As far as what to delete or not, that's totally up to you. I see strategies and tips shared in nearly every contest thread here, I feel like it adds to the conversation.
It's not like there's a big world wide web out there, with a million strategy sites already available for viewing, or something.

Bea gave us amazing point-by-point breakdowns in some of the NES threads, like Ghosts 'n Goblins, etc.

Also, you quoted it. So delete it now really makes no sense.  

Yeah, I'd leave it. No biggie.

Hell, you all will likely get a complete breakdown how to exploit the AI with Zangief posted here during the month as I figure it out.  
Sharing knowledge only makes the competition more fun, bringing the level of the players a bit closer.

Hi everyone, played a bit yesterday but didn't had a good enough run yet, I'm playing with Guile don't know if anybody else is using him but I'll share a little bit of the strategy I'm using, I hope quest4nes doesn't mind  , this helpful for me as well as I'm trying to put some order in my ideas.

Basically my plan is to stay crouching charging flash kick and sonic boom while keeping the opponent away with crouching MK & HK, what I want is them jumping towards me so I can flash kick them, then immediately charge a sonic boom so I can throw it so it hits them while they get up, regardless if the sonic boom hits or not I throw them a crouching HK, sometimes both hit and they get dizzy so I throw them into the corner, sometimes they block the sonic boom but the crouching HK will sometimes hit, even if they block both the c. HK will often lure them into jumping towards you so you can flash kick them & repeat the attack.

Probably the easiest match-ups to get perfects are Honda & Barlog, apparently they cannot deal with the c.MK so they have to jump towards you.

Zangief & Chun Li are a little trickier but still relatively easy , their c.HK is fast/high priority so if they time it right it will hit, Chun Li will jump a lot so she's an easy target for the flash kick.

Ryu and Ken are not hard but one must be careful of chip damage as it will ruin a perfect.

Blanka is tricky, his c.HP seems to always hit me if I abuse c.MK & c.HK, I try to keep closer to him and keep the pressure in the hopes that he jumps towards me at some point. One must be careful not to miss a hit or he will hit back.

Dhalsim is really hard to get perfect, I don't think I've done it yet, his c.HK (slide) seems to always hit me and I cannot seem to find a way to lure him into jumping at me (he happily stays far away), also one must watch out for his Yoga Fire. My regular strategy plan falls short, maybe somebody else has tips for him?

Vega is tricky, a little difficult to get perfect but I've done it once or twice, he's very fast and high priority jumping HK but the trick is to hit him with a deep flash kick (that is execute it at the last possible moment), this also works when he goes into the fence to jump towards you, a deep enough flash kick will hit him. One thing is that this guy will back-flip to avoid projectiles when he stands up, what I do is that I use the LP sonic boom that travels very slowly and as he back-flips I'll just walk towards him, it will eventually hit him if he doesn't reach the end of the screen and you can follow up with a h punch or a h kick for a good amount of damage.

Sagat and M. Bison I haven't played them a lot to develop a plan yet, Sagat plays somewhat like Ryu/Ken but harder, his jumping HK hits me half the time if I try to flask kick him, and I haven't even beat Bison yet without continuing, tips are welcome  

I has a problem:

Besides the fact the Blanka is trying to take a mid-air shit while doing a Bevis impression, he seems to have changed his name to "K".  And no matter how well I score with "Chu", I have a blank score. Reboot didn't help, and used a diffrent known good rom.  Other SNES emu I have plays like poo poo, so I got a snes cart comming.  I did the ultimate collectard thing, and overnighted one off Amazon     I might work on the mame cab too after I'm done cutting my foot off with my new toy:


Side note, to the winner, I should come to where you live to congratulate you.  This has nothing to do with the sawblade in the picture.  Unrelated, ignore that.  I sure am not making a veiled threat. And I don't have over 1,000 acres of farm land to hide bodys.  So don't let that concern you at all.  Everyone, just play like your life depends on it. 

I hope people realize my no help walkthrough post was more light hearted.

Still not helping you people though  

For Zangief, you should be getting two easy perfects with Guile. Just keep jumping neutral and hitting him with a neutral jumping strong kick.
At level 3, he will keep walking to you and eating those jump kicks. Even at level 7 he will keep doing that, jumping seldom. And if he does jump, Guile's jump strong kick has priority over all 'Gief's jumping attacks.

