The giant gap from Vanilla Sagat and Vanilla Vega is just super fascinating to me. Imagine making Dan a bad joke character on purpose, shipping the game, and realizing Vega is worse somehow.
@chillidewd5582 SF has a history of this tho. Just look at 3S. Sean is meant to be a jobber, but nowadays most people agree that Remy and ESPECIALLY Twelve are worse.
@@littlemisseevee2309This showcases the power of fundamentals and how much can carry a character being god awfull in every way (only pass some disasters but it's something).
You could've gone a little more in-depth about the Tiger Knee, especially the EX version. An armor-breaking move that has great horizontal movement was extremely difficult for the cast to deal with. It simply removed the Focus Attack from the game when fighting the character. If you thought you could Focus absorb and dash through a Shot, you'd eat Knee instead. Good luck in neutral if the Sagat wanted to spam out an EX version at that. The main damage was also on the backend/2nd hit (changed in Super I believe). The armor break and the extremely good hitbox gave the corner pressure insane potential. Many characters could not jump out of the corner due to this, and you simply could not Focus after the standing light kick.
I thought about talking more about this and I should have but in most of the footage I researched tiger knee was underperforming pretty hard. Because you're different widths when crouching or standing you get hit at different times by tiger knee, so sometimes what would have been a spaced tiger knee against a crouching opponent whiffs on a standing opponent, and what would have been a spaced tiger knee vs a standing opponent hits too early on a croucher and is minus. When a Sagat did something punishable which turned the game around for the opponent it was almost invariably a tiger knee. I should have talked about its anti air properties, armor break, and maybe even cross up knee tho, I was lacking in that section
@@Bafael Hmm. Characters who didn't have good GTFO options were just trapped in the corner (e.g. Vanilla Gouken, and I'm sure all the 6-4 MUs). Tournament footage from Vanilla would probably only show characters like Ryu who could get out of the pressure. Either way, that meter build also allowed a ton of "free" uppercut > fadc use. Considering Vanilla, there wasn't the -5 nerf to uppercut fadc. Sagat got a ton of mileage from throws out of fear of eating uppercuts. Combined with all the power of armor breaking Knees, Sagat was just oppressive to deal with.
@@emilalexander8292 Its hard even for characters like Ryu who could low profile the knee. You cant really react to it and if you guess wrongly you eat tigers. Even if its negative on block there is always the threat of a yolo tiger uppercut and they can make it safe due to FADC. knee + threat of the dreaded trade uppercut into ultra really kills alot of the characters. Vega cant do anything to get out.
I find it interesting that it appeared like there would be some “secret sauce” that made vanilla Sagat as oppressive as he was, but in the end it really is just “he hits harder than everyone else by a lot.” It also speaks well for the balance team in this case, because they zeroed in on what the true problem was and fixed it. None of Super Sagat’s most oppressive tools were removed, they were just made far less rewarding across the board. And it turned out to be exactly enough to reel him in.
Good video, but one suggestion: Maybe when you're making a point about hitboxes / hurtboxes, you can show them by running FrameTrapped 3 for that recording section. It would make for better visual examples with some slow-mo / freeze frames, so the viewers can properly appreciate what you're talking about. I know not every viewer knows how hitboxes work, but for those that do, having brief visual display of your point would help. I ended up booting SF4 with Frametrapped 3 just to see if there was any actual difference between the hitboxes of his Vanilla and USF4. Stand HK is exactly the same hitboxes. However f+HK hitbox got nerfed a little bit since Vanilla. Diagonal jump MP hitbox was also nerfed.
Good suggestion. While I perfectly understood what he was saying, a visual representation may be helpful to those that don't know fighting games as intricately (why watch bad balance if so, amirite?) but would also just be fun to see how busted they are lol
Irony is SFIV takes place chronologically after Alpha 3 and SF2, when Sagat encountered Dan and intentionally took a dive during their fight after he saw how Dan's desire for vengeance against Sagat was consuming him and realized he was in danger of falling down the same destructive path. SFIV is supposed to be the start of Sagat's redemption as he leaves Shadowloo and relearns how to be an honorable fighter in it for the spirit of competition. Before this he was motivated purely by vanity and soothing his damaged ego after Ryu scarred him.
BTW, Sagat had basically already left Shadaloo by SF2. Funnily enough, I don't think Sagat was that strong in A2 or A3. Projectiles losing damage from distance in A3 was probably a factor, but Sagat felt so unthreatening compared to SF2's O. Sagat and SF4. Then again, maybe it is lore-tied; in the Street Fighter universe, fighters motivated by blind rage tend to not do well in fights.
An analysis on how bad/mediocre characters improved over the years could be good. Like, for example you said that Sakura was pretty bad in Vanilla, but if I recall she was pretty good in later versions. Was it just her Ultra 2, or did other things change? Could be an interesting topic.
