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Guile: has glasses. You can put them on and take them off at will. They openly mocking Capcom's decision since the goggles, they do nozink.
Juri:
Juri seems to be very promissing. Joking that the CC Ultra basically makes her link all her normals into each other, kind of like Ryu in SFIV but without requiring good timming. Spin kick excellent for pressure. Very complete, fairly powerful, and relatively simple character.
Spin kick is similar to Bison SK or Sagat TK in that it's fairly safe on block. Pretty powerfull.
Custom Combo, just screwing around a 390 damage combos possible with bar remaining so CC can be very powerful once its potential can be fully discovered. You can probably land a few of those combos per Ultra. Land a combo once, get a KD, do a mixup and then land another combo for another 300 damage (more or less). Mentions that Sagat has 1050hp confirmed. Fuerte has 950hp now.
T.Hawk:
A joke about there being a pink Hawk.
He has the biggest hitbox and hp in the game. 1150hp, hits like a mack truck. Can fly around the screen and has some ridiculously damaging combos. The command throw has some ridiculous range.
Everybody had more or less dismissed Hawk as a joke character but based on tests it seems that he will have some really good and really bad matchups but overall pretty competitive. He has trouble getting around fireballs but against characters who have to get in, like Dudley, he is very scary.
J.jab and s.jab tick loops from ST are not possible. There's a whiff animation but it might be possible to option select, it's not clear yet. T.Hawk can be scary.
DJ:
Seems like he's a good Guile. Solid, not likely to have any really bad matchups. Has the tools to deal with most chars. He has good normals, good Ultras. Being a charge character is holding him back a bit (joke about motion characters having an advantage in SFIV) but otherwise he will essentially be what Guile should have been.
The crumple stun off of his kicks were removed. It was completely broken. Now he's pretty average but solid.
Adon:
Is geared towards being more newcomer friendly. Doesn't really have a lot of tools, a lot of 50-50s but the concensus is that once the matchup is understood he shouldn't be a character we'll see a lot in tourneys.
Guy:
Lots of potential. Evades projectiles with shoulder charge. Ultra can be comboed into. Target combo juggles. Might be possible to FADC the last hit into Ultra. This hasn't been tested though.
Hits pretty hard, has good wakeup options with his Tatsu, it has good invulnerability on startup, he has good throws, good pressure and all around solid character with good mixups and dominates in the corner.
He seems to have some really bad matchups though (not indicated which ones).
Cody:
Absolutely fantastic character. When Hell first played Cody he approached it like he was playing A3 but kept losing. The "Bingo" move, hold down punch for a few seconds and let go. Seems to beat a lot of moves clean, combos, and then setups Ultra opportunities. It seems to be the move with most invulnerability. It seems to actually beat lariats.
Stone is a really powerful projectile. It's fast, almost no recovery, you can feint, you can delay it.
He has a lot of really good normals, has some really damaging combos. General consensus is that he's a top tier, probably in top 5. Seems to place behind Ibuki and Dudley. Will probably be the new Ken online.
Knife: 4 jab link takes off 125 hp. Triples the range of his normals, chips and increases priority.
Ibuki:
Comparable to SFIV's Akuma. Seems to have vortex like Akuma. Good mixups on wakeup, does good stun. Can actually combo into her ultra with SJ canceling her target combos. She's more technical, like Viper, but can be really scary in the right hands. Seems like a cross between viper and akuma in that regard.
She has 900hp overall so she will die quickly. This makes her one of the trickier characters to use.
Top tier definitely. Juri is powerful but possibly boring to use. Ibuki is more complete and more fun to use.
Makoto:
She has changed the most relative to her 3S incarnation. She has lost options but she has better normals and seems to be more solid. She will take a while to get used to. She seems like she will be competitive. the Kara-Kara is in the game.
She is purely offensive, all or nothing character.
She can now do a lot of her Kara mind games like in 3S. She can kara-kara from hayate so the defender has to guess properly now instead of regaining momentum by default. In the right hands she can be really scary. She isn't top tier. Reversals being powerful in SFIV kind of ruins her game relative to 3S but she still has potential.
Dudley:
Is close to being the best character in the game but not quite. Has insane wakeup game, great tools. The overhead is the best in the game. His damage output rivals Sagat's in SFIV. All of his specials are good. His focus is one of the fastest in the game. His SRK is strange, and problably his weakest move.
Normals have very little range (compared to balrog). His jab does seem to have good range and very fast. If he gets in he will destroy you but might have difficulty doing it. Akuma's keep away and escape ability might give him a lot of trouble. Akuma and Ryu might be bad matchups.
Based on this he might be in the top 5.
In the corner good luck getting away from him.
Not only is his overhead good but he can actually combo from it, including a link into c.rh!
Lots of back and forth about his character not being quite Sagat Tier.
Hakan:
Is a love him or hate him character.
Very peculiar character. Oil completely changes his game. His throws gain 3 times the range and his normals have stupid range with oil. If you can get into your opponent's mind he will devastate but will lose to rushdowns who keep him from oiling up. Can't compete against Ryu or Akuma. Probably mid tier. Like blanka if you don't know the matchup he will destroy you but once you figure out it will be pretty even.
