The Cheapest Character in Street Fighter History 

This video reminds me of one summer where I terrorized a summer camp playing Vega. The camp had a store that had Street Fighter 2 Championship Edition and I would just go in to practice characters. Every night after dinner, the kids would come in and start pumping quarters. Now, all I wanted was my four plays for a dollar. If someone was behind me, I would move on. I don't like to hog games. But they kept trying to take me on. And I was practicing Vega. I would spend maybe two hours a night on the same quarter just destroying these kids. It would honestly get old. I would want to change characters, but I would play Vega all evening. Vega was my warm-up guy and I would play him to loosen up and then practice with the ones I wasn't as good with. For five days straight, I'm stomping kids to the point I'm starting to feel bad. But I'm NEVER going to let someone win. Finally, in these kids' movie moment, one of them steps up to the plate, plays Bison and finally beat me! Not being cheap doing multiple psycho crushers. Just being SMART and watching me and timing his moves. A fair and square defeat! Those kids were cheering for him and might as well have carried him out on their shoulders. A tip of my hat to the one kid that finally beat me fair and square.

Vega screams were even more horrifying, after barely not being reduced to tatters, realizing Sagat was the next opponent...

The cheapest SF character of all time was M. Bison in the first SFII Championship Edition. All a guy had to do was that torpedo move back and forth across the screen. If you blocked it, he'd still nail you 5 or 6 times, and then come at you from the other side.

The real problem with walldive is not that it's a mixup or that it's hard to escape. It's that even if you do know how to AA it, Vega can deploy early to land the walldive shallow and make your AA whiff, then sweep you and start pressure. At a certain level of play, there's no consistent way to beat it: you have to either make a hard read or get lucky (the former is how Choi beat Tokido at Evo 2008)

It looks so weird to see a Street Fighter character zipping around even more than a Smash Melee character.😅

I remember a long time ago I was playing Street fighter IV and my brother was real into Vega, so I decided to watch a lot of the Japanese players on their tournaments and see what they were doing. I learned so many cross ups and an overhead Mix-Ups from those players. I had played a match on the Xbox 360 and whipped this ken players ass and I remember he sent me a message over the Xbox chat saying "Dude that was the craziest shit I ever seen with Vega in my life haha" are man that was so rewarding for sure!!!.

There is also a ultra cheap Trick when you Play in spain(vegas Stage) Hit the enemy one time make Sure to have more health then him and crawl in the cagewall Till end of Match. Timeout win everytime

“Old games had proper neutral” The proper neutral in question:

The cheapest fighter is whoever DSP is currently fighting

“He also plays way more defensively than other vegas” Shows a clip of MAO being hyper aggressive lol😂

"They were forced to swap the names" Not explicitly. There was no cease and desist. I think it was Capcom legal that got cold feet about the possibility and asked them to change it for the US release as a prophylactic measure. They also didn't have to rotate the names like this. If you can code the names to rotate you can code in one new unique name for boxer. Such strange decision.

Not even the Claw player knows which side he's hitting

I'm not a good SF2 player at all, but I've beaten people on Fightcade with Vega by simply doing the 50/50 wall dive over and over. What's more surprising to me is that my opponents are never disrespectful about it in chat, it's like yeah they expect it from a Vega nothing new.

So great to see a new vid from you! Love these glimpses into fighting game history

I remember back in the infancy of internet play, I got an X Play for the Super NES. I played Super SF2 frequently against this one guy, Brimstone, and he murdered me with Vega about 95% of the time we played. And it went exactly like it's shown here, Wall Dive after Wall Dive after Wall Dive, throw in a Claw Drill just to mess with you more, repeat. It was all in fun, was just happy to play, but man was it frustrating. Proof of why I don't play competitively.

I love (playing as) Vega

I just saw Justin's sagat being air grabbed while he was in the motion of 'tiger uppercut' , that was unreal. Apparently that jump to the wall thing is a very high tier move.

The OG neutral skip

That was a really good video. I look forward to future content! Keep it up!

Vega (Claw) will always be my favorite SF Character!

buddy that studio setup! solid video my dude!

Great video. And I especially love the background music

Claw doesnt have low health in Super Turbo, all characters have the same health in street fighter 2.

Guile : “have you met my invisible throw?” I loved ripping vega off the wall. That was the og best move.

Vega makes more sense to me to be the name of a Spaniard.

love your videos papa its good to see you back

Love ur videos man I need more !

Great and informative video!

Its a good day when papa lobster uploads

Super Turbo Vega is just an A.I enhancement. Real Vega can’t hurt you unless you’re playing Super Turbo.

Enjoyable and informative video to watch! Would've been better if it had some kind of outro.

