@@kilowyatt1107 So? You really don't think they thought of that? If he had instead dealt that damage to Bison instead of healed, he would have won sooner. You could also get super meter and heal if it was a super, unless you accidentally KO'd the opponent first. In order for this scenario to play out, you have to keep FADCing or getting hit, which is definitely not as good as dealing damage.
The problem with Elena, as Bafael so eloquently put it, is that "She's Dudley with better range, and Vega with better mixups, at the same time." She basically invalidated half the cast just by existing, and had zero weak points. Even Yun has to get in first.
Bafael has a pretty good video where he talks about how busted Elena was, and he concluded that the final nail in the coffin was Gamerbee vs Infiltration at CPT 2015. It's pretty wild just how strong Elena was, she had basically no weaknesses
I really love heterogeneity in a fighting game roster, and I genuinely really like the idea of a character (in the SF4 system especially!) having a healing ultra or super, but it so clearly needs to be on a character who has some real weaknesses to balance that out. Unfortunately, as you said, Elena basically has no weaknesses. It’s obviously such a shame that this was the final state of competitive SF4, but I additionally think it’s a huge shame as a fumbled opportunity for “out there” character design. I feel like a lot of players walked away from Ultra with the conclusion that healing was fundamentally broken on a conceptual level, and that’s just so disappointing to me. I think Capcom really salted the earth on this one. I think it casts serious doubt on whether we’ll ever see healing as a significant character ability (i.e. not a universal mechanic) in any major fighting game (i.e. not an indie release) ever again.
Having missed _Ultra_ with _AE_ being the last version of _Street Fighter (4)_ I ever played at present, I still find it hilarious how hard Capcom swung from making a character who was offensively broken (the _AE_ version of Yun) to defensively broken (the _Ultra_ version of Elena) in the equivalent of one patch or at least one DLC. All because some had the bright idea to make Healing one of the essentially free supers you get for taking damage via the somewhat wack Ultra system rather than her actual Super. Always funny when it's a seemingly small thing that breaks the hell out of a character.
@@SupermanSajam I never played SF4 really (KoFXIII 4 lyfe) but I could tell. She just has all the tools you could want except a fireball. (And she has slide instead, which is probably better.)
@@SupermanSajam I was playing random select with the homies one time and I got Elena, never had really played her other than labbing my punishes against her, and I won ten straight games with her. Easily. It's pretty wild. AE2012 > USF4. Red focus was an extremely lazy mechanic that like you said just made the good characters better. A poor attempt to "revitalize" a game that just needed delayed wakeup. Imagine they spent more time balancing the new characters rather than adding shit mechanics? Oh well lol
@@BLOOBLAYZER in defense of red focus. Gied and Hugo are not too tier and benefit HEAVILY from red focus. Overhead into red focus helped Dudley out a ton too, or just red focus period, because now you're not having to 1-f any damage you might want, same with oni. Don't know about many others, but I saw some cool red focus stuff with Dan too
Honestly the sheer nonsense of the whole new cast and the imbalance of the current top tiers really threw this version for a loop. We know Elena, bit Poison's fireball game was insane. Her flip that grounds you OUT OF THE AIR and breaks armor was nuts. Rolento's ability to just yeet himself out of many situations for free was a pain to deal with. Decapre's 50/50s off blocking into EX scramble was just bonkers. Yun could just mix and mash into a target combo to rinse repeat while getting insane meter gain, E Ryu being able to set up practical mix of death scenarios off one if not the best low forward in the game and let's not forget his unseeable kara demon. It was a fun version in its own way and minus the glaring offenders, the rest of the cast was actually playable and all had something bogus to be afraid of. Good times.
Usf4 was rough when you ran into like 6 Elenas in 10 matches. But e. Ryu wasn't very fun to play against either when you only lose neutral like twice and die. Red focus combos were mad fun to use to when making comebacks but felt so dumb when you got hit by it.
Ae2012 I personally disliked more cuz of how many characters could vortex you off of ANYTHING, so it really felt like you actually only lost neutral once and died. Cammy and akuma made me wanna unlive in that version. People think plain AE was just getting dived kicked on by the twins, but don't let anyone tell you we didn't also get rekka'd and cross up burn kicked into non-existence. Super was probably the best version, only person who was kinda dumb was Honda, but even he wasn't over bearing. I wasn't good for vanilla, so I can't speak to it, but I think if people figured out more tech early, this would've been the absolute worst version of the game. Fei long infinite AND he can cancel cr. Mk into rekka, akuma infinite AND his frame data is disgusting, sagat does like 700 damage off of meterless trade upper cut, 6HK, ultra.
I think the best versions of the game with the given understanding of the mechanics at the time were in order: Super, vanilla, ultra, 2012, ae. But I think most people would flip ultra and 2012. As far as least to most broken, I think the order is: Super, 2012, ultra, ae, vanilla For reference, I was a yun/makoto player so I ate gooooooooood in the second half of this game's life span.
I still think that overall USFIV was the best version of the game. The problem IMO was the characters and not the game itself, meanwhile in other versions of the game you had a more game wide problem (almost every single character having an vortex for example).
I love Ultra but that's mainly because it was the first Street Fighter that I really played from when it came out and learned how to kinda play the series. I recognize that it has a lot of broken stuff and is not balanced very well but at a beginner/casual level, I love that game.
Ultra characters were wild and janky because they were all rush-jobs hacked together from other assets, the four returning characters were all copy-pasted directly from SFxT and Decapre was just a barely disguised Cammy clone. Probably most of the real development team was working on SFV or other projects and it was a skeleton crew hacking together new assets like modders. It's still crazy to me that they stripped SFxT for parts like that after it failed.
Modders already showed that you could easily move them over to sf4 at that point. I believe after capcom said it wouldnt be possible. Also, much like the sf6 is having trouble make another season of sf5, they did the same thing with sf4, albeit in a more compressed time frame.
