Ultra Wasn't a Great Version of Street Fighter IV 

it's still crazy to me how they tied a healing super to a meter that fills as you take damage, is so hilarious an oversight omg

"The difference between Yun and Elena is that Elena was easier" jesus christ, that's saying a lot.

The problem with Elena, as Bafael so eloquently put it, is that "She's Dudley with better range, and Vega with better mixups, at the same time." She basically invalidated half the cast just by existing, and had zero weak points. Even Yun has to get in first.

Bafael has a pretty good video where he talks about how busted Elena was, and he concluded that the final nail in the coffin was Gamerbee vs Infiltration at CPT 2015. It's pretty wild just how strong Elena was, she had basically no weaknesses

"He worked for it by hitting standing medium punch in neutral" I'm dying lmao

But Ultra has Hugo tho…

Honestly the sheer nonsense of the whole new cast and the imbalance of the current top tiers really threw this version for a loop. We know Elena, bit Poison's fireball game was insane. Her flip that grounds you OUT OF THE AIR and breaks armor was nuts. Rolento's ability to just yeet himself out of many situations for free was a pain to deal with. Decapre's 50/50s off blocking into EX scramble was just bonkers. Yun could just mix and mash into a target combo to rinse repeat while getting insane meter gain, E Ryu being able to set up practical mix of death scenarios off one if not the best low forward in the game and let's not forget his unseeable kara demon. It was a fun version in its own way and minus the glaring offenders, the rest of the cast was actually playable and all had something bogus to be afraid of. Good times.

Usf4 was rough when you ran into like 6 Elenas in 10 matches. But e. Ryu wasn't very fun to play against either when you only lose neutral like twice and die. Red focus combos were mad fun to use to when making comebacks but felt so dumb when you got hit by it.

Alternative title; "Sajam Vents About USF4 Elena for 10 Minutes."

Man when you did Backthrow into Healing I swear I had some war flashbacks, and I never even played this game competitively

"There wasn't a great version of Street Fighter IV" There I fixed the title guys. Jokes aside every version of SFIV had *something* that would piss people off more than the regular. Sure it happens in a lot of fighters but SFIV it wasn't just menaces that are powerful, but also extremely frustrating to deal with because their strengths were so obvious and simple.

(Hot Take) Listen, I think we can all agree Elena was a mistake. I also don't think it's really fair to say Ultra was a bad version. I think for me personally, USF4 has the best roster the series has seen. People don't know what they want. Everybody's always complaining about balance, yet people always put the most imbalance games on the highest pedestal like 3rd Strike and MvC2.

I love Ultra but that's mainly because it was the first Street Fighter that I really played from when it came out and learned how to kinda play the series. I recognize that it has a lot of broken stuff and is not balanced very well but at a beginner/casual level, I love that game.

Ultra characters were wild and janky because they were all rush-jobs hacked together from other assets, the four returning characters were all copy-pasted directly from SFxT and Decapre was just a barely disguised Cammy clone. Probably most of the real development team was working on SFV or other projects and it was a skeleton crew hacking together new assets like modders. It's still crazy to me that they stripped SFxT for parts like that after it failed.

People still trying to gatekeep over 1 frame links are insane. Grow up bruh.

IMO Ultra was the best version of SF4 if you don't consider a few characters like Elena or Decapre. Delayed wakeup got rid of lots of set play and ambiguous crossups during wakeups, damage was reduced, buttons were improved etc. The Ultra DLC chracaters sucked cause they went lazy and just ported them from SFXT instead of designing them to fit SF4 from scratch.

I liked Ultra the most, but only because it buffed my favorite characters and Omega Mode was stupid fun

Make healing her super and she would be a lot more balanced.

Healing might have been fine if instead of healing health it added in the form of grey health. Kinda like a reverse of gens ultra 2

Her healing move so good in this game that it made other characters in the next game that had anything that let's them heal very bad, Nash is the only character in street fighter 5 that can heal and he only can does after landing a combo and only heals for 3% of of health and still cost metter compare that to elena here who got 40% back.

Man, thy added faust crawl to a st4 character

The fact they made healing an Ultra instead of her super is SO stupid.

I am Elena and Juri main. I was beginner at time, and, yes, she has easier execution like you said. Juri is the opposite, really technical character. Great analysis.

Oh I'm glad Sajam showed Viper trying to hit Elena lmao. Before the patch it was MISRABLE like so many of her moves that hit the entire rest of the cast while crouching, just didn't hit Elena if she was crouching. Like St. HP, M thunder knuckle, and burn kick

Why didn't you use the title in the description? All you did was talk about a single character for most of this video, even though you very lightly touch upon saying this version of sf4 had alot of weird hamfisted changes. Some of the comments are doing a leagues better job than you are talking about the whole roster than you did.

