8+ hours of grinding later... I did it! F you, SSF2, you are mastered.
Same rules for the master screen: beat the hardest mode with no rounds lost. I went with Vega this time because he has great counters, excellent range and good damage. Not having a projectile takes some adjusting, but once you figure out how to deal with each enemy, it's no big deal.
Actually dealing with each enemy is a big deal, though... it's not like you can just spam the one strategy and win. There are always 2-3 opponents that fall to the same method, but there are multiple fighting styles you gotta master to beat everyone. Took me forever to learn how to fight Ryu and Ken (they are pretty fun to fight, though), while Vega was total chaos and Bison was... hell, I still don't know how I won. I adopted the same strategy the ~5 times I made it to him and somehow one of those times it worked. The videos I watched make him look pretty simple, so maybe I was doing something wrong.
The new challengers aren't bad to fight. Dee Jay, Cammy and Fei Long are free. I always thanked RNG-sus when they appeared on the list. T. Hawk is braindead easy 90% of the time, but he can throw you off with zero effort sometimes. I still prefer fighting him (difficulty-wise) over Guile or either shoto. Chun Li was boooring. I hate this fight because the safest method (that I found) involves waiting for her to stop spamming fireballs, which can take literally the whole fight. When you're frustrated after the 87th retry, this kind of thing can make you extra salty.
Gotta admit that I had way more fun than I expected. I might do World Warrior to close the series, but I dunno, WW is practically the same game as Turbo.
Notes I wrote while practicing:
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