For those of you who play what is arguably the best 2D fighter ever. Post your tips, strategies, questions, etc. Feel like there is a useless character like Dhalsim or M. Bison? Ask about how to use them here. I've played this game to a level where I was winning a few city championships back in the day. (Would have won a lot more, except for this one East Indian dude that always seemed to have my number.)
I have to confess I've always been a one-character man - Ken! I just never enjoyed playing with any of the other characters as much and after all these years, I still don't really fancy playing with the others! I'm pretty handy with Guile and remember was able to do his 'freeze' move on the original SF2 at the age of 10. One move I could never do was Zangief's spinning piledriver - which takes off a huge chunk off your energy if you're unlucky to be caught in one. How do you do that?
When I first started playing the game I used Vega a lot. Me and a group of about 10 friends picked up SFII for the SNES and sat around for hours one night playing each other. My first time picking up the controller, I chose Vega and kicked ass without really knowing what I was doing. So I figured that was 'my' character. As I got older and discovered more of the game's nuances, I realized that Ryu was the most well rounded fighter and started playing with him almost exclusively. A string of consecutive dragon punches are effective against less skilled opponents. For the more knowledgable, I usually have to sit in my corner and bide my time. It's usually not a matter of acting, but reacting. Basically if you know exactly what move to use counter the other's attack, you don't need to initiate the fight.
The best advice I can offer anyone is to always remember how much of the screen you can control with any particular move, both offensively and defensively. If you like a particular character try practicing with a friend (or just using a second controller and not pressing buttons on it) to see how large of a strike zone a particular move has. Generally, a character that has stronger attacks, yet smaller strike zones is not recommended for any form of tournament play. Also another thing to be concerned with is which version we are talking about. If you buy (or already own, or DL illegally) Capcom Classics Collection 2, it comes with SFII Turbo and training videos that discuss the points I'm bringing up. Basically as described, Ryu is essentially the most well rounded character to use, because he deals fair damage to opponents and has incredible screen control.
