He seems to be top tier so far, and the problem is that he is simply everywhere.
Some nice Yoshi vs Jubei matches I stumbled across.
Because you mentioned about not being a lab player, I figured that such video would help rather than figuring out everything by yourself. I am not a lab monster myself either.
There are a few, but they are sort of combined in several characters: Genjuro > Haohmaru > Jubei
I believe Genjuro is the closest to a Ryu/Jago.
While if you also add in a âKenâ-type character you would get: Yoshi tora > Haohmaru
Not that I am aware of. I do have stable online lobbies with friends for about a week now but it depends too much on who sets up the lobby. Makes a huge difference, smh.
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@oTigerSpirit
This explains current community sentiment for Genjuro.
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He just feels like he gets an unreasonable amount of damage for pretty much anything that hits, and has a lot of mixup built in, between the rekkas, his low/high standing kick, and the invincible DP. From the other side of the stick it feels like he can land a medium (particularly crouching medium) about the same speed as Tam Tamâs light, and if he hits with any of his long ranged heavies (which visually appear to have massive hitboxes) youâre going to lose about 30-40% easy. Itâs difficult to make a Genjuro play by your rules, I find. Itâs usually Genjuro who dictates the flow of the game. It could just be early on and lack of real understanding of his character, but he feels like mixup, big damage, speed, and options all in one with no real downsides. If SNK does end up updating him, Iâd like to see him become a little less safe - keep the damage and the options, but make it easier for his opponent to get a heavy punish in when blocking or evading some of his options.
(have no idea how my standing medium whiffed while he ran straight at me after the weapon flip in round 2)
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First matches playing against Yashamaru online - he definitely has some big damage and some tricky play that I think is going to be crazy at tournaments once people figure him out. The downward command grab from the air is nuts, and difficult to train yourself to plan for when fighting him.
That DP almost reminds me of Eyedolâs jumping HP before it was patched. But either way, I donât really find the character to have that cool of a personality.
I actually think Iâll try to learn Haohmaru. Iâll give Jubei a try too. I think Yoshi looks fun as a pocket maybe. Shiki and Wu might also be interesting.
I wanted to ask though, how difficult is the learning curve for this game?
I havenât found it too difficult so far, I feel like learning to play KI made Samurai Shodown easier to pick up. Neutral is important, spacing, timing of attacks. Combos arenât really a thing, though some character have certain things which can combo. Iâm currently focusing on the inputs and uses for WFT, Super, Parry, and Dodge, other than learning matchups and specific punishes.
Learn which âtricksâ your character has, because the will-they-wonât-they feels important to me. Understand that you can recoil cancel some blocked/whiffed attacks into specials. Playing the mindgames in this feels important.
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Man, not gonna lie, the level of depth to this game is really urging me to pick it up this week.
Speaking solely on inputs, Iâm worried this game has rough timing or obnoxious motions like BlazBlue. Are they fairly simply like quarter circle, half circle stuff or is it like half circle back + forward charge type of deal?
Sorry dude, Iâm like asking so many questions 
As happened with Thunder, I have only played Tam Tam other than a little couch play against my friend. Tam Tam has QCF, QCB, DP, reverse DP inputs with varying buttons for the different specials, and his super special once-per-match move is FHCF.
The only complaint I have about Tam Tamâs inputs in particular is that I wish his QCF skull toss worked like Fulgoreâs - you can throw up to three skulls at once, any mix of high and low skulls. But you have to do the QCF input each time rather than QCF once, and pressing LS or MS for the second and third skulls.
There are universal inputs, like MS+HS for an overhead, standard throw and parry inputs, probably others Iâm not aware of. I wish the parry input was just a pair of buttons, rather than a QCF, but maybe thatâs just me.
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Ouch, that parry sounds risky with a dedicated input. Then again, if it were too straightforward it wouldnât be as risky for the reward.
Sounds pretty cool, as long as itâs not too BlazBlue or even Tekken level of curve level, I think Iâll be alright. Thanks dude!
Itâs not pro by any means but you can see what I mean about normals/neutral in my clips above. Most damage tends to come from those.
