Help! I suck at Street Fighter!
 

So, I recently purchased SF2: Long Name Edition, only to find out that I'm not very good at Street Fighter. Do any of you guys have tips for getting better? Like characters that are good to start with, tricks for pulling the combos off quickly, shit like that? I just want ideas other than hours upon hours of finger blistering practice. I mean, I'm still going to put those hours in, I just don't want to spend all of them sucking at the game.

If you can't learn to do something well, then learn to enjoy doing it poorly?

Blanka. He's an absolute beast (ho ho ho).
The real thing about Blanka is that he's easy to defeat the computer and inexperienced players with as he has the agility to skip over projectiles (and his long range spinning attack is very fast) as well as his electricity to bugger up melee. And he does lots of damage.
Though the thing about SF2 is that it is fairly well balanced and there are no out and out broken characters or strategies ( it got better with more releases). If you have an early SF2 version, throws are very very good. Got a bit nerfed later.

Sagat is broken. As well as Balrog. Other than those two, I don't have many complaints except that learning how to use Ryu and Ken can help to learn more characters later on and their own unique abilities.

You're forgetting the easiest character in the world.

Chun Li has the best jumping ability, and the easiest special move- Hammer the kick button.

There is no beginner in the world that doesn't adore chun li.

I dunno, didn't Chun Li have a really bastard hard to pull off fireball attack which required sliding your finger from right to left through all the diagonals? Or was that the upside hurricane kick? Either way it was difficult.

And only a noob spams the kick button, so if you want to actually get good, learn to avoid using that too much, or face losing any and all respect. Same goes for Hondas slap attack and Blankas electricity.

As for my advice; Dhalsim. Extendable arms and legs allows you to keep distance on your opponents and still attack and if they get too close you can fireball them in the face. Teleportation is also useful for creating distance and avoiding projectiles. Occasionaly throw in a random corkscrew to catch people unaware and you shouldn't have any problems.

Chun li has every move has a two direction + attack button.

Charge Back, towards+Punch: Fireball.
Charge Back, Towards+Kick: Spinning Bird kick.
Charge Down, Up+Kick: Arial kick.
hammer kick button: Lightning Legs.

She's also one of the few characters that can bounce of the wall for a double jump, and her down+heavy kick is a headstomp that can be used to effectively crossover.

Definitely the simplest to learn.

Oh and her super can be 'held' so after you do the directionals, so long as you're even somewhat holding forward, you can press kick to launch it.

Yeah, but it was also a really shitty fireball that Capcom added in later editions of the game that wasn't worth using anyway. It was hard to pull off, slow, easy to avoid, and just plain weak. It was quicker and more effect to just jump over to your opponent and kick them in the head a bunch of times then jump back across the screen before they had a chance to retaliate.

Also, Bison is hella easy. Hold back before the fight even starts then hit forward and strong punch. As you're flying across the screen in your Psycho Crusher, hold the D-pad down in the direction you're moving. When the Crusher is over, hit the D-pad in the other direction and hit strong punch again. Continue flying across the screen over and over again spamming your most powerful move until match is over. You win at Street Fighter.

Alternatively, if you screw up the Bison combo, swich to Holding Down+RH(roundhouse or 'Fierce Kick'). You'll do a long range sliding kick that can save your ass- and also stunlock your opponent.

You need to master the following tactics

Ryu
Hadouken + Jump Kick or Hurricane Kick

Ken
Hadouken + Jump Kick or Dragon Punch

Chun-Li
Flash Kick + Fireball

If you can spam these at will, you will become a succesfull noobie