keyboard and mouse?

[Broken_Ai]

do you need a controler to play or is keyboard and mouse fine?

[CarThief]

Well there's gonna be a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of people condemning keyboards or preferring controllers here sooner or later, but personally, having played everything with a keyboard so far, i've had little to no trouble.

At first the only things i couldnt really pull off where 360s some characters use, but now i can pull even those off, because apparrantly the direction of the 360 doesnt matter, as long as you make a 360. In any direction, left or right. It also helps the game has 360 assistance of sorts by making sure if it finds you trying to do an 360 it will prevent you from accidently jumping.
They're still tricky to do though, but this is somewhat intentional as they're used for blockbuster grab moves you cannot escape once they get going.

It ultimately comes down to preference, but using a keyboard for this does need some practice, motions like the QCF/QCB (Quarter Circle Forward/Back) are simple enough, and you'll see em alot for blockbusters or special attacks. The 'z-motion'/dragon punch motions are going to require some practice though, personally i just mash QCF/QCB twice or so and then press the punch or kick button to do said move. It takes a moment to pull off but its reliable enough.

Anything else is all up to how you set your buttons, doing some complex motions or going from one button to another may be difficult with some setups. I dont use the default keybindings or its type of layout so i'm not sure if the default layout will help with that but i'm guessing there's a fair chance it should work fine. Atleast for normal gameplay, instead of crazy taunt inputs. :P

If it helps, here's what the game uses by default, if i recall correctly... LP (Light Punch) is set to Q, MP (Medium Punch) is W, HP (Heavy Punch) is E, LK (Light Kick) is A, MK is S and HK is D. I could be slightly mistaken though...
Arrow keys to move, i dont remember what the default macro(assist calling) buttons are, if any.
So you're looking at 2 rows of 3 keys, the game appears to be built on this setup so i'd imagine it works fine if you can get used to it.

Oh and personally, i'd recommend not changing the macros to anything else, by default they're set to calling assists and it can be a pain to remember what 2 buttons you need to press simultaneously to call an assist in manually.

So uh, short version: No, you can play just fine with a keyboard. It just takes some practice. :P

[SlyKrow]

If you're going to do Z-motion you have to press forward then QCF. That's how I learned Street Fighter on Xbox.

[JasonS]

I wouldn't attempt to use a mouse but I've heard plenty of solid players who say they prefer keyboard over a controller.

That said, if you want to play in-person against another player its best to learn how to use a controller because A) Keyboards don't work on 360 or PS3 and B) Windows PCs can't handel two keyboards at once so if you get keyboard player vs keyboard player it sucks, lol

[CarThief]

Hm, well i should give that a try sometime in training mode, maybe that it works better.

And i suppose in all the vastness of the internet there isnt a single program that might help a PC handle the pressure of multiple keyboards without having one lock up the other? Or whatever issues of the sorts may occur. Havent tried it yet but if a program makes it viable it would help play alot of different games on the same PC. Games with drop-in/out local multiplayer seem popular lately.