Street Fighter II': Hyper Fighting arcade 1cc

A 1-credit clear of the arcade game Street Fighter II': Hyper Fighting. (Rom: sf2hf). Score: 630,500. Some thoughts on the game, and strategy notes below. Thoughts on the game: Street Fighter 2 was a huge hit back in the day. I played it mostly because my friends did and I was hanging out with them. I got to know the game pretty well, though I wasn't particularly good at it, and didn't play outside my friend group. This is one game where rank was very noticeable: Ryu as your fifth fight is very different from Ryu as your first fight. I'd experienced rank in Shinobi (if you die to the boss, the boss gets easier), but that felt like a kindness. In SF2, rank was taking something easy and making it harder, instead of the other way around. That felt frustrating to me. At the time, I was used to games where there was a correct answer to each enemy attack pattern. I wasn't comfortable with having a moves that would work sometimes and not other times (to say nothing of my inconsistency in pulling off special move motions). Having CPU opponents behave so much differently in later rounds felt like I'd been tricked - like the game had deliberately taught me the wrong way to fight them, only to for me to realize that what I'd learned didn't work consistently, or didn't work at higher rank. These days I find that less frustrating. I think that's in part because I have easy access to FAQs and to savestate-practice, so I don't need to worry about struggling to learn strats by trial and error only to have to throw them out at higher rank. Strategy notes: When Champion Edition was released, Bison's Psycho Crusher move was incredibly effective against the CPU. Cheesing the game with Psycho Crusher is definitely not as easy in Hyper Fighting - it's become a "hard way to make an easy living". But the move still works pretty well under a lot of circumstances. I'm pretty much using strong psycho crusher, and jumping medium kick, and that's all. Ryu is a huge problem for me, so I made a point of fighting him first. The enemy order seems to be a cycle (Ryu-Honda-Blanka-Guile-Ken-Chun-Zangief-Dhalsim-Ryu), where the first fight is chosen randomly (with some ability to control the RNG by timing when you insert a credit) and the rest follow. Other trouble spots are Ken and Bison. I try to avoid psycho crushing if I'll end up pushing them into the corner, where they can retaliate with a throw. (I let Zangief walk in close - but not too close!) Ken will dragon punch you if you psycho crusher him while he gets up - but if you start the move just as he starts recovering, you can (almost) always get a repeated knockdown. For Balrog and Vega, jump in plus MK is incredibly effective Ryu behaves predictably at the start of the fight, backing up and then throwing fireballs. You can often walk up and throw. If you're close you can jump over him as he throws a fireball or does a high kick, then punish him with a throw.