Hiya!

Well, Sagat has been out for quite a while and I do think Capcom did too good of a job with him. I do think he had more than enough tools to make him a part of the higher tiers in Street Fighter 6. Like with all of the new characters which come for the game, I went through his combo trials to see how Capcom put him together, check out which moves can link together and whatnot. I may not be the best Street Fighter 6 player but I have completed most of the roster’s combo trials and, for some reason, I had a ton of difficultly completing Sagat’s Advanced 1 Combo Trial.

It’s the one where you launch the opponent up with his back and heavy punch, cancel into his medium High Tiger Shot, Drive Rush in with another back and heavy punch before ending with a charged up heavy Tiger Uppercut. For the longest time, I couldn’t get that Drive Rush into back and heavy punch to connect. I could cheese it by moving the character to the corner but, from mid-screen, this was a bugger to complete. It took me like a half an hour to do this the honest way! Yes, I know you’re supposed to delay the back and heavy punch after the Drive Rush. It’s still difficult for me to do every time, okay?

While Sagat’s Advanced 1 Trial Combo was a problem for me, as a connoisseur of the Combo Trials since I regularly go through them to earn kudos to earn rewards, there are much more difficult Combo Trials in Street Fighter 6. So, here is my list of the 3 hardest Combo Trials the game has to offer.

#1 Guile‘s Advanced 2 Combo Trial

Let’s get this one out of the way early. When it comes to what combo trials Capcom put in the game, Guile’s Advanced 2 Combo Trial takes the cake. It’s deceptively simple but the thing which makes it hard is, well, Guile’s moveset! In the combo, you have to hit one Perfect Sonic Boom, link that into his crouching light punch, link that into a standing light kick and cancel that into a medium Sonic Boom and then link that into a Flash Kick. There’s a lot of links in this and that’s already going to be a huge hurdle for most average players. However, Capcom stacks the difficulty with the other gimmicks Guile uses.

First, there’s the issue of the Perfect Sonic Boom. What’s a Perfect Sonic Boom? It’s when you push the punch button on the same frame of the forward direction when you execute the Sonic Boom. When you’re new or you’ve gotten used to Capcom adding a lot of leniency in their inputs, this can be difficult to wrap your head around and you have to re-learn a lot of muscle memory to get this down consistently. You can’t cheese this as, if you don’t get the Perfect Sonic Boom, Guile’s crouching light punch will get blocked. After some practice, you can get used to throwing Perfect Sonic Booms. That’s easy enough. The rest of the combo isn’t.

The biggest hurdle, at least for me, is cancelling the standing light kick into a Sonic Boom. What makes this problematic is Guile’s doesn’t do a standing light kick if you hold back on the controller. Holding back and pressing the light kick will have him do his Knee Bazooka. So, how the heck are you supposed to charge back for the Sonic Boom if you need to hold the stick at neutral to perform his standing light kick? Well, you’re supposed to kind of partition the move. You had to have been charging back prior and, when you need to link the standing light kick, you release the stick to get the move then push forward and punch to get the Sonic Boom! That takes some precision movement!

If you do manage to do all of that, you can’t celebrate as, after you’ve comboed your Sonic Boom, you need to immediately start charging for the Flash Kick to finish the combo. There is barely enough time to get enough charge after the medium Sonic Boom connects so you’re timing has to be flawless.

Personally, despite the game being out for several years now, I still have not been able to do Guile’s Advanced 2 Combo Trials the honest way. It does show I’ve completed it but I had to cheese my way in order to do it… and the cheesy way isn’t all that easy as well!

To cheat your way through this the way I did, you still need to learn to hit your Perfect Sonic Booms but this does bypass the requirement of having to partition the Sonic Boom charge after the standing light kick. Instead of trying to do the Sonic Boom, cancel the standing light kick into a Drive Rush with a crouching light punch, linking that with a crouching medium punch, throw a Perfect Sonic Boom using the medium punch, link that into another crouching light punch and cancel that into a Drive Rush. To get the final Flash Kick, Drive Rush in with a crouching light punch, link that into Guile’s down and 2 medium punches target combo and cancel that into his Flash Kick. Whew! That’s my personal way but there are other ways to cheese this.

Yes, it’s a much longer combo but, in this way, you totally bypass the need to do the stupid neutral standing light kick into Sonic Boom, which is the most difficult part of the trial! The only real difficult part with this revised path is hitting, not one but, 2 Perfect Sonic Booms. Despite this, this is a much easier route because it relieves your mental stack of the cursed standing light kick into Sonic Boom portion of what Capcom wanted. While I can complete the combo this way, I can’t do it the way Capcom mapped it out.

#2 Dee Jay‘s Advanced 2 Combo Trial

From one Advanced 2 Combo Trial to another, I guess. Although Dee Jay’s Advance Combo 2 doesn’t have any crazy charge partitioning or anything like that, there is one particular sticking point which I really, really, really, really struggle with: his Headliner Summer Festival Level 2 Super Art. The initial part is actually easy. Hitting his Level 1 and doing a Drive Rush into his crouching medium punch and comboing into his OD Machine Gun Upper is a breeze. Cancelling the OD Machine Gun Upper to his Level 2 is not a problem. It’s actually doing the heavy version of his Level 2 that is!

