Out of the three characters I've one credit cleared this game with, I consider Mai the most difficult to use. It's not super hard overall, but she's definitely not got things as easy as Terry or Geese.


MOVES OF IMPORTANCE

KA CHO SEN QCF+A or C	RYU EN BU QCB+A or C	MUSASABI NO MAI During a jump, hold down + B&C or C&D	HISATSU SHINOBI BACHI HCF+C
Mai throws a fan at the opponent.	Mai spins around and hits the opponent with her belt, setting them on fire. This is the special move you'll be using the most.	Mai dives towards the opponent, this move can hit them twice. You won't be using this one much.	Mai leaps towards the opponent and hits them with her elbow. This is only really useful against the final boss.

KAGEROH NO MAI Down, Down+A+B+C

Mai creates two fire clones of herself, which spin around her. Another move you don't really need, but it can do decent chip damage.

DESPERATION MOVE CHO HISATSU SHINOBI BACHI F, DB, F+C&D

A super version of her HCF+C. You shouldn't need this either! Only use it if you can finish the opponent off.

COMBOS

The most complex combo to use in this run consists of three moves. Jump towards the opponent and do a strong kick, followed by standing strong punch, then QCB+A. This combo will knock the opponent down with the ryu en bu. You can also try doing a jumping strong punch instead of strong kick to start the combo off, but it's more difficult to do. Finishing the combo off with QCF+A also works, but it's not as good as move to use than QCB+A.

If you get the chance to counter attack, the easiest combo to do is a close range strong punch to QCB+C. Or just mash the strong punch button three times, then press strong kick. Either of these two combos will send the opponent flying away from Mai.

DEFEATING THE CPU

For the first five opponents you should be able to beat them just using the jumping strong kick, standing strong punch, QCB+A combo mentioned above. My advice would be to pick Joe as your first opponent. He has a habit of countering your jump in with a tiger kick, he won't always do it but I find it's best to get him out of the way first. If you do the jumping strong kick too early, just hold down to do a crouching strong kick for the next move. If the opponent gets hit by this they'll be knocked down, if they block they'll be pushed far enough away from Mai that you can jump in to try the combo again.

MAI

CPU Mai tends to jump and dash around all over the place constantly, she's rarely ever not moving. To beat her, you're better off constantly doing the jump in strong kick, crouching strong kick. CPU Mai has this issue where she will sometimes jump right into your jumping strong kick. If you manage to knock her down, move back and then jump in with the strong kick again, and repeat.

ANDY

Andy is just as bad as dealing with jumping strong kicks. It's the same strat here as it was against CPU Mai: keep trying to land a jumping strong kick, then do a crouching strong kick. If you manage to push Andy back to the corner of the stage then you might want to try and get him with the three move combo. But otherwise, just using strong kicks is the way to go.

HON FU

This was the guy I got stuck on originally. The problem with Hon Fu is that if you try and jump towards him, he will usually counter it with his dragon punch move. So for this fight, you'll want to play defensively. When the round starts, get to the corner of the stage and stay there. What you then want to start doing is jumping backwards and doing a strong kick whilst Mai is still in the air. If timed well, Hon Fu frequently jumps towards you and gets hit. Depending on the spacing you can then do a crouching strong kick to knock him down. Then resume jumping away from him. Unfortunately, Hon Fu loves to waste your time, as he may back dash away from you when you do the kick.

If Hon Fu is a fair distance away from you, there's another strategy you can try. Throw out a fan and Hon Fu may switch planes to avoid it, dash towards you, then switch planes again. He won't attack as he switches back, so you'll want to move into position and hit him with a combo as he switches. This isn't a great strat though, as sometimes Hon Fu will use his rolling attack to go under the fan.

SOKAKU

When the fight starts, back dash, then do QCF+A. What will hopefully happen is that when Mai throws her fan out, Sokaku will jump forwards, but will mistime his jump and land on the fan. You can repeat this several more times, at which point he'll be too close to you and will jump over you next fan. He's not great at dealing with the jumping strong kick, but you want to keep trying to keep your distance and throwing out lots of fans.

