Game Mechanics
Crawl
Hold ↘ to crawl along the ground. Sometimes called an offensive crouch.
Line Sway
Press A+B to jump to the opposite plane. If both fighters are on opposite planes, they cannot perform special moves, but can still move left or right. If a player is on the upper plane, he/she can jump, while the player one the bottom plane can crouch. If the player on the upper plane attempts to crouch, he/she will roll to the bottom plane, while the player on the bottom plane rolls to the upper plane if he/she attempts to jump.
Attacking a player on the opposite plane will have the character do a Line Sway Attack, depending on the button pressed. Press A or B for the Low Line Sway Attack, and C or D for the High Line Sway Attack. Pressing left or right on the D-Pad will move the character into that direction during the attack, instead of making the attack home-in on the opponent. All this attacks are overheads.
Strong Attack
Also known as the Line Blast, done by pressing C+D. When this attack connects, the opponent is thrown to the opposite plane. This attack can be done while crouching. The speed and hitboxes of the attacks vary by character and the current plane in which they are.
Throw
Press 4/6C when close to the opponent to throw them. Joe Higashi, Cheng Sinzan, Billy Kane, Laurence Blood, Geese Howard, and Wolfgang Krauser can also throw with 4/6D. Other characters have multiple throws with D (such as Big Bear and Axel Hawk), and some have air throws (Mai Shiranui and Duck King).
Dizzy Points
Every character in FFS has a stun gauge which when filled will make them dizzy. Below is a list detailing how many dizzy points it takes to stun each character.
Jubei, Mai, Tung: 13
Terry, Billy: 14
Andy, Chin, Duck: 15
Joe, Kim: 16
Laurence: 17
Axel, Geese, Ryo: 18
Krauser, Bear: 22
After being dizzied, a character has 8 points added to their limit. For example, if Tung Fu Rue is stunned, he would then require 21 dizzy points to stun a second time.
Dodge Attack
Press 6A while in proximity guard (character is visually blocking but isn't in blockstun) to do a Dodge Attack. Dodge Attacks have upper-body invincibility and can be canceled. Attacks in Fatal Fury Special will trigger proximity guard from a very far distance and for a very long time, so they can be used in many situations.
Below, each character's Dodge Attack has been ranked based on reach, startup, how easy it is to use, and finally, how well it compliments the rest of the character's moves.
| Character | Reach | Startup | Ease of Use | Complimentary Factor |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Geese | 4 | 5 | 3 | 3 |
| Andy | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 |
| Joe | 4 | 2 | 3 | 3 |
| Axel | 5 | 2 | 3 | 2 |
| Mai | 4 | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| Bear | 4 | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| Jubei | 2 | 4 | 1 | 2 |
| Cheng | 3 | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| Krauser | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Terry | 1 | 4 | 1 | 1 |
| Duck | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| Billy | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 |
| Tung | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| Laurence | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Taunt
Press C while far away from opponent to taunt them. Taunts serve no purpose and can be cancelled into any action at any time.
Back Dash
Move the joystick back twice to retreat. Characters are invulnerable for almost all of their back dash's animation. The few vulnerable frames are at the end and those can be cancelled into special moves.
Desperation Moves
When a character is at 33% life or lower, their life bar will start flashing. Each character has a unique Desperation Move that can only be used in this flashing-health state.
Basic Strategy
Advanced Strategy
Whiff-Canceling
I was experimenting with some of the whiff-cancelling like you've seen in the videos. It's pretty simple most of the time; with Geese, for instance, do D, D/F+C, F+C to to a crouching fierce immediately cancelled into Double Reppuken. Or Axel: Do QCF + B~A or C (in case you're not familiar with this notation, it means you press B then ASAP press A or C; it's best to put one finger over one button and one over the other) to do a standing B whiff-cancelled into Tornado Upper.
The interesting thing is that unlike in SF, some moves can't be whiff-cancelled; with Axel, for example, his far standing D cannot be whiff-cancelled. There's no real rhyme or reason as to which moves can be whiff-cancelled, it seems to be totally random; using Axel once more as an example, I thought his standing D didn't work because it is not a bufferable move. So I tried his sweep, a move which *is* bufferable, and that doesn't work either. So you'll just have to go by good ol' trial and error to figure it out. I can semi-consistently do Big Bear's close standing C -> command throw whiff-cancel, the one you've seen on the video; it's kinda hard to do and doesn't have any real purpose since his command throw is easy to do on the ground anyway.
Duck King's crouching D -> DM whiff-cancel, on the other hand, seems VERY useful...except it's insanely hard. I have only managed to do that once out of many tries, and still don't know how I did it. A good tactic I learned from this "experimenting": Geese's crouching C -> Reversal is a useful whiff-cancel to know. It's easy, too: All you need to do is move from Back to Down/Forward and press C, then move to Forward and press B or D. The reason it is useful is because the beginning animation of crouching C is clearly visible to the opponent, which can bait them into the reversal. And one more peculiar little note: It seems that you can whiff-cancel a normal move into a command normal.
Take Duck King, for instance...do his crouching D, and IMMEDIATELY move the joystick to the D/F position. You'll see the beginning animation of the crouching D and then it'll go straight into his slide. This is REALLY weird, because you could never do this in SF. But I like it.
Credit to Josh-TheFunkDOC
