The Science of Cheap, Part 2: Tray’s Counter Attack on E. Honda

Since Corbin wrote his last article detailing how he can kick my ass in Street Fighter 2: Hyper Fighting with E. Honda, I’ve decided to go into a little more detail about why I think E. Honda is a snow jobbing dick-head in this game. Keep in mind that I’m not the ninja at SF2 that I was back in the day, but I can still remember the intermediate level stuff like doing basic combos, crossing up, etc. That being said, screw E. Honda.

Why do I think he’s overpowered in Hyper Fighting? Here’s a quick breakdown:

A) Chargable anti-air, head butt. In E. Honda’s case his charged torpedo move. This can be used consistently as an anti-air move for any jump-ins because it has a few frames of invincibility when it starts up and seems to have more priority than just about every air move.

B) Walking hundred-hand slap. This turns E. Honda into a tick damage machine anytime he’s able to get you down or cornered. It’s bad enough when E. Honda is over-powered with his regular moves, but it makes it a little lame when he’s able to take off loads of free damage without being left open to any counters after he finishes. Not to mention he can move forward while doing this - something that got nerfed in the next game.

C) His Flying Ass Stomp, or whatever you want to call it. His anti-air move that not only hits you on the way up, it also hits on the way down. This means that even if you block the first hit, E. Honda isn’t left open for a counter hit on the way down because you’re still usually in a blocking animation. There might be a small window open for a fireball character to throw a Dragon Punch, but if you’re not using a fireball character you’re probably screwed if you’re looking for a counter. Not to mention, as soon as you get hit with the downward Ass Stomp and you’re playing Corbin, you’re going to get some handslap tick damage for your troubles because you’ll still be in a block animation when Honda hits the ground.

To fight this I get stuck with playing an extremely cheap M. Bison and abusing his psycho-crusher move and its tick damage just to try getting close to going 50/50 with Corbin’s Honda. If I’m lucky I can get close and even win a few rounds in a row sometimes, but I have to play so cheap that it almost makes me pissed off! If that’s not a testament to what a horribly unbalanced fat-ass Honda is in this game, I don’t know what is. Oh wait, they nerfed him the next game!

Read Part 1 of this article