Capcom admits to overpowered Seth and Sagat in Street Fighter IV
by JC Fletcher 
{ Jul 13th 2009 at 9:32AM } 
Ryota Niitsuma, assistant producer on the arcade version of the game, told Videogamer that the two fighters are a little too powerful. When asked if any SFIV characters were disproportionately powerful, he replied, "Well first of all I might have to apologise! Does he involve being slightly blinded and scarred [laughs]?"
While he admitted that "Yes, Seth and perhaps Sagat might have turned out a little bit stronger than we expected," Niitsuma said that skilled players of other World Warriors can still beat Sagat or Seth players. And yes, we know that the image doesn't have anything to do with Sagat or Seth, but we wanted to link to Capcom's recent gallery of SFIV wallpapers, and it doesn't feature any images of those two characters.
Gallery: Street Fighter IV: Character Roster
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Wiizer (Michael Pachter MUST DIE.. Professionally) @ Jul 13th 2009 9:37AM
Some of you have played against me and my Blanka. He's just as bad, I'll admit it.
Balance being an issue in SFIV is an understatement.
216 @ Jul 13th 2009 9:44AM
yea i've always thought Blanka was a lower tier character, and even the tiers for this game said he was lower (if i remember right)
but goooood gawd if you can spam that electric attack juuuust right Blanka is a beast of a challenge
Storm Eagle::The Blood Edge @ Jul 13th 2009 9:50AM
That's how most people win 216. They span the electrical attack. And it's not as simple to attack through as it was in previous Street Fighter games.
216 @ Jul 13th 2009 10:01AM
oh I kno that's how they do it, its pure cheapness is what it is, but in SF4 the computer even does it (unlike past games)
acefondu @ Jul 13th 2009 10:23AM
Blanka's electricity isn't overpowered at all. It leaves them open for sweeps. It CAN be a huge issue online though since input lag often makes you either move your character closer than you wanted, or hit a button before crouching, or miss the timing entirely by jumping on him before you see the electricity. So I understand why people complain about Blanka's electricity online, but offline he is indeed a lower tier character.
emagius @ Jul 13th 2009 11:19AM
Oh please. SF IV is the most balanced SF game ever, and far more balanced than the likes of DoA, Tekken, BlazBlue, KoF, Guilty Gear, Soul Calibur and Smash Bros. Heck, Vega and Dan, the bottom-ranked characters in SF IV, win 66% as often as Sagat, the top-ranked character. The four or five characters after Sagat are less than 10% less winning. The winning differential between Sagat and Ryu/Balrog/Zangief is less than the winning differential between Ryu and Ken. The worst match-ups in the game are 7-3 (Sagat vs. Vega) -- compare that to Tekken or BlazBlue's numerous 9-1 (or worse!) cases.
Maybe SF IV isn't at the balance level of Virtua Fighter 4 FInal Tuned, but it's much closer than any non-VF game.
acefondu @ Jul 13th 2009 1:21PM
SFIV is not balanced well. You know this when you watch tourney videos and see that the top tier characters always come out on....well top. lol. What further proof do you need? Watch EVO this year and if one of the top 5 tier characters in SFIV doesn't win I will be rather shocked (Sagat, Ryu, Zangief, Rufus, Balrog). We don't know enough about Blazblue to judge but the current thought is V-13 is way overpowered (and seems likely that will stand). But still SFIV is about as well balanced as any Capcom offering, which is there are generally 5 characters that drastically stand out among the crowd. And the KoF series was never supposed to be a "tourney fighter."
As for Virtual Fighter....ugh that is the most boring series of fighting games I've ever seen. Probably because every character is nearly identical to one another.
devilsei @ Jul 13th 2009 7:12PM
Yeah, SF4 is far from balanced. Personally I can't stand fighting Zangief or Seth, Sagat is meh, beat him alright. But Seth and Zang share one thing that makes them cheap as hell. Their pile-driver seems to be prioritized over anything else. Add in Seth's ability to teleport, and he's worse. Though Zangief's double lariat is pretty bad too.
