Hiya!

Haitani is known as one of the best pro fighting game players in the world. In fact, he’s one of the Five Gods of fighting games! However, I do believe he’s semi-retired now. I don’t recall seeing him joining an official fighting game tournament this year. As far as I know, he’s kind of following the same path Justin Wong has been taking as Haitani has mostly been focusing on content creation and applying his vast knowledge and experience as a commentator now. Capcom even added Haitani to Street Fighter 6 as one of its in-game commentators you can select while playing the game.

However, Capcom didn’t just make Haitani a commentator in Street Fighter 6. They also made a virtual version of him you can fight against using the V-Rival system. Simply enter the Battle Hub mode in Street Fighter 6, interact with the V-Rival machine and pick the Battle V-Rival option to face off against him. Now, like with the previous V-Rivals based on top players, you can only face off against Haitani’s Chun-Li using 3 specific characters. These would be Blanka, Juri and a mirror match with your own Chun-Li. Beating the V-Rival Haitani with any character will net you a banner you can stick on your profile. Yeah, the reward is kinda meh but, hey! It’s free so I want it!

I will say, for the uninitiated and the woefully unskilled such as myself, it can be a pain trying to beat the V-Rival Haitani. His Chun-Li’s footsies is incredible and he will whiff punish you with Chun-Li’s crouching medium kick into a Drive Rush combo, carrying you all the way into the corner with a juggle combo worthy of one of the Five Gods of fighting games! He’ll also counter your Drive Impact most of the time if you try to do so when it’s not safe. Still, if you persevere and keep at it, I know most players will eventually beat him. It’s just a matter of time.

However, what if you don’t have any patience and just want the quickest and easiest way or you’ve been struggling against him in vain? Well, I’m not that good as well but, after playing against the Haitani V-Rival for a day, I have noticed some things you can get away with when you use any of the characters you can pick. So, essentially, I’m giving you 3 options on how to get that reward. They are of varying degrees of difficulty so I’ll be talking about them from the easiest to the hardest.

Ironically, the easiest character to use against V-Rival Haitani’s Chun-Li is your own Chun-Li. You would think Haitani, the Chun-Li master player, would be able to handle everything we normal people would throw at him, right? Well, it appears this member of the Five Gods is vulnerable to Chun-Li’s light version of her Kikoken projectile. Most of the time, Haitani will back off full screen when this projectile on the playfield. Sometimes, he’ll try to counter it and this will lead to the Kikoken actually hitting him.

The safest but the most boring and lame way to beat V-Rival Haitani is just stay full screen and keep chucking light Kikoken projectiles at him and wait for the timer to expire. You might be tempted to end things faster but this is the scrub guide to beating him! So, just stay the course and keep tossing these out! Things do get hectic if Haitani does manage to get over the projectile and get close. If this happens, try tossing out the Overdrive version of the Kikoken and hope he retreats back to the corner afterwards.

Let’s say you don’t like holding back to throw fireballs. You basically detest charge characters (which I don’t get because I love them). Well, you can try using Juri but there is a big caveat to trying the Chun-Li strategy as it doesn’t work. For one, you have to get a Fuha stock and this will allow Haitani’s Chun-Li to close the distance. So, you have to change things up a bit. You’re still going to apply the same strategy of throwing fireballs consistently but you do have to be more aggressive as it will depend on where Chun-Li is when you throw the projectile.

If Chun-Li is close by when you do throw Juri’s projectile, just hang back and don’t do anything. Your goal at this point is to find a way to push Chun-Li further away, around mid-screen distance. Try walking back and see if Haitani will do the same. That’s the best option. Anyway, once you do get Haitani’s Chun-Li into mid-screen, toss out a projectile and then do a regular dash forward. Now, you do have to react to 3 possible scenarios. One, Chun-Li will do nothing and you will do the same. Two, he’ll walk back and, if this happens, do Juri’s crouching medium kick to try to hit Chun-Li’s legs. If you have a good Drive Rush combo, do it. If you don’t, just charge up a medium Fuhajin to, at the very least, get a 2-hit combo and a stock. The third scenario is Haitani will toss out a Kikoken. Just block this and let Juri’s projectile connect as it will go under the Kikoken.

This strategy is strongly contingent on having stocks throughout the match and that can be a problem, especially if you’re like me who doesn’t main Juri. However, this is the cheesiest strategy I could find for myself. I’m sure there are better ways but, for a scrub like me, this was the simplest way to do so.

Finally, we have Blanka and this is weird because it’s both easy and the most difficult strategy here as it involves a little bit of luck. The basic idea when you use Blanka against Haitani’s Chun-Li is to do the heavy version of his Rolling Attack at mid to full screen. If it’s blocked, do it again. If it hits, it knocks Chun-Li down so wait for her to get up and do it again. Once in a while, the V-Rival AI will Perfect Parry it and you will eat a combo which will probably take you to the corner. This is where a lot of the luck comes into play.

When your Blanka is stuck in the corner and the Haitani Chun-Li is midscreen, stop doing the heavy version of the Rolling Attack. Haitani will just block it and then, since you can bounce away to safety as you’re in the corner, he’ll have Chun-Li Punish Counter your recovery with her Hazanshu. You will eat massive damage because of the follow-up combo and you’ll still be stuck in the corner! The best way to escape is to try to jump back and do an Aerial Rolling Attack as low to the ground as you can! Although it’s not safe, it does look like the V-Rival AI thinks it is as Chun-Li will not contest it.

If you’re lucky, Blanka’s heavy Rolling Attack will keep on hitting cleanly, allowing you to just keep doing it. If you’re unlucky, well, you’ll be placed in the corner and scrambling to do anything to get out of there. Still, more often than not, you’ll eventually get a lucky streak and beat V-Rival Haitani’s Chun-Li just by spamming Blanka’s Rolling Attack.

If you just want the reward, that little banner saying you beat V-Rival Haitani, I say just use Chun-Li and keep tossing out the slow Kikoken. You don’t have to be good at using her with this as there’s no reactions needed. If you’re more versed with using either Juri or Blanka, just follow the basic skeleton of the strategy I outlined above and add more stuff if you’re comfortable.

Byee!

What were your strategies in beating V-Rival Haitani? Let me know in the comments section below!