Thank you!! That’s why I dropped the game I felt like the new additions felt so wierd and the new game mechanics was just not for me at all. I was excited for poison and it felt off and then decapre was just wtf
@@Jonkin715 Ultras *were* a reward for being punished. The worse you played, the faster you built a move that could erase 50-60% of your opponent's lifebar in one hit.
Oh I'm glad Sajam showed Viper trying to hit Elena lmao. Before the patch it was MISRABLE like so many of her moves that hit the entire rest of the cast while crouching, just didn't hit Elena if she was crouching. Like St. HP, M thunder knuckle, and burn kick
Her healing move so good in this game that it made other characters in the next game that had anything that let's them heal very bad, Nash is the only character in street fighter 5 that can heal and he only can does after landing a combo and only heals for 3% of of health and still cost metter compare that to elena here who got 40% back.
"There wasn't a great version of Street Fighter IV" There I fixed the title guys. Jokes aside every version of SFIV had *something* that would piss people off more than the regular. Sure it happens in a lot of fighters but SFIV it wasn't just menaces that are powerful, but also extremely frustrating to deal with because their strengths were so obvious and simple.
(Hot Take) Listen, I think we can all agree Elena was a mistake. I also don't think it's really fair to say Ultra was a bad version. I think for me personally, USF4 has the best roster the series has seen. People don't know what they want. Everybody's always complaining about balance, yet people always put the most imbalance games on the highest pedestal like 3rd Strike and MvC2.
i think you're right, people still complain about balance just as much if not more even though games are way more balanced, people just complain about balance because they're frustrated, it has nothing to do with the big picture balance of the game, they're just salty about losing
I think SF5 S5 tops USF4. Not by much mind you, but imo it does. All 5 SF bosses. The most interesting, fun to play versions of Sim, Dan and Seth to date. Akira from Rival Schools. Zeku, who aside from being Guy's teacher is the mfkg creator of the Strider corps. Outfits from classic Capcom fighters like Mega Man, Darkstalkers, Power Stone and even SF EX. And as much as I dislike Puk...Luke, he is at least an original character, which is more than can be said for Decrap...Decapre.
Most people just weren't good enough to realize how dumb Third Strike and MVC2 were. Like seriously it is crazy how different top level third strike is from lower levels. Like third strike a lot but game is kind of dumb by today's standards., always felt the community made MVC2 good rather then the game itself In short most people have blinders on when it comes to those two games
I am Elena and Juri main. I was beginner at time, and, yes, she has easier execution like you said. Juri is the opposite, really technical character. Great analysis.
IMO Ultra was the best version of SF4 if you don't consider a few characters like Elena or Decapre. Delayed wakeup got rid of lots of set play and ambiguous crossups during wakeups, damage was reduced, buttons were improved etc. The Ultra DLC chracaters sucked cause they went lazy and just ported them from SFXT instead of designing them to fit SF4 from scratch.
@@joqqeman it would prevent situations where you did healing expecting a trade, but yes it would not really address all or even most of the reasons the move is problematic
Rose, and Elena are my two favorite SF characters (before Menat came into SFV to be added to that lineup), so having them both in Ultra made me very happy. I remember having conversations with one of my friends online speculating how Elena would be if she got into SFIV. We both figured Healing would be her super. Boy, were we wrong. As a fan of Elena, I can't say I mind her being as good as she is in Ultra.
it do be fun when your fav ends up being god tier, i got that feeling with mvc3 having Jean Grey Phoenix and Morrigan and they're so silly busted and fun there
I play elena in sf3 I made the mistake of thinking she was the same but that was just her moveset there's so much things to look out for when playing against her it's terrifying to block her
As a spectator i remember Ultra events were pretty boring to watch because you would see lots of Elenas and the matches tended to drag, but other than that it was also an army of Evil Ryus so there wasn't much else to see. One instance i remember is when Ultra just dropped and there was an event where Xian was in the finals, he said to the commentators before the finals happened that he would not play Elena and win with Gen who i believe was nerfed in Ultra but then after he lost a match i believe he immediatly picked Elena and prooceded to win, now i don't remember who his opponent was and who he played but that said a lot about the state of the competitive scene when Ultra was a thing. A lot people hated it but when SFV was being shown they were already Missing SFIV. I don't like SFV either and i dunno if i'll ever touch VI but blaming just SFV for the state of SF was just silly, one thing SFV did do was bringing a lot of new characters in the cast but it seems people sticked with the classics mostly.
I didn’t know how busted she was until later, since I was just getting into fighting games. I’d still like her in 6, I bet she would look cool with all the flippin and dippin (with all the broken stuff fixed/axed of course).
People really did gloss over how Yun was basically back to his broken AE state in Ultra. Ultra wasn't out long enough for it to really show, but Kazunoko did a good job of it during the final Capcom Cup for SF4.
@@evilded2 Oh, right. He talked about unblockables in the game and how they added delayed wake-up in the last 2 minutes, before going back to talk about Elena.
Even with all this, Ultra is my favorite version of sf4 (next to maybe super). Vanilla was a broken mess with much less variety, and AE had similar balance issues while being less fun imo
Sf4 was a bad game from start to finish. The only redeeming quality is that it paved the way for the new era of fighting games. It was easily one of the most boring fighters to watch and play. Ultra update with Elena was pretty much the final nail in the coffin. I'd watch any version of MVC3 over SF4 any day of the week.
I agree and I mained Yun. The version before Ultra might've been the best overall. I didn't mind most match ups in the game though. No one is more annoying to me than C.Viper
Why didn't you use the title in the description? All you did was talk about a single character for most of this video, even though you very lightly touch upon saying this version of sf4 had alot of weird hamfisted changes. Some of the comments are doing a leagues better job than you are talking about the whole roster than you did.
So while my opinion might not count for much, I really think Ultra is comfortably the best version of SFIV. Even though delayed wakeup wasn't a perfect fix, it still took a whole bunch of unblockables out, or at least make them into reads. I'm not saying any of the points in this video are invalid. I just think that all the other versions of the game were comfortably worse, because the vortex was so much more potent and the vortex sucked. Game needed at least one more patch before it was done, honestly feel like V came out a year too early.