That's what I always do when I face him with Chun Li. I use the same strategy against Balrog.
 

It works for pretty much everyone against 'Gief save 'Gief himself, because there are no mirror matches on this port.  
So, by playing him, I am giving up two almost guaranteed perfects.
But a womanly woman only plays 'Gief!

 

Awesome thanks for the tip Bea and mbd, good to know it works with pretty much every character, will try it out tonight! Bea good luck with Zangief, curious about what kind of strategies you're using.
 

I got two perfects on Zangief and two on Guile. I went into the Vega fight with over 600k, and of course I lose. Stupid Vega. It seems like he can cancel your attacks whenever the computer feels like it.

I am devising a few strategies considering 'Gief's limitations on vanilla SF2.
For now I have one that nets me a perfect on Ryu 90% of the time.
Walk to him at the start of the round, throw with HP or HK, walk towards him, strong sweep barely before before he gets up, he will be hit, repeat, he will be in the corner, sweep twice more with proper timing and he will be dizzy. Throw for a perfect.
Repeat it on round 2, or lose round 2 and repeat on round 3 if the AI somehow decides to screw you up.
For Honda, strong sweeps, pressuring him into the corner. If he jumps use standing jab to stop whatever attack he tries to pull. You will beat his jump attack 95% of the time with it.
For Blanka, I am still working on it, but it seems that "dancing" with him is the way to go. Throw him at the start of the round, move forward a bit till you are close enough, take two or three steps back so he walks to you, walk forward and throw him again.

Still working on reliable strategies for the others, and on my body splash, crouch jab, crouch jab, standing jab, spinning pile driver and on my whiffed jab when the opponent is blocking to spinning pile driver game back.
 

Ok, nice. I hate the role of the newbie taking initiative and messing up with thing.
Btw, all, my apologies for butchering your language. I know my English is far far away from perfection.





You are welcome to visit Europe.
Now, for some inexplicable reason I have a weird feeling that I'll finish in any position between 2nd and last. Also, for some reason I'm shaking. Must surely be that the fall that is coming.
 


Seriously speaking, I'll be extremely happy with something like a 7th overall rank, with about 70% the points of the winner. I'm not a pro gamer, just someone who happed to liked to play this game a lot when it was released.  
 


Also, discovering about the "source" tab in the pop up window, was good for being able to multiquote!  

***

On the contest rules: I lost the first round of the first fight, and started the second round with 4000 points. So, in some cases you score points also when you lose a round. This could open this possible scenario: win bt perfect round 1, lose in purpose round 2 scoring points, win by perfect round 3. Now I understand better the OP proposed rule to have the game ending when losing a single round.

Also, little side note, victory by time with the health bar fully filled, it is a perfect: if timer is low and you are 100% health, keep on jumping over these fireballs waiting for a time victory is an option for a perfect.

That's all folks for now, I hope to be able to update the score with something around 700k soon.  

I honestly had no idea that SFII would be such a popular contest game. Guess I could replace something in next year's slate with Turbo

Had my second highest run of 766k tonight. Got to bison on that one. Wasnt going to beat my 831 so I wasnt pumped for the bison fight. Got my ass kicked anyway.

The scoring system, is poor for such type of contests imho.

In facts I think that SFII was one of the last big sprites fight game to have a points scoring system.

Not only the AI is weaker or stronger depending on the number of the match (i.e. face Ryu first opponent is a joke, face Ryu 7th opponent is a joke quite less funny) and this is fair, not only is weaker or stronger within a match depending on previous rounds results, but also, I start to have the strong feeling (I have no proof, this is just from teh experience from these games I played, I never played for points before, always to finish up the game) that it is weaker or stronger also depending on your score.

Example, for instance, ChunLi: vs. Ryu 1 perfect, 2 perfects vs. Honda, 1 perfect vs, Dalshin, 2 vs. Zangief, Ken battle won with several points, fight #6, way over 300k points already, Guile:

Round 1: Turtle up, Sonic Boom Sonic Boom Sonic Boom Sonic Boom Sonic Boom you finally get closer... Rainbow Kick Sonic Boom Sonic Boom Sonic Boom Sonic Boom Sonic Boom you finally get closer... Rainbow Kick Sonic Boom Sonic Boom Sonic Boom Sonic Boom Sonic Boom you finally get closer... Rainbow Kick .

