The match I admit, I watched over MK...

[Crackpipe]

I watched the top 8 finals and it was exciting but SF4, just isn't exciting to me anymore.

Don't get me wrong I love the Street Fighter series and use to play it up til Street Fighter 3 (although I have SF4 for PS3), but I just became disinterested in the series from SF3. Shit got too crazy and the characters no longer had the attraction of the SF1 and SF2 series. When characters started wearing school girl outfits and being non-human, that's when the SF series died for me.

Fast forward to SF4, the cast of characters better fits the SF universe, but the feel and smoothness of the game just doesn't feel right to me. Plus all these ridiculous ultra moves and metered moves make the game to corny. IMO the pinnacle of SF was Super Street Fight 2 Turbo/ SSF2 HD remix.

 

[bigmiracle]

MK9 balance wasn't so great when it came out or even after a few patches. KL/Raiden rain supreme for awhile, Cyrax/Kano were up there, sheeva/baraka/stryker were all considered garbage pre-buff. Its the nature of a game to have changing tiers and patches plays a big role. Nobody thought they would see a Juri would be in top 32, prefer 2010 nobody thought adon was good, etc etc. I wouldn't be surprise if a T-Hawk blew it up and placed well, afterall there are "grandmasters" T-Hawks in Japan.

For example when AE came out, people thought Yang and Makoto were top 4. But not a single Yang in top 32? (not sure about makoto). Games consistently go through tiers, and MK9/SSF4 are no different. There shouldn't be a patch every few months (minus broken stuff like 8-2 matchups), just let the game play out and if needed make a good patch with thorough testing. None of this whole Kano/Cyrax patching.

This hasn't changed lol

 

[DRCMessiah]

I watched the SSF4 finals and a large part of the streams friday night. It was pretty amazing talent there. The final match was really amazing. Those two guys Latiff and Fuudo (sp*) had one hell of a battle. Poor Latiff seemed to crazy under the pressure after knocking out two top players. He dropped some of his easier combos and seemed to get out of his flow. That is such a moment that will be remembered forever. Also, did you see the match he had that knocked Latiff into losers? That was so good.

 

[jtom]

after reading through this thread I can say one thing definitively... magicman is ignorance personified.

I play both games, sf competitively, and i tried my best to play mk competitively but my local scene was pretty much non existent.

i can easily see why some mk fans dont understand the hype behind sf. if someone doesnt understand the game, its depth, then visually i can see why it comes across as dull. if someone has never played sf at a high level, then quite frankly they wont appreciate the footsy and spacing elements of the game.

execution wise, and this is not meant to bash MK in anyway, but sf is infinitely more strict then MK. Within i dont know, maybe 3 weeks of playing MK i could consistently execute and land any combo/mixup that I wanted with any character in MATCH situations- with a pad no less. MK's mechanics are simple, they were designed to be simple. SF mechanics on the other hand require a good deal of practice. There is nothing easy about consistently pulling off 1 and even 2 frame links in competitive match play. The consistent execution you see from SF's elite like Poongko, Latif, etc is nothing short of remarkable.

in general id compare SF to chess and MK to checkers. Chess has a fairly high learning curve, there are lots of things you need to learn and understand if you want to be good at it. Checkers on the other hand is a faster, simpler game.