I want Elena back without the healing super. I never once used it, because if I wanted to draw out a match's length like that, I just played Rose and zoned. Make Elena mid-tier, nothing wrong with that. Also want Viper back, but maybe with less of the feinting and super jump insanity. "Practical Viper." Oh, and HUGO.
Super SF4 was probably the best overall time for the game. It was before AE Yun and Makoto came to terrorize the game and people weren't running the unblockables super hard. I hate DP FADC and mashy jabs into full combos with a passion so never really liked any SF4 games.
Throwing up and crying?? Kids these days gotta learn what it's like in the real world. I'm throwing up and crying *simultaneously*. Just sobbing tearfully while blowing chunks all over the place. The new generation is too soft to do that.
Pretty much the reason I picked Abel back up when Ultra dropped, so I would just command grab loop Elena and not have to worry about the healing as much
SFIV in general felt a bit overwhelming for newer players (imo). I'm a 2012er, I've played it for around 2k hours, and I still don't know every gimmick in the game. Every matchup, punish, setup was very character specific since there were a multitude of different escape options that you needed to lab, not to mention a lot of non-standard characters in general. SFVI feels really more grounded and footsie based in comparison which I really like, the flow of the game also doesn't have comeback mechanics (like Ultras) which I personally like.
Talking about the corner carry on Elena now that we know what street fighter 6s corner carry is like makes me wish corner carry was more like Elenas in 6
I just don't like triggers and ultra meters where you're rewarded with resources for getting hit, aka, playing poorly. And I like that they limited that to a large degree in SF6 where they just turn lv3 to CA.
I dunno, combo variation and neutral are by far much better in sf4. Fishing for crush counter 5 is pretty boring. Although there are some cool combos, sf5 seems like theres 2-3 bnbs per character with no variation from what works. Idk, sf4 just seems like it has more depth to me.
@@BearBoulder Guess you must be one of those that only played SFV season 1. Fishing for crush counters is not a thing anymore🤦♂️. And yes, SFV NOW HAS COMBOS!!!!!!!!!!!
@@Copperhell144 1 frame links are a part of combo variation though. The fact that one frame links exist in sf4 give rise to combos that are difficult to do and are flashy. Ryus solar plexus to c.fp>hp.srk is 1 frame link. There's lots of 1 frame link combos in sf4 that don't exist in sf5.
He was but at least Sol had (read: has) the decency to murder you quickly. Even just in passing there seem like a *bunch* of Elena matches that went to time out due to how stupid it was to make Healing an Ultra.
luke is probably the tamest "broken" top tier in sf history, as far as the last version goes. check the tapes. he's really strong, don't get me wrong, but not as dominant as any of the top tiers in the past worse than claw and sim in st. worse than chun and yun in 3rd strike. worse than yun, e.ryu, elena in ultra 4. i'm no even going to mention rose in alpha 2 and akuma, sim and sodom in alpha 3. compared to those other characters in older games, luke is just a really strong, defensive character with a big damage output
@@guilhermeberbert he's is the ultimate all rounder i think all these moveset has the same propriety than most of the cast but better with great damage
I think vanilla was the best version of them all regardless of damage how strong sagat was, it’s the main reason everyone got into sfIV. Yun Elena and a few other killed the game.
@@cj_ocean The leak was 22 characters. The base roster is confirmed at 18 characters. Therefore, the first set of DLC will be the remaining four characters: Ed, Akuma, Rashid, and AKI.
Can't say I agree, basic safe-jump pressure was oppressive against some characters. Sure you can still play around delayed wake-up, but most of the characters that still got a strong mix from it were thought of as setplay characters, they had other weaknesses. And yeah, some characters were disproportionately strong, but that's something you can say about any game, it's not like the rest of the cast was kneecapped by the changes. Ultra was arguably more balanced overall, at least when compared to vanilla and Super.
I did not care for that version at all; I was an able main and they ruined his supers and his rekka move was just utterly destroyed; just ruined him and made him worthless
AE2012 was probably my favorite, but the rise of unblockables and setplay made the game a bit unfair. They needed to get a skilled dev in there to fix the unblockable problem rather than put a bandaid on it (delayed wakeup)
@@dingusdangus9299 I mean cammy, most shotos, adon, the twins, makoto, and nearly all the top tiers had unblockables. They were very hard to get out of without wake up focus or wake up just frame block, which were hard to do. As for the vortex, I mean look at any cammy or akuma match at a major. It's pretty clear it was an issue.
Capcom has a track record of leaving their most popular games with a version that isn't quite the best or really otherwise begs for an updated version. Hyper Fighting > Super Turbo, 3rd Strike could have used an update, and Ultra SFIV is inferior to several versions of IV. Maybe as a community we should fight for one more version for several of their classic flagship titles.
I almost get the impression that capcom salted the earth with Ultra to make sure people moved onto V so they didn't find themselves with a Melee situation. Just add a bunch of characters that wouldn't feel that out of place in Alpha 3 or hell maybe even a Vs game in Decapre's case.
It's sad because this was the version that "fixed" the unblockable situation but ended up introducing another toxic problem to the game lol I was never a fan of SF4 but capcom leaving it in the state it was in was kinda dirty. Would love them to bring it back with rollback netcode for the sf4 fans.
@@denjindhalsim weak condor spire is a cancer for her(like no joke, just spam it), it interrupts around 90 percent of her normals and specials. If you use weak condor spire, command grabs, and ex (backwards condor dive), she will die in no time..... you also have to keep in mind that she stuns pretty easily. I know that for some characters, she is a pain, but grapplers pretty much destroy her if you are good with your normals and command grabs.