It was mostly that other top tiers got nerfed and Sakura's setplay and vortex got mapped out. She did get some buffs from Vanilla but people didn't understand how to play the game just yet so they didn't realize how potent setplay was. Hence why many people say that either Vanilla Seth or Akuma would've ended up being the best had Vanilla gone on being played
@@MuiltiLightRider Sakura *did* see buffs in every version of the game. Her frame data outside of EX hurricane kick was poor, her non EX hurricane kick oki was vastly improved, and they also gave her otoshi 2nd hit after EX hurricane kick impressive frame data. Also her damage values were redistributed to increase her damage output and stun values. Her Ultra 2 was the icing on the cake. The top tiers being nerfed had little impact. Akuma, Balrog, Seth and Viper remained strong characters for the lifespan of the game. Her poor frame data and low ish return on her mixup made her redundant. If you wanted vortex, play Viper, Akuma, or Seth. If you wanted damage, play virtually any other non charge character or Balrog. Her buffs gave her a place in the game.
@@chillidewd5582 I'd be inclined to agree, but I cannot award Vanilla Gief the rank of S tier due to him being completely obliterated by Seth. None of the other S tiers in Vanilla had such a lopsided matchup against them in that regard, and went mostly even against other top tiers with a few exceptions, but nowhere near as bad as 9-1.
That thumbnail alone deserve a like Baf. And its about time we talk about this beast. When looking at all 6 version of SF4 (vanilla, super, AE, AE 2012, Ultra, and Omega), Vanilla Sagat is def top 10. Mostly because he fireball spams like O sagat, has 1100 health and stun, and hits like a freight train. Also, there is a vid of Bonchan Vanilla Sagat vs AE Kaz Yun. In general, I love edition select and pray more fighting games do this. It gives you so many options to play the game and if you don't like how a balance patch affected your character, you can always go back to the previous version.
You could have mentioned that Sagat also had access to the unblockable Ultra glitch (where the fireball hits during the ultra flash) discovered late in the game. Didn’t affect us much as super came a couple of months later, but I imagine it would have been abused in Japan until AE. Definitely consider the glitch if you do a Seth video as it was mega cheap with him.
I thought about mentioning it but chose not to. IIRC if you weren't blocking pre-freeze they were blockable and I think Sagat had to fireball fadc and have precise screen positions for a lot of his setups
I remember seeing from Error1 years ago that Sagat's super can infinitely loop into itself. Impractical and he's had it in every version of SF4, but still super weird. I think it's the only one.
It's extremely interesting to me, especially since you did a Bad Balance video on him, that fucking **Dee Jay** is the highest-ranked SSFIV character out of just the newcomers specifically. It's also really funny that, even though returning veterans appear to benefit a great deal (perhaps vs. just Sagat specifically) from having anti-fireball U2's, the relative benefit they serve for newcomers to Super don't seem to be nearly as high, seeing as all of them are low-mid tiers or worse.
I love your Bad Balance series so much. It's really cool to get a breakdown about what made them busted. The fact that other characters lacking tools being a big part of what made him strong was something I didn't know!
Turns out it wasn't Sagat who was too strong(do he still was a bit) It's that everyone around him couldn't deal with him at the time. Like putting a professional muay thai martial artist against some street punks that barely know how to throw a punch.
You missed the fact that his ex fireball put the opponent in a float state on the second hit. So in a fireball fight, he could easily juggle a second non ex fireball from full screen when the ex fireball cleared an opponent's regular fireball. Other characters did not have this luxury and would need to spend bar to accomplish this while still inflicting less damage than Sagat.
Yes! I've been looking forward to this one! EDIT/UPDATE: So I just now got to watch the whole video. I think that you did an excellent job of breaking down Sagat for not just Vanilla SF4, but for, more or less, the entire SF4 series. Your comments also seem to support what I had always felt: it wasn't so much that Vanilla Sagat was "broken", but that he was a very, very strong character in a game that did not have a lot of other strong characters. I also felt that his biggest problem area was just how screwed up his damage input and output was compared to the rest of the cast. I felt that normalizing his damage input and output would have normalized him, even if all of his other tools stayed relatively the same, I feel that Super Sagat kind of demonstrated that.
Dig the content and dig the video. These movies are really a form of preservation. There's tons of nuances in SF4 that are in risk of being lost to time somehow, so it's awesome having someone as calm and educated as yourself describing them.
Did anyone ever got around to do version select tournaments? I wonder how vanilla Sagat would fare against buffed characters and new characters, like the twins. My first impression is that AE Yun would be king of that tournament scene and maybe some players would make vanilla Sagat work
@@omega17ds I think sagat beats yun with his ability to control the space yun needs to dive kicks and Sagats's fireballs stuffing the rush punch. Yun still might be a better character overall though, I'm not sure.
This is something Ive always wanted to see with people who are way better than me. AE Yun is def top 5 of Edition Select, but Vanilla Akuma, Vanilla Sagat, AE Fei, and maybe Omega Honda or E ryu would give Yun a hard time.
Would you ever consider doing a bad balance on third strike itself? You've mentioned a lot of times that the game has poor balance, and I think it'd be really interesting to see you talk about the game's balance as a whole, rather than examining specific topics in a vacuum. For example: Universal mechanics benefitting some character more than others, uneven distribution of good supers, and viability being determined by how well you fight Chun Li, Yun, and Ken.
