Gaming
Gaming
9 Ultra Street Fighter II tips to help beginners get up to speed
Our foolproof guide will help you master this throwback fighting title on the Nintendo Switch.
Street Fighter II is arguably the best fighting game ever made. So much so that it's well worth getting to grips with all over again.
However, rather than raid the attic and blow dust off your SNES, why not try Capcom's Ultra Street Fighter II? Out on Nintendo Switch, it offers a taste of old-school fighting action with a new lick of paint.
These top tips will help get you started on your way to becoming a Street Fighter hero.
1. Pick your art style
New style or classic style – which do you prefer?
© Capcom
It may seem like an odd tip to begin with, but Ultra Street Fighter II has two distinct art styles to choose from and you should start by choosing the one that suits your gaming needs.
The standard settings are the fancy redrawn graphics from Canadian art studio Udon and even though it's the same game, all the characters now have sharp, hand-drawn designs that make them look like cartoons. Alternatively, if you're more of a retro gamer, go into the options and choose Style Settings and then switch from New Style to Classic Style. This makes the game look like the old Super Street Fighter II Turbo arcade version from 1994.
2. Configure your controls
Switch your controls to make specials easier
© Capcom
The Nintendo Switch has four face buttons, but Street Fighter games have always offered six attacks: kicks and punches in light, medium and heavy strengths. The default controls are the same as the old SNES Street Fighter games, with the light and medium attacks on the four A, B, X and Y buttons, and both the heavy attacks on the L and R shoulder buttons.
This can be slightly uncomfortable when pulling off some strong special moves like Dragon Punches, though, so it might be an idea to switch your controls so that light and heavy attacks are on the face buttons and the medium ones (which you'll probably use less frequently) are on the shoulders instead. This should make mixing up slow and fast fireballs a little easier.
3. Learn the three special types
Learn Ken and Chun Li's special moves first
© Capcom
Each character has a handful of special moves that need unique button commands to pull off, so with 19 characters in the game, that's a lot of things to learn. Luckily, most of them fall into one of three categories – motion attacks (where you press something on the D-Pad followed by an attack button); charge attacks (where you hold the D-Pad in a direction for a couple of seconds and then perform the motion to attack); and tap attacks (where you just keep pressing the same button quickly). Learn the moves for Ryu (who only uses motion attacks) and Chun-Li (who only uses charge and tap attacks) and you should be able to manage anyone's moves.
4. Master the super moves
Fill the Super Meter to pull off a Super Move
© Capcom
Once you're able to pull off special moves fairly easily, it's time to move onto the super moves. As you fight, you'll build up a super meter at the bottom of the screen (sometimes it's worth doing special moves that deliberately miss, because they'll still build up the meter). When this meter fills up, you can perform an extremely powerful super move if you can do the controller motion for it. Don't worry if this feels like too much to take in, at any time during the game you can pause and choose Command List to see how to achieve any of your character's special and super moves.
5. Try out the Lite controls
With Lite moves, just tap a button to do a super
© Capcom
If you just can't get your head around pulling off some of the special moves, there's an easier method to help you get used to things before you're ready to take the stabilisers off. If you go to the Options and switch your control type to Lite controls, you can then assign any special move (or even a super move) to just a single button on the controller. Since the Switch has extra ZL and ZR buttons, which aren't really used during Street Fighter, that means you can assign two particularly tricky moves to those buttons and you can pull them off with a simple tap instead. It's lazy, but effective.
6. Learn how to combo
Start with simple combos
© Capcom
As you start to get better, you'll want to learn how to perform combos – sequences of attacks that your opponent won’t be able to block if the first one hits.
Start off with some easy two-hit combos, like the one every Street Fighter player learns: jump in, hit your enemy with a jumping kick (try to land it as low as possible) and then immediately hold Down and press the strong kick button to sweep their legs. If you hit the jump kick low enough, your opponent will still be reeling from it by the time you've landed and pulled off the sweep. Go to Training mode and experiment with the timing of your moves to learn new combos.
7. Stick with one character
Guile or Balrog – who would you stick with?
© Capcom
It can be tempting to choose a different character every time you play and you should definitely do that at first to get the most fun out of the game. Every character feels very different and you might hate playing as the slow and powerful Zangief, but love the fast, weak Chun-Li.
After you've played with all the characters and got a feel for which ones you like, try to pick one and stick with them for a while. Part of becoming good at Street Fighter isn't just mastering your character, it's about learning how each of their moves can be used against other specific characters. The more you play as a single fighter, the quicker you'll learn how to deal with each rival they face.
8. Get better by playing online
Playing against other people online improves your game
© Capcom
Once you reckon you've got the basics sorted, it's time to jump online and get thoroughly humbled. Don't worry, a lot of early adopters of the game will be long-time Street Fighter fans who mastered the moves long before the internet even existed, so it would be daft to expect to be able to compete right away.
However, you'll improve a lot more quickly if you play against a human opponent instead of a CPU one, because you'll learn the tricks and psyche-out techniques that some players use while playing. Set your welcome message before the match to 'Still training' and this will let your opponent know you're not an expert yet. This doesn't necessarily mean they'll go easy on you, but at least they won't feel too cocky when they win.
9. Consider buying a Pro Controller
Play Ultra Street Fighter 2 with a pro controller
© Nintendo
Finally, if you're really enjoying the game, but you don't have a Switch Pro Controller, it might be worth considering one if you can afford the price. As great as the Switch is, its four directional buttons are pretty useless alternatives to a 'proper' D-Pad and the one on the Switch Pro Controller is loose enough to make it really easy to pull off motion specials such as Ryu's fireballs.
If you’re only going to use Switch Pro Controller for Street Fighter, it might be a bit too much of an expense, but if you have other games that support it (especially retro-based ones that also use the D-Pad), it's definitely the best way to play if you can justify.