As someone who still plays sf4 ultra a lot... And plays a lot of poison. I feel that wierd hurtbox/hitbox comment. Her j.fp is so fucking inconsistent. Sometimes it crosses up wierd on a meaty hit. Sometimes it goes right through the character model. Sometimes it will hit a mile away. I can't use it at all. Her DP is probably the wierdest, most useless reversal ever and it not hitting behind her (outside of niche use of ex dp) is so wierd. Since like so many shoto dp's do.
Tbh I never liked how SF4 and 5 felt to play. The rigid nature of them turned me off, and I'm happy to see 6 making efforts to keep the play experience smoother and more fluid
"Rigid" meaning the animations and general game feel. Characters very nearly stand back to neutral in between attacks, even during combos. The movements feel unnatural; stiff and robotic, and combos don't often "look" like they should combo, even if they do. 4 and 5 both have this issue, where returning to a neutral stance in between moves in a combo is more common than moves that flow naturally from one animation to the next. SF6 has characters hitting the attacks, and staying in the resting pose of those attacks for JUST long enough that the next attack naturally flows into it, with hardly any visible "jump" or returning to their neutral stance. Jamie's light kicks, when chained, give multiple different animations, where in 4 here, elena's low kicks are unnatural when mashed, and (to me) just generally doesn't look that great. Sprite based fighters don't have as much of this issue since 2D animation has different rules and a different visual language. In 3D, you have to apply a different mindset to making the animations flow naturally between them, but 4 and 5 retained the "feel" of sprite based animations, and it results in combos looking stiff, and neutral looking jumpy and weird. That's all.
As an addendum, SF4 in particular has a problem with attacks feeling "light" or "weak" because of this approach to animations. In 6 they put a lot of effort into emphasizing the weight of attacks and making the characters move more naturally. It's just little stuff that makes a huge difference.
May be in the minority I am but Ultra was my favorite game. Unbalanced? Sure but at least it isn't Swampthing vs Superman or Dr Fate. In Sf4 Grappler Ultra damage was too high and I mained Gief and T Hawk.
it's still crazy to me how they tied a healing super to a meter that fills as you take damage, is so hilarious an oversight omg
It really should've been her meter super, it made no sense in making it a ultra
I'm not sure how this is an oversight. When else would you want healing?
@@brandonkellner4053 cause they will just get back ultra meter again allowing them to get more ultras off then any other character on paper
@@brandonkellner4053 Picture this: More health, more heals, possibly immortal 'till timer ends
@@kilowyatt1107 So? You really don't think they thought of that? If he had instead dealt that damage to Bison instead of healed, he would have won sooner. You could also get super meter and heal if it was a super, unless you accidentally KO'd the opponent first. In order for this scenario to play out, you have to keep FADCing or getting hit, which is definitely not as good as dealing damage.
The problem with Elena, as Bafael so eloquently put it, is that "She's Dudley with better range, and Vega with better mixups, at the same time." She basically invalidated half the cast just by existing, and had zero weak points. Even Yun has to get in first.
Bafael has a pretty good video where he talks about how busted Elena was, and he concluded that the final nail in the coffin was Gamerbee vs Infiltration at CPT 2015. It's pretty wild just how strong Elena was, she had basically no weaknesses
This comment gave me a sheer heart attack
Was. You mean is.
Elena is Killer Queen?
I really love heterogeneity in a fighting game roster, and I genuinely really like the idea of a character (in the SF4 system especially!) having a healing ultra or super, but it so clearly needs to be on a character who has some real weaknesses to balance that out. Unfortunately, as you said, Elena basically has no weaknesses.
It’s obviously such a shame that this was the final state of competitive SF4, but I additionally think it’s a huge shame as a fumbled opportunity for “out there” character design. I feel like a lot of players walked away from Ultra with the conclusion that healing was fundamentally broken on a conceptual level, and that’s just so disappointing to me.
I think Capcom really salted the earth on this one. I think it casts serious doubt on whether we’ll ever see healing as a significant character ability (i.e. not a universal mechanic) in any major fighting game (i.e. not an indie release) ever again.
Having missed _Ultra_ with _AE_ being the last version of _Street Fighter (4)_ I ever played at present, I still find it hilarious how hard Capcom swung from making a character who was offensively broken (the _AE_ version of Yun) to defensively broken (the _Ultra_ version of Elena) in the equivalent of one patch or at least one DLC. All because some had the bright idea to make Healing one of the essentially free supers you get for taking damage via the somewhat wack Ultra system rather than her actual Super.
Always funny when it's a seemingly small thing that breaks the hell out of a character.
"The difference between Yun and Elena is that Elena was easier" jesus christ, that's saying a lot.
She was very, very easy to be effective with tbh. Most people had a pocket Elena because it didn't take very much commitment.
@@SupermanSajam I never played SF4 really (KoFXIII 4 lyfe) but I could tell. She just has all the tools you could want except a fireball. (And she has slide instead, which is probably better.)
@@SupermanSajam I was playing random select with the homies one time and I got Elena, never had really played her other than labbing my punishes against her, and I won ten straight games with her. Easily. It's pretty wild.
AE2012 > USF4. Red focus was an extremely lazy mechanic that like you said just made the good characters better. A poor attempt to "revitalize" a game that just needed delayed wakeup. Imagine they spent more time balancing the new characters rather than adding shit mechanics? Oh well lol
@@BLOOBLAYZER in defense of red focus.
Gied and Hugo are not too tier and benefit HEAVILY from red focus. Overhead into red focus helped Dudley out a ton too, or just red focus period, because now you're not having to 1-f any damage you might want, same with oni. Don't know about many others, but I saw some cool red focus stuff with Dan too
But Ultra has Hugo tho…
pfp checks out
Amen, most fun grappler I’ve ever played
I don’t think I ever laughed as much playing a grappler as I did when I played Hugo.
I hope Hugo comes back in 6 at some point. I think with the drive gauge system he could be really fun
and my bae poison
"He worked for it by hitting standing medium punch in neutral"
I'm dying lmao
Alternative title; "Sajam Vents About USF4 Elena for 10 Minutes."
