Author: Lance "Tarnot" Hood

Divekicking is great, and when it comes to altering the rules of physics to change a jump arc, few characters can compare to Ultra Street Fighter IV’s Rufus. But what about those times when cramming a foot into your opponent’s face just isn’t an option? Evil Geniuses’ Justin Wong recently held an online training session with an aspiring Rufus player and shared some of what he knows about the normals that the fast talking American brings to the fight for situations just like that.

Though Rufus isn’t exactly a footsies powerhouse like some characters, that doesn’t mean that his normal attacks are bad. In fact, he has some pretty powerful options. Wong demonstrates the best situations to use buttons like standing roundhouse to score a launch, the strongest choices for anti-airing, and he even shares why some combo enders aren’t the best idea under certain circumstances.

If you’re looking to harness the power of the Space Opera, this video is a great starting point.

Source: Cross Counter TV

Around the middle of December, our very own Terry “Kineda” Ng hosted HADOCON VI in Burlingame, California. This tournament saw players like Crs|NuckleDu, pH|HooDaMan, Snake Eyez, and plenty more face off in a wide variety of games.

In addition to standard tournament matches, the event also held a team tournament and a NorCal vs. SoCal showdown in Ultra Street Fighter IV, as well as a grudge match between SRKUW|Fawwaz and Revolver Sagod.

If you didn’t catch the event live, or if you just want to relive the Ultra Street Fighter IV portions of the tournament, you can check out the embedded playlists from IPLAYWINNER below. Full results can be found in our coverage hub.

Ultra Street Fighter IV singles

Ultra Street Fighter IV teams

Ultra Street Fighter IV NorCal vs. SoCal

SRKUW|Fawwaz vs. Revolver Sagod grudge match

Source: IPLAYWINNER

Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DS has proven to contain quite a bit of depth beneath those beautifully rendered characters from our childhoods. While the community has yet to stumble across something as game changing as the wavedashing technique made famous in SUper Smash Bros. Melee, there are plenty of roster-wide maneuvers that up the ante while providing benefits to players who harness their power.

Adding another item to this growing list, Zeta recently put together a video showing off what they’re calling “edge sliding.” This technique seems to work much like perfect pivoting, in that it can be used to greatly extend the effective range of various attacks.

In addition to showing how to perform an edge slide, Zeta demonstrates how it stacks up against perfect pivoting so you can get a better feel for which technique best suits your style. There’s a good chance that they’ll both be useful in certain situations, so hit up the lab and see what you think.

Source: Zeta

Sakura brings a lot to the table in Ultra Street Fighter IV: good buttons, ambiguous setups, and some of the highest stun and damage output around thanks to her lengthy combo options. But before you can get to all the fancy character-specific Tatsu loops and setups, it’s important to nail down the basics.

In an effort to help aspiring Sakura players get started without being overwhelmed, shano has compiled a collection of entry-level combos that don’t ask much from the players. These combos won’t turn any heads, but they will help you get used to the fighter’s style without having to commit much time to learning strings of tight links. That’s not to say that some of these options don’t include strict timing themselves, but they pop up only rarely.

Source: shano

As with the release of any major game, there has been an understandable influx of tutorials on the basics of Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DS to help those interested in getting into the popular Nintendo title do so as painlessly as possible. Plenty of these tutorials are good, but these basic mechanics videos from Super Smash Academy are some of the better ones currently floating around. While this footage does focus on beginner-friendly concepts, it assumes that viewers have at least some understanding of how the game works.

Since basic knowledge is assumed, the videos are able to cover the concepts of using the directional stick to angle tilt and smash attacks and the benefits of doing so before moving on to cover many of the game’s defensive options as well as various methods of safe recovery. If you’ve found yourself having problems defending against incoming attacks, the sections on rolling, spot dodging, and air dodging should help you stay in the fight.

If you’re interested in making the transition from a more traditional 2D fighting background to the fast, free-form world of Smash, check out this guide.

Source: Super Smash Academy via Smash Boards

If you’re a fan of max damage King of Fighters XIII combos with insane corner carry potential, then you’ve likely seen a few of Persona’s videos in the past. If you’re new to the videos from this master of the combo, get ready for a treat worthy of sending out the old year. Their most recent upload focuses on Iori and showcases some incredibly stylish options.

Fans of Persona’s videos will also be pleased to discover that the combo master has plans to begin producing Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN- footage in the new year. If they can break the King of Fighters XIII like this, I personally can’t wait to see what they do with the newest Arc System Works offering.

Source: Persona

Today marks the last day of 2014, and what better way to send the year out than with some fancy Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 technology? Below, you’ll find a video from Marvelo showcasing the team synergy options available to Nova, Doctor Strange, and Strider that open up some interesting combo paths.

This video includes plenty of ways for Strange to get into position and unleash his devastating corner loops. The setups vary depending on character–and Marvelo stuck a handy guide in the video’s description to help with character specifics–but most involve various strings into Energy Javelins. The addition of Strider to the team helps make these options more viable as you’ll see in the footage.

Marvelo has also included some particularly nasty hard tag setups, so be sure to check them out.

Source: Marvelo

After spending a couple of weeks exploring different characters, Michael Galardi shifts the focus of the newest All Things episode back to Sakura, turning his attention toward her options against Fei Long in Ultra Street Fighter IV. As you might expect from a Sakura-centered video, you’ll learn plenty of loops that apply in the matchup as well as Otoshi setups for various situations and the best buttons for counter-poking.

As with previous All Things videos, the information is abundant, the editing is wonderful, and the entire clip clocks in at an amazingly brief two minutes and thirty seconds. If you’ve yet to check out one of Galardi’s videos and like your details to be as quick as it is informative, be sure to check out the clip below, as well as his past work.

Source: Michael Galardi

Evil Geniuses’ Momochi has been cranking out tutorials centered around easing players into advanced Ultra Street Fighter IV play for a little while now. So far, the tutorials have covered plenty of useful topics, including high-level applications of various option selects surrounding throws and sweeps as well as other tactics that see wide application throughout the game’s cast of characters.

His most recent video takes things a step deeper and focuses instead on a single character: Cody. While a great deal of the information provided in his earlier tutorials applies, this closeup view of the bored brawler allows Momochi to explore his neutral game, combos, and a plethora of other useful tidbits. He also spends time speaking on the changes that Cody received in the Ultra update and how many of them can be applied.

Source: Momochi & ChocoBlanka TV

What happens when you give Makoto unlimited super meter and have her spam her Tanden Renki? Aside from kicking up an alarming amount of dust and likely straining her vocal cords, Makoto manages to slow time to a crawl. Of course, this sort of slow down happens with any super flash, (or, more appropriately, super freeze) but since Makoto’s animation plays out the way that it does, some fun visual effects can take place.

In the clips below, Snooootch takes advantage of Makoto’s animation slowing ability to show off Poison, Decapre, and Elena’s supers in slow motion. While we’ve all seen these supers plenty of times before, it’s interesting to see how many different poses the fighters rotate through during their duration–something we’d likely not notice at regular speed.

Snoooootch also experiments with Ibuki’s ability to contribute to the making of these sorts of videos, so be on the lookout for her!

Source: Snoooootch