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 Rose and Sagat. Rose’s defensive options were overhauled, with a new counter and invincible reversal, but a significantly nerfed backdash. She has a new special move that works something like a single-hit Aegis Reflector also gained the ability to combo Super into Ultra, giving her powerful burst damage. Sagat has a new special move based on his Tiger Raid from the Street Fighter Alpha series, and his combo routes have almost totally changed due to significant buffs to his normals, including a new target combo. It seems more emphasis has been placed on his elbow and knee-based normals, giving him a bit more of a Muay Thai flair. Both characters feel very similar in spirit to their Ultra versions, though they offer new bells and whistles through their gameplay.
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!