As for Blazblue, its the closest to balanced I've seen. I have no issues with v-13, wiped the floor with her on hell mode with Ragna, and I've watched my friend beat down more than a few Nus without too many issues.
Now bring him up against Rachel though... and he'll start cursing and cussing heh.
Jimiisama @ Jul 14th 2009 7:39PM
Most of you guys are probably terrible; SF4 is the most balanced SF game ever made and definitely one of the more balanced fighters out there. Most of the characters are placed in upper and mid tier with only a handful of outliers (Sagat, Ryu, Zangeif, Akuma on the higher end; Guile and Vega on the lower end). Besides the console characters being mostly shitty, this game is very balanced. Top tier characters win more tournaments because most top tier players play top tier characters; playing a top tier character doesn't make you magically better.
Blanka isn't OP; Blanka is upper-mid tier is and 75% gimmicks, so once you get past that he's your average upper-mid tier character.
phinnvr6 @ Jul 22nd 2009 1:02PM
I've heard plenty about balance issues in this game. And that's one thing that I can't have in a fighter as much as i'd like to have it. I'm not gonna buy it until I hear about it being fixed, it would just get too frustrated getting spanked by that fgt Sagat.
MoMoney @ Jul 13th 2009 9:39AM
I never thought Sagat was overpowered. Seth on the other is a bit strong but he's the final boss. What do you expect?
MaliceMajorE15 @ Jul 13th 2009 10:05AM
I can get on board with the computer beating me soundly if it appears that it is just far more skilled than me thats how it is when you play sagat you know that you just have to play better than him and if he has more strength than you, then just dont get hit. seths move set just seems like cheating, unblockable moves superspeed, and he can suck you in as well as cause massive damage.
i miss the days when it was just a standard chracter at the highest difficulty setting or a big fucking robot like apocalypse/onslaught
Mana37 @ Jul 13th 2009 10:08AM
& let's not forget about the damn "challenges."
Fuckin' busy work.
Very few will ever see a SF4 Platinum Trophy!!!
dark_inchworm (on Steam!) dark inchworm (on XBL!) @ Jul 13th 2009 10:13AM
"Massive damage"?
So you're this giant enemy crab...
HitNRun @ Jul 13th 2009 11:28AM
Seth is only overpowered when the computer plays him as the boss. I've never had a particular problem with player Seths.
Sagat, on the other hand...
Meh @ Jul 13th 2009 1:06PM
Wait, so that's why I've only had a chance against Seth when I was playing as Sagat? I thought I was getting better.
eldee @ Jul 13th 2009 1:32PM
seth is a biiitch when played by the computer. he cancels into zangief piledrivers off of moves that you normally can't cancel. on top of that he spams that teleport into more piledrivers. It's pretty insane..
Although he's pretty easy if you're playing as somebody with good range like ryu or sakura, just spam hadoken from full range, eventually he will miss a sonic boom and you'll get a freebie in here or there, and when he tries to walljump in, just anti-air him.
He's particularly tough against somebody like crimson viper, who's ranged attack still leaves her open for sonic booms that have already fired off, so while you'll get a hit with her ground pound, you're going to get hit with s.boom.
-Vexx- @ Jul 13th 2009 9:39AM
Capcom admitting something is wrong with there game? Street fighter being unblanced none the less?
Its a new days my friends.
Snakku @ Jul 13th 2009 10:07AM
At least they admit it. Not much I can say for other developers. Give them a break
Mana37 @ Jul 13th 2009 10:10AM
They can't get a break when Seth is allowed to interrupt my attacks!!!!!
-Vexx- @ Jul 13th 2009 10:34AM
I'm not mad at them or anything just surprised its very rare for a dev to admit there wrong.
ssuk @ Jul 13th 2009 11:22AM
Technically, this isn't the 'developers' admitting to errors, but a single person. So the official company line will be that everything is hunky-dory and that the game is the most perfect piece of software ever created.
Also, do you count patches as admission of fault if they actually fix it even though they don't formally admit to errors?
Havok @ Jul 13th 2009 11:45PM
Don't really remember them not admitting a character is unbalanced...
