Street Fighter Alpha 2/Charlie

Introduction

Charlie has an incredibly good defense and offense. He has alot of good thing going for him and a few bad, so we will start there.

Pros:

• AA monster, high priority normals for anti-air (s.mp, s.mk, s.hk) as well as lk flash kick which beats anything and his AA cc.

• Great projectile, though its not as good as guile's in other games, not giving frame advantage like guile really, but come out fast and has good speed and trajectory and does allow for combos when thrown from afar.

• C.mk is universal poke with far range and is really annoying

Cons:

• Easy as hell to CC thru his AAs, and due to him being so solid, alot of people will try jump-in CC.

• Outside c.MK his normals are so-so, f+FP is so slow, and other normals are more for AA.

• ACs arent all that great with them being slow and sometimes missing.

• CC isn't damaging like other characters.

Move Analysis

Normal Moves

Standing Normals

Light Punch

• Just a normal standing lp, nothing too special about this, can AA sometimes and you can s.lp walking pressure on whoever cant duck this.

File:NashS.lp.png

Medium punch

• A really good anti air, he does a quick uppercut. Cancel this ino a sonic boom to keep up pressure. I usually cancel into a lp boom if I AA with this.

File:NashS.mp 1.png File:NashS.mp 2.png File:NashS.mp 3.png

Fierce Punch

• I straight punch that I havent really found much use for.

Light Kick

• A quick kick to the shin. use this rarely, seems to have decent priority but no range :(.

File:NashS.lk.png

Medium Kick

• Another great anit air when your opponent jumps in fram afar, such as Sagat jumping in with rh. Can cancel into specials.

High Kick

• Ugly angled kick which is good or anti-air, same uses as s.mk with a little more power behind it.

File:NashS.hk 1.png File:NashS.hk 2.png

Crouching Normals

Light Punch

• This is your combo starter. Combo's easily into sonic booms, flash kicks, supers.

Medium Punch

• Limited anti air ability, better to stick with your other choices IMO. Good to cancel into sonic boom for pressure or use in combos. Seems to have ok priority, seems slow to me compared to other characters c.mp's.

Fierce Punch

• Probably top ten useless normals in A2. Looks like Guile's godly c.fp from other games but gets beat by everything. I fucking hate this move.

Light Kick

• I like this normal, cancels easily into booms and supers. Decent range, I like to walk up and poke with this.

Medium Kick

• His best ground all-purpose poke. Great range, speed, hits low, and has great recovery. Quite annoying when playing a Charlie player because this move can very effectively keep you out due to its range. Seems to leave you on even frames, maybe very slight frame advantage.

High Kick

• Eh. This move doesnt really suck but really isnt great. Slow coming out and heavy recovery. I really dont use this at all, unless Someone whiffs a dp, etc from afar.

Jumping

Fierce Punch

• This move is dope, hella priority, speed, and if done close you get the throw. Best air-to-air period.

Medium Kick

• GREAT range on this jump in and pimp cross up, use to punish fireballers, and dont swing if you think a dp is comin, cc their ass on recovery. great jump-in.

High Kick

• Great jump-in too, good priority and awesome angle.

Command Normals

Jump Sobat

• Back or Forward + MK
  • Slow ass overhead which I'm pretty sure leaves you at negative frames. Use at MAX distance to be safe, I usually will do it after a boom.

Step Kick

• Back or Forward + HK
  • This is his foward moving hop kick. Good range, but slow in this game. Very useful for moving forward after a sonic boom.

Spin Back Knuckle

• Forward + HP
  • This normal is best used as a anti-jump. Good in the corner when doing Sonic Boom pressure, toss it out if you think they will jump and it will hit them.

Throws

Dragon Suplex

• Back or Forward + MP or HP

Knee Gatling

• Back or Forward + MK or HK
  • Press any button rapidly for more hits

Flying Buster Drop

• (In Air)Back or Forward + MP or HP

Special Moves

Sonic Boom

• Charge Back, Forward + Punch
  • The best fireball in terms of release speed and recovery, and a key part of zoning and pressure with Charlie. This is very hard to punish and with good charging techniques you can keep up a while vs. Ryu's. This isn't as good as later games since at point blank it doesn't leave you with much if any frame advantage, but still allows combos from certain ranges.

Somersault Shell

• Charge Down, Up + Kick
  • Probably the best AA in the game, easily beating jumps in with the LK version, and easily beating ground moves with MK version.

Super Moves

Sonic Break

• Charge Back, Forward, Back, Forward + Punch
  • Press Punch rapidly for more hits
    • Very useful super since it seems the first sonic boom comes out no matter what, which means at worst it will trade making it a very reliable AA. As far as chip goes, I would just CC. Good to push opponent back, you can delay booms by spacing the punch input. Good AA, but I would CC instead.