TERRY

Terry is a lot like CPU Mai -dashing around all over the place and generally being difficult to land a hit on. If you try and jump towards him and do the jump kick, he'll switch planes to avoid it. If he moves back he may throw out a power wave, so you have the chance to land a jumping strong kick on him, but that's probably all you can do. And it's not guaranteed he'll do a power wave -he may do a full screen burn knuckle and hit you as you're jumping. However, he has the same kind of weakness as Hon Fu -if you get him away from you and do QCF+A, he should switch planes, dash forwards, then switch back. But he won't try and attack, so what you need to do is move in as he's dashing, and do a combo on him when he switches back to your plane. He may block the fan, so just be ready to throw out another one.

GEESE

Geese is the most difficult opponent in the game. He tends to block a lot, and doing a jump kick is risky because he may try and counter it with one of his uppercut moves. This is where the musasabi no mai comes into play, but you can't just spam it. If you do it at a distance away from Geese, he is almost definitely going to deal with it by using one of his counter moves. But if you do it a bit closer, he's more likely to block it...

...or, in the best case scenario, get hit by it. But there's another tactic you can try. If you do a neutral jump whilst close to Geese, it can bait him into doing a reppu ken (ideally the double reppu ken). You don't want to jump if standing right next to Geese, you need to be a short distance away from him. Whilst Mai is still in her jump, immediately do the musasabi no mai. What should happen is Mai will do the move, and Geese will get hit by it because he's still in his reppu ken animation. His projectile will completely miss Mai.

YAMAZAKI

Yamazaki is surprisingly bad at dealing with Mai's jumping strong kicks. He has got a counter move he will sometimes use, but it's a bad move. The reason it's bad is because his counter strike is so slow you should be able to block it. So long as you block, it leaves him wide open to a combo, my recommendation is to always use strong punch, QCB+C.

The thing to be most wary of with Yamazaki is his snake tamer move. This move is a very fast punch which he can do at a straight or upward angle, he will sometimes use it if you jump towards him. What makes this move so dangerous is how much damage it does, which is a lot. He won't use it all the time, and if you knock him down, immediately do another jumping strong kick as he's getting up, he won't have time to counter with it. Keep trying to do jumping strong kick, crouching strong kick combos and make use of the counter strat mentioned above to beat him. Overall, he's still much easier to beat than Geese.

CHONSHU

Don't bother jumping towards Chonshu -he will use his dragon punch move to hit you out of the air practically every time. The easiest way to beat him is to use the same strat used against Hon Fu. When the fight starts, move to far left or right of the stage, then start jumping backwards. Chonshu will approach you, once he's in range, do a jumping strong kick. Ideally he'll just get hit, so try and follow it up with a crouching strong kick, then resume jumping back. He may try and counter with his projectile, but usually he'll fail to throw it out due to him getting hit by the kick. Sometimes he may jump towards Mai, but again, you should be able to hit him in the air.

CHONREI

Chonrei is unfortunately the most difficult opponent. You can attempt to use the same strat used again Chonshu, but Chonrei tends to use his dragon punch move to knock you out of the air during your jump. The only other strategy I could find is one you can only do when he's on the opposite side of the screen than you. Do QCF+A, then do HCF+C. What will hopefully happen is Chonrei will block Mai's fan, then do his own projectile. But Mai's HCF+C will go right over it, and he'll get hit instead. Once he's hit, immediately back dash and do the QCF+A, HCF+C strat again.

The main problem with this strat is that Chonrei has a move where he can reflect a projectile back towards his opponent. So you might have to throw out fans a few times before you can go for the HCF+C. He may also use his own projectile to stop the fan, the only thing I can say is that once he throws out one projectile, he usually always follows it up with another, so be ready to jump to avoid taking any chip damage. Finally, one other tactic is to let him get fairly close to you, then hold back and press strong kick. If you can get the spacing right, Chonrei should do his crouching strong kick, but it'll miss and he'll get hit by Mai's spin move, which will push him into the upper plane. Move back, wait for him to switch planes and approach, then do the same thing again.

YOU CAN DO IT!