Zangief has many upgrades in HD Remix, but Blanka’s standing strong can still shut down every one of Zangief’s jumping attacks, his roll is still safe, and just jumping straight up roundhouse is still tough for Zangief to deal with too. Meanwhile, his good matches were still good: he still has advantage versus Vega, Zangief, and Guile. He was rarely played in ST because of extremely weak matches against Ryu and Old Sagat, but he now does fine in those matches and probably has an advantage against Sagat. This is conceptually similar to Ryu’s fake fireball in that you’re not sure if a real roll or a whiffed roll into bite is coming.Īs playtesting progressed, Blanka distinguished himself as a top character. Furthermore, the jab and strong rolls now have the same rotation speed and sound effect as the fierce roll, so you can’t tell which roll is coming by the way it spins or the sound. This makes the old tactic of whiffing a roll into a bite even better than before. First, the jab and strong versions travel a slightly shorter distance than before. There are two other upgrades to the horizontal roll. I would have preferred if Blanka had to block Ryu’s fireball after Ryu blocked Blanka’s roll, but making even this small change made the roll much too unsafe against too many things from too many other characters.
SF2 BLANKA UPGRADE
That’s quite an upgrade from getting hit back and knocked down every time, and it’s even a little better than I wanted. Blanka actually lands fast enough from his roll to jump over a fireball if Ryu throws one right away.
SF2 BLANKA FREE
But Honda no longer gets a free hit after the roll, and Ryu no longer gets a free red fireball. Bison can still hit it back with a well-timed Psycho Crusher. Dhalsim and Balrog are still able to hit it back easily (with standing fierce and jab rushing punch, respectively). In HD Remix, it recovers faster, but it’s still not completely safe. In ST, most characters can hit back Blanka’s roll after blocking or even being hit by it.