Unless they denied Akuma from Super Street Fighter II Turbo wasn't broken beyond the 9th dimension or something.
Vcize @ Jul 13th 2009 9:41AM
I hardly ever play against Seth's in multiplayer. Way less than 1% of the matches I play.
Sagat's are freaking everywhere though, and his damage and recovery times are just ridiculous.
Storm Eagle::The Blood Edge @ Jul 13th 2009 9:48AM
He has 1 too many Tiger Shot moves. And on top of that, I really don't think he should have BOTH Tiger Uppercut AND Tiger Knee. I remember when they gave him Tiger Knee and I said to myself "Why?".
WiNG [XBL&Steam: WiNGSPANTT] from lifeinagame.com @ Jul 13th 2009 10:08AM
Because what Sagat needed was more high-priority, high-damage, armor-breaking moves with variable range, throw-invincibility, and awkward-to-punish hitboxes!!!
WINterfang @ Jul 13th 2009 9:41AM
Woah! is this official art?
nighttime__ @ Jul 13th 2009 9:44AM
it was like Vega for me in SFII, that bastard owes me about $100 in loose change.
Storm Eagle::The Blood Edge @ Jul 13th 2009 9:46AM
I'm just glad people stopped using Ken all the damn time.
I play as E. Honda most of the time. It catches people off guard. They say "Oh, he's really going to try to beat me with Honda?"....and then I do.
sam @ Jul 13th 2009 9:57AM
Unfortunately the recently released PC version is pretty much all Ryu and Ken online. I usually wait to see if someone picks either of the two, and go Sagat if they do, otherwise I chose a character I actually want to play as. Any other shoto character is fine, but you get bored when 50% of fights are against those two.
Storm Eagle::The Blood Edge @ Jul 13th 2009 10:00AM
It's only cause it's new to them, Sam. Hopefully they get bored with the Shoto characters faster on the PC version than they did on the console versions. When the game first came out, I would even try to entice them to pick someone else by going random and the cowards couldn't bare to pick somebody else. The game gets boring very quickly when you're fighting the same fighter over and over again.
Good luck with that.
Travis @ Jul 13th 2009 12:50PM
But spamming Hadoukens is fun D:
Nozzinja @ Jul 13th 2009 9:55AM
I love Street fighter 4 but some of the priorities for special moves on the characters are F***ed up!
sam @ Jul 13th 2009 10:00AM
Yeah, it was weird going from 3 to 4, because in 3 anything could stop a super combo, and in 4 its kinda whoever uses their Ultra second, with some exceptions.
joshua @ Jul 13th 2009 10:06AM
I rented the game to play on my 360 with a regular controller and had to turn it down to easy easy, and even then I could get to the final boss but gave up on beating it. Then I returned the game because it was a waste of time without an arcade controller and I don't feel like shelling out all that money just to play one dumb game.
WiNG [XBL&Steam: WiNGSPANTT] from lifeinagame.com @ Jul 13th 2009 10:06AM
"Tiger Rhymez"
by WiNGSPANTT
People round here know Sagat
Tiger toast your ass with a Tiger Shot
Rolling up on you like a sexy Autobot
Think it's safe to attack? Pssh well it's not.
Got priority like FedEx Overnight
Wanna try a jump or two? I got all night
Don't even have to leave the ground
'Fore you hear the cracking sound
Of my roundhouse fuckin' up your flight
REFRAIN
Tiger knee tiger rhyme tiger bustin on your dime
Tiger flow tiger know tiger slapped you like a ho
Tiger punch tiger rock tiger best one on the block
Tiger pwn tiger blast tiger kiss my tiger ass
They say I'm top tier well no shit
I can beat your Ultra combo with one Tiger hit
If tiger says, then you better tiger do
Juggle you and the hurting soon ensues
Tiger shattering your stupid preconceptions
Tiger broken beyond any recollection
Even rewrote the meaning of perfection
Hell I kick your ass without no depth perception
REFRAIN
Tiger knee tiger rhyme tiger bustin on your dime
Tiger flow tiger know tiger slapped you like a ho
Tiger punch tiger rock tiger best one on the block
Tiger pwn tiger blast tiger kiss my tiger ass
dark_inchworm (on Steam!) dark inchworm (on XBL!) @ Jul 13th 2009 11:04AM
Cute... but it bothers me that "night" is rhymed with "night."
