Best way to get started with SC?

Dagon

Dagon

[02] Apprentice
Hey everyone. I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this; I'm more accustomed to SRK, and this seems akin to the Newbie Saikyo Dojo subforum, so please feel free to correct me if I'm posting this in the wrong place.

I've been a competitive Street Fighter IV player for about six months now. I played the game casually starting in the fall of my junior year of college (yes, I'm an '09er), mainly because all of my friends were and I wanted to know what all the fuss was about.

When MvC3 came out, I was ridiculously hyped; as a kid I loved MvC2, MvC, Marvel Super Heroes, but obviously I was a scrub back then and didn't take it at all seriously. Unfortunately, my friends weren't huge fans of the game, so I went back to playing SFIV since I had nobody to play against (and no 360 at the time). I have since gotten a 360 and Ultimate (still haven't taken the time to learn how to play the damn game though).

When I heard about SCV and TTTT, I had a similar amount of hype that I did for MvC3; again, when I was a kid I have fond memories of playing TTT, T3, T4 and SCII with my brother, again just messing around and not taking it seriously. (I can specifically remember making jokes about Kazuya's up+forward+circle, circle, circle kick making it look like his torso had collapsed {EDIT 1:22 of this video for reference
}. And the eyebrows.)

I am very much looking forward to the release of SCV because I want to apply my now serious mindset about FGs as a whole to SC, a familiar yet completely unexplored engine. However, I don't really know where to begin. As a SF player I am predisposed to training mode, learning combos, grinding execution, etc., but I wonder if perhaps SC is drastically different. What should be my approach on Day 1 getting SCV with basically no experience with the engine? What are good things to work on, what should I try to learn? Is it best to stick with one character while trying to learn fundamentals, or is it recommended to not get committed to one main before understanding what I'm getting myself into? Any advice or thoughts on the subject would be very helpful to one such as myself. Thanks.
 
One thing to focus on in SC is frames matter (since there are no cancels beyond strings) and the general rule of thumb is usually once blocked you are at disadvantage . So the game is fairly poke based with unsafe moves reserved as punishes, yomis, or modified to make safe (such as at a certain range or angle). Pressure results from mixing up strings (like maybe not finishing them, then starting a new attack as they hesitate), landing one of the few +frame moves (generally has a fair draw back like slow start up or duckable), or zoning.

Think of footsies in SF and that's how you might look at this game. Lots of pokes, ways to punish predictable pokes, and positioning are the big factors. Combos are part of the game, but are not what it's about. Only a few characters are execution heavy and fairly tame compared to games like MvC.

The best way to start is get a general grasp of move safety and try to think of how to use each move. Is it for poke? perhaps a combo started for a punish? Can you layer it with shenanigans like a string mix up? Can I maybe use the attack, then bait a mistake such as stepping immediately after?

Typically you want to main 1 character, 2 tops. You have a lot of moves to understand, and a lot of match ups to consider with that characters options alone so it's hard to immediately adopt multiple characters. Also try not to focus on being fancy for no reason. AA and BB will get you pretty far with the proper fundamentals and keep you from wildly swinging for flashy combos that your opponent can read a mile away. Give every move you do a purpose.
 
I'm planning to learn this as my first serious Soul Calibur game as well. Not sure of the most efficient way, but my schedule is 1. Find a character who has a playstyle I like, 2. Become familiar with the movelist, find good pokes and pressure tools. I'm stuck about there =/ I think a lot of the learning will be about becoming familiar with matchups, learning the tools other characters have that you need to look out for, and learning to implement quick-step and Just Guard into your game. I doubt the execution part will take long to master.
 
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