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There are three parries in the game.
Just Defense: one is the SF(3rd strike) type of parry. One has to simply press back before getting hit.
This builds meter: when your meter is full your output damage will be higher.
A weapon parry that does no damage but tosses your opponentâs weapon and gives lots of frame advantage. This is as @xSkeletalx mentioned QCF using light and medium slash. This requires no meter.
A second weapon parry which does extreme damage and tosses your opponents weapon. This is also QCF but with medium and hard slash. This requires full meter.
Then there are characters with parry moves such as Wu Ruixiang. (cannot remember who else atm)
Not at all for this game.
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The answer is really âno.â Hoaohmaru comes closest on paper because he has a forward traveling projectile done with a qcf motion and and upward rising special done with a f,d,df motion. But to say he plays like Ken or Ryu would just be untrue. Projectiles in Samurai Shodown donât really control space or lockdown your opponent the way they do even in SF2 (which is the closest to the speed of this game). It just doesnât play the same.
It is very easy to learn. Like all fighting games, getting âgoodâ is completely different. The barrier here is not about knowledge of the basic mechanics and execution. Itâs about recognizing spacing, punishes etc. But it is a very fun and compelling game.
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Ah, no worries, Iâm not really looking to be a pro player or anything, I just want to learn the most I can.
Lol, this is what I meant before about what I love about games like this, where there are layers upon layers in a single mechanic. I take it, in a very loose way of speaking, that this is sort of like the combo breaking mechanic, where it is risky and rewarding.
Nice.
Fair enough, I suppose I wasnât asking for an identical fit as much as I was asking about whose playstyle fits best for a Ryu/Jago main. It is true that this game is vastly different in terms of its approach, I have seen just how crazy it gets, but I suppose every game has a âRyuâ archetype. Not identical, but enough to say that their personality or playstyle is essentially balanced.
Sounds really good. Iâm glad this fighting game got a modern release. I am still looking for my âidealâ fighting game after KI. Hopefully, this game gives me a close enough fix.
Thanks fellas!
The main problem with Genjuro is, in my opinion, the number of tools he has from close distance.
Normally it is enough to block low with just the overhead to worry about.
Against Genjuro from close distance he can anti-air, do a command grab, do overhead, do a knockdown, hit you from behind with one of his specials, has huge range on normals with active frames. Therefore, simply blocking low does not work as is the case against all other characters.
There is too much guessing from one particular distance. You often have to play the perfect round to win a round.
So I donât think damage is the problem but his tools being very safe with low risk.
The risk and reward comes from popping âInstinctâ and losing your meter forever. Your meter fills up or goes down as you fight, however, your âInstinctâ can only be used once and you lose your meter for the rest of the match. Instinct gives you more damage output, a Damage Parry and also access to an âUltraâ (aka Lightning Blade).
The first parry type (pressing backwards) gives you insane amount of meter, which like I said,
when full, gives you increased damage output and access to the most damaging Parry (called Weapon Flipping Technique, the third parry type). This can be reactivated every time as long your meter is full.
Popping instinct in Round 1 is rare but becomes part of the strategy in R2 or R3. It acts like a combo breaker when you activate it. If you cannot beat your opponentâs defense then disarming (through Weapon Flipping Technique parry) might be your best option which means you cannot lose your meter. This means you might not be able to pop instinct. These are overall strategies. Of course there are multiple mind games on a micro level.
So, the choice is to keep your meter throughout the match giving you constant access to damaging parries when your bar is full, or take a gamble and use up your meter to try and finish your opponent with Lightning Blade (50-90% damage) but you lose your access to your damage parries and meter altogether.
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Patch 1.03 was released today fixing a bunch of online issues. Have not seen the patch notes yet, so we will have to wait for those.
Iâve read the Japanese 1.03 patch notes and one of the fixes is: âfixed a bug that would increase the probability of lag occurring during online matchesâ.
Not sure how much this fixes, or if it fixes everything, but at least something was done to improve performance.
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Yeah, it didnât fix anything. Just got a huge lag in a match with a US player. Also my game crashed twice when I was invited to a lobby today.