You see, unlike other Level 2 Super Arts, Dee Jay’s had 3 versions or levels to them, with the most damaging version done with the heavy punch. The problem is the Combo Trial forces you to do the heavy version. You would have to push the attack buttons in a certain pattern and, this is the reason why I have trouble with it. The timing isn’t not consistent as you have to do the first half at a blistering pace but slow down halfway through it. The pattern is actually easy as it’s just you going from light punch, medium punch, heavy punch, light kick, medium kick, heavy kick and ending with another heavy punch. I don’t think it’s the timing I struggle with. Rather, it’s the fact I play on a pad!

Now, I have done this in the past once but only because that was the time I played on a stick! Doing it using a pad, which is how I normally play Street Fighter 6, is hard because of the position of the buttons! On a stick layout, all of the buttons are placed flat in front of you. That means you can simply jam this out using your index, middle and ring fingers in quick succession as the buttons are laid in a straight line. This makes getting the rhythm/timing aspect down easy.

On a pad, however, the buttons are laid out so you have access to them but in a non-linear pattern! The light and medium attacks are usually mapped on the face buttons while the heavy attacks are on the shoulder buttons. So, to do his Level 2, you have to jam the first 2 attacks, the light and medium punches, with your thumb, which is already harder as you have to move your thumb to the right button. You then have to switch to using your index finger to hit the heavy punch, which is mapped to the shoulder button and that just doesn’t come of as instinctive! Even if you get that right, you now have to switch back using your thumb to hit the light kick and the medium kick buttons on the face portion of the controller and then switching again to your middle finger and then your index finger to close it out!

So, on a pad, not only do you have to contend with the rhythm timing aspect of the combo, but you also have to refine your muscle memory of switching between your thumbs and index and middle fingers in an unintuitive pattern. It can be done but it’s just not worth it, in my opinion. Screw the heavy version! I’ll just stick to the light and medium versions! At least I know I can get all the hits in!

#3 Blanka‘s Advanced 2 Combo Trial

It’s official: the most difficult combo trials in Street Fighter 6 are always going to be Advanced 2. That’s because the final entry on this list belongs to Blanka’s Advanced 2 Combo Trial. Well, for me, at least. Even though I managed to (accidentally) get my Blanka to Master rank, I got there from using mostly fundamentals, Blanka’s generally tricky playstyle and a lot of luck.

What I didn’t use is his Level 2 Super Art, the Lightning Beast install. This powers up all of his “ball” attacks and allows him to continuously ram into his opponent as long as he has it available. As (bad) luck would have it, getting comfortable with his Level 2 and how to use it is a big component of Blanka’s Advanced 2 Combo Trial. So, as I suck as using his Lighting Beast, I suck at doing the trial! It doesn’t help how you have to do a ton of stuff in quick succession, such as using the Lighting Beast to go down to the floor then to immediately Drive Rush forward then slightly delay his standing heavy punch before then doing the Coward Crouch to juggle them into the air with the Wild Lift. Once you do launch them upward, jump after them with a medium punch attack before cancelling that into the heavy version of Aerial Rolling Attack because it now works without charging because of the Lightning Beast install.

Why do I say this is one of the most difficult Combo Trials in Street Fighter 6? That’s because I have yet to complete this Combo Trial! Yes, I have been playing Street Fighter 6 for a couple of years now and have actually gotten Blanka to Master rank. Even with that, I still haven’t done this to completion! I have several issues with this combo and it’s just a cascade of foibles.

First, there are going to be times when I don’t fly down fast enough after hitting the Vertical Roll. If I do manage to land fast enough, I don’t get my Drive Rush out! If I do get my Drive Rush out, my standing heavy punch whiffs! If the standing heavy punch connects, I don’t get my Coward Crouch or the Wild Hunt out in time! If I do actually hit with the Wild Hunt, my jumping medium punch misses. Finally, if I do hit with the jumping medium punch, the heavy version of the Aerial Rolling Attack whiffs! HEEEEEELLLLPPPP!

Now, while writing up this piece, I’ve come to find out there are ways to cheese this Combo Trial but I’ve never figured out how to do that on my own. I managed to figure out how to cheese the Guile Advanced 2 Combo Trial on my own but not with Blanka! There are ways, such as spacing the training dummy near the wall but not near enough so the downward part of the Lighting Beast will hit. You can also cheese the inputs, like using both the medium punch and the medium kick buttons when doing the downward roll so you’re already holding down the Drive Parry command so you can do the Drive Rush as soon as you land. You can also increase the odds of the heavy Aerial Rolling attack connect by doing an OD version of the move first and then using the regular Lighting Beast roll follow-ups to complete the trial.

I’ve never tried these so I’m gonna hit the Combo Trials after I write this. Wish me luck!

Byee!

What are some of Street Fighter 6’s Combo Trials you still struggle with? Let me know in the comments section below!