I liked Bryan Fury in Tekken, who suits my playstyle in SSF4 AE?

Question

More specifically, I like to be able to engage very quickly and very powerfully if my opponent makes a mistake. In the meantime, I like methodically advancing my position and dealing good, safe damage with my normals. Good focus/throw/slide is a plus, I abuse those. I'm definitely pretty bad at this point, but I want to pick a character whose playstyle I won't hate as my skills grow.

I have a few characters I'm leaning towards, but I'm looking for confirmation so I won't mention them until after I get a good round of responses.

Thanks! =)

EDIT: I ended up choosing Guy. He's versatile offensively with a strong mix-up game and the ability to engage quickly, forcing conflict.

Answer

A few come to mind:

Balrog's play style is pretty similar to Brian, with very punishing hits to take advantage of miscues. Not many kicks though.

Guile is also a good fit, he has some very strong normal combos and strong defense.

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Tekken 6/fighting games general strategy against button mashers

Question

I'm a hardcore gamer, I can dominate casual gamers in pretty much every game to the point that they'll become frustrated. Not that I'd do that, I don't want them to dislike playing games with me.

But I can't get the fighting games like Tekken/Dead or Alive/Street fighter! I've played them with few people and they adapted a button mashing strategy, blindly pushing every action button. I've been beaten all the time. Is there a general strategy to help against this? Or should I study combos and special moves to trick them and get the better of them?

Answer

Ranged attacks are always a good way to begin. That forces the opponent to either sit there blocking and slowly weaken, or to come at you which can't be done whilst mashing buttons, and thereby creates an opening for you to exploit.

The rest, really, is just timing. I remember back when I used to play Soul Caliber in the arcades as Taki, who is agile as all hell but has extremely short range. At first I'd get whipped by button-mashers playing as Kilik or someone else equally long-ranged like Siegfried. BUT once I got a good feel for the reach of their weapons, and the timing of their attacks, it was easy to dart in and out and generally cut them to pieces.

To be blunt (but not to be rude), if you're losing to button-mashers in fighting games you just aren't very good at fighting games yet. Pick a character you like in a game you like and learn their full move set and a few elementary combos. Once you're comfortable with what you have, you can begin addressing how to defeat what you're against.

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