Off the top of my head, some reasons why i hate fighting sagat way back in vanilla sf4. Has the best fireball game, back than guile sonicboom had a longer charge time. Insane damage off tiger uppercut, it having lower invincible frame make it worst as it will trade into ultra. couple with his fireball gameplay this is something most of the cast cant deal with back than. safe knee pressure which deal insane chip damage, and the second hit does more damage making it in his favor if you decide to challenge it. this combine with his tiger uppercut and threat of ultra is really not fun. most characters in vanilla simply cannot deal with his far Hk and knee pressure. Abel, zangief and honda comes to mind. His insane damage make it so that even his worst matchup akuma die in 2 combos. most of the matches ended in you eating 2 tiger uppercuts, 2 knees and a trade uppercut into ultra.
IIRC Gouken was the only character with a fireball fast enough to match Sagat in fireball spamming speed. In fact since the low Tiger Shot was slightly slower it meant if the Sagat player was mixing them up rather than just throwing high Tiger Shots then Gouken would actually start pulling ahead. The problem was that Gouken's EX fireball wasn't a double-hit so Sagat could still push back in the spam by using his own EX ones.
@@reperfan4 Yeah, I honestly think Gouken's Ex fireball is pretty bad, it's not a 2 hit fireball, not even two fireballs thrown foward like dee jay, it's 1 foward and 1 diagonal, which is pretty awful for fireball wars. Sure, you can charge it to make it 2 hits, but you can already do that meterless, so why spend the bar? It IS possible to shut down 2 hit fireballs on a specific timing, but good luck with that, might as well attempt an ex goshoha for a combo.
IIRC I think SF4 was the game that introduced me to your content (or maybe SoulCalibur) but either way it makes me genuinely happy and nostalgic seeing you still put out quality content for this game all these years later. Something about it just brings me back to a more simpler time, thanks!
Really fun and insightful as always Baf. I think a quick vid talking about the hilarious Hugo v Sagat matchup would be fun. Gief and Thawk have better tools to deal with fireballs than Hugo
Great vid man, Sagat is one of my all time favorite characters and to see his vanilla version explored in depth as to why he was so strong in the original cut of the game made for an entertaining watch during my lunch. I knew his damage was busted but to see everything else brought into perspective is great. Cheers Bafael
Two weeks after SF4 launched, my local GameStop was holding a SF4 tournament. I looked who was the most broken character at the time and already Sagat was labeled S tier so I got to work practicing. Came out 3rd, but it was my first SF game and only got that far due to A) how broken Sagat was B) the other players also didn't play much SF4. The top 2 were ones who definitely played before and swept the floor in their matchups lol.
You are the person to get me into SF, even if the character I went on to main was total mid tier trash. This series was big on cluing me into just how deep the SF rabbithole goes
I remember reading in a magazine in 2008 that Sagat was incredibly overpowered. Too strong. And I didn’t understand what it was about, damn, this game was very deep and difficult to master.
Sagat is literally the fighting game example of why 5'11 vs 6'0 does matter. (Also, as someone still learning about fighting games, Bad Balance is genuinely refreshing for the soul. Well done Baf).
Been always looking forward to this series. Off topic tho, it's really weird now to see non counter light buttons linking to medium, especially the kicks
The algorithm took me here I just want to say I'm glad to see people talk about stuff like this. Back in 2008-2009 people were saying its totally fine and that Sagats insane OPness was nbd I didn't enjoy it at all, playing online into
Balrog has an easy link into U1 via headbutt and his damage was very high. Seth would be a very interesting video. A few matchups to think about. Cammy/Blanka, Blanka/T-hawk, Gouken/Hugo. I also think a deep dive on the Ultra additions hurtboxes would be cool too. Lastly I think a deep dive on Viper would be cool. She is the only character that got meterless FADC
@@joqqeman that's a fair point, much like Ibuki has tsumuji loops but require a 1 frame, unplinkable jab link that the vast majority of Ibuki mains couldn't do without drilling holes in their stick for an extra select button.
Being baited into jumping and eating a Tiger Uppercut has been my fucking kryptonite since time began. XD My brother would always abuse the shit out of Sagat's reach and I couldn't stand fighting him. This dude is ridiculous, no matter what game he's in. Lol
Honestly I think the only weakness I can think of Sagat was his slow movement speed and dash, but it's a poor weakness it since he can just throw fireballs. I still remember how OP his fireballs were that I played him as a rushdown character at one point since zoning became so boring.
He had a bigger hitbox as well. Notably akuma's far standing HK gets both hits when sagat is crouching where the second hit whiffs on a lot of the cast when they crouch. On block you're pretty close to even iirc but on hit, akuma gets good damage and can end in sweep which leads into some of the best mixup in the game.
The airborne state for traded uppercut was a slight nerf as well. Any jump in that instantly knocked down in the air would send him down. A notable example I can think of is Dudley's jump roundhouse which also retracted his hurtbox slightly.
It just dawned on me that it's been over a year since this video was posted. This isn't me trying to say you need to do more (especially since I'm more than willing to rewatch these vids till the end of time), butbits just... wild to think about
No, just, no. Sagat is inherently a very powerful character and he's been high or top tier in almost every game he's been in. I think that Drive Parry will definitely make his zoning weaker, but if he gets in (which I'm pretty sure he will since IIRC he was in the roster leak), he will probably have Tiger Spike and Tiger Rush as special moves so it won't be a huge deal anyways.
This was an awesome video. I’d love to see a bad balance on some of the top tiers in SFxT, namely Hworang and chun li. I frequently saw them in S tier but haven’t the faintest clue why
Bro, Sagat has been one of my favorites since SF2 but in IV, I was a Sagat MAIN from Day 1. Still disappointed he isn't in SF6. I remember the number of combo routes that ended with Super canceling into Ultra.