Rose, and Elena are my two favorite SF characters (before Menat came into SFV to be added to that lineup), so having them both in Ultra made me very happy. I remember having conversations with one of my friends online speculating how Elena would be if she got into SFIV. We both figured Healing would be her super. Boy, were we wrong. As a fan of Elena, I can't say I mind her being as good as she is in Ultra.

Alternate title for this video - "Elena broke Ultra Street Fighter 4"

I play elena in sf3 I made the mistake of thinking she was the same but that was just her moveset there's so much things to look out for when playing against her it's terrifying to block her

This made me wish I got into the FGC sooner. She has stun dipper and heals

I didn’t know how busted she was until later, since I was just getting into fighting games. I’d still like her in 6, I bet she would look cool with all the flippin and dippin (with all the broken stuff fixed/axed of course).

Everybody else: *playing the match* Elena: *brought the potion into the match*

As a spectator i remember Ultra events were pretty boring to watch because you would see lots of Elenas and the matches tended to drag, but other than that it was also an army of Evil Ryus so there wasn't much else to see. One instance i remember is when Ultra just dropped and there was an event where Xian was in the finals, he said to the commentators before the finals happened that he would not play Elena and win with Gen who i believe was nerfed in Ultra but then after he lost a match i believe he immediatly picked Elena and prooceded to win, now i don't remember who his opponent was and who he played but that said a lot about the state of the competitive scene when Ultra was a thing. A lot people hated it but when SFV was being shown they were already Missing SFIV. I don't like SFV either and i dunno if i'll ever touch VI but blaming just SFV for the state of SF was just silly, one thing SFV did do was bringing a lot of new characters in the cast but it seems people sticked with the classics mostly.

Both SFIV and Xrd ended on less than ideal patches imo

Ultra sajam wasn't a great version but sajam was tight

Sf4 was a bad game from start to finish. The only redeeming quality is that it paved the way for the new era of fighting games. It was easily one of the most boring fighters to watch and play. Ultra update with Elena was pretty much the final nail in the coffin. I'd watch any version of MVC3 over SF4 any day of the week.

"1-frame links filter the scrubs" hahahahaha

People really did gloss over how Yun was basically back to his broken AE state in Ultra. Ultra wasn't out long enough for it to really show, but Kazunoko did a good job of it during the final Capcom Cup for SF4.

Yet another video about how Elena ruined the game when every Japanese arcade tournament for the last 5 years has had 10 Rolentos

This really makes me want to play Elena tbqh.

Even with all this, Ultra is my favorite version of sf4 (next to maybe super). Vanilla was a broken mess with much less variety, and AE had similar balance issues while being less fun imo

So while my opinion might not count for much, I really think Ultra is comfortably the best version of SFIV. Even though delayed wakeup wasn't a perfect fix, it still took a whole bunch of unblockables out, or at least make them into reads. I'm not saying any of the points in this video are invalid. I just think that all the other versions of the game were comfortably worse, because the vortex was so much more potent and the vortex sucked. Game needed at least one more patch before it was done, honestly feel like V came out a year too early.

Vanilla in arcade cabinet version is my favorite version with 2012 next

I agree and I mained Yun. The version before Ultra might've been the best overall. I didn't mind most match ups in the game though. No one is more annoying to me than C.Viper

Clearly the best version was Street Fighter IV on 3DS.

is almost like the tekken's capoera curse jumped to SF

As a 3rd Strike Elena main... she deserved it. She needed to be good in something other than SFxT.

And I’m just picking this game up now alright then

Does this also extend to SFxT?🤔

I want Elena back without the healing super. I never once used it, because if I wanted to draw out a match's length like that, I just played Rose and zoned. Make Elena mid-tier, nothing wrong with that. Also want Viper back, but maybe with less of the feinting and super jump insanity. "Practical Viper." Oh, and HUGO.

The best version of SF4 honestly was Omega.

Talking about the corner carry on Elena now that we know what street fighter 6s corner carry is like makes me wish corner carry was more like Elenas in 6

So many versions, I think the one I had was Super.

I really liked SF4 throughout its run - Elena though she was too strong Capcom just didn't care at that point to do anything about it lol

like a month ago someone did that helena healing ultra on me twice in one match

Im glad somebody is saying this

That focus stuff, correct me if I am wrong, is very similar to DI!! In fact I think it's just DI lol

Healing should never be a mechanic in fighting games IMHO. My only issues with Ultra is this move and Evil Ryu being OP.

Super was peak SF4 for me

I wonder how Elena would have been if her Healing was her super instead of her Ultra

So my question is if Elena was a problem in tournaments, why didn't they banned her like other games like Petshop from JoJo

what is the thumbnail supposed to mean 🐸

Elena wasn't in SFV and I doubt that Capcom will add characters as DLC which were already added to V as DLC, so Elena might get added to 6 later on

Super SF4 was probably the best overall time for the game. It was before AE Yun and Makoto came to terrorize the game and people weren't running the unblockables super hard. I hate DP FADC and mashy jabs into full combos with a passion so never really liked any SF4 games.

