This is part three in an extended series of articles from David Sirlin, detailing the changes we’ve made to the rebalanced mode of the new Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix project. The first article went into some details about the design philosophy behind some of the changes, and the second one detailed the changes to Ryu. This time out we’re looking at T. Hawk.

Even apart from being a 7-foot Native American with a Dragon Punch and a Spinning Pile Driver, Hawk is an interesting topic because while he’s among the very weakest characters in the original Super Turbo, he’s also one of the most potentially deadly. Expert players of the other characters can keep him out and grind his life away before he can get inside, but once he does find an opening he can do a TON of damage and trap you with nearly inescapable pile driver tricks. It’s this kind of explosive potential that makes changing him up a real pandora’s box, so read on for the thinking that went into the changes…

And as always, here’s our standard disclaimer: remember, the changes to the rebalanced mode are OPTIONAL If you think our redesign team has messed with a masterpiece, the game’s original mode is also included. Although “original” mode also features the HD art, original mode has NO changes to any of the characters. All of their move properties and hitboxes are exactly as they were, down to the pixel! This basically means you have two games in one, and if you don’t like the new-fangled version, the old-school version is still there.

SSF2T HD Remix Gameplay, Part 3: T.Hawk

Last time we looked Ryu’s short change list, so this time lets look at something more extensive. We’ll have to dig deep into the abyss of Super Turbo tiers to find this character. Buried somewhere near the bottom, we find T.Hawk. Attention readers, a T.Hawk “megaton bomb” is coming.

Most (both?) T.hawk players play Old T.Hawk in Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo. He’s the version that can’t soften throws and doesn’t have a super, but his normal moves are better. The HD Remixed version is kind of a “greatest hits” of T.Hawk’s moves, so he gets to keep his super and his ability to soften throws, and he also gets the better normal attacks from Old T.Hawk. That means his standing roundhouse and standing strong have better hitboxes and are good for poking, and his low roundhouse is faster than ST’s New T.Hawk. He can also crossup with either his jumping splash (down + fierce in the air) and his jumping medium kick.

His Dragon Punch priority is also the (better) Old T.Hawk version, and the timing is more lenient (as it is for all Dragon Punches in the game). T.Hawk’s uppercut often did not knock down before as part of a game-wide problem where 2-hit moves are tagged to only knock down on the second hit. This has been corrected by making both hits able to knock down and the first hit juggles into the second. Don’t get too excited about T.Hawk juggles though, this is actually a small change that just makes the move function as it was meant to (if it actually hits you, you can’t hit it back).

The Street Fighter trivia experts out there know that T.Hawk’s low strong had a stray vulnerable box that allowed him to get hit from really far away during that move’s recovery. Yes, we fixed that, too.

More exciting than these normal moves and Dragon Punches, the 360 command has changed. Well, you can still do the old 360 command if you like, but the special throw will also come out with the new motion that doesn’t require holding up on the joystick/d-pad. The motion is half circle back, then forward + punch or half circle forward, then back + punch. It’s even more lenient in that you can start from defensive or offensive crouch if you like, instead of straight left or right. And finally, you can even replace the final left or right input with any of the three up inputs if you really want. If all that sounds complicated, just remember this: half circle back, then forward + punch is the main way to do it and doesn’t make you accidentally jump.

This change alone breathes new life into T.Hawk. His 360 was incredibly hard to do in ST because T.Hawk, unlike Zangief, jumps in only 3 frames. You had very little leeway in getting that up input before you accidentally jumped, but now doing the command throw is breeze. The emphasis is much more on *should* you do it, rather than *can* you do it.

The 720 motion is also much easier. It’s either half circle back x 2, then forward + punch, or half circle forward x 2, then back + punch. Yes, that means you can walk up and do a super throw without jumping. This is potentially very dangerous, but so far I don’t see a problem. T.Hawk’s non-super throw does about third of your life, so if the opponent is down to that much life, it doesn’t matter much if you land a super on him as opposed to a non-super throw. For this to really matter, you have to have full super meter and the opponent has to have more than 1/3rd of his life, and you have to get into a situation where you can do a command throw, have time to do it, and you have to successfully pull off the super. It’s on my watchlist definitely, but it has not yet let him beat characters he otherwise couldn’t. If it does prove to be a problem, we could lower the damage of the super throw.

And now for the megaton bomb: T.Hawk’s aerial dive is now SAFE on block. Incidentally, it can also be done with jab + short or strong + forward or fierce + roundhouse, in addition to the original command of jab+strong+roundhouse. The new command is for gamepad players, but the SAFE ON BLOCK is a huge balance change that will strike terror into all your hearts.

After the hawk dive, T.Hawk falls mostly straight down rather than bouncing back. This is a great tool for getting in. You’re probably thinking it’s an insanely overpowered tool, so let’s take a look at that. When I first implemented this move, it immediately seemed too good, but I tried it for a while anyway. Note that the bounce still puts him too far away to get a command throw, so you’re not literally “in” yet, you’re just “almost in.” You end up at a distance where you’re close enough to Dragon Punch if the opponent sticks something out, but he could block and punish you if he guesses that. You could also walk up and try for a command throw, but you’re really too far to just walk up, so the opponent can counter that with sweeps pretty easily.

Specifically, Guile can block the dive, then low forward kick. If T.Hawk decides to walk up, he will always get hit by low forward. If T.Hawk decides to Dragon Punch when he lands, it will whiff vs the low forward (because of angles of the hitboxes) and Guile can punish him afterwards. If T.Hawk jumps in after the dive or jumps and dives again, Guile has time to retract his low forward and flash kick on reaction. Guile has plenty of answers here.

I first thought Dhalsim would have no chance against this megaton dive, because he always relied on hitting it back with standing roundhouse. I soon realized Dhalsim can jump back, then drill the dive. He can standing jab to hit the dive cleanly every time. He can medium slide under the dive to make it miss then hit back with far standing strong. That’s three answers right there, it’s just that he no longer has the universal answer of always block, then stand roundhouse.

Blanka is also able to beat this dive without too much trouble. His jumping straight up roundhouse has a good angle to either hit the dive, or even come down and do a combo if the spacing is right. He can use electricity (which is easier to do now) to hit the dive cleanly, too. Bison can use similar techniques with jump straight up roundhouse or jump towards strong punch. T.Hawk still hangs in the air just a bit before diving, and it’s often just the right height for Bison to do his juggling jump strongs.

T.Hawk still has a lot of trouble—maybe too much trouble—against Cammy. It’s hard for T.Hawk to hit her ducking medium kick and it’s even harder to deal with her unpunishable Thrust Kick (aka Dragon Punch).

The list goes on, but I think you get the point. The new safe dive is a very dangerous weapon that lets T.Hawk get in (almost), but there are a lot of countermeasures already in place. T.Hawk is now lots of fun to play with none of the frustrations of trying to do a 360 with only 2 frames of leeway. His safe dive and the ability to do his 360 throw reliably now (remember, it was harder than Zangief’s before) actually make T.Hawk feel like a new character to me.

–Sirlin

Here’s a brief bio on our guest blogger:

David Sirlin has competed in Street Fighter tournaments for 16 years, and for 11 years he has helped organize and run the tournament series that started as B3 and has now become the international Evolution Championships. He represented the United States in SSF2T in Japan’s Super Battle Opera tournament, wrote the competitive gaming book Playing to Win, and provided narration for Bang the Machine, a documentary film about the Street Fighter community. He’s now overseeing the design and gameplay on Super Street Fighter 2: HD Remix.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 26th, 2007 at 6:27 pm and is filed under Feature, Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, Street Fighter®. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.