I played Sagat in vanilla and he was insane. Loved that character. Was heads and shoulders top character in vanilla SF4. Tiger Knee was best move in the game.
Imagine playing this game with another person in the room with you and NEITHER one of you have ever been online to watch strategy. You just had to figure this stuff out with no "analytics" by actually PLAYING the game (and occasionally getting stomped) repeatedly. Lol. This series is still super cool though. Thanks for posting.
@@Bafael Completely understand! You take your time and focus on important IRL stuff first and foremost. Congratulations on your upcoming graduation! Best of luck with everything!
The range on kara DP caught me so off guard that's just Tiger Teleport
Imagine Vanilla Sagat with something like a Dhalsim teleport...
Hi Big Yellow!
Akuma's teleport has nothing on the Tiger Teleport.
He literally covers half the screen + on a 170 damage anti air, I remember him being good, but this is absurd
@@javiermoreno5898 What's funny is that it's still in the later games, do not as potent.
@@chillidewd5582 he covers like a quarter, not fucking half and he does 160 no 170+ with multiple conversions
The giant gap from Vanilla Sagat and Vanilla Vega is just super fascinating to me. Imagine making Dan a bad joke character on purpose, shipping the game, and realizing Vega is worse somehow.
U know shit is bad when a literal joke character, made bad on purpose is somehow better.
@chillidewd5582 SF has a history of this tho. Just look at 3S. Sean is meant to be a jobber, but nowadays most people agree that Remy and ESPECIALLY Twelve are worse.
@@RoastedPheasant really? Of Twelve i get but Remy? Like i know that hes bottom 3 with them 2 but at least he has some little competitive play
@@chillidewd5582reminds me of melee pichu who is better than a surprising number of characters
@@littlemisseevee2309This showcases the power of fundamentals and how much can carry a character being god awfull in every way (only pass some disasters but it's something).
Sagat is both "You're dead when I get in" and "You won't get in" at once
Choose your path:
A. Get in.
B. Keep your distance.
What they lead to...
Sagat: "So you have chosen death".
“And even if you don’t get in…”
umvc3 vergil
Happy chaos vibes
Z-Broly
I can't believe they brought back my favorite character from SF2, Old Sagat
Capcom remade O. Sagat from Super Turbo in SF4 rofl
Lmfao
O. Sagat took way more skill.
@@airthrowDBT this just in, boomer says ST is harder than SFIV, crazy.
@@urmum9898 Ok '09er
Vanilla Sagat feels like a boss character the devs forgot to make unplayable.
This was sf2 sagat with better graphics
God I needed this today. Bad Balance is a balm to the soul.
So God (as auto captions call Sagat in this video)
Amen brother.
It really is
Jesus loves you
Bars
You could've gone a little more in-depth about the Tiger Knee, especially the EX version. An armor-breaking move that has great horizontal movement was extremely difficult for the cast to deal with. It simply removed the Focus Attack from the game when fighting the character. If you thought you could Focus absorb and dash through a Shot, you'd eat Knee instead. Good luck in neutral if the Sagat wanted to spam out an EX version at that. The main damage was also on the backend/2nd hit (changed in Super I believe). The armor break and the extremely good hitbox gave the corner pressure insane potential. Many characters could not jump out of the corner due to this, and you simply could not Focus after the standing light kick.
I thought about talking more about this and I should have but in most of the footage I researched tiger knee was underperforming pretty hard. Because you're different widths when crouching or standing you get hit at different times by tiger knee, so sometimes what would have been a spaced tiger knee against a crouching opponent whiffs on a standing opponent, and what would have been a spaced tiger knee vs a standing opponent hits too early on a croucher and is minus. When a Sagat did something punishable which turned the game around for the opponent it was almost invariably a tiger knee. I should have talked about its anti air properties, armor break, and maybe even cross up knee tho, I was lacking in that section
@@Bafael Hmm. Characters who didn't have good GTFO options were just trapped in the corner (e.g. Vanilla Gouken, and I'm sure all the 6-4 MUs). Tournament footage from Vanilla would probably only show characters like Ryu who could get out of the pressure. Either way, that meter build also allowed a ton of "free" uppercut > fadc use. Considering Vanilla, there wasn't the -5 nerf to uppercut fadc. Sagat got a ton of mileage from throws out of fear of eating uppercuts. Combined with all the power of armor breaking Knees, Sagat was just oppressive to deal with.
@@emilalexander8292 Its hard even for characters like Ryu who could low profile the knee. You cant really react to it and if you guess wrongly you eat tigers. Even if its negative on block there is always the threat of a yolo tiger uppercut and they can make it safe due to FADC. knee + threat of the dreaded trade uppercut into ultra really kills alot of the characters. Vega cant do anything to get out.
Too long didn’t read can you explain in one sentence
@@flomperrr3105 tiger knee go brrrr
Whether you're a SFII or SFIV player, the words "Vanilla Sagat" will make you tremble with fear...
Funnily enough the sf1 community also considers Sagat to be top 3 minimum
@@refreshinglemonade3426 "the SFI community"
Tf are you smoking dawg?