Vega's theme suits him Very well, you feel like in a dance with all these pokes, quick jumps and a stupidly fast run. My homie Vega is simply HIM

I remember that at the arcade, people where usually: 1) WTF 2) Still ain't beating me 3) Cheap @$$ 4) *AND YOU STILL LOST!*

Excellent video..I'm a first time viewer. You look like Chumlee from Pawn Stars lol. I had to check the handle to see if it really is.

awesome video. can u provide the name of the retrowave theme music you used in the intro of this video, Thank you...

I just started using Vega after 30 years of playing dudes a beast. Good video

Amazing video subbed

They nerf him very badly then… but i miss his gameplay. He’s the most fun pokey character

I feel like Vega (Claw) *is* still paying for how absurd his _Super Turbo_ incarnation is all these years later--unlike, ironically, Sagat--since he's been jank in almost every game he's been in after it. The last game where he was actually good is like _CvS2_ at this point, which feels weird to say. I'm still unsure whether his issues are caused by spite, by an overabundance of caution, by having no idea how to balance the guy when his normals can be hit and his Wall Dive doesn't travel at Mach 1, or by some combination thereof. All I know is that his "handsome fighters never lose a battle" win quote has become super ironic in the years following _ST_ since losing is all modern Vega seems capable of currently.

I use to drive my friend crazy with that move! Before suplex city there was “Air Spain!” 😭

I was just visiting your channel yesterday and I wondered when you'd come up with a new video, guess I manifested it!

As a kid Vega felt like a final boss I always felt happy after I beat his ass 😂

I think OG Street Fighter 2s Zangief is cheapest ever when I use him. Crouching weak jabs into Screwdriver, works even if you block the jabs. And when you are getting up, Zan is already right next to you for a rinse and repeat even if you're not in the corner for an unstoppable MASSACRE! I used to take mad people's quarters at the arcade with that. Championship Edition on makes you bounce too far away from each other after the Screwdriver to do it. Vega's my guy too, wall dive grabbing all those shotos out of their spin kicks! 🔥🔥🔥

I use to play Blanka at the arcade after bowling, most people almost always used Vega and Bison, key with Vega is to keep pressure and electricity counters his wall jumps, with Bison they loved to rely on his diving spin which I would counter with a backward jump kick which if you hit him right in front will hit him knocking him out of the attack follow it up with a cannonball then jump kick into electricity, people hated me I was like 10 at the time.

Great video, high quality. Some of the content I disagree with and how the statements were phrased, but overall good video.

I don’t know anything about advanced strats in street fighter 2. I’ve been playing for 30 years and still a scrub. I do know how to do wall dive shenanigans with vega though and I remember absolutely running lobbies for hours because of it. It got to the point where if I even put my cursor over him people would drop out immediately. THAT shows you how broken the character is. Like his move set is far too different than the other characters for most people to properly deal with. You can have people getting thrown left and right for days lol

Not only is the cheapest character in Street Fighter history, but I'd say he's the most difficult one to beat for novice players of Street Fighter. I remember playing SF II: The World Warrior for SNES as a kid and it took me many times to finally defeat Vega.

So Vega may be cheap but he is not broken.

Vega just needs to be 'snuffed' - stay above him and pressure him into the corner. He has surprisingly bad air-to-air, so most characters can catch him high and keep the pressure on.

Great analysis! 👍

I used to merc Vega with Sagat. His dragon punch lands all at once unlike Ken and Ryu’s. Whenever he was coming down, I’d knock him out of the air.

Yessss! Give us papa lob vids!!!

Been waiting for a new vid!

What's really odd for me is that I grew up in the '90s and I watched a whole lot of other people play Street fighter 2 but I barely ever played it. I guess I'm not that big in the fighting games. I mean I do love the SNES version of killer instinct and I have enjoyed a few of the soul Calibur and Tekken games but primarily when it becomes to fighting games typically the one I play is Super Smash Bros. Particularly Super Smash Bros ultimate. Nevertheless this was a very interesting video to see and I'm glad it showed up in my recommendations. I wasn't even aware of this technique.

I dont believe they change the names because M Bison was to similar to Mike Tyson. The Japanese clearly changed the letters to make the homage pass without being considered usage of proprietary brand/name or whatever. I am more inclined to think that they thought Vega was a horrible name to the Phillipino military guy and M Bison would give him more of a misterious aura because, you know, the M... and also because they thought Vega sounded more like a spanish torero guy name, leaving Balrog to the boxer, assuming they thought Sagat was a good name for the tall guy. If it was just a mike tyson name thing they would have just changed his name to a new one instead of swaping names of the guys

So this is what Chumlee is doing now? I fucking love it.

I always found the Guiles flask kick was a good counter to the Vega wall jump. You would either hit him or go away from him if you guest wrong.

@PapaLobster Actually, Vega first appeared in Street Fighter Alpha trilogy.

