Author: Lance "Tarnot" Hood

Having a solid counter-hit combo or two in your back pocket is just as important as having any other combo. Dealing more damage and landing links that wouldn’t otherwise work change, even if only for a brief moment, the way that the game is played and discourage opponents from pressing buttons at bad times.

Training mode in Ultra Street Fighter IV offers the option to turn counter-hits on randomly, which gives players a method of practicing fast reactions to the text popping up, but that isn’t always enough. Thanks to Full Punish, PC players will soon be able to simulate an environment that allows fishing for counter-hits, regardless of how you go about doing so. Check out the video below for a detailed demonstration.

If you missed previous case studies involving defending against Rufus pressure that randomly incorporates the threat of a throw and okizeme against delayed wake up and reversals, click their respective links to see the videos.

Source: Full Punish

If the slog toward the weekend has got you down, maybe some impractical Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 combos will give you that extra boost that you need to make it to Friday evening. In the video below, Stream Burger shows off a mastery of most of the cast in this impressive ten-minute combo video that will (I guarantee it!) show you something that you’ve never seen before.

The best part of the video is that there aren’t a lot of appearances from high-tier characters. Lengthy combo videos are typically loaded with Vergil and Doom, but not this one. Stream Burger stuck to some of the lowest tier characters that the roster has to offer. Rocket Raccoon, Thor, even characters that almost never get screen time like Jill make an appearance to show a little bit of what they’re made of.

Source: Stream Burger

The ability to properly practice okizeme in Street Fighter IV became a lot more difficult once Ultra hit the shelves. Thanks to delayed wakeup, defenders were given a new way to remain out of harm’s way, which greatly changed the pacing of the game, especially in specific matchups.

To complicate things even further, Ultra Street Fighter IV’s training mode didn’t ship with the option to have the training dummy randomly delay its wake up so that reactionary setups could be practiced.

Things like Ibuki setups that Archie Utama showed off recently, or Juri’s tech involving Feng Shui Engine which both allow the aggressor to react to a delayed wake up are nice conceptually, but without proper practice in a controlled environment it’s difficult to apply these sorts of things when they matter.

Thankfully, Full Punish–a to-be-released training program for the PC version of Ultra Street Fighter IV–includes the ability to randomize delayed wakeup so the training dummy will try to mess up your okizeme attempts. The program also offers the option to set the dummy to perform reversals, which are just as helpful when practicing things like safe jumps and other setups with tight timing. Check out the footage below to see these concepts in action.

And if you missed yesterday’s case study involving defending against Rufus pressure that randomly incorporates the threat of a throw, follow this link to see it!

Not yet convinced that you need to give Full Punish a whirl once it releases? This is only the second of many upcoming demo reels, so stay tuned to see some more footage in the coming days.

Source: Full Punish

Kenneth “K-Brad” Bradley of Evil Geniuses recently began offering online training services, and some of the footage from these sessions has made it onto Cross Counter TV.

One particularly helpful lesson that has made its way to on-demand status features K-Brad going into great detail about how to properly perform throw techs, the advantages of and differences between standing and crouch-teching, and how frame traps play into all of that.

If you’re a seasoned veteran of the fighting genre, it’s doubtful that any of this information will come as a surprise to you, but if you only recently got involved with the greatest gaming genre there is, there’s much to be learned from the 20-minute lesson included below.

Source: Cross Counter TV

Thanks to a newly-announced Ultra Street Fighter IV training program called Full Punish, there will soon be even more reason to favor the PC version of Capcom’s current fighting giant. The application works as well as, if not better (much better in some cases) than a human acting as the training dummy. It’s also worlds ahead of trying to convince yourself that “randomly” recording these setups on the dummy yourself is a good way to train.

Been there, tried that, memorized the sequence.

Through the use of Full Punish, the training dummy can be set to perform various attacks in a truly randomized order to help practice defending or, as the name of the program suggests, full punishing whatever setup or approach option has been giving you trouble. In the case of the brief demo footage below, Rufus has been set to perform a wide array of tick throw setups, some of which mix in divekicks to blow up traditional crouch-teching.

As demonstrated, Ryu’s best solution to this pressure involves adding another layer to the crouch-tech option select by pressing Strong as well. Now he’ll tech throws as well as beat out those pesky divekicks with a c.MP. Ryu players that regularly face off against Rufus are probably well aware of this, but for those of us who only face the rock opera lover rarely, it’s great to finally have a way to practice not only the best way to beat this kind of pressure, but to train for proper punish timing in a controlled environment.