@@OccuredJakub12 they modded the game to make the NPCs playable and turned sf1 into a discord fighter
@@refreshinglemonade3426 oooooh, I think I saw that. Wasn't it a Mugen game?
@@OccuredJakub12 Let's not even forget cvs players.
I find it interesting that it appeared like there would be some “secret sauce” that made vanilla Sagat as oppressive as he was, but in the end it really is just “he hits harder than everyone else by a lot.”
It also speaks well for the balance team in this case, because they zeroed in on what the true problem was and fixed it. None of Super Sagat’s most oppressive tools were removed, they were just made far less rewarding across the board. And it turned out to be exactly enough to reel him in.
Good video, but one suggestion: Maybe when you're making a point about hitboxes / hurtboxes, you can show them by running FrameTrapped 3 for that recording section. It would make for better visual examples with some slow-mo / freeze frames, so the viewers can properly appreciate what you're talking about.
I know not every viewer knows how hitboxes work, but for those that do, having brief visual display of your point would help. I ended up booting SF4 with Frametrapped 3 just to see if there was any actual difference between the hitboxes of his Vanilla and USF4.
Stand HK is exactly the same hitboxes. However f+HK hitbox got nerfed a little bit since Vanilla. Diagonal jump MP hitbox was also nerfed.
Good suggestion. While I perfectly understood what he was saying, a visual representation may be helpful to those that don't know fighting games as intricately (why watch bad balance if so, amirite?) but would also just be fun to see how busted they are lol
Jeez, losing to Ryu must have really motivated Sagat to get stronger!
Irony is SFIV takes place chronologically after Alpha 3 and SF2, when Sagat encountered Dan and intentionally took a dive during their fight after he saw how Dan's desire for vengeance against Sagat was consuming him and realized he was in danger of falling down the same destructive path. SFIV is supposed to be the start of Sagat's redemption as he leaves Shadowloo and relearns how to be an honorable fighter in it for the spirit of competition. Before this he was motivated purely by vanity and soothing his damaged ego after Ryu scarred him.
BTW, Sagat had basically already left Shadaloo by SF2.
Funnily enough, I don't think Sagat was that strong in A2 or A3. Projectiles losing damage from distance in A3 was probably a factor, but Sagat felt so unthreatening compared to SF2's O. Sagat and SF4.
Then again, maybe it is lore-tied; in the Street Fighter universe, fighters motivated by blind rage tend to not do well in fights.
@@InfernoCleric384 evil ryu?
@@jaiden3473 Non-canon lmao
@@InfernoCleric384 akuma?
An analysis on how bad/mediocre characters improved over the years could be good.
Like, for example you said that Sakura was pretty bad in Vanilla, but if I recall she was pretty good in later versions. Was it just her Ultra 2, or did other things change? Could be an interesting topic.
It was mostly that other top tiers got nerfed and Sakura's setplay and vortex got mapped out. She did get some buffs from Vanilla but people didn't understand how to play the game just yet so they didn't realize how potent setplay was. Hence why many people say that either Vanilla Seth or Akuma would've ended up being the best had Vanilla gone on being played
@@MuiltiLightRider Sakura *did* see buffs in every version of the game. Her frame data outside of EX hurricane kick was poor, her non EX hurricane kick oki was vastly improved, and they also gave her otoshi 2nd hit after EX hurricane kick impressive frame data. Also her damage values were redistributed to increase her damage output and stun values.
Her Ultra 2 was the icing on the cake. The top tiers being nerfed had little impact. Akuma, Balrog, Seth and Viper remained strong characters for the lifespan of the game. Her poor frame data and low ish return on her mixup made her redundant. If you wanted vortex, play Viper, Akuma, or Seth. If you wanted damage, play virtually any other non charge character or Balrog. Her buffs gave her a place in the game.
I'd love to see a Bad Balance on Zangief, if for no other reason than it's rare for a slow, big-body grappler to be on that end of poor balance.
no its pretty common, just for the opposite reason as sagat.
@@Neogears1312 i think thats what "on that end of" means
Coincidentally, Zangief shot up to almost S tier with the inclusion of RFC.
@@merkyofaycemfx2944 Vainilla Gief was crazy strong, but what's funny is that his worse wasn't Dhalsim this time, but Seth.
@@chillidewd5582 I'd be inclined to agree, but I cannot award Vanilla Gief the rank of S tier due to him being completely obliterated by Seth. None of the other S tiers in Vanilla had such a lopsided matchup against them in that regard, and went mostly even against other top tiers with a few exceptions, but nowhere near as bad as 9-1.
That thumbnail alone deserve a like Baf.
And its about time we talk about this beast.
When looking at all 6 version of SF4 (vanilla, super, AE, AE 2012, Ultra, and Omega), Vanilla Sagat is def top 10.
Mostly because he fireball spams like O sagat, has 1100 health and stun, and hits like a freight train.
Also, there is a vid of Bonchan Vanilla Sagat vs AE Kaz Yun.
In general, I love edition select and pray more fighting games do this. It gives you so many options to play the game and if you don't like how a balance patch affected your character, you can always go back to the previous version.
You could have mentioned that Sagat also had access to the unblockable Ultra glitch (where the fireball hits during the ultra flash) discovered late in the game. Didn’t affect us much as super came a couple of months later, but I imagine it would have been abused in Japan until AE. Definitely consider the glitch if you do a Seth video as it was mega cheap with him.