Vega's normal crouch mid-punch is one of the fastest moves in the game. Also, his low roundhouse slide helped me get around anyone that figured the former out. Also, as a charge character, an offensive vega is one that understands the angles he uses to attack; this is why most Vega mains play defensively. In most cases, players whiff or are countered when using his air normals.

Thank you for making a video on this. Even without the dive loop, Claw is unquestionably top tier in ST. The loop just sends him over every other character in the game. Also, MAO is DEFINITELY not a defensive Claw

used to throw my control violently and scream at the screen when i had to fight this guy as a kid

The music is pretty awesome for you video. Any chance of a track list? shazam was no help...

I know this vid is focused on competitive play and it’s really good (I watched the whole thing) but can someone give me a tip for Vega for 1CC attempts, when he dismounts from the cage and flies down it’s like he can claw me or grab me and I have no way of knowing which is coming, and also my anti-airs consistently fail to interrupt him when he is descending on me, thank you for the video great stuff 😊

I was never very good with him but he's a nightmare against someone who is

I vaguely remember one tourney I went to in the early 2000s he was just straight out banned because of this.

I used to be a top 100 player on SF 2 Hyper Fighting on XBox Live way back in the day. I mained Ryu. Vega wasnt the characters I hated. Really good Zangief’s, Honda’s, and Balrogs would have me pulling my hair out. Blanka’s were difficult. But they were a bit more predictable than Hondas.

I used to have a harder time beating Vega than I did VS M. Bison on the SNES single player mode. You could try dragon punching him but it didn’t always work out and he could beat projectile spam too

Cheering to Vega come even more cheap in SF6!

I'mm gonna be that guy, 2:10 That's not a disjointed hitbox. Disjointed hitboxes are not connected to any hurtboxes. Many characters in ST have this kind of hitbox at the time stamp, where the hitbox extends further than its hurtbox. Some characters even have disjoints, however this is not an example of that. You can definitely score a trade with your example. Real disjoints don't trade. At most they clash.

Ah the Fear and Hunger meta

The 4th place ST EVO Champ lost to a claw mirror

Vega VS Yoshimitsu would be an interesting match up

Sir, I think the time has come for you to cover The Hakan Comeback of Evo 2013

Used Vega in the early days of SSF2 in the 90s, I didn't know he was just that good. I just assumed I was better than my opponents. 😅

My dude Vega is so overpowered.

you should do an avoiding the puddle video amigo :)

If Flying Barcelona was the problem then you should rename the video to the "cheapest attack in SF history"

Im curios How this compares to world warrior guile or champion edition infinite bison?

I've heard a pretty decent argument that the "hidden four" were specifically designed to force arcade players to learn how to handle facsimilies of actual player strategies. Of course, that made balancing them to be playable a lot harder.

Great Vid

The reason M. Bison name got changed was not only due to being similar to Mike Tyson but this was around the time he went to jail for rape. So......yeah....not a good idea.

@0:25 sorry to correct you but coin tosses are 50/50, well executee hyobal is WAY worse than 50/50 because you will block "correctly" and still get thrown plus unblockable w/certain setups. MAO did not win a 50/50 coin toss eleven billion times in a row. Graham Wolf was the first one to analyze MAO's walldive tech in the USA imo

That why he call Vegas. The Casio city

Vega is a decent name for a Spanish character (and not very good for an American boxer), maybe that's why he was part of the name swap. Don't know why they didn't just unilaterally change M Bison's name though.

I wonder if they will dare to bring him back in their next version of Street Fighter VI.

Everything about Vega being cheap is true, but his wall move isn't that big a deal to tier-1 characters. Ryu/Ken don't have to time and work out which way for a dragon punch. They just jump back and kick.

We need a video on the Hakan comeback. I know that Hakan, when oiled, is one of the strongest, if not the strongest, characters in the game, I just dont know why.

I saw a comment that said Vega’s still paying for his crimes in Super Turbo

The part where they changed the names for US release blew my mind. First time I heard this but makes so much sense.

Damn did not know they had name swaps 🤯

I love how people complain about drive rush when this guy exists

I love using him in Capcom vs SNK 2

All I remember about this game is playing it on NES or some console and after spending weeks learning all the moves and trying to get gud, the kid next door beats me and the entire game with adookin, adookin, adookin. That's when I decided I'm done with fighting games.

Nobody wanted to be Vega except me and they hated me for this stuff....lol

Well im glad that you didnt even mention my dad in this considering that this is the cheapest characterin street fighter

Nice bro

Why to end phrases like you were talking through one of those tracheostomy device things? Or like a sexy robot…

Player Skill will always be number 1 Unless it's pre-patch Street Fighter 4 and Balrog Fireballs ;)

Has anyone ever said that you resemble Chumlee?

My brother loved vega. Made me good against him. Im not scared