No super attacks disscussion today since I'm feeling like shit [there's a post below this post that kinda explains the start of my day] plus the fact that special attacks are a monster of an article in the first place.

Special attacks

Ah, the ever useful “fireball”. To tell the truth this might be the largest section of this article since special attacks are fairly deep. As all people know, special attacks are usually what results in our good old “fireball wars” where we just wait for one slip-up to land an attack which would have been worth more health if we just jumped over the fireball and comboed the fucker. Although I’m not here to explain each attack, I will explain some of the ways to understand the nature of commands related to the special attacks. But first the general nature of special attacks.

As seen in SF games, special attacks (usually short formed called ‘specials’) each attack corresponds with a different level of the attack button (P or K) used weak, med, or strong. Most of the time use of a weaker attack button when you perform the attack would result in:

- A slower special
- A shorter distanced special
- A less hitting special
- A weaker special

In KOF sometimes the attack results in a totally different attack. One when looking at Terry Bogard nowadays, he has two types of ‘fireballs’ both done by a QCF (quarter circle forward) + P. It all depends on the punch. His WP results in his regular travel-full-distance-of-the-screen fireball. But his SP. results in a small gush of power that hits anything within a few feet in front of him.

As the power of the attack button used increases ( i.e. from weak to medium) the properties could result in:

- A faster special
- A farther distanced special
- A more hitting special
- A stronger special

Now onto: the special commands.

Special Commands

QCF (quarter circle forward) + Punch/kick: The quarter circle forward motion usually represents a fairly offensive special since the very movement of it screams offensive attack. It’s quick with the joystick moving forward.

For the punch, it usually translates into the traditional fireball. For non-fireball characters, it would translate most likely to an advancing special that ends with punch. However for the kick, it usually ends up with some two different connotations. Just another advancing special but ending with a kick, but in the case of Sagat in SF2, depending on whether you use QCF + P or QCF + K, it would results in a high or low fireball respectively. This shows that especially in the Capcom button layout, punches and kicks also represent where they are position on the arcade pad, high and low. So this emphasizes the idea that punch = high special and kick = lower special in the special attack world.

QCB (quarter circle back) + Punch/kick: This too equates to the above, however it must be understood that sometimes these types of specials have a more defensive nature. Not to mention that sometimes it also can be associated with atypical specials since the act of rotating the joystick back is fairly atypical especially when associating it with an offensive special. However the interesting thing is that specials such as these using kicks, usually result in a type of specials that actually “rises” above the ground and kick the person in the famous hurricane kick of Ryu.

DP (F, D, DF) + Punch/Kick: Now I should mention I also had problems performing this move long ago. I would sometimes individually tap each direction really quickly in order to try and get it. But in order to pull it off consecutively, just press forward and do the QCF motion. Practice of course makes perfect.

Now usually the DP motion refers to Ryu and Ken’s dragon punch move from SF2. It was usually regarded as an anti-air attack. Anti-airs are basically attacks that defend yourself from opponents jumping towards you and attacking you. Usually it’s a move that fairly vertical with little horizontal movement at all. It can involve many things (usually a flying uppercut) but still it could also involve a throw, a kick even a column of fire. However it could also represent a powerful attack since it’s association with the early days of SF2 where the DP was very powerful indeed.

HCB and HCF special (half circle forward/back) These are special are usually associated with grappling special, especially in the KOF series. As you can see these specials emphasize more investment in time, therefore getting more of a reward in damage against your opponent. When associating with grapplers/wrestlers, these are usually toned down versions of the dreaded SPD (a full 360 on the joystick) special moves, although are very useful due to how easy they are to perform.

SPD/360 specials: Since Zangeif was the first to utilize the 360, from herein any reference to a 360 joystick movement would be called ‘SPD’ (spinning pile driver). Relatively it should also be mentioned that moves that require a 720 joystick movement would be referred to Zangeif’s super ‘FAB’ (Final Atomic Buster). Now as you can see, this move is primarily regarded for a lot of grapplers. Note that in some faqs, 360 and 720 are usually used in place of it.

The very mention of trying to pull off a SPD shows how much effort is needed in order to land it, hell, sometimes you need a set up in order to go totally around in the joystick in order to complete the move. A hell of an investment for a hell of a payout. In the early days, landing one SPD would results in about 50% of life GONE. It’s been toned down incredibly now but nowadays still puts fear into the person on whether or not you are going to SPD their ass into the ground.

However to tell the truth in SF, the SPD doesn’t truly needed a 360 nowadays. So no more jumping around spinning your thumb to a nub in order to pull of an SPD which you’ll probably never land or just get the shit kicked out of you.

It’s just that it requires at least 7 points on the joystick to be ‘touched’ with a punch in order to really to pull off a SPD. In fact less than that since most players starting to SPDs actually only do a simple F, D, U +P motion (forward slide to down, up). Granted at most this is like only 4 points but it really does work since you hit enough points and leave the jumping “point” on the joystick left, the punch button is pressed before you actually leave the ground, but the game actually registers that joystick command. So on the ground SPD!

Specials that require you to hold a button: Easy enough to know, just think Mega Man and his charge shot, and you should know what holding down a button means. Longer means more power in the attack. Of course it’s very hard to pull off sometimes since it leaves you stationary in your set up time. However like Mega Man who appeared in the Marvel VS. Capcom (MvC), if you hold down FP (Fierce Punch) for a long time, his ‘fireball’ would charge longer for more hits. In the meanwhile, he can do anything such as jump and do other attacks, except for FP.

Before I go onto the idea of “Super Moves” I think I should also elaborate on some special move properties.

Invicinbility Frames

Long ago in SF2 the first one, Ryu and Ken’s Dragon Punches (DP) actually was truly invincible. Nothing could knock them out of it on their ascension to aerial ass kicking. You couldn’t drop kick them out of it, nor punch them out of it. They could be right under you and as you jump, they’ll still knock you flat on your ass. This is what is meant by invincibility frames. Every move has a certain amount of frames, and sometimes the programmers assign “invincibility frames” to some of the moves, usually the beginning.

An example would be to put a Ryu and Ken match in SF2. Let’s just say Ryu and Ken are fighting, and they’re about a few feet away from each other. Ryu tosses out a DP, and about half a second later, Ken tosses one out as well. What will happen is on the way up, (the attack phase) they would actually touch, but not hit each other.

Ryu would be the one that gets the damage from this meeting in the sky. The reason why is that since both characters DP are just totally invincible going up, going down meant their open for an ass-whupping. Since Ryu went first, he would be the first one to get hit. Therefore Ken is still in his rising animation while Ryu is going to recovery by floating down to earth, but will get hit.

Now Capcom knew that this posed a problem since it was basically too powerful of a move. So nowadays, the DPs are only a few frames in the start of the move, which is still good since to some degree it could be used both as a defensive and offensive attack. Some people will take advantage of their invincibility frames in order to blow through one attack and hit the opponent.

Now this mention of invincibility frames brings to mind…

Recovery time

Often called recovery time or recovery frames, this is the time it takes for you to regain control back from your character when they perform any move. When you are in this time, your opponent can basically have their way with you.

A jab would have really small recovery time, where as a fierce punch would have longer recovery time. This is fairly important since special you make would have a element of risk sometime because of recovery time. In the case of Ryu and Ken, their DP havehuge recovery time because the height they go up might be invincible, but the exact same height they come down is all recovery time AKA being vulnerable. Recovery time really varies because often it depends on the type of special move that is performed. Usually the more elaborate/powerful the attack, the more recovery time that it usually associated with it. Also usually on the technical side, recovery time is measured by frames, as well as set up time.

Two in one

You probably heard this term before for it’s been used very much. Easy enough what it means is when a special move is “buffered” from a basic attack. Prime example would be:

Holding down, pressing Jab, sliding the joystick DF to F and then pressing Jab again, results in a fireball.

What results is a Cr. Jab into Fireball. Basically what happened is part of the command for the fireball special move, has already been inputted by initially crouching straight down. This means that it is possible to have basic moves come out (and not interrupt you making an attempt to perform a special move motion)
and have a special move (or even super move) come right out after it, resulting in a combo.

Now that isn’t always the case since sometimes some back moves cannot be interrupted period or it just takes too long to recover from leaving the time you actually input the special move, it doesn’t come out. This brings up the point of “linking”, which basically means the ability for certain moves have their recovery frames interrupted to perform another attack to extend your combo (or at least have their moves recover fast enough to do something else).

This technique is very powerful since it would help set up some special moves, or supers with just basic attacks but with less risk of merely pulling off the special move or super.

This technique can also be related to “buffering” which means basically doing a basic attack in order to perform a motion for a special. Prime example would be Zangeif who would often do a basic move in order to buffer an entire 360 in order to perform a SPD.

Priority

I mentioned this term before when I described the potential of offensive and defensive crouch. I don’t know where exactly to put this, since this applies to all forms of attacks, basic, command, special and super. However I decided to put it here since it seems to be a misc. type thing.

Basically priority is exactly what it sounds like. Which objects or actions gets performed first. Generally speaking the highest priority attack is those who have invincibility frames, such as the DP of Ryu and Ken of SF. This means, this move will basically hit you opponent out of any attack they might do at the same time, hence your attack takes priority over *any* of your opponents attack.

Below attacks that have invincibility frames (or are invincible period) anything is game. A Cr. Jab might over-prioritize a Roundhouse, or a standing Forward Kick over a jump Short Kick. The point is that it’s good to find *basic* attacks that are high in priority since it can be used with less risk than the other attacks. A prime example would be:

Capcom VS. SNK 2’s Sagat’s Cr. FP. Why? It’s because Sagat’s Cr. FP is insanely high on priority. It would basically nullify almost any attack short of attacks with invincibility frames. It doesn’t just end with priority. As you can see, reach is also a high point since his attack extends fairly far, in-fact farther than most characters with a Cr. FP. And since it’s so high in priority, it can also be used as poke. (Pokes are attacks [usually jabs or shorts] that are used for the sole purpose of causing people to block in order to perform another move such as a throw or force opponents to back the fuck off.) Hence priority is often a big thing, and as recently it is has been also somewhat of a game-breaking feature (Capcom VS. SNK 2 has only Sagat and Blanka as the top characters to use, essentially making all the other characters useless).