Not yet convinced that you need to give Full Punish a whirl once it releases? This is only the first of many upcoming demo reels, so stay tuned to check some more footage in the coming days.

Source: Full Punish, special thanks to UltraChen TV for bringing this to our attention.

I’m sure we’ve all seen Ryu and his less-than-friendly counterpart tag someone with an anti-air jab Shoryuken and then follow up with an Ultra in Street Fighter IV. It deals massive damage, it’s incredibly easy to do, and let’s face it: if you’re jumping at a shoto, you deserve to be hit with it. Respect those skies.

Before now, there weren’t a lot of other options to net these fighters a meterless path into an Ultra. Below, you can see Javits Arias sticking out a raw jab Shoryuken and then promptly hitting the cornered opponent with the powerful finisher; of course, this sort of situation certainly won’t come up all that often, but it sure beats having to spend meter to get in extra damage.

As it stands, this has been proven to work against both Sagat and Poison, both of whom have rather unusual hurtboxes, so your mileage may vary against other members of the cast.

Source: JavitsArias, thanks Bafael for sending this in!

It’s been a little while since we last heard from ArmchairTitan, but their newest Ultra Street Fighter IV combo video, this time around featuring Dudley, was well worth the wait. These combos have a heavy focus on stylish juggling–something that the tea-drinking gentleman definitely does well. You’ll see roses, character-specific strings, and one combo in particular that lasts long enough to allow plenty of other activities during its duration. Need to do some laundry? You’ve got time.

Combine all of that with some of the best editing a combo video has seen in quite some time and ArmchairTitan’s special brand of humor, and you’ve got a video that even those outside of the fighting game community can enjoy. Keep it classy!

Need some more impractical combos in your life? Check out ArmchairTitan’s videos for Seth, Cody, and Oni by following their respective links.

Source: ArmchairTitan, tip via Saki

Venom47 recently released their second combo music video for Ultra Street Fighter IV. The demonstration, which you can check out below, includes a large number of characters doing what they were meant to do: totally impractical combos. Some deal massive damage, some squeeze out as many hits as possible without regard for damage totals, and some take full advantage of the wider hurtboxes in the game–looking at you, Rufus–but they all provide an entertaining spectacle to behold.

As with most modern videos of this style, you’ll see an abundance of Psycho Stream combos. The best looking one is undoubtedly Blanka’s take on the anti-Decapre tactic, as he applies enough heavy attacks between purple-tinged hitstun to land a dizzy on the masked fighter.

Which combo is your favorite?

Source: Venom47

If you’ve recently found yourself incarcerated for reasons that you can’t or would rather not explain, GroundedSF has the perfect tutorial to put your law-breaking attacks to good use in Ultra Street Fighter IV. This third edition of their running Notes from the Big House series features some great information that aspiring Cody players as well as veterans of the man in the striped jumpsuit can easily add to their game to make the most of any fight.

The footage here focuses on the properties of Cody’s Ruffian Kick and Criminal Upper specials and the opportunities that they afford the bored brawler in certain situations. As an example, many of the startup frames of Ruffian Kick put Cody in an aerial state, which allows for him to use the move defensively when he expects a throw. This also means that if he’s hit from these startup frames, he’ll perform an air recovery and land in a position that allows him to begin pressure on his opponent, or at the very least maintain a neutral situation.

There’s also a lengthy segment with some interesting combo opportunities against a cornered Dhalsim that will make the Yoga master think twice before throwing jumping normals.

Source: GroundedSF

Are you interested in adding Rocket Raccoon to your Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 squad? Well, then you’re in luck, as this video from Gbtx6 contains a great deal of solo technology that the space-faring fur ball can bring to any team.

While the damage of most of the combos deal out isn’t as impressive as what other characters might offer, keep in mind that only one bar is ever spent and there are plenty of DHC options that could easily bring the numbers up quite a bit.

Once the combos are out of the way, Gbtx6 makes a strong argument for why aerial defenders should never pushblock Rocket, as he’ll be able to go for a throw which easily converts into, you guessed it, a full combo. There are, of course, reset opportunities to be had in this situation as well, which makes the little fellow even more threatening.

As though a Raccoon with guns wasn’t already scary enough.

Source: Gbtx6