U know what i have not played fighting games since probably about Tekken. I sucked then! and il no doubt suck now! BUT IM GONNA JUMP IN THE DEEP END AND PURCHASE! young jefferson has convinced me its worth a shot.

So if any punching bags would like to form a noob fight club that we can get some low level practice with then add me. just mention SF4 in the xbox live friend request.

GamerTag is Delta Kil0    (its a zero at the end)

With practice us noobs will grow from the shadows and strike with furious anger upon the "hardcore" (after 15 to 25 years of training)

"remember practice practice and practice also find a character that suites your play style :P"

You know what I bought SFIV because I love fighting games. But I really suck at them. Street Fighter II gets me so angry. But this, for some reason, doesn't. I've won just 23% of online games. I cannot beat Seth on medium (spent an hour trying). But it hasn't frustrated me. At all.

I think Capcom missed an opportunity to put a really detailed guide in there, and that's a shame. Everyone (even the really good players) could benefit from a guide. Having said that. Winning or losing I find the game really fun.

Not a problem here. I love the game.

"You know what I bought SFIV because I love fighting games. But I really suck at them. Street Fighter II gets me so angry. But this, for some reason, doesn't. I've won just 23% of online games. I cannot beat Seth on medium (spent an hour trying). But it hasn't frustrated me. At all.

I think Capcom missed an opportunity to put a really detailed guide in there, and that's a shame. Everyone (even the really good players) could benefit from a guide. Having said that. Winning or losing I find the game really fun.

Not a problem here. I love the game.
"

Honestly, SF feels like WORK to learn, very frustrating and annoying work, I dont want to work at it to just have fun with it, like I said in a previous post, Its a game that is not fun unless you are good at it, and getting good at it requires Years of pratice (most people have 20 years).

I am returning it tomorrow, exchanging for an RE5 preorder.

I would say that I am not good at fighting games compared to most people who play them. But I do alright and I found it to be a fairly easy game to jump in and enjoy right away. I am still trying to get better at remembering and pulling off combos, its not too hard. I would like to be using a stick though rather then just the Dualshock.

For people like me, who's never been competitive in fighting games before.......
I found out that this game need some skill and timing even on the easiest difficulty. It's hard to button-mash Seth and win(but I didn't say it's impossible)

But once you find a strategy, it's really simple and rewarding(at least it's simple on the easiest difficulty)
Sort of reminds me of Ninja Gaiden......

I just jumped and medium-kicked Seth all the way until he was dead using Dhalsim last night after I failed so many times trying to beat him with some special move I learned from manual......
I LOLed so loud when he was defeated by a guy who just jumped and kicked. XD

Seth, oh Seth!
just jump and kick until you see his death!  XD

One thing I learned is that if you are not familiar with SF4, you should trust your normal attacks. Normal attacks are very relyable in this game, and even SF vets use a lot of normal punches and kicks.
This game is not as combo-reliant as other 2D fighting games, and I think that is also the reason why this game is said to be very accessible to new comers.

Well, whilst I love SF, I am not great at it. Whilst I'm up for improving my skills at the game I still had fun with it playing it on friday night with my flatmates, which involved a lot f button mashing.

The trial mode really needs to show you what you need to do to transition between moves in combos. As it stands, you need to trial+error your way through different methods to get a combo right. Some require cancels (that require you to input right after the initial input very quickly), some are links (that you need to time after a hit has already connected), alot of the focus attack stuff requires dash canceling (holding focus and dashing >> or << to save your super meter and cancel from the 'focus parry' or 'focus attack' into other moves) but doesn't specifically tell you. Also, SF4 isn't really like some 3D fighters you might be used to where timing the button presses always must be the same speed each time you do it, it's a bit more lenient with the timing of some combos since its very open to buffering (starting a motion for the next attack before/during the previous attack hit and still having it register, mostly used for canceling into supers and ultras). If the trial mode had a little primer on canceling, linking, buffering, dash canceling, etc, and labeled the combos accordingly, I feel it would be a HUGE step in making the trial mode alot better for beginners. If players knew what canceling was, and had an example or two of it in action, then they could apply that knowledge to experimenting with canceling moves into other moves themselves, for example.

That and Seth is a bit crazy for a new player to face as well, even on easiest.