His Ultra beats pretty much any move where you're considered airborne.
Random discussion:
1050 hp for Dudley. Apparently his lp srk, into hp srk into super takes off 500hp. But only in the corner. And you can't hit confirm it. There's a lot of back and forth and it isn't clear if they're joking or not. Discussion on this starts at 1:32.
Ok, listening to it again that combo is possible but it doesn't do 500 damage due to scaling. It still hurts a lot.
Sagat:
Used to be make 2 mistkaes against Sagat and you were dead. Now it's more even. Almost all the damage off of his moves has been considerably scaled back. Mid range TK seems to take off 20 to 30 instead of 100. He's lost 50 hp and he has had some of his tools taken away.
In SFIV he's got a huge hitbox, prone to crossups and he's slow. That hasn't changed. So those who will want to win with Sagat will have to earn it. He's still very competitive but you can't just eek out a win like you could in vanilla. He's lost his really abusive tactics. Basically noobs will QQ a lot and those who know what they're doing will still do very well.
Has a new evasion tool (angry scar). Has super propeties: freezes time, ups the damage of TU to what it used to do -10 points. Also changes some of the properties of the TU for example he can combo the TUs which couldn't be done before.
Most of his Karas seems to still be in. Can still land the s.RH but it's dependent on how deep you trade (probably character dependent).
TU wasn't nerfed as much as Ryu's, at least if you do them from a crouching position. SRKs don't dominate as much. Overall Sagat won't change that much in terms of tiers. They've just been compressed somewhat. He will probably have at least one bad matchup.
Ultra 2 seems to be only useful against projectile chars. You can throw it out on reaction against midscreen fireballs.
Ryu:
Basically the same. The major difference is the loss of a lot priority. Both hp and mp does 2 hits and only first hit cancelable. Trade into ultra is still possible but only under certain cases. It's no longer free but possible.
Also can't cancel the super as long as the hadouken is on screen so no more traps for characters neutral jumping fireballs (otherwise doesn't seem to change much). Damage is slightly nerfed but nothing really dramatic. There's a damage nerf across the board. Not as dramatic as Sagat. (Those who stayed the same are Honda and Boxer, Guile)
Ryu remains top 5.
Ultra 2 doesn't seem to be as good as Ultra 1. Its only use seems to be in relation to the discovered unblockable. Its use is more esthetic than anything else. No real reason to use it considering how versatile U1 is.
Viper:
Almost nothing has changed. The main difference is she won't die as quickly to sagat and others due to damage nerf. U2 is matchup dependent, mostly to counter AAs like srks, to keep shotos from spamming AA.
hp, sjc, hp U2 seems to work apparently but not very damaging.
seems to be nearing top 10, some say top 5.
Akuma:
Is pretty much this games S-Tier.
Exactly the same except loop isn't gone, just much more strict. Fewer hits will land and can only seem to pull it off 2/10 times.
Hadouken does far less damage. The s.Hk has been damage nerfed too.
Boxer:
Some of the changes seem to make no sense because they pretty much changed nothing at all.
Because of all the nerfs his matchup against Sagat is now probably 5-5. Generally a lot of his bad matchups got better and his good ones might have gotten better. Talks of top5 (Ed note: there seems to be a lot of people in the top 5)
U2 is completely useless. No range, slow, pointless.
Dictator:
Singificant improvements. Damage was nerfed a bit but nerfs all around to sagat and ryu help a lot and his U2 is great. Full screen. Looks like Fuerte's but different properties: it's faster, actually useful. Can be done on reaction against fireballs and crosses up. Can be jumped out of however. It's not a throw, it's a hit (similar to HS) so it can be blocked. This is especially good against shotos. Once he has Ultra it shuts down most fireball games and it hits hard enough to be scary.
PC has a full body hitbox, it's much faster and it does more damage. Possibly might be higher ranked than Cody.
Not top 5, but definitely going up in tiers.
Claw:
Ultra 1 hits on the way up like the EX wall dive. Easily one of the best Ultras of the game. They say that making a mistake and you will eat the Ultra. 2nd Ultra is also pretty good. It has good range and priority. His normals seem to have better priority. His fake overhead in vanilla is now an actual overhead. Not very damaging but useful.
Guile:
A lot of joking around about his sunglasses.
It's useless and seems to be his only significant change. there seems to be some changes to his normals. Making SSFIV offensive and nerfing sagat/ryu will help him as well. More competitive. SH: can be used as AA. U1 has been improved too (don't say how), FKs are improved, seem to have more range. His place in the tier list probably won't change much but he might go up a bit.
Still destroys Bison for free.
Fuerte:
U2 changes a lot of his game. Does about 500 damage, and startup is about 3-4 frames. It moves forward quickly as well and it's grab. Basically it punishes almost everything.
They changed some of his priorities and hitboxes.
Loop is much harder to do.