I thought about mentioning it but chose not to. IIRC if you weren't blocking pre-freeze they were blockable and I think Sagat had to fireball fadc and have precise screen positions for a lot of his setups
Damn, I didn't know that Sagat's EX Shot blended in with his normal Shot lmao
Many characters have very different voice lines for ex moves for this very reason. You'll hear the different sound and know to react differently.
@@TheEvilCheesecake sure, but even reactions can only get you so far.
@@fogblades6811 well you do react faster to sounds than sight so it's not that bad
@@eagerinspirit Yup, that's why most overheads in fighting games tend to be really quiet, specifically to make them harder to react to.
You don't know how much I Tiger Kneeded this today
I remember seeing from Error1 years ago that Sagat's super can infinitely loop into itself. Impractical and he's had it in every version of SF4, but still super weird. I think it's the only one.
Gen can do that as well I think
Dudley can do It too
“Impractical” I mean. That’s one word for it
Dhalsim can, plus his ultra
The wait was long but worth it. I'll enjoy every second of this
It's extremely interesting to me, especially since you did a Bad Balance video on him, that fucking **Dee Jay** is the highest-ranked SSFIV character out of just the newcomers specifically. It's also really funny that, even though returning veterans appear to benefit a great deal (perhaps vs. just Sagat specifically) from having anti-fireball U2's, the relative benefit they serve for newcomers to Super don't seem to be nearly as high, seeing as all of them are low-mid tiers or worse.
I love your Bad Balance series so much. It's really cool to get a breakdown about what made them busted. The fact that other characters lacking tools being a big part of what made him strong was something I didn't know!
Turns out it wasn't Sagat who was too strong(do he still was a bit) It's that everyone around him couldn't deal with him at the time. Like putting a professional muay thai martial artist against some street punks that barely know how to throw a punch.
Oh yeah... Street punks...
I'd like to see a series dedicated to bad match ups
Would love to see one on true 0-10 MUs like Victor Vs Pyron in Night Warriors
As a hawk player in sf4, the blanka matchup would give me a stroke every time.
@@jdzl Oh yeah. Wasn't that like an 8-2 matchup or something horrible like that? It just went under most peoples radar.
@@noless yeah, it was a nightmare. Especially online. Couldn't punish blanka ball, and even up ball was tough to get anything significant.
Haggar w/o teammates in mvc3
You missed the fact that his ex fireball put the opponent in a float state on the second hit. So in a fireball fight, he could easily juggle a second non ex fireball from full screen when the ex fireball cleared an opponent's regular fireball. Other characters did not have this luxury and would need to spend bar to accomplish this while still inflicting less damage than Sagat.
True, regular fireball had jp1 in vanilla and lost it in super, i definitely should have brought this up
Yes! I've been looking forward to this one!
EDIT/UPDATE: So I just now got to watch the whole video. I think that you did an excellent job of breaking down Sagat for not just Vanilla SF4, but for, more or less, the entire SF4 series. Your comments also seem to support what I had always felt: it wasn't so much that Vanilla Sagat was "broken", but that he was a very, very strong character in a game that did not have a lot of other strong characters. I also felt that his biggest problem area was just how screwed up his damage input and output was compared to the rest of the cast. I felt that normalizing his damage input and output would have normalized him, even if all of his other tools stayed relatively the same, I feel that Super Sagat kind of demonstrated that.
I love that Vanilla Cone Sagan mod.
Dig the content and dig the video. These movies are really a form of preservation. There's tons of nuances in SF4 that are in risk of being lost to time somehow, so it's awesome having someone as calm and educated as yourself describing them.
Did anyone ever got around to do version select tournaments? I wonder how vanilla Sagat would fare against buffed characters and new characters, like the twins. My first impression is that AE Yun would be king of that tournament scene and maybe some players would make vanilla Sagat work
After the labbing I did I think AE yun is probably the king overall of the game. Or maybe Vanilla Akuma IDK.
Lookup the match between Bonchan and Kazunoko, Vanilla Sagat vs AE Yun. Everyone was hype, but Bonchan doninated him.
Actually, here's the link: ua-cam.com/video/OlhvbwkWtHM/v-deo.html
@@omega17ds I think sagat beats yun with his ability to control the space yun needs to dive kicks and Sagats's fireballs stuffing the rush punch. Yun still might be a better character overall though, I'm not sure.
This is something Ive always wanted to see with people who are way better than me.
AE Yun is def top 5 of Edition Select, but Vanilla Akuma, Vanilla Sagat, AE Fei, and maybe Omega Honda or E ryu would give Yun a hard time.
Great drop, thanks B-Man.
SaGot that big damage
Would you ever consider doing a bad balance on third strike itself? You've mentioned a lot of times that the game has poor balance, and I think it'd be really interesting to see you talk about the game's balance as a whole, rather than examining specific topics in a vacuum. For example: Universal mechanics benefitting some character more than others, uneven distribution of good supers, and viability being determined by how well you fight Chun Li, Yun, and Ken.
Off the top of my head, some reasons why i hate fighting sagat way back in vanilla sf4.
Has the best fireball game, back than guile sonicboom had a longer charge time.
