Fighter's History Dynamite/System

Basic Game Mechanics

Back Dash

Tap to perform a fairly quick hop backwards to retreat. It doesn't grants invulnerability, but makes character airborne for it's whole duration. Backdash lasts 12 frames (13 frames for Ryoko, Jean, Mars and Zazie).

Throws

Throws are performed by pressing / + (some characters also have additional throws with , and Mastorius and Ryoko can throw with / + ). Throws cannot be softened or escaped in any way, but you can mash to reduce damage for Samchay or Clown's holds. Clown can do over 25% damage with enough mashing, giving him the best normal throw in the game. Throws can be performed on the reversal frame if the opponent is close enough. Throwboxes in this game are the same for all characters (ridiculously big).

Ray, Jean, and Ryoko have air throws. Air throws do slightly more damage than regular throws, but generally aren't seen too often in play. Unlike normal ground throws, aerial ones have different ranges. Ryoko can also throw in the air with /+.

Marstorius and Ryoko have command throws. Some can be done with /+ and some can be done with /+. The latter looks odd at first glance, but it's doable. Unlike regular throws, special throws can actually be comboed into if you're in range. Special throws have no whiff animation - if you buffer into a special throw off a blocked normal attack, you will instantly interrupt it with the button you just hit. You can continually repeat this as long as your attacks are in range, creating a blockstring to keep the pressure on the opponent. For this reason it's best to stick to performing Marstorius and Ryoko's special throws with , so you don't cancel into a that might whiff and put you in danger.

On wakeup, there are 7 frames of throw protection. This is ignored if you're canceling a normal into command throws. This can allow you to grab someone seemingly the instant they recover from knockdown. Same amount of throw protection also applies after air resets and blockstun, preventing tick throwing.

Combos

A very loose ground combo system is in place. Every character has at least one light attack that can be chained into any other normal move. Most combos consist of an optional jumping attack followed by a couple light attacks chained into a hard attack, and then canceled into a special move. Nearly every normal move is bufferable into special moves, with the exception of some command normals (such as Samchay's f+HP or f+HK).
There is no juggle system, except for Ryoko's hidden move, which allows her to juggle one free hit.

Dizzies

Dizzies work differently from most other games. Each character has a unique clothing item ("weak point"), which is damaged when hit, indicated by the screen flashing. Once the object takes three hits it will fall off and the character will become dizzy. You'll know that someone is about to be stunned if their weak point is flashing. You can only be dizzied once per round, which is a neat way to prevent redizzy combos.
Because every weak point is located in a different spot, some characters will have an easier time dizzying other characters. Naturally, certain moves will move a character's weak point around. When you gets dizzied, you can mash to get out of it faster. Unlike other games at the time, even with really hard mashing you will be vulnerable for at least ~1.5 seconds and opponent will have a time to prepare his best combo.

After a character has been dizzied, any further attacks to that character's weak point will deal 1.5x damage for the rest of the round. Characters like Lee and Zazie can often KO you by stunning you and following up on the weak point. However, you can also attempt to avoid getting hit and dizzied by Stance Shifting, explained under Advanced Mechanics. Each character's weak point will be listed in their individual section.

Hidden Moves

A popular misconception is that there are super moves in the game, which is not true. Some characters DO have secret moves which can be performed at any time, but they're only considered secret in the sense that they did not show up on movelists distributed with the game and the CPU doesn't use them. The secret moves tend to have input motions that aren't as "obvious" to discover as other moves, like Ray's Thunder Dynamite Tackle requiring a long charge into a dash input.

Advanced Mechanics

Cancelling Normals

In FHD, the overwhelming majority of normals are cancellable, giving more options for combos. All sweeps are cancellable, aerial normals are cancellable if your character has an air special move, and some command normals are cancellable. Anything that can cancel on hit can also cancel on block. You can also delay the special cