I learned that using special moves is not the way on this game. However I'm not that good, but I finished all first 4 games (at the beggining I had to go on easy level, then I got medium). I used Haohmaru, using had slash is good, but some the AI gets used, and then medium slash gets better, it is faster and has a great reach. Depending on enemy you can keep low and wait for his jump and do a hard slash. Or medium slash if he approaches walking. Only when enemies gets far I used a tornado, some times you can use it to force the enemy to jump. A combo that some times I used is the jump hard slash and then the Ougi Kogetsu Zan. I did not get Ougi Kogetsu Zan to work on jumping opponents (as on SS2 Shoryuken), the probability he hits you is higher than you getting him. I don't known it is the best, but I got though it using most hard and medium slash (on rare cases the medium low kick is good)