Insane damage off tiger uppercut, it having lower invincible frame make it worst as it will trade into ultra. couple with his fireball gameplay this is something most of the cast cant deal with back than.
safe knee pressure which deal insane chip damage, and the second hit does more damage making it in his favor if you decide to challenge it.
this combine with his tiger uppercut and threat of ultra is really not fun.
most characters in vanilla simply cannot deal with his far Hk and knee pressure. Abel, zangief and honda comes to mind.
His insane damage make it so that even his worst matchup akuma die in 2 combos.
most of the matches ended in you eating 2 tiger uppercuts, 2 knees and a trade uppercut into ultra.
IIRC Gouken was the only character with a fireball fast enough to match Sagat in fireball spamming speed. In fact since the low Tiger Shot was slightly slower it meant if the Sagat player was mixing them up rather than just throwing high Tiger Shots then Gouken would actually start pulling ahead. The problem was that Gouken's EX fireball wasn't a double-hit so Sagat could still push back in the spam by using his own EX ones.
@@reperfan4 Yeah, I honestly think Gouken's Ex fireball is pretty bad, it's not a 2 hit fireball, not even two fireballs thrown foward like dee jay, it's 1 foward and 1 diagonal, which is pretty awful for fireball wars. Sure, you can charge it to make it 2 hits, but you can already do that meterless, so why spend the bar? It IS possible to shut down 2 hit fireballs on a specific timing, but good luck with that, might as well attempt an ex goshoha for a combo.
I just realized his character icon in the HUD doesn't have the magic eyepatch™. Nice detail.
IIRC I think SF4 was the game that introduced me to your content (or maybe SoulCalibur) but either way it makes me genuinely happy and nostalgic seeing you still put out quality content for this game all these years later. Something about it just brings me back to a more simpler time, thanks!
Really fun and insightful as always Baf. I think a quick vid talking about the hilarious Hugo v Sagat matchup would be fun. Gief and Thawk have better tools to deal with fireballs than Hugo
Can't wait for this series to come back, I've been playing Seth in SFV lately and I'm interested to hear what their SFIV counterpart was like.
Insane how broken this game was, even later on all the unavoidable setups, unreactable overheads, etc
And SF4 is now considered one of the Great SF games, right?
@@zegreenemachine8160 it is probably the most fun one to watch but id never play it myself
@@pastorofmuppets9346 bro, that’s what I Say about SSBM.
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Great vid man, Sagat is one of my all time favorite characters and to see his vanilla version explored in depth as to why he was so strong in the original cut of the game made for an entertaining watch during my lunch. I knew his damage was busted but to see everything else brought into perspective is great. Cheers Bafael
The day of fate has finally come.
This videos are so good, thank you for all the time that you put into them! Seeing as you mentioned them, I’d love to see match up videos
This kind of FG content is literal crack, i could listen to breakdowns of extremely strong or weak characters for hours
My favorite fighting game videos on yourtube are Bafael's Bad Balance series.
This made my day, I was so looking forward to another episode of this series~
Two weeks after SF4 launched, my local GameStop was holding a SF4 tournament. I looked who was the most broken character at the time and already Sagat was labeled S tier so I got to work practicing. Came out 3rd, but it was my first SF game and only got that far due to A) how broken Sagat was B) the other players also didn't play much SF4. The top 2 were ones who definitely played before and swept the floor in their matchups lol.
bafael awakens to grant us the greatest episode of the greatest sf series to ever exist
These are my favorite videos and I look forward to watching this 10 times
Ayo, was just rewatching your bad balance series and was wondering about Sagat
Thank you for continuing this series.
And this was the end of Bad Balance? 😥
So glad to see some more bad balance! Continue making awesome content Baf
'Boss privileges'. Sagat used to be a final boss, then a sub-boss. His kit reflects this, and of course does not change much.
Please more SF4 content, the game is just so fun for how varied and strange some of the characters and design ideas were.
Bad balance is the best series. Please Keep doing them
You are the person to get me into SF, even if the character I went on to main was total mid tier trash. This series was big on cluing me into just how deep the SF rabbithole goes
Mid tier isn't trash, y'know.
When the Character is Alex in SF3, he is the very definition of Trash Mid
I remember reading in a magazine in 2008 that Sagat was incredibly overpowered. Too strong.
And I didn’t understand what it was about, damn, this game was very deep and difficult to master.
Sagat is literally the fighting game example of why 5'11 vs 6'0 does matter.
(Also, as someone still learning about fighting games, Bad Balance is genuinely refreshing for the soul. Well done Baf).
Also a prime example of why weight classes exist in combat sports.
No way in hell Rey Mysterio would live in a 1 on 1 fight against Big Show.
Making people jump recklessly against a projectile is one of the main strengths of a Sonic Boom. This is like a Sonic Boom without a charge...
I've been waiting for years for this video
It's been 11 months since the last Bad Balance video... =(
Always nice to learn more about games of yore. Hope to see you cover sfv when sf6 comes out.
HERE IT IS FOLKS, THE MOMENT WE'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR!
Amazing video btw, I just didnt want to say that before I watched it
new bafkino just dropped
Been always looking forward to this series. Off topic tho, it's really weird now to see non counter light buttons linking to medium, especially the kicks
Ayy been waiting for this one since you mentioned it in the Yun episode
Thanks for the content, I look forward to every single one of these
The algorithm took me here
I just want to say I'm glad to see people talk about stuff like this.
