I was recently reading a debate concerning Street Fighter.

[D~ONE]

Hello everyone I am looking for your feedback regarding the street fighter series alot of people on this one random forum that i went to were bashing this one guy for, not agreeing with them they kept saying that street fighter is the best fighting engine of any fighting game.

Saying that Namco etc use the dialed in combo system while Sf is 1005 freestyle I am just curious of how accurate of a statment this is I have played both games alot and I just cant see the super complex fighting engie that they claim SF is.

[R3volver]

i used to play street fighter a lot as a kid. i tried the new one that just came out. I didnt find it fun at all. I think the only people that like that kind of game now are people who love to repeat button combos over and over. WTF kind of game is that? People with a weird skill like DDR. I find it weird and disturbing now. Reminds me of that blind kid who was good at fighting games. I mean really...

[Apone]

Well I would say that myself and most of the high level players Ive seen dont really use the dial-a-combo options that much in games such as Tekken and Virtua Fighter as relying strictly on those combos is a good way to get your butt kicked fast. Street Fighter on the other hand has (depending on version) almost no dial-a-combos whatsoever. Its a far more raw type of game that for the most part doesn't hide behind a slick dial-a-combo presentation wich is more appealing to certain players. But seriously, comparing Street Fighter style gameplay to 3-d fighters is like comparing apples to oranges and the one thing to realize is that each camps respective fans will defend their favorite franchise unto death.

[Cracka_J]

even as a long time sf player, the OP's statement isn't correct. top players will learn how to utilize/abuse any system and figure out how to play the safest and win tournaments, so breaking down which franchise is better or worse based on if the game has chains or links has very little to do with which is the better game. the actual combo system is just a gameplay mechanic, it has very little to do with the core engine.

however, I will say that with 300+ moves for each of those fuckers in 3d plane fighters (tekken/sc), I would think that would give a lot more variety for freestyling. street fighter characters are limited to 6 standing normals, 6 ducking normals, 6 jumping normals, and 6 jumping forward and backward normals. add in a few directional stick normals (maybe 3-5 per character), 3-5 specials per character, a few supers, and ultras and you're still under 50 moves per street fighter character.

I think the real tl;dr answer is something like this:
3d fighters have many more moves per character at their disposal, but players tend to only use and win with what's easiest. 2d fighters have many less moves per character, but because of that, players are able to keep an entire inventory of what their character is capable of on hand at all times.

So that's my theory at least. 3D fighters have more potential for freestyling but because of simple high damage chains, players gravitate to those. SF is more basic, but in doing so, gives a players a chance to learn everything their character is capable of, making them feel like they have more freedom then 3d fighters. That's my view on it. Take it however you like.

[UnderscoreX]

Street Fighter isn't about being overly complicated, they already did that with 3rd Strike and eventhough I really liked it, that game is no where near as popular as it should be. Virtua Fighter has all your crazy precise inputs and what not.

Street Fighter's characters are what makes it awesome. Ryu dragon punches waterfalls.

[Zyrusticae]

There's not really much comparison to be made between 3D and 2D fighters.

Street Fighter, for example, doesn't have much of a wake-up game compared to Soul Calibur. A good player that can read you can keep you down indefinitely in SCIV, which may or may not be to your cup of tea. SF doesn't have an 8-way-run mechanic (obviously), makes a different distinction between high, mid, and low attacks (high attacks in SF are jumping attacks, and only some characters have a high normal attack, and mid attacks do not go through the guard of crouching opponents in SF), centers around incredibly fast inputs for its combos, and so on and so forth.

Even among the other 3D fighters there's a massive world of difference between them. Soul Calibur IV has guard impacts and 8-way-run, mechanics entirely unique to itself, as well as a dedicated guard button. Tekken, meanwhile, has no air control mechanic and, frankly, plays largely like a 2D fighter, though it's definitely very unlike SF in most every regard, and the move lists are comparable to that of Soul Calibur's. I haven't played Virtua Fighter in quite some time, but Virtua Fighter has a very different wake-up game and centers around extremely precise inputs, which gets doubly confusing considering the game's massive movelists. I can't play it, really. It's daunting.

Really, it's a matter of taste. I can't stand Tekken due to its focus on unbreakable combo chains (urgh...) or Virtua Fighter due to its inherent complexity, but I do much enjoy a good game of SCIV or SFIV. I have no idea what "dial-a-combo" means, but I think they're referring to Tekken. It's not really a problem in the SC games, with some exceptions.