Capcom Supers: Capcom usually experiements with other types of fighters before attempting to go ahead and apply it to their flagship game SF. In X-Men: Children of the Atom (and basis for the VS. series), they had supers as well, one entire bar. But Instead of merely one super bar associated to only one super move, they instead incorporated many different types of supers in that one bar. At certain points of the bar, characters could use a part of that bar to perform a super attack or an enhancement of ability such as speed or power (Usually those ability enhancements were those moves that used up less of the super bar).

Wolverine had one super move where he tore the shit out of people when the bar was full, but also had a super move that required about 2/3s of the bar in order to heal/regain his lifebar. This translated into Street Fighter Alpha (SFA), a series where the timeline is set between SF2 and SF1.

Street Fighter Alpha (SFA)

In the SFA series, the super bar had three levels. At each level you can pull off a super of either lvl. 1, lvl 2, or a lvl. 3 super. Naturally the higher the bar went, the more powerful or more hits the super did. Also it is good to note, that always using a lvl. 3 super just to try to kill someone isn't always good because tactically it might prove stupid.

A lvl. 1 or lvl. 2 might be quicker. It really all depends on when to actually use it, because sometimes, even a lvl. 3 super might not be worth the effort in order to get more damage in when comparativly to what a lvl. 2 does. The waste of another potential lvl of super is just too great. Another thing to consider is regarding back to priority, since some lvl.s might have different priority than others. Not to mention the fact that even different levels result in different types of supers (not all the time but in some cases). So it really is up to the person to study whether or not it's good to use what lvl. of super in the fight.

As for the commands, most often for Capcom it's a double joystick motion of the move, with the appropriate button press. For example, Ryu's Super Fireball is:

QCF, QCF + P

It's kind hard to learn at first since using all the special move commands it just's hard to learn not to press a button right after the first QCF. But on a joystick it's fairly easy since it doesn't need to be totally anal and you can just rub the joystick QCF up back down and up again, and it should register. On a direcitonal pad and you if you have a big enough thumb, merely flex your thumb twice, for it to roll over the motion twice, easily. For ever super of a certain special, it would always try to mimic the movement properties of said special.

HOWEVER this technique used to do a super such as described above does not translate into SNK fighting games such as KOF. Their joystick system is a bit different where what is written has a totally different way of performing it which I'll explain later.

Another trick to learn is the "charge" chracters and their supers, such as Guile or Blanka from SF2. Usually it's:

Charge B, F, B, F + P

That is for their own respective moves. Pretty easy but probably the most difficult super motion that I have problem performing is the dreaded "Flash Kick" super, usually for Guile and his clone Charlie:

Charge D, DF, DB, U + K

This super is usualy used as primarily an "anti air" super, usually which involves a hefty amount of rising. This is usually a super that requires your opponent to be in the air as you pull it off for optimal effectiveness. As you can see how difficult it would be to pull this off since the whole ordeal of it would have you ending up sucking dropkick if you aren't fast enough. Yet people still can pull this off.

One last thing to touch upon is Level 3 only supers. These are super attacks that only be performed when your character has built up the super bar to level 3. Usually these moves are very elaborate, often flash, and very hard to actually land. Hell in SF:EX2 (Capcom's venture into 3D gaming, but it was more like 3D characters on a 2D plane) everyone had a lvl. 3 super and most of them seemed useless as well with KOF 2002 which had Hyper SDMs (HSDMs) which were essentially the Capcom equilavent of a lvl 3. (possibly a lvl. 4 since most of them were pretty outrageous).

The thing is, for such a super to actually *require* a super bar at lvl. 3 to perform, usually equates ultimate move with precise execution. Often the move would have the character very vulnerable when they set up their move, and hell, even very vulnerable when they miss the move. Which leads me to two points, the "Raging Demon".

Command supersThis was basically the first command in SF history. The owner of the Raging Demon technique is Akuma, ultimate bad-ass of the SF series. Actually it was called the "Bison Killer" since in SSF2T, if you managed to get a certain amount of super finishes, perfects and not lose a round; your final fight with M. Bison would be interupted by Akuma jumping in and laying the smackdown on M. Bison in one attack, thereby challenging you.

Basically what the Raging Demon is, is a move that hits 15 vital points on the character, essentially killing the. There's some fucked up more geeky stuff behind it, but I feel filthy enough so I'll end it there. First: 'Why it's called a command super'. The reason is simple, because it's all in the excution:

Raging Demon = Jab, Jab, (press towards), Short Kick, Fierce Punch.

As you can see it's very much like typing the thing out, hence the term command super. Your seemingly inputting 'commands' into the game in order to do it. However often in fighters, they called it merely the "Raging Demon Super", regardless of what which buttons are pressed in which order.

What results for the super is Akuma floating towards his opponent and if he connects with the opponent (it's actually un-blockable) 15 hits later, at least 50% of their life is gone. Now note, that I said "float" towards his opponent. As you can see he's *very* vulnerable at this point of time. Hell a Jab could knock him out of it. Most of the time, lvl.-3-only supers are this hard to land, because of the amount of payoff involved in landing it. Whether it's imposed "limits" would be Akuma's vulnerable 'gliding', to having to be right beside the person in order to perform the super, to even having to exactly pin-point where the super hits to maintain maximum painage. And most of the time, lvl.-3-only supers are totally not worth it. You really need to do your research in order to find out what is good or not.

Next time SNK supers