Back in 2008-2009 people were saying its totally fine and that Sagats insane OPness was nbd
I didn't enjoy it at all, playing online into
That thumbnail picture already deserves the like. Awesome video.
"massive damage cuts"
Meanwhile the cuts: **like 5-10%**
Best character breakdown videos on UA-cam without question.
Great video, thank you for the content
If I could go back on time with one item, this video is what I'd bring.
never played sf4 but ive seen all of these bad balance videos. Its a testament to how well you script them to be accessible and informative.
Yooo we back
here at 11:23 pm
lets go
Balrog has an easy link into U1 via headbutt and his damage was very high.
Seth would be a very interesting video.
A few matchups to think about. Cammy/Blanka, Blanka/T-hawk, Gouken/Hugo.
I also think a deep dive on the Ultra additions hurtboxes would be cool too.
Lastly I think a deep dive on Viper would be cool. She is the only character that got meterless FADC
i'd love to see a vid on gouken/hugo
Viper has meterless FADC but few Viper players do! :D
@@joqqeman that's a fair point, much like Ibuki has tsumuji loops but require a 1 frame, unplinkable jab link that the vast majority of Ibuki mains couldn't do without drilling holes in their stick for an extra select button.
The Gief vs Seth matchup video sounds good, I would watch that
Being baited into jumping and eating a Tiger Uppercut has been my fucking kryptonite since time began. XD My brother would always abuse the shit out of Sagat's reach and I couldn't stand fighting him. This dude is ridiculous, no matter what game he's in. Lol
Honestly I think the only weakness I can think of Sagat was his slow movement speed and dash, but it's a poor weakness it since he can just throw fireballs.
I still remember how OP his fireballs were that I played him as a rushdown character at one point since zoning became so boring.
Why dash when you can tiger knee?
He had a bigger hitbox as well. Notably akuma's far standing HK gets both hits when sagat is crouching where the second hit whiffs on a lot of the cast when they crouch. On block you're pretty close to even iirc but on hit, akuma gets good damage and can end in sweep which leads into some of the best mixup in the game.
Hell yeah love these!
Ladies and Gentlemen, we have reached the promise land.
Vanilla Sagat is one of the greatest video game mods of all time.
The different colors are even different ice cream flavors.
The airborne state for traded uppercut was a slight nerf as well. Any jump in that instantly knocked down in the air would send him down. A notable example I can think of is Dudley's jump roundhouse which also retracted his hurtbox slightly.
It just dawned on me that it's been over a year since this video was posted. This isn't me trying to say you need to do more (especially since I'm more than willing to rewatch these vids till the end of time), butbits just... wild to think about
He's just busy with school.
HELL YEAH, NEW BAF UPLOAD!!!!!!
This is the model for SF6 I hope. Sagat looked badass in iv
No, just, no. Sagat is inherently a very powerful character and he's been high or top tier in almost every game he's been in.
I think that Drive Parry will definitely make his zoning weaker, but if he gets in (which I'm pretty sure he will since IIRC he was in the roster leak), he will probably have Tiger Spike and Tiger Rush as special moves so it won't be a huge deal anyways.
@@theraymunator I just like Sagat's design.
@@jamesnorton7601 Ah, gotcha. I thought you meant his game design, not his character design.
SF4 Sagat is peak
@@theraymunator I'm horrible at the game. But it is fun. IV looks the best to me. 6 isn't cutting it. Although it has some great things going for it.
I don't know enough about Hakan to know if he'd be appropriate for the series but lord I'd love to see you talk about him
This was an awesome video. I’d love to see a bad balance on some of the top tiers in SFxT, namely Hworang and chun li. I frequently saw them in S tier but haven’t the faintest clue why
I ran Honda up against this. Extremely tough matchup but squeaking out a win was VERY satisfying
I finally understand why whenever someone mentioned vanilla Sagat, there was always a picture of an ice cream cone involved... Vanilla ice cream cone
Cant wait for bad balance Tekken 8
I love this seriiiiiiiies
Bad balance Sagat must call for a bad balance Akuma
Return of the king
Bro, Sagat has been one of my favorites since SF2 but in IV, I was a Sagat MAIN from Day 1. Still disappointed he isn't in SF6. I remember the number of combo routes that ended with Super canceling into Ultra.
I played Sagat in vanilla and he was insane. Loved that character. Was heads and shoulders top character in vanilla SF4. Tiger Knee was best move in the game.
I’d love to see a video on either vanilla gief or vanilla Seth, a video on that matchup too would be awesome.
Imagine playing this game with another person in the room with you and NEITHER one of you have ever been online to watch strategy. You just had to figure this stuff out with no "analytics" by actually PLAYING the game (and occasionally getting stomped) repeatedly. Lol. This series is still super cool though. Thanks for posting.
A video just about one matchup? TAKE MY MONEY
Yooooooo lets go
Will this series make a return? I'm still curious for the Zangief, Ryu, and Seth vids you teased; and stuff from the other games as well.
When I'm not working and studying nonstop I hope to do more. I graduate in 2 months
@@Bafael Completely understand! You take your time and focus on important IRL stuff first and foremost. Congratulations on your upcoming graduation! Best of luck with everything!