Honestly the sheer nonsense of the whole new cast and the imbalance of the current top tiers really threw this version for a loop. We know Elena, bit Poison's fireball game was insane. Her flip that grounds you OUT OF THE AIR and breaks armor was nuts. Rolento's ability to just yeet himself out of many situations for free was a pain to deal with. Decapre's 50/50s off blocking into EX scramble was just bonkers. Yun could just mix and mash into a target combo to rinse repeat while getting insane meter gain, E Ryu being able to set up practical mix of death scenarios off one if not the best low forward in the game and let's not forget his unseeable kara demon. It was a fun version in its own way and minus the glaring offenders, the rest of the cast was actually playable and all had something bogus to be afraid of. Good times.
it really is kinda like super turbo to a lesser extent, everybody's at least good and there's a lot of really busted characters too
Usf4 was rough when you ran into like 6 Elenas in 10 matches. But e. Ryu wasn't very fun to play against either when you only lose neutral like twice and die. Red focus combos were mad fun to use to when making comebacks but felt so dumb when you got hit by it.
Ae2012 I personally disliked more cuz of how many characters could vortex you off of ANYTHING, so it really felt like you actually only lost neutral once and died. Cammy and akuma made me wanna unlive in that version. People think plain AE was just getting dived kicked on by the twins, but don't let anyone tell you we didn't also get rekka'd and cross up burn kicked into non-existence. Super was probably the best version, only person who was kinda dumb was Honda, but even he wasn't over bearing. I wasn't good for vanilla, so I can't speak to it, but I think if people figured out more tech early, this would've been the absolute worst version of the game. Fei long infinite AND he can cancel cr. Mk into rekka, akuma infinite AND his frame data is disgusting, sagat does like 700 damage off of meterless trade upper cut, 6HK, ultra.
I think the best versions of the game with the given understanding of the mechanics at the time were in order:
Super, vanilla, ultra, 2012, ae. But I think most people would flip ultra and 2012. As far as least to most broken, I think the order is:
Super, 2012, ultra, ae, vanilla
For reference, I was a yun/makoto player so I ate gooooooooood in the second half of this game's life span.
Dudley tho
I still think that overall USFIV was the best version of the game.
The problem IMO was the characters and not the game itself, meanwhile in other versions of the game you had a more game wide problem (almost every single character having an vortex for example).
I liked Ultra the most, but only because it buffed my favorite characters and Omega Mode was stupid fun
Man when you did Backthrow into Healing I swear I had some war flashbacks, and I never even played this game competitively
I love Ultra but that's mainly because it was the first Street Fighter that I really played from when it came out and learned how to kinda play the series. I recognize that it has a lot of broken stuff and is not balanced very well but at a beginner/casual level, I love that game.
People still trying to gatekeep over 1 frame links are insane. Grow up bruh.
I don’t think you even know or care about what your talking about
Ultra characters were wild and janky because they were all rush-jobs hacked together from other assets, the four returning characters were all copy-pasted directly from SFxT and Decapre was just a barely disguised Cammy clone. Probably most of the real development team was working on SFV or other projects and it was a skeleton crew hacking together new assets like modders. It's still crazy to me that they stripped SFxT for parts like that after it failed.
You can also see it in how the omega mode chars are all test runs of sfv stuff
Modders already showed that you could easily move them over to sf4 at that point. I believe after capcom said it wouldnt be possible.
Also, much like the sf6 is having trouble make another season of sf5, they did the same thing with sf4, albeit in a more compressed time frame.
SfxT didn’t fail they made their money only reason game dies was because Xbox shut down their servers.
Thank you!! That’s why I dropped the game I felt like the new additions felt so wierd and the new game mechanics was just not for me at all. I was excited for poison and it felt off and then decapre was just wtf
Make healing her super and she would be a lot more balanced.
I agree. Ultra 2 is basically a reward for a Elena player being punished.
@@Jonkin715 Ultras *were* a reward for being punished. The worse you played, the faster you built a move that could erase 50-60% of your opponent's lifebar in one hit.
Possibly.
They could also balance it by making it heal over time instead, similar to how a lot of SA2 in SF6 works rn
Oh I'm glad Sajam showed Viper trying to hit Elena lmao. Before the patch it was MISRABLE like so many of her moves that hit the entire rest of the cast while crouching, just didn't hit Elena if she was crouching. Like St. HP, M thunder knuckle, and burn kick
The fact they made healing an Ultra instead of her super is SO stupid.
Man, thy added faust crawl to a st4 character
Her healing move so good in this game that it made other characters in the next game that had anything that let's them heal very bad, Nash is the only character in street fighter 5 that can heal and he only can does after landing a combo and only heals for 3% of of health and still cost metter compare that to elena here who got 40% back.
"There wasn't a great version of Street Fighter IV"
There I fixed the title guys.
Jokes aside every version of SFIV had *something* that would piss people off more than the regular. Sure it happens in a lot of fighters but SFIV it wasn't just menaces that are powerful, but also extremely frustrating to deal with because their strengths were so obvious and simple.
(Hot Take) Listen, I think we can all agree Elena was a mistake. I also don't think it's really fair to say Ultra was a bad version. I think for me personally, USF4 has the best roster the series has seen. People don't know what they want. Everybody's always complaining about balance, yet people always put the most imbalance games on the highest pedestal like 3rd Strike and MvC2.
Facts
i think you're right, people still complain about balance just as much if not more even though games are way more balanced, people just complain about balance because they're frustrated, it has nothing to do with the big picture balance of the game, they're just salty about losing
I think SF5 S5 tops USF4. Not by much mind you, but imo it does.
All 5 SF bosses.
The most interesting, fun to play versions of Sim, Dan and Seth to date.
Akira from Rival Schools.
Zeku, who aside from being Guy's teacher is the mfkg creator of the Strider corps.
Outfits from classic Capcom fighters like Mega Man, Darkstalkers, Power Stone and even SF EX.
And as much as I dislike Puk...Luke, he is at least an original character, which is more than can be said for Decrap...Decapre.
