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So after 2 hours of trying to beat Bison with Ken (I've already beaten with Ryu, Honda, and Blanka, and yes, those took forever, too) I'm starting to get burned out already on SF2. It's a very fun game but the fight with Bison is dumb.
He has insane speed and can reach you from all the way across the screen with a scissor kick before you can even let off a hadouken. All of his attacks bounce him away from you when you guard, so there's no way to counter. Everything he does has insane priority and not even light punches or kicks can break any of his attacks. Scissor kick can hit both standing and crouching blocks, though it's random which one it's 'targeting,' but either way it means even if you see it coming you only have a 50% of blocking it no matter what you do. You can jump backward but most of the time he has you pinned against the wall and you'll still get hit by it as you come down anyway. And of course nothing has priority over it so there's no way to counter it, you just... get hit. There's no air guard in this game so you can't block on your way down. If you're in the air, you will get hit with whatever he is doing 100% of the time.
After he does the thing where he jumps on your head, he'll sometimes jump backward if he misses. If you pull off a Tatsumakisenpukyaku IMMEDIATELY after he bounces off your head, there's a small chance you can hit him when he's jumping backward. If he does literally anything else, you'll get pummeled, though.
At the start of the fight, you can jump toward him, and if he doesn't move backward or scissor kick, you can medium kick him.
If you somehow manage to hit him with a Hadouken, it knocks him down. Then when he's getting back up, sometimes a strong Hadouken will hit him as he's trying to attack again (as he rarely ever guards from far away).
Those are the three moments I can find to actually damage him. But those opportunities are rare (the beginning of the fight only happens once!) and you have to have lightning-quick reflexes for the 'Kyaku. For the Hadouken it's rare you ever get a first Hadouken in, I only try it when he's far away and if I'm LUCKY he'll do Psycho Crusher, which will break the Crusher (I don't think anything has priority over the actual fireball of the Hadouken? Like I don't think you can attack it away like Geki's shurikens in SF1 lol).
But he hardly ever does Psycho Crusher unless you're jumping a lot (which will always hit you hard) or if you're stunned.
Even when I manage to get Tatsumakisenpukyaku off and stun him, then throw him... he still has like 3/4 life left, and he's able to do like 30% of my life bar in damage from a single scissor kick or head jumpy thing. It just feels impossible.
I had a lot more vigor when I was doing it with Ryu (which I think took me hours to do, like an entire evening just on that one fight???) but now I am running out of stamina and patience. Plus Ken is a poop and I hate him and it's not fun to play as him despite it being the same as Ryu. You can't do multiple save states, so if I start a new character I have to abandon the current one. I can always do the lose-and-retry character change, though. But I'm just going to get to Bison and be frustrated again with a different character :P I'm wondering what I should do. I 've already written SO MUCH of the post for SF2 (seriously, it's huge) so I don't want to abandon at this point, but... ho man is this grating.
He has insane speed and can reach you from all the way across the screen with a scissor kick before you can even let off a hadouken. All of his attacks bounce him away from you when you guard, so there's no way to counter. Everything he does has insane priority and not even light punches or kicks can break any of his attacks. Scissor kick can hit both standing and crouching blocks, though it's random which one it's 'targeting,' but either way it means even if you see it coming you only have a 50% of blocking it no matter what you do. You can jump backward but most of the time he has you pinned against the wall and you'll still get hit by it as you come down anyway. And of course nothing has priority over it so there's no way to counter it, you just... get hit. There's no air guard in this game so you can't block on your way down. If you're in the air, you will get hit with whatever he is doing 100% of the time.
After he does the thing where he jumps on your head, he'll sometimes jump backward if he misses. If you pull off a Tatsumakisenpukyaku IMMEDIATELY after he bounces off your head, there's a small chance you can hit him when he's jumping backward. If he does literally anything else, you'll get pummeled, though.
At the start of the fight, you can jump toward him, and if he doesn't move backward or scissor kick, you can medium kick him.
If you somehow manage to hit him with a Hadouken, it knocks him down. Then when he's getting back up, sometimes a strong Hadouken will hit him as he's trying to attack again (as he rarely ever guards from far away).
Those are the three moments I can find to actually damage him. But those opportunities are rare (the beginning of the fight only happens once!) and you have to have lightning-quick reflexes for the 'Kyaku. For the Hadouken it's rare you ever get a first Hadouken in, I only try it when he's far away and if I'm LUCKY he'll do Psycho Crusher, which will break the Crusher (I don't think anything has priority over the actual fireball of the Hadouken? Like I don't think you can attack it away like Geki's shurikens in SF1 lol).
But he hardly ever does Psycho Crusher unless you're jumping a lot (which will always hit you hard) or if you're stunned.
Even when I manage to get Tatsumakisenpukyaku off and stun him, then throw him... he still has like 3/4 life left, and he's able to do like 30% of my life bar in damage from a single scissor kick or head jumpy thing. It just feels impossible.
I had a lot more vigor when I was doing it with Ryu (which I think took me hours to do, like an entire evening just on that one fight???) but now I am running out of stamina and patience. Plus Ken is a poop and I hate him and it's not fun to play as him despite it being the same as Ryu. You can't do multiple save states, so if I start a new character I have to abandon the current one. I can always do the lose-and-retry character change, though. But I'm just going to get to Bison and be frustrated again with a different character :P I'm wondering what I should do. I 've already written SO MUCH of the post for SF2 (seriously, it's huge) so I don't want to abandon at this point, but... ho man is this grating.