WINterfang @ Jul 13th 2009 12:34PM
It worked for Fred Durst.
GENTLEMEN @ Jul 13th 2009 10:14AM
I'll pay ten bucks RIGHT THIS INSTANT if they NERF Sagat RIGHT HERE and RIGHT NOW. Slow the rate of the tiger shots, take away his tiger knee, make the tiger uppercut able to be hit when it's done and not give it invulnerability, make his attacks slower and less powerful, I don't care. I'll pay to have a patch that nerfs the man. NERF OR NOTHING!
Gemini Ace @ Jul 13th 2009 10:16AM
This is why I sold the POS game.
jynxycat @ Jul 13th 2009 10:50AM
lol.
More like, you sold it because you were insanely horrible at it.
Gemini Ace @ Jul 13th 2009 8:37PM
Same diff! lol!
cgrumler @ Jul 13th 2009 10:17AM
Enough with the "Seth is overpowered" nonsense.
You so much as step on his TOES, and he is instantly stunned.
capt_carl @ Jul 13th 2009 10:19AM
Seth is a bitch, Sagat I never had issues with really. Hell I think Crimson Viper is worse then Sagat.
RedSonRising @ Jul 13th 2009 10:42AM
CViper is a beast in the right hands. watching a skilled CViper or Chun Li is SF4 poetry in motion. im terrible but i actually enjoy losing to skilled opponents, its the shoto fireball/uppercut spammers than frustrate me the most.
i miss VF5 more than i like SF4 now, i regret putting that game down. i was never a big SF fan and now that ive completely lost my timing playing VF5 is harder than ever. i miss Vanessa, she'd crush any SF4 b!tch no questions asked.
BoringK @ Jul 13th 2009 12:26PM
Agreed on C. Viper. Endlessly losing to her on Normal difficulty Arcade mode was maybe what made me throw SFIV to the side more than anything else. Incredibly frustrating. Sagat and Seth are obnoxious too, but the former less so than Viper and the latter is a final boss, after all. Though once I beat him in one shot with Ken on Normal.
Shadow_Modder @ Jul 13th 2009 10:19AM
Well, obviously people were talking about the final boss, Seth, not the playable Seth as he is pretty balanced with his low health. On the other hand, Sagat has high health, and too many moves to keep players at bay. Deals great damage and even one of his low points, walking speed, is nothing for him as he can just do a tiger knee, which travels fast and far, has armor break properties and is pretty much safe on block(LK version). I kinda gave up on SFIV, I can't wait to get KOF XII though...
mocax @ Jul 13th 2009 10:20AM
i had to resort to using cheap shots to beat seth... :(
ryanpaulmcgowan @ Jul 13th 2009 10:28AM
My problem with SF4 was that it didn't feel right. Something about it just never felt right. I don't know if it was the seemingly slightly slower movement speed with an increase to projectile speed while jumps are faster or if it was the fact that the controls just didn't feel right... but this felt less like a Street Fighter and more like a game with Street Fighter characters in it.
I used to main Vega in 2, 3, and any game that had Vega in it (with a secondary of Ryu) and he just didn't feel right. Actually, most of the characters didn't feel right. Trying to execute a Z movement attack just never worked, even with a stick. It felt too strict I suppose?
It also didn't help that the single player was a cake walk up until Seth, even on the hardest difficulty. It also didn't help that everybody on the planet playing online played exactly the same way but with different characters.
I really wanted to like it, but there was definitely something missing there.
I agree with both Sagat and Seth being OP. "A little" is an understatement.
samfish (uses the Joystiq Comment-Kill filter!) @ Jul 13th 2009 11:16AM
It felt more like a Vs Capcom game than a SF game to me.
...but I like it that way, really.