He means ultra sf4 which is a version of sf4 not sf4 as a whole ultra just added 4 characters and shitty balance changes
Most people just weren't good enough to realize how dumb Third Strike and MVC2 were. Like seriously it is crazy how different top level third strike is from lower levels. Like third strike a lot but game is kind of dumb by today's standards., always felt the community made MVC2 good rather then the game itself
In short most people have blinders on when it comes to those two games
I am Elena and Juri main. I was beginner at time, and, yes, she has easier execution like you said. Juri is the opposite, really technical character. Great analysis.
IMO Ultra was the best version of SF4 if you don't consider a few characters like Elena or Decapre. Delayed wakeup got rid of lots of set play and ambiguous crossups during wakeups, damage was reduced, buttons were improved etc.
The Ultra DLC chracaters sucked cause they went lazy and just ported them from SFXT instead of designing them to fit SF4 from scratch.
Fair points.
Healing might have been fine if instead of healing health it added in the form of grey health.
Kinda like a reverse of gens ultra 2
That’s a pretty good fix imo
Given how fast it recovers and the setups to do it,not much of a change
I think that making the move into a Super and a give it a set amount of health (maybe 300) would be a better improvement.
@@joqqeman it would prevent situations where you did healing expecting a trade, but yes it would not really address all or even most of the reasons the move is problematic
@@Jonkin715 that's probably the real fix, making it use up all your super meter, a resource not tied to taking damage.
Rose, and Elena are my two favorite SF characters (before Menat came into SFV to be added to that lineup), so having them both in Ultra made me very happy. I remember having conversations with one of my friends online speculating how Elena would be if she got into SFIV. We both figured Healing would be her super. Boy, were we wrong. As a fan of Elena, I can't say I mind her being as good as she is in Ultra.
it do be fun when your fav ends up being god tier, i got that feeling with mvc3 having Jean Grey Phoenix and Morrigan and they're so silly busted and fun there
I think Healing would be more balanced as a super. That's actually a neat idea.
I play elena in sf3
I made the mistake of thinking she was the same but that was just her moveset
there's so much things to look out for when playing against her it's terrifying to block her
Everybody else: *playing the match*
Elena: *brought the potion into the match*
Anyone else back here after seeing season 2 announcement? I look forward to seeing the state of Elaina in 6.
As a spectator i remember Ultra events were pretty boring to watch because you would see lots of Elenas and the matches tended to drag, but other than that it was also an army of Evil Ryus so there wasn't much else to see.
One instance i remember is when Ultra just dropped and there was an event where Xian was in the finals, he said to the commentators before the finals happened that he would not play Elena and win with Gen who i believe was nerfed in Ultra but then after he lost a match i believe he immediatly picked Elena and prooceded to win, now i don't remember who his opponent was and who he played but that said a lot about the state of the competitive scene when Ultra was a thing. A lot people hated it but when SFV was being shown they were already Missing SFIV.
I don't like SFV either and i dunno if i'll ever touch VI but blaming just SFV for the state of SF was just silly, one thing SFV did do was bringing a lot of new characters in the cast but it seems people sticked with the classics mostly.
I didn’t know how busted she was until later, since I was just getting into fighting games. I’d still like her in 6, I bet she would look cool with all the flippin and dippin (with all the broken stuff fixed/axed of course).
she's not in the leak but maybe season 2
@Uooooooooooooh I just hope they don't remove her Tribal outfit
you ruined sf6
@@Chaoktarukto Yeah, and I’d do it again too.
People really did gloss over how Yun was basically back to his broken AE state in Ultra. Ultra wasn't out long enough for it to really show, but Kazunoko did a good job of it during the final Capcom Cup for SF4.
Both SFIV and Xrd ended on less than ideal patches imo
Yeah I’d agree
persona too
Tekken 7 seems to be going that way too arguably
@@andrew9k424 what are you a fahk or Lidia main
Ye
Ultra sajam wasn't a great version but sajam was tight
Alternate title for this video - "Elena broke Ultra Street Fighter 4"
?Did you even watch the video?
@@evilded2 Yes, he talked about how good Elena was for 75% of the video and then some other things that made the game unbalanced.
Elena: nuh uh!
@@evilded2 Oh, right. He talked about unblockables in the game and how they added delayed wake-up in the last 2 minutes, before going back to talk about Elena.
Even with all this, Ultra is my favorite version of sf4 (next to maybe super). Vanilla was a broken mess with much less variety, and AE had similar balance issues while being less fun imo
As a 3rd Strike Elena main... she deserved it. She needed to be good in something other than SFxT.
As a fellow Elena main in 3s, I’m so sick and tired of scrubs thinking I picked her because she’s “top tier”
So many versions, I think the one I had was Super.
I think Super was maybe most people's favorite.
Sf4 was a bad game from start to finish. The only redeeming quality is that it paved the way for the new era of fighting games. It was easily one of the most boring fighters to watch and play. Ultra update with Elena was pretty much the final nail in the coffin.
I'd watch any version of MVC3 over SF4 any day of the week.
I agree and I mained Yun. The version before Ultra might've been the best overall. I didn't mind most match ups in the game though. No one is more annoying to me than C.Viper
Why didn't you use the title in the description? All you did was talk about a single character for most of this video, even though you very lightly touch upon saying this version of sf4 had alot of weird hamfisted changes. Some of the comments are doing a leagues better job than you are talking about the whole roster than you did.
This made me wish I got into the FGC sooner. She has stun dipper and heals
This really makes me want to play Elena tbqh.
I really liked SF4 throughout its run - Elena though she was too strong Capcom just didn't care at that point to do anything about it lol
Vanilla in arcade cabinet version is my favorite version with 2012 next
"1-frame links filter the scrubs" hahahahaha
The best version of SF4 honestly was Omega.
