum up interest in the game.

I’ve been caught up enjoying exploring Injustice 2 lately. I’d like to continue making these, possibly until I’ve done one for every character. So if you’d like to see more, remember to to subscribe to the channel!