So who's the hardest?

Who would you say would be the most difficult character to learn?

 

Depends on what kind of player you are.

If your hands are slow, Akira is up there. Otherwise, he is actually pretty simple.

If you have a bad memory/reflexes, Lei Fei (or at least dancing) is up there.

If you can't recognize stance/foot position too well, Brad is up there.

If you can't play methodical, and need to mash attacks, Wolf and/or Goh are up there.

etc.

Just pick who you like and go with it.

Hell, I've had to play 8 different characters before deciding on my current "main."

 

I will tell you who is the hardest fighter to learn, and that fighter is Akira. Though he is my favorite fighter, his combos are hellish. I was lucky enough to use his that hopping knee and palm to elbow strike if I use him in gameplay.[/size]

 

In my humble opinion Akira is the toughest, if your talking learning and not mastering... Well there you have a whole new can of worms. Although I still think Akira would be the hardest to master, you also have warriors like Lei and Shun. Have you ever seen some of those truly great Shun Di players or Lei players? They are something to watch!!!

 

Akira has received a lot of treatment to make him easier and more in line with the other toons. In VF5 he is easier than ever. Knee is no longer his best floater, he has b,f+P+G throw combostarter, lot of combos you can end in 'easy-mode' b,d/f+P, b,f+P, Dragonlance got an easymode variant ending in P+K instead of b,f,f+P+K, AS3 command was made easier even! Got some good and easy mid attacks P+K, f,f+P+K etc. Sure he has the same difficult stuff as before (with the exception of Shoulderram refloat) but you dont necessarily have to use it. Beginners got stuff they can use right away.

I mean even Jacky is almost up there in "difficulty to master" with the inclusion of the new Iaigeri.

As for what character is hardest to learn, I don't know. Maybe Vanessa or Lei due to the size of their movelists.

 

I'd say Vanessa and Shun are hard to learn. With Shun you need to understand drinks and how differently he really plays compared to everyone else. Vanessa has two different movelists and a lot of stuff to understand and realize.

Of course, winning with Vanessa and Shun is a different story.

I used to think Lei was hard to learn, but Ken I. recently convinced me that he isn't that complicated. He flows so much better than Shun and Vanessa which adds to him imo.

 

So I guess it just depends on the player. For me the hardest to learn are Shun and Van (yough I used her A LOT some time ago).
But when it comes to mastering the char., using his/her best combos, moving fluently, and using most of the moves from the movelist depending on the situation I'd say it's.... Akira, Shun.... but hell Vanessa is on top of it. Why?
She's got so many moves that it's hard to use some of them ('cause you forget that they exist) not to say to use all of them.
I've seen hreat Akira's, Shun's, Lei's and Jacky's. I've seen tons of matches with well played characters, but I've never seen a Vanessa player who uses both stances evenly, is very good, and plays in a cool and nice to watch way. Hell, I've tried to do that for 1,5 year...and shiiiit....no way.

 

This is dependent entirely on the person and how far you want to go with them. The hardest person to use proficiently (just to them in a casual match) has to be Akira hands down. His move list alone makes him extremely challenging that is just getting started with him. I started an Akira character recently and found myself in training mode longer than any character I had ever played before and I still spend a considerable amount of time training with him just to keep my skills with him sharp, his moves require really fast fingers. The hardest to master overall has to be Shun or Kage since they have so much to their games and in order to truely know how to use them one would have to really have to know of all of his moves and stances and they have quite few of them as well.

Here are a few other honorable mentions as well

Goh- If you want a fast attacker and play goh you find him very hard. He doesn't have very much offensively in quick hitting attacks his best moves are his sibakis and grabs, moves a noob won't really use. That is why I love playing as him he is so good those 2 things it will drive people nuts sometimes.

Wolf- A skilled Wolf player will take large chunks of life away but in order to get those throws off one would have to account for his lack of quickness when compared to a Lau or Pai etc. In the wrong hands he is very slow and can't keep up with quicker character easily. Even Jeffry with his easier combos is a better choice for a beginner than Wolf.

 

Akira, Shun Di, Vanessa are very hard for me to play. It takes alot of pratice to master those characters. If I can master those characters, I'll be decntly good. Jeffry is not that hard to me.

 

for me:
1st Vanessa is difficult because she's got too many strings and variations and dual stances = hard. She kicks ass, oh it's true, but learning her requires allot more time than any other character.

2nd Lei Fei: it's ironic that I find him hard to learn, I'm a Shun player and I can't get tell Lei's stances, especially his two that look similar, he is way to hard to learn in my book.

so VF4's new characters are too hard for me to learn, so AM2 created Eileen and El Blaze for me hahahaha

 

<span style='font-size: 26pt'>OMG, THE THREAD SPOKE THE TRUTH! IT'S LIKE PROPHECY! THIS DISCUSSION IS COMPLETELY SUBJECTIVE!</span>

 

lol you will do better if you choosea character thT FITS YOUR PLAY STYLE. Dont be a fanboy and play kage because he's "cool". If you know youe really good when playing jeffrey dont fret embrace the big muthafucka.

 

the older I get, the more trouble I have playing characters who have too many strings.

I`m finding Akira to be a joy to play because the commands make the moves 'apear' to be like special move execution and you get the feel executing 'special' moves while they are just his moveset.

The other difficulty I have is with visible recognition of certain punches and kicks that are too similar looking from other attacks in the arsenal. El Blaze's punches and elbows and kicks to me are way too difficult to learn since too many of them have visible similarites with his otehr strikes wich makes learning his attacks difficult for recognising actually differences of his attacks.

that's just me... I love Shun Di

 

It's Akira hands down. No question. Case closed.

Having a large movelist isn't really a problem. Everyone has their attacks they do most often and the rest can be considered "filler."

Actually, a large movelist makes it harder for people to learn how to fight AGAINST your character. Which is a point no one seems to have brought up so far. The problem of learning this game doesn't really lie in mastering your character. Combos aren't really that hard, and only a handful of moves can truly be considered difficult to do. Learning the game is all about learning character matchups. (Along with "style", though that'll take weeks to argue.)

So the question may actually be: who is the most difficult character in the game to learn all the matchups with? Again, my vote is with Akira. Not only is the most difficult character to learn execution-wise, but his game is extremely linear. So even if you do master his best stuff, you're going to struggle making it work effectively. (But if you DO get some hits in.....WOW!)


And WTF is up with the answers of "if your playing style is totally opposite of this character, then this character is hard to learn." It's like: DUH.

I just think this kind of answer is really dumb.

 

I have a hard time learning Jacky personally. In all fighting games across the board, I can't play characters that rely on speed for their sole advantage. I don't relate to them and I can't get into the psychology of the character. Plus my muscle twitch reflexes aren't fast enough for them.