Sonic the Fighters, as many of you know, is the first Sonic fighting game. First released in the arcade and then finally released for consoles inside of Sonic Gems Collection. Upon its release in Gems, Fighters did not get many good reviews. In fact, most reviews ranked it much lower than Sonic R. I do not understand these reviews. Sonic the Fighters is fairly good fighter and has a lot of sonic charm. The gameplay is fast and smart as well. The game has various techniques that make it even faster paced then the majority of people tend to think.
Recently I have been playing sonic the fighters a lot and have really been enjoying playing the game against people. In fact, if it wasn't for the loser power up system, it would be my favorite fighting game of all time, and by the way I am actually pretty big on fighting games.
Anyway, I have been thinking it would be good to get other people involved in the game and interested in playing it well, or just give people a better understanding of the game. I feel it is an underrated game.
Another recent event that was brought this on is the Peer to Peer Kaillera client program that has a really good chance of making Sonic the Fighters playable online in the near future (or possibly even right now, I have yet to test it).
Anyway, heres some things that will help you out with starting the game.
If you think you already know the basics I suggest skipping straight to the Metagame section!---
How to Play Sonic the Fighters
Player vs Player GuideNow, many of you probably played Sonic the Fighters against the CPUs but have you actually tried playing against an actual person? To those of you who have, I am sure you noticed that it is different from fighting against a CPU because a real human does not show the same simple weaknesses over and over.
Humans learn and are able to counter your every move. This is a guide to help you get used to playing the game against another player, and what tactics are different. If you have not played Sonic the Fighters against another person I suggest you try it out sometime.
Buttons
I am going to assume people are on the gamecube version. If you are on the PS2 version you should check out the control configuration to figure out the differences.
The game is made up of 3 true buttons and the joystick. The 3 true buttons are;
B: This is the barrier. Press it to get your barrier. It’s like a block button. But you only have 5 barriers each match and they don’t reset between rounds so look out. On the gamecube controller (on default) you press B to perform this.
P: You punch. That simple enough? Of course what punch you do can change depending on how you are moving the joystick. On the gamecube controller (on default) you press A to perform this.
K: You Kick. It’s a lot like the punch button. On the gamecube controller (on default) you press X to perform this.
You may be saying to yours, “But I know there are more buttons when I play Sonic the Fighters…†and you are right! But those are only on the Gems version I will help you out with that now. They are actually all combinations of the 3 true buttons. I will give you the gamecube controls… if your on PS2, check the control configuration.
The Y button: Its K+B. What it does varies from character to character, but is usually a strong kick.
The L trigger: Its P+B. It is the universal grab activation.
The R trigger: Its P+K. just pressing it on the ground does a move that varies from character to character. But if you hold back and do it you activate hyper mode and lose a barrier.
The Z button: Its P+K+B. All in one. It activates landing and dodging which I will get into later.
Understanding the overlooked basics
Most people can go all the way through the single player arcade mode and not realize some of the basics of playing the game simply because you never need to. The CPUs use them but they do not use tactics that would make you feel like you should learn them. I’ll go over them and there uses, then I will give some more example of were it is good to use them.
Landing: This one is easy to do and yet most people don’t even realize it is there. After you get hit in the air when you get hit you realize that you cannot move. Well actually you can, simply press P+K+B (or Z on gamecube) and you will perform a landing.
What actually does is it stops the normal falling rate and can move your character in a direction that your character backwards as well. This way you can get out of comboing range, cool eh?
Dodging: This was multiple uses but it is usually actually an offensive move. It is easy to perform, it is done by pressing P+K+B (or Z on gamecube) when on the ground.
There is a forward dodge and a backwards dodge. It can be used to avoid strong one hitting moves so you don’t waste a barrier, or it can be used to dash around your opponents move and attack them back. Backwards dodging will but you at more of a distance from straight forward following attacks, while a forward dodge will let you move around attacks that don’t follow well.
When you dodge you can either stop and wait off the dodge lag, or you could dodge once more (but you can only dodge twice in a row), or you could end it with a dodge attack by pressing the P or K button (X and A on the game cube controller respectively).