It's so fun
Criminal that they don't let you use it outside of basic vs modes and training
@@DaviddeBergerac you could do it on endless version select
This guy knows what he’s talking about.
lol Omega Decapre was too fun
Super street fighter IV is my favorite version of the game bar none. It's a top five game period imo
Yet another video about how Elena ruined the game when every Japanese arcade tournament for the last 5 years has had 10 Rolentos
So while my opinion might not count for much, I really think Ultra is comfortably the best version of SFIV.
Even though delayed wakeup wasn't a perfect fix, it still took a whole bunch of unblockables out, or at least make them into reads.
I'm not saying any of the points in this video are invalid. I just think that all the other versions of the game were comfortably worse, because the vortex was so much more potent and the vortex sucked.
Game needed at least one more patch before it was done, honestly feel like V came out a year too early.
I'm not the *biggest* sf4 fan, but Super is one of the most solid games ever made. It is the standard for balance in an asymmetrical videogame
I want Elena back without the healing super. I never once used it, because if I wanted to draw out a match's length like that, I just played Rose and zoned. Make Elena mid-tier, nothing wrong with that.
Also want Viper back, but maybe with less of the feinting and super jump insanity. "Practical Viper."
Oh, and HUGO.
And I’m just picking this game up now alright then
Clearly the best version was Street Fighter IV on 3DS.
is almost like the tekken's capoera curse jumped to SF
I liked USF4, towards the beginning when not that many people thought Elena was any good
like a month ago someone did that helena healing ultra on me twice in one match
Healing should never be a mechanic in fighting games IMHO. My only issues with Ultra is this move and Evil Ryu being OP.
Super SF4 was probably the best overall time for the game. It was before AE Yun and Makoto came to terrorize the game and people weren't running the unblockables super hard. I hate DP FADC and mashy jabs into full combos with a passion so never really liked any SF4 games.
I loved USF4 just for Poison and how strong she was and forever will be
Throwing up and crying?? Kids these days gotta learn what it's like in the real world. I'm throwing up and crying *simultaneously*. Just sobbing tearfully while blowing chunks all over the place. The new generation is too soft to do that.
Pretty much the reason I picked Abel back up when Ultra dropped, so I would just command grab loop Elena and not have to worry about the healing as much
Im glad somebody is saying this
Super was peak SF4 for me
SFIV in general felt a bit overwhelming for newer players (imo). I'm a 2012er, I've played it for around 2k hours, and I still don't know every gimmick in the game. Every matchup, punish, setup was very character specific since there were a multitude of different escape options that you needed to lab, not to mention a lot of non-standard characters in general.
SFVI feels really more grounded and footsie based in comparison which I really like, the flow of the game also doesn't have comeback mechanics (like Ultras) which I personally like.
Talking about the corner carry on Elena now that we know what street fighter 6s corner carry is like makes me wish corner carry was more like Elenas in 6
Ultra was good if you played some characters and was also not fighting high level players. Ken was so fun in the 2000 pp ranks
I just don't like triggers and ultra meters where you're rewarded with resources for getting hit, aka, playing poorly. And I like that they limited that to a large degree in SF6 where they just turn lv3 to CA.
Hitting 1-frame links sounds really familiar, in fact it seems like the only thing I hear people say when they say SFIV was better
I dunno, combo variation and neutral are by far much better in sf4. Fishing for crush counter 5 is pretty boring. Although there are some cool combos, sf5 seems like theres 2-3 bnbs per character with no variation from what works. Idk, sf4 just seems like it has more depth to me.
@@BearBoulder Combo variation has nothing to do with 1-frame links though.
@@BearBoulder "Fishing for crush counter 5"
that hasn't been a thing for years, though
@@BearBoulder Guess you must be one of those that only played SFV season 1. Fishing for crush counters is not a thing anymore🤦♂️. And yes, SFV NOW HAS COMBOS!!!!!!!!!!!
@@Copperhell144 1 frame links are a part of combo variation though. The fact that one frame links exist in sf4 give rise to combos that are difficult to do and are flashy. Ryus solar plexus to c.fp>hp.srk is 1 frame link. There's lots of 1 frame link combos in sf4 that don't exist in sf5.
And I thought pre patch sol was bad…
He was but at least Sol had (read: has) the decency to murder you quickly. Even just in passing there seem like a *bunch* of Elena matches that went to time out due to how stupid it was to make Healing an Ultra.
Healing should have been a super if anything.
"Fuck Elena."
-An Ultra Elena player
I'd fight SFV Luke and Sim anyday over SF4 Elena, El Fuerte, and Yun.
luke is probably the tamest "broken" top tier in sf history, as far as the last version goes. check the tapes. he's really strong, don't get me wrong, but not as dominant as any of the top tiers in the past
worse than claw and sim in st.
worse than chun and yun in 3rd strike.
worse than yun, e.ryu, elena in ultra 4.
i'm no even going to mention rose in alpha 2 and akuma, sim and sodom in alpha 3.
compared to those other characters in older games, luke is just a really strong, defensive character with a big damage output
@@guilhermeberbert he's is the ultimate all rounder i think all these moveset has the same propriety than most of the cast but better with great damage
I think vanilla was the best version of them all regardless of damage how strong sagat was, it’s the main reason everyone got into sfIV. Yun Elena and a few other killed the game.
Elena wasn't in SFV and I doubt that Capcom will add characters as DLC which were already added to V as DLC, so Elena might get added to 6 later on
I hope so, she's so cool.
Ed and Akuma were DLC in 5, and (based on the leak) they will also be in the first round of DLC for 6.
@@redvenomweb It was a leak of the base roster, not DLC
@@cj_ocean The leak was 22 characters. The base roster is confirmed at 18 characters. Therefore, the first set of DLC will be the remaining four characters: Ed, Akuma, Rashid, and AKI.
thanks for this. Super SF4 was the good version
(I was a Rose player)
Okay but seriously
Elena won how many majors?
Maybe it could've developed that way, but I don't think it was so extreme.
Doesn’t change the fact that people hated fighting against her and super hated watching her.