Rufus:
Damage is now much much more reasonable. Joking about how he isn't quite as brain dead as he was. EX SS and EX messiah have been scaled down considerably. Ultra damage nerfs have hit Rufus harder than others because of how he was played. His U2 doesn't seem that good, few setups. He's still high tier.
Ken:
U2 goes through fireballs from mid screen. Air EX Tatsu can also help land U2. Focus cancel EX Hadooken into U2 does about 450, timming is strict and it uses 3 bars. Sweep is faster, not quite as good as Ryu's. Walk is very slightly faster. His hadookens have same recovery but they move across the screen faster which means the c.mk into hado is more likely to combo. His srks have better priority. Mid tier most likely. Dash is slight faster. So is FA.
Apparently Capcom has a sense of humor. One of his win quotes says something like "You're as easy to read as a flowchart"
Abel:
New U2 is good, great for messing with firebal characters. Has armor. Can be delayed. Can be canceled, grab and moves about as or slightly faster than the old Ultra. Can't combo like the U1 though. Probably still in the same tier rank as before (mid high). Comments that overall the balance is much better in super.
Gief:
Life has gone down, lariat is much easier to punish. Normals do less damage. GH does less damage. Ultra does less damage. U2 has some uses. He's still a dominating character however. His lariat is still scary and his matchups probably won't change much, if at all. He won't kill you in a few hits now.
Honda:
Pretty much the same. EX HB has invulnerability now. U2 command grab pretty damaging but works like a beefed up ochio. Hands can probably be FADC'd into Ultra. It's not a combo though, it's a 50-50 but because his dash is fast this can be really good.
Seth:
HP is the same but since other characters do less damage he's in much better shape. Seth had a lot of really bad and a lot of good matchups. His U2 means that off his combos he can do a lot of damage and makes him much scarier. Command grab does more damage. He can land U2 from a lot of things, like where he used to follow up with his chun li kicks he can now use U2.
Gouken:
Indications are he's more or less the same. His U2 is much better and can be comboed from a lot of moves, much better than U1 (like from palms and EX tatsu FADC).
Chun:
U2 is insane. Can be landed from a lot of different situations. Top character for sure.
EX legs combo U2 does a lot of damage.
Other than this chun hasn't changed otherwise. Because of U2 she has gotten much much better and is probably in the top.
U2 isn't a charge move.
Rose:
Has gotten better. Can combo into soul throw.
Fei:
Pretty much the same. Chicken wing has less priority (startup invulnerability) and might be punishable. Because of the changes to the game he might fare better.
Cammy:
U2 is a joke. U1 is still the best. Cammy has a lot of potential, has been improved a lot. Will probably see her in tourneys more.
Gen:
Jump is less safe now, more floaty, similar to Ryu. Gen used to be able to abuse of his old jump arc against other characters like Hawk.
General comments:
Better stages. Africa is awesome, lots of things going around in the background. Great music.
Seth's stage is really nice too, better music.
You can now hear all the remixed classic themes but Capcom went about it in a half assed way.
You you have to actually change icon and your title in order to hear the themes. Apparently there's no actual option to hear them. Correction: you use the default icons to enable the classic themes.
Bonus rounds are useless. It's there to please noobs but they're garbage.
Discussion about how Capcom is trying to balance its 2 types of consumers: hardcore and casuals. Bonus rounds are a concession to the latter group (ED: no surprise to anyone).
Blanka:
Virtually unchanged. Still highly dependent on shenanigans and people not knowing the matchup.
Sakura:
Has her j.mk cross back. Can combo into ultra. She's more aligned with her old self. However she won't improve much in terms of her tiers. She needed a lot more to compete and didn't get anything.
Dan:
No longer the worse. Has a FADC combo that does 450. His fireball has much better range. Dan's tatsu has some uses (like it crosses for example).
Sim:
U2 is a grab. Still kind of bad. Didn't get the changes he needed.
More general comments:
All characters are unblocked up front.
Seems more competitive in general but certain things cater to noobs.
Having a SFIV save unlocks the 11th color. You still apparently have to unlock others. They haven't seen it however.
The intro and ending animations haven't really improved much. Joking about Hakan's story, apparently completely absurd.
Time trial and Survival are gone. Challenge mode is a disappointment. Old character challenges are the same, or at least seem to be. Can be done in any order.
SSFIV overall seems to be one of the most balanced games Capcom has made. Capcom's claims that everyone was going to be sagat tier. Rather they brought down the top and compressed the tiers more.
Things that used to be really abusive are more or less gone.
New characters however do not seem to have been considered in the overall balance. They seem to do a lot of damage and have a lot of tools. Furthermore because they're so offensive they seem to mesh a lot more than the Vanilla characters.
Turtling won't dominate as much in Super. Still usefull for certain characters but it's not the dominating tactic it was in vanilla.
Quick note: There seemed to be a lot of back on forth on the subject of Dudley. Some people were saying he was the new Sagat and others saying he wasn't quite that good and he's probably on par with Akuma. Either way Dudley is going to be very good.
Good to see Akuma is still good even without his loop. I say Vega has the possibility to move up in rank (not that it means anything) since he isn't as fragile now i.e. mask and claw stay on for longer.
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