Crossfire Blitz

• Charge Back, Forward, Back, Forward + Kick
  • This is the super you want to combo into, decent damage and combos off light attacks at any level, safe on block.

Somersault Justice

• Charge Down-Back, Down-Forward, Down-Back, Up-Forward + Kick
  • Better in A3. When comboed you usually miss hits making it weaker to combo into than Blitz after a cross up, but looks better. Unless going for chip or style points, stay away from this super unless comboing from a jump in (Which gets all the hits).

The Basics

Play Style

Charlie can be played aggressively or defensively, 99% of the players you see will be the latter. Though Charlie can be very effecive defensively, a well rounded player will learn how to use both, thus making it harder to adjust to your play style. Some players are mostly offensive (S4v is an example) while some can go hardcore turtle (Me, guilty). But the problem with that is if you can't play him both ways you are bound to run into some problems. So best to try to balance both.

Charge Techniques

This section is important to learn fo any SF game, if you use a charge character. This is quick charging, the most effective way to maximie your charge time. Perform every sonic boom in this way:

charge b-f-b+p

Instead of the normal motion you execute the sonic boom ending in back+punch. This allows you to start harging for the next boom immeadiately after throwing he next one.

Sonic boom, SOMERSAULT!!!

This way of performing a sonic boom allows for the execution of a flash kick about a tenth of a second later after throwing the boom. You can actually flash kick while the boom is on screen. Perform it in this way:

charge b-f-b-db-d-df+lp

So after charging you go foward, back, then roll to down foward+lp. Hit up and kick a tenth of a second later and a flash kick will come out. neat huh?

Sonic Boom, Sonic Boom, *pause* Sonic boom...

Using the quick charge technique explained earlier, this can be very effective versus some characters. As soon as they block a boom throw another one, use different speeds. Just keep booming as fast as possible, you are doing it right if as soon as a Sonic Boom is blocked, one is coming out. this builds meter very quickly and can force your opponent to jump, eating a CC. When they get jump happy, ocassionally pause, if they jump, CC, normal AA, or Flash kick. Rinse repeat.

Patternizing: A no-no

Alot of Charlie players I noticed will patternize a hell of a lot more than with other characters. 80-90% of them will boom after a c.mk. Don't do that shit. Mix up your poke string as well as you can, otherwise you are gonna get countered easily. Ever play someone and kick their ass, but about 3-4 matches down the road you are having a hard time or losing? You are probably doing a lot of patterns they caught on to. Like in the corner, you throw a sonic boom, most people follow up with a c.MK or c.RH. They almost always do. They other options they had were:

1. Throw another sonic boom
2. nothing, punish jump attempt or cc a dp atempt
3. walk up throw
4. f+fp to punish jumpers
5. Jump-in and start another poke string.
6. f+rh to punish mashers

Now the situation is gonna dictate the action, but its better than just c.MK or c.RH. You are just gonna get AC'd. Mix it up.

Counter CC

Now like I mentioned earlier about jump in CC's, Charlie gets that done a lot to him because his solid ground game. If you suspect your opponent plans on this, or patternizes by always doing this, save your CC to counter CC, free damage for you. Some matches I would just sit back and boom and just wait for the CC to counter it.

Combos

All these can be done after a cross up MK:

• cr.LP x2, cr.LK xx Sonic Soom
• cr.LP, cr.LK xx MK Flash Kick
• cr.LP x2, cr.LK xx any level Sonic Blitz (or Somersualt Justice)

Custom Combos

Level 1

• cr.HK xx LK Flash Kick, HP Sonic Boom xx HK Flash Kick
• cr.HK xx HK Flash Kick x2

For chip and/or block:

This CC is really good because you can walk behind these unlike other chip ccs. Walk behind these and go for a counter hit, overhead, or throw. Make sure to start out with c.rh, cause if they do get hit they get juggled.

• cr.HK xx lp sonic boom x4

Level 2

cr.HK xx hk flash kick x 3

Level 3

• cr.HK xx LK Flash Kick x3, MK Flash Kick, HK Flash Kick
• cr.HK xx LK Flash Kick, HK Flash Kick x3

Anti-Air Custom Combos

Now these are very important, specifically to punish people who look to jump after a sonic boom, also allow you to walk after a boom and punish hard, since they arent worried about a charged flash kick. Now in most cases they can jump to where if you try to AA you will get beat, mainly wen theyare looking to jump immediately after a boom. That when you hit'em with AA CC.

Activate:

• s.MP if they are higher up (into any level ground CC)
• cr.LP if they are lower to the ground (into any ground CC)

Now hit them with this a couple times and Im sure they will think twice about jumping