Round 2: ok, he won round 1, so he is more relaxed about his special moves, a couple of umbrella jump kicks enter (unless he does the punch in the air thing) and you deliver few grabs somehow, a couple of punches maybe, you avoid low kicks since his 360° low kick always hits at the correct time, carefully you somehow manage to win the round.

Round 3: Turtle up, Sonic Boom Sonic Boom Sonic Boom Sonic Boom Sonic Boom you finally get closer... Rainbow Kick Sonic Boom Sonic Boom Sonic Boom Sonic Boom Sonic Boom you finally get closer... Rainbow Kick Sonic Boom Sonic Boom Sonic Boom Sonic Boom Sonic Boom you finally get closer... Rainbow Kick .

Game over.

Do the same sequence of first 5 matches struggling, reach Guile #6 with a lower score, and he's way more beatable. This can be just a feeling, selective memory, or tough luck with random numbers, but it does seems like it could be true when you play: get to fight #6 and #7 with many points, such battles are tougher.

Bottom line, overall the feeling is that if you struggle to win, you get far, if you do so well and dominate, you are punished by a tougher AI. Again, I could be wrong, that's just a feeling I have from the games I played.

All this being said: SFII is SFII !

I mean, I don't know about US, but here, in the years it was really popular, any arcade shop had a line waiting to play SFII. One SFII would make more money than other 3 coin up games put together.

About Turbo: yes, it is better. But I so much rather play World Heroes than a 3D Tekken.  

Matter of personal taste, of course.  

Edit: formatting.

Bold part: if this happened playing with ChunLi, I must be missing something. I lost more often against Guile, than against Vega. So far, contest matches, Vega was the max. I could reach so far. Pretty much my games 60% end at Guile, 40% at Vega.

Vega is annoying, but I know that if I'm concentrate enough to take the correct timing on his jumps, and the AI helps out a bit, with some luck, I can perfect him twice over 3 rounds once in a while. The same can be said with Sagat.

Guile instead, I always struggle, no matter what, he's the only one I can never perfect. Bison is tougher, of course.

So well, if what you state is true, I must be missing something here.  

It is likely that I forgot many things from playing in the past.

Edit: formatting.

So with Zangief the plan is basically get close, get some hits in and then grab him for the win, almost completely opposite of what I would do with Guile, sounds pretty fun actually! I'd imagine timing would be especially important to get perfects, you cannot miss a blow while close because it leaves you vulnerable an CPU is quick to counterattack.

User I've noticed the apparent increase in difficulty as I continue winning matches, don't really know if it's really happening or not but I tend to get more perfects in the first few matches.

Here's a strategy that I use with Chun Li that sometimes results in a perfect against Guile.

Start the fight by going up to him and throwing him. Then immediately jump kick him which should result in him blocking, and then immediately follow with a throw. Go up to him again and try to finish him off with a series of neutral jump kicks and hope that he doesn't respond with a flash kick so that you can get the perfect.

BTW, never try to throw Guile after he lands from a flash kick because he'll always be the one to throw you.

 

This one I can confirm. Ruy AI first fight is NOT Ryu AI 7th fight. an abyss of difference!

What I'm wondering about is if Ruy 7th fight with >300k points is harder than Ryu 7th fight with <200k points.

bold part: definitely true!

I'll try that opening moves that you suggest, if it works with me too, I think I'll break 650-700k pretty soon. When getting Guile -> Blanka first matches sequence, I score around 550-600k losing to Vega.

Perfects up to: 1 on Balnka, 1 on Dalshin, 2 on Honda and Zangief, 1 on Ryu or Ken, 2 on Balrog. But little constancy, if I score many of these in the normal opponents, the I miss both ones on Balrog (maybe distraction I don't know), and score like 599k bah.

I'd say about 4-5-6 perfects per game in best games maybe, and 1 round won against Vega in the 624k which I posted. Honda and Zangief the easiest opponents by far.

I just played some Super Ghouls n Ghosts. I last beat this game around 8 years ago so I'm rusty. I've only managed to get to the raft part of the second level on a single credit. I at least want to get to the third level before I submit a score.

Meh first 7 fights are the same regardless to me.

Just finished a round to improve my score a tad. Got 8 perfects in first 7 regular battles and 2 perfect baldog and a perfect vega. Lost to vega in round 3 though. So thats where it ended.