Hiya!

So, Capcom decided to give us some holiday greetings with some holiday beatings for December! This is because, at the start of the month, Capcom released the next Giant Attack promotion with a beefed up version of M. Bison! Like with the last Giant Attack event with Shin Akuma, Street Fighter 6‘s Battle Hub has some added activities, like facing off against SIrN’s program of M. Bison either through the Avatar Battles or battle him in one of the arcade machines. You will earn Battle points for doing these activities as well as other stuff in the Battle Hub. You can then use your hard-earned Battle points to toss out a powered up Hadouken at the giant hologram of M. Bison in the center of the Battle Hub. Pretty fun stuff and you can also earn Drive Tickets for joining in the fun! Win-win, right?

Like Shin Akuma before him, Shin M. Bison is not the normal M. Bison you can play in Street Fighter 6. Capcom made Shin Bison a tough cookie for most players as, not only is his CPU level locked at Level 8, the highest possible level and will read your inputs like mad, he also always is gaining Drive Meter and Super Meter as long as he’s standing, meaning he will usually have an Overdrive special and a Super Art locked and loaded to finish a combo.

They also gave him some unique moves directly lifted from his previous iterations. For example, he has his teleport move from the Street Fighter Alpha series and Street Fighter 4. Shin Bison also has a new force field type attack akin to his V-Reversal from Street Fighter 5. The cherry on top is Shin Bison has, on top of his regular Level 2 Super Art, a secondary Level 2. This new Level 2 Super Art mimics his big Super Combo attack when you face him as the boss in Street Fighter Alpha 3! This means it comes out instantly and hits pretty much everywhere on the screen!

Because of all of these changes and additions, Shin Bison can be a menace to fight. A lot of pros have tried facing off against Shin Bison and they are having a lot of trouble beating him, let alone getting a round over him! Well, what if I told you they’re doing it all wrong? What if I told you Shin Bison is actually very easy to beat and, yes, he’s even easier than Shin Akuma!

First, I will say Capcom left some huge gaps in Shin Bison’s AI as there are some really big things you can exploit. For one, his teleport has a lot of recovery frames to it. So, if he ever teleports close to you, you can get some really huge Punish Counter combos after the fact. Another big problem with Shin Bison is he loves to do meaties on opponents who are getting up. This may be with a meaty crouching medium punch, a back heavy kick or even his standard throw. Well, what do most scrubs like me do when they know their opponents are almost always doing meaty attacks while I’m getting up? We do an invincible Overdrive special attack! So, as long as you have some Drive Bar and some form of an invincible Overdrive special or even a Super which is invincible, you can also get away from Shin Bison’s wake up pressure!

Incidentally, Shin Bison loves to try to do frame traps as well. So, he’ll almost always try to do a normal attack after he does any of his plus frame normals, like his standing heavy punch or his back heavy kick. He’ll even do so after trying his overhead during a Drive Rush. Once again, the answer is to just use an Overdrive invincible or invincible Super Art after you see him do any of his plus frame attacks. Shin Bison will also do his Shadow Rise now and again when he’s around full screen to neutral skip. The trick to anti-airing him consistently from this move is to not wait for the last second to do the anti-air. Rather, if you’re character has some kind of high hitting anti-air special, like Ryu‘s Shoryuken, Guile‘s Flash Kick or even Chun-Li‘s Hazanshu, aim for the attack to hit M. Bison just as he’s descending from the peak of his jump arc. It’s your safest bet as you’ll probably hit his outstretched arm of his Devil’s Reverse. The only exception is E. Honda‘s Sumo Smash as it will trade most of the time. You would be better off relying on his heavy Sumo Headbutt to anti-air here.

Now, the easiest way to beat Shin Bison is, honestly, pick Guile. That’s because, like with Shin Akuma, Shin Bison cannot comprehend how to get around Guile’s heavy Sonic Blade. Just knock them down once when he does one of the stupid things noted above and then toss out the heavy Sonic Blade. Most of the time, he’ll try to use his Shadow Rise to get around it, making him open to Guile’s Flash Kick as mentioned above. He may try to teleport behind you, allowing you to, once again, Flash Kick him during the recovery frames or even throw him into the corner! Rarely, he’ll do nothing and wait for the Sonic Blade to fade out. If this happens, do not throw out another heavy Sonic Blade. Instead, just wait for Shin Bison to do something stupid as outlined previously. Once you knock him down, which will usually be at around full screen away, have Guile toss out another heavy Sonic Blade and repeat the process.

This strategy works almost every time. I say almost as it’s not exactly foolproof. However, I have had 10-0 runs against Shin Bison before as you can see in the video above. So, if a scrub like me can beat Shin Bison, a new AI opponent the pros are having trouble with, then, in this instance, I can say I’m better than them! That being said, this is just me exploiting Capcom’s weaknesses with their AI. It’s kind of like SNK Boss Syndrome or someone who’s super good but just can’t break throws. You know they’re impossible to beat but, once you find out that one thing they just cannot seem to counter, you do whatever that is as nauseam to win.

I know this post is very untimely as the Giant Attack for Shin Bison is about to end soon. Still, better late than never to rack up those Battle points, right? Also, while you’re at it, why not play as Shin Bison yourself as Capcom did give us a way to turn your regular plain M. Bison to Shin Bison!

You’ll never see this in a tournament setting… but it’s nice for Capcom to add this in!

Byee!