Can't say I agree, basic safe-jump pressure was oppressive against some characters. Sure you can still play around delayed wake-up, but most of the characters that still got a strong mix from it were thought of as setplay characters, they had other weaknesses. And yeah, some characters were disproportionately strong, but that's something you can say about any game, it's not like the rest of the cast was kneecapped by the changes. Ultra was arguably more balanced overall, at least when compared to vanilla and Super.
I wonder how Elena would have been if her Healing was her super instead of her Ultra
Did they even change that much when they recycled SFxT chars into Ultra? Always seemed really lazy.
It was, it is pretty clear ultra street fighter 4 came out so Capcom could recoup some costs of SFxT falling faaaaaaar below expectations.
Does this also extend to SFxT?🤔
Wasn't a great version of Street Fighter 4 compared to what?
When it comes to the best version of SF4 I'd say Super was the best
absolutely
I did not care for that version at all; I was an able main and they ruined his supers and his rekka move was just utterly destroyed; just ruined him and made him worthless
AE2012 was probably my favorite, but the rise of unblockables and setplay made the game a bit unfair. They needed to get a skilled dev in there to fix the unblockable problem rather than put a bandaid on it (delayed wakeup)
Unblockables were a meme. Find me a major that was decided by "the vortex".
@@dingusdangus9299 I mean cammy, most shotos, adon, the twins, makoto, and nearly all the top tiers had unblockables. They were very hard to get out of without wake up focus or wake up just frame block, which were hard to do.
As for the vortex, I mean look at any cammy or akuma match at a major. It's pretty clear it was an issue.
Now Omega is actually the best version of SF4 :)
Super Sf4 is the best version
I keep saying this, but the worst sin sfv committed was tricking people into believing sfiv was good.
Because of Super Street Fighter IV
Ultra came out at the time when SFV was announced and there was a beta many played the beta more than Ultra
Capcom has a track record of leaving their most popular games with a version that isn't quite the best or really otherwise begs for an updated version. Hyper Fighting > Super Turbo, 3rd Strike could have used an update, and Ultra SFIV is inferior to several versions of IV. Maybe as a community we should fight for one more version for several of their classic flagship titles.
I almost get the impression that capcom salted the earth with Ultra to make sure people moved onto V so they didn't find themselves with a Melee situation. Just add a bunch of characters that wouldn't feel that out of place in Alpha 3 or hell maybe even a Vs game in Decapre's case.
I liked watching Gootecks and Mike Ross struggle on USFIV, did not want to play it lol
That focus stuff, correct me if I am wrong, is very similar to DI!! In fact I think it's just DI lol
It's sad because this was the version that "fixed" the unblockable situation but ended up introducing another toxic problem to the game lol
I was never a fan of SF4 but capcom leaving it in the state it was in was kinda dirty. Would love them to bring it back with rollback netcode for the sf4 fans.
Who are her worst match ups?
T Hawk, I main hawk and I get giddy when I see Elena
@@vicarious4231 I play Sim and Hawk but usually go with Sim. How is it goof for Hawk? I'll have to have another look at that match.
@@denjindhalsim weak condor spire is a cancer for her(like no joke, just spam it), it interrupts around 90 percent of her normals and specials. If you use weak condor spire, command grabs, and ex (backwards condor dive), she will die in no time..... you also have to keep in mind that she stuns pretty easily. I know that for some characters, she is a pain, but grapplers pretty much destroy her if you are good with your normals and command grabs.
Thanks! I'll give it another go.
As someone who still plays sf4 ultra a lot... And plays a lot of poison. I feel that wierd hurtbox/hitbox comment. Her j.fp is so fucking inconsistent. Sometimes it crosses up wierd on a meaty hit. Sometimes it goes right through the character model. Sometimes it will hit a mile away. I can't use it at all. Her DP is probably the wierdest, most useless reversal ever and it not hitting behind her (outside of niche use of ex dp) is so wierd. Since like so many shoto dp's do.
Maaaaaaannnn sf4 was a fucking roller coaster
Tbh I never liked how SF4 and 5 felt to play. The rigid nature of them turned me off, and I'm happy to see 6 making efforts to keep the play experience smoother and more fluid
Some people still thought sf6 is too stiff, its hard to please everyone lol
Define rigid and fluid in this context
Rigid nature lmao that's the entire franchise. Just admit you only play 3s dude it's fine
"Rigid" meaning the animations and general game feel. Characters very nearly stand back to neutral in between attacks, even during combos. The movements feel unnatural; stiff and robotic, and combos don't often "look" like they should combo, even if they do. 4 and 5 both have this issue, where returning to a neutral stance in between moves in a combo is more common than moves that flow naturally from one animation to the next.
SF6 has characters hitting the attacks, and staying in the resting pose of those attacks for JUST long enough that the next attack naturally flows into it, with hardly any visible "jump" or returning to their neutral stance. Jamie's light kicks, when chained, give multiple different animations, where in 4 here, elena's low kicks are unnatural when mashed, and (to me) just generally doesn't look that great.
Sprite based fighters don't have as much of this issue since 2D animation has different rules and a different visual language. In 3D, you have to apply a different mindset to making the animations flow naturally between them, but 4 and 5 retained the "feel" of sprite based animations, and it results in combos looking stiff, and neutral looking jumpy and weird. That's all.
As an addendum, SF4 in particular has a problem with attacks feeling "light" or "weak" because of this approach to animations. In 6 they put a lot of effort into emphasizing the weight of attacks and making the characters move more naturally. It's just little stuff that makes a huge difference.
Thank you
So Ultra 4 Elena is basically a more OP version of 3rd Strike Chun-Li
May be in the minority I am but Ultra was my favorite game. Unbalanced? Sure but at least it isn't Swampthing vs Superman or Dr Fate. In Sf4 Grappler Ultra damage was too high and I mained Gief and T Hawk.
I’m a casual player. I do not have such weakness.
So Elena had something similar to mk9 mileena and Sonya except on hyper steroids.