Are all characters really "equal?"
I have a friend who is just getting into Street Fighter and he's still trying to pick a main. Typically I told him to pick the character he thinks is the coolest/has the coolest moves and to just run with it. Although from what is online and what I've learned from personal experience is that some characters are just not that great.
For Example: Vega, Guile, Dan, Fei Long
Basically what I'm asking is: Is picking one of these characters as your main a waste of time? Or should everyone pick who they want and just try their best?
Responses (4 total)
No, not all characters are truly equal.
While tier lists are a good source of information about the strength of the characters in general, one has to remember that ultimately, they are dependent on usage by people (usually top players) in tournaments who will have a skill level which is much than people who are just starting out at the game.
Additionally, this data is a time series (meaning, the data fluctuates over time).
These things ultimately make tier lists unreliable at best in determining the best characters to use in the game. However, it's a decent approximation.
Looking at the tier lists, Street Fighter 4 is a fairly well-balanced game (speaking strictly about what we know about character strength and weaknesses, not about gameplay). Going by the tier lists, you don't see any matchup worse than 7-3 (and there are some games that are much worse, can anyone say MVC2?). Of course, some characters (like Dan, as of the time of this writing), suffer from multiple bad matchups, so unless a new player is looking for a steep learning curve, they will probably want to avoid these characters initially.
The pending release of Super Street Fighter 4 is fairly soon (April 27th at the time of this writing) and very important to this answer as well. Seth Killian has acknowledged that Capcom is further balancing the game, and the general philosophy used to achieve that balance is to improve everyone where possible/necessary, and to generally avoid reducing ability/capabiity (except in the case of Sagat it seems).
Because of this, choosing a character now would not seem to be so dependent on the tier lists, because the game is going to change a fair amount in the next month, with a lot of adjustment by the community as a result. If one has confidence in the capability of Capcom to bring further balance to the game, then any character they pick would be fine, but it would seem (to me) that early contenders are Dudley (which you can't play now), Sagat (who still seems pretty powerful, A-tier, if I had to guess), Chun-Li, Dan, and Hakan.
While they definitely have their problems, it is completely possible to do well with Vega, Guile, or Fei Long. You're going to have to work harder for your wins, almost certainly, but it's not impossible to win. Just look at Justin Wong -- he's been tearing up good players with Fei Long.
In the end, though, this is a video game. If your friend really wants to play, say, Vega or Guile, I personally think he should just go for it. Playing a character that you love but who takes a bit more effort to do well with is a lot more fun, in my opinion, than picking a character that you hate just because they're high-tier. I know some pretty great Vega players, so it's entirely possible to win with low-tier characters. (You just might have a bit of difficulty against pro players in major tournaments.)
Pretty much the only character I wouldn't recommend maining at this point in time in Dan; however, he's getting some pretty nice buffs in SSF4 so even he might not be a bad choice anymore.
No character is equal. As a Blanka guy myself, I've just learned to enjoy the consistent uphill battle I have with most characters. Really.
It comes down to how well you know your character, what you can get away with and the matchup. If you don't know your character, don't know what works and the matchup you are in bad shape. If you don't know one or two out of the three, you are still in bad shape. But don't expect to be top tier with just any character until you learn why your character can or can't be up there.
The short answer to this would be...the characters themselves are not equal, but it really depends on the player......
a bit longer.....I play with every character, but I really enjoy low-tier characters because they really don't have a ton of options, that said, you don't have a LOT to focus on, making them actually easier in a way, this is also why I enjoy Bison, he has a lot of solid moves, but just not a huge list for his moveset, so I can control a match with what he has. I kind of laugh when people say Dan is a joke, yeah I know he is literally a joke but he has what he needs, he's always been given just enough to get by and it really is enough, if you are an aggressive in-your-face player, then Dan is your man because his attacks are really good either in the air or close in, his far attacks are weak and you really can't do much full screen except super taunt ^_^;....Characters are unbalanced, some even possibly broken, players can vary, i've seen crappy kens and i've seen ones that blow me a way, I've seen HORRIBLE HORRIBLE Vegas and ones that just scare the hell outta me.