I liked USF4, towards the beginning when not that many people thought Elena was any good

"Fuck Elena." -An Ultra Elena player

Thank you

I almost get the impression that capcom salted the earth with Ultra to make sure people moved onto V so they didn't find themselves with a Melee situation. Just add a bunch of characters that wouldn't feel that out of place in Alpha 3 or hell maybe even a Vs game in Decapre's case.

I just don't like triggers and ultra meters where you're rewarded with resources for getting hit, aka, playing poorly. And I like that they limited that to a large degree in SF6 where they just turn lv3 to CA.

Hitting 1-frame links sounds really familiar, in fact it seems like the only thing I hear people say when they say SFIV was better

And I thought pre patch sol was bad…

Throwing up and crying?? Kids these days gotta learn what it's like in the real world. I'm throwing up and crying *simultaneously*. Just sobbing tearfully while blowing chunks all over the place. The new generation is too soft to do that.

Ultra was good if you played some characters and was also not fighting high level players. Ken was so fun in the 2000 pp ranks

Maaaaaaannnn sf4 was a fucking roller coaster

Pretty much the reason I picked Abel back up when Ultra dropped, so I would just command grab loop Elena and not have to worry about the healing as much

Healing should have been a super if anything.

As someone who still plays sf4 ultra a lot... And plays a lot of poison. I feel that wierd hurtbox/hitbox comment. Her j.fp is so fucking inconsistent. Sometimes it crosses up wierd on a meaty hit. Sometimes it goes right through the character model. Sometimes it will hit a mile away. I can't use it at all. Her DP is probably the wierdest, most useless reversal ever and it not hitting behind her (outside of niche use of ex dp) is so wierd. Since like so many shoto dp's do.

I liked watching Gootecks and Mike Ross struggle on USFIV, did not want to play it lol

Who are her worst match ups?

SFIV in general felt a bit overwhelming for newer players (imo). I'm a 2012er, I've played it for around 2k hours, and I still don't know every gimmick in the game. Every matchup, punish, setup was very character specific since there were a multitude of different escape options that you needed to lab, not to mention a lot of non-standard characters in general. SFVI feels really more grounded and footsie based in comparison which I really like, the flow of the game also doesn't have comeback mechanics (like Ultras) which I personally like.

Did they even change that much when they recycled SFxT chars into Ultra? Always seemed really lazy.

So Elena had something similar to mk9 mileena and Sonya except on hyper steroids.

Wasn't a great version of Street Fighter 4 compared to what?

I loved USF4 just for Poison and how strong she was and forever will be

I'd fight SFV Luke and Sim anyday over SF4 Elena, El Fuerte, and Yun.

Okay but seriously Elena won how many majors? Maybe it could've developed that way, but I don't think it was so extreme.

I did not care for that version at all; I was an able main and they ruined his supers and his rekka move was just utterly destroyed; just ruined him and made him worthless

May be in the minority I am but Ultra was my favorite game. Unbalanced? Sure but at least it isn't Swampthing vs Superman or Dr Fate. In Sf4 Grappler Ultra damage was too high and I mained Gief and T Hawk.

When it comes to the best version of SF4 I'd say Super was the best

I keep saying this, but the worst sin sfv committed was tricking people into believing sfiv was good.

Super Sf4 is the best version

thanks for this. Super SF4 was the good version (I was a Rose player)

Now Omega is actually the best version of SF4 :)

Capcom has a track record of leaving their most popular games with a version that isn't quite the best or really otherwise begs for an updated version. Hyper Fighting > Super Turbo, 3rd Strike could have used an update, and Ultra SFIV is inferior to several versions of IV. Maybe as a community we should fight for one more version for several of their classic flagship titles.

So Ultra 4 Elena is basically a more OP version of 3rd Strike Chun-Li

Can't say I agree, basic safe-jump pressure was oppressive against some characters. Sure you can still play around delayed wake-up, but most of the characters that still got a strong mix from it were thought of as setplay characters, they had other weaknesses. And yeah, some characters were disproportionately strong, but that's something you can say about any game, it's not like the rest of the cast was kneecapped by the changes. Ultra was arguably more balanced overall, at least when compared to vanilla and Super.

I think vanilla was the best version of them all regardless of damage how strong sagat was, it’s the main reason everyone got into sfIV. Yun Elena and a few other killed the game.

AE2012 was probably my favorite, but the rise of unblockables and setplay made the game a bit unfair. They needed to get a skilled dev in there to fix the unblockable problem rather than put a bandaid on it (delayed wakeup)

Is there a character that people hate in SF5 that is as hated as Elena at the end of USF4?

i liked super the most

apart from Elena I think Ultra was great, that character should just be banned, MP thunder knuckle still misses on her if she crouches