Crouching: Press down on the joystick. Simple to do, but what is the use of it. Well you get smaller. Some character can use it to go under certain attacks, like Fang’s gun fire from up close. But almost universal it makes characters avoid grabs from others. Bark, however, can not crouch.
Hyper Mode: I am amazing people that not everyone knows about this cause it is one of the coolest things in the game. You activate it when your Barrier bar on the bottom is blue, then hold back on the joystick and press P+K (R trigger on gamecube controller).
You will do a bursting movement and those classic invincibility stars will appear around you. You lose a lot of the strength of your attacks but become much faster during this. Some characters can start hitting the button shield and then grab right after without the opponent being able to escape.
But look out, hyper only lasts 3 seconds and after it over you have to wait for your barrier bar to turn blue again before you can perform it again.
More Advanced Tactics
Land Chasing: When a character lands out of one of your moves you usually have some time to send an attack at them before they actually recover, this puts them in a bad position. Most characters have some sort of land chasing. It is the basis of a lot of safe combos.
Juggling: Pretty much just keeping the opponent in the air and getting a few hits in before they fall. It sorta blends into land chasing most of the time. Most juggling is only able to be done in corners though. If tails or fang can get a character into a corner and in the air slightly and start the attack were they start waving there arms in the air. Well thats a good example of a juggle. A lot of times in leaves them open for another set up, and if you are lucky another juggle session. juggling is used more often when they do not land.
Wall Jumping: When you jump near a wall, you can do press up to have another smaller jump on the wall. This actually allows you to do aerials that can usually only be done high in the air. Many of them set up for juggles. Hurray juggles! You can even go from a wall-land to a wall jump!
Jump-ins: Just jump over them and use a quick aerial. For most characters the kick in air works for this. The character should start flailing their feet around in air. Now you might first think how is this useful? Well one of the ways to affectively use it is at the last few frames before you start falling back down activate the kicks.
If you do it right you should be able to hit a grounded opponent with it, but you need to be moving forward slightly. It will give them lag and you can follow it up with a grab or another move. However if they block it from the front you are in trouble but you could make it so you land behind them and it will go through the barrier if you do and you will get a safe hit.
Meta GameLets try to discuss the following sections as much as possibleMajor Differences from Single PlayerI am sure many of the people who are reading this like to just go to arcade mode, choose Sonic, and start spamming his simple Punching String combos and just break through the CPU’s shield until you just start hitting them and winning.
Hate to tell you this but that doesn’t exactly work in single player. Sorry. But things like this are avoidable. Sonic can still do his punishes pretty well but you cannot just spam it rapidly. People can barrier and dodge out of hit after the second and third hit and then punish you for it. So sometimes you got to chill and actually stop hitting the button.
Unlike in Single Player mode, if the opponent is Knuckles they actually have the potential of really kicking your butt. People can know tactics that the CPU’s would never you. Knuckles, for instance, has a very power dodge to Punch attack, which he can follow up with his 3 punch combo or a punch kick.
Sometimes the CPU would do something like this, but you could easily land it. But against a player you don’t want to cause they can get another dodge punch kick out of it if you do. Sometimes its good to land and sometimes it isn’t. You can ask me about certain situations later.
Grabbing is much more effective against human players than CPU. Unlike CPUs humans aren’t able to react at the rate that grabbing becomes almost ineffective. Sure they can still crouch and jump attack to avoid this but it’s still a valid way of playing.
Doing a simple punch to grab can be pretty effective in many cases. Giving someone hit stun or barrier stun and then grabbing while in your in Hyper is a guaranteed grab. Grabs do quite a bit of damage and often allow you to space afterwards so it is very effective.
To repeat what I said earlier, just using attacks that break barriers is not going to be effective in single player. Most of those attacks leave you open so the opponent can attack but by grabbing or just punching they will may end up winning the round.
Unlike CPUs humans aren’t completely helpless without barriers, they still can use jumping effectively as an avoiding move, they can still dodge right and they can still attack you effectively. So be careful.
Character Specifics
BarkDaisharin Punch (P+K): I am unsure of what this move is called in the English version as of yet. However, I have noticed it can be used to punish dodges quite easily which render some characters normal tactics unusable at times when they would usually be quite effective. Namely against Knuckles and Tails rushing dodge punch kick. I still need to figure out which aerials can go through attacks like this.
Also this move combos like mad in corners while in hyper. Deals lots of damage and is safe to do once in a corner even when in normal mode if you are air comboing your opponent. Overall it is one of Bark's best moves and is something the opponent show really fear.
More Coming Soon
Tier List
~As of 8/22/07~
High Tier
Knuckles: He has an insane rush down capabilities. He also has a lot of fairly safe barrier breakers. His default grab does have a really strange start up making it harder to pull off, but when you get it in it’s a very good set up. He is equipped with one of the best dodges in the game. Does good damage, but lack any sort of projectile.
Amy: A little on the slow side, but more than makes up with it with power and range. Many of Amy’s moves (including barrier breaking moves) space her correctly so she cannot be grabbed or get hit by the majority of attack. Her grab can be a good set up in corners. She has good following moves and has effective moves in all directions. She is even equipped with a few projectiles that can keep people away or combo.
Tails: Tails has some pretty crazy rush down capabilities. He has the best dodge in the game of all the playable characters. He has moves that are decent for land chasing and can also really punish people who don’t do it. He has moves that are effective pretty much in every situation unless the opponent can do a reverse land or a far land. However, his damage isn’t the best.
Mid Tier
Fang: The projectile guy. Fang has ton to work with when it comes to keeping the opponent away though his melee attack are fairly slow, leaving him a bit open (though his grabs can help him make distance again). He still is very hard to approach for characters because of his projectiles, and his unblockable makes him even harder to get close to. His projectiles can be knocked away by spin attacks which usually force him to fight near a corner. He has some crazy damaged wall combos and land chases.
Bark: Slow! Probably the first thing you think of when you play as Bark. But he is also very powerful. Has the ability to breaks barriers pretty quickly and actually pretty safely. He has multiple grabs that are good in different situations; all of them can be comboed off of in certain positioning (leads to massive damage). He can stop characters from using otherwise effective dodging approaches, which makes it so people cannot just rush him down.
Bean: Bomb projectiles. A strong default grab. Unlike the other projectile guy in the game Bean actually have a couple of fast melee attacks. His damage is pretty low but can overwhelm people with bombs. His hyper mode lets him get a grab in really easily. His ability to play a ranged game, and still be fast up close is useful. Though his damage is low enough to keep him down and he is still a bit limited in melee range.
Low Tier
Espio: Espio gives out quite a bit of damage. He has a good ranged attack and decent throws. He has some slow start ups on a few of his attacks and cannot space out too effectively. There are some moves that will put both the opponent and Espio in a position of limited choices with Espio having a bit of an advantage. Espio has ways to get his grabs in easier then other characters and he needs to try and abuse it to keep up with the rest of he cast because his combos are a bit limited.
Sonic: Sonic can break barriers fairly well, but he gets punished for most of the attacks that do. His neutral punches are decent but he still has limited options when it comes to combat and his speed doesn’t help him much. I think that the developers thought his barrier breaking attack could make him even with the others but it doesn’t. He is just like Bean without projectiles, with barrier breaking abilities and a worse hyper mode.
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I hoped this has helped you guys out a bit. if you have any questions about the game I will answer them to the best of my ability. I will even try to get video examples to go with my explanations if I can. I happy to help. Good luck finding an opponent willing to play against you and learning how to play so game.
I am also trying to set up a tier list for the game but am having problems. If you can put what you think the tier list for the game and be able to discuss with me on why that is the order. I would give my list but am currently away from my house and cannot remember all the reasonings for my list off the top of my head.
Please post whatever you know about specific attack moves and I will add your information to the Character Specific part of the post.
The following link has quite a bit of info as well;
http://www.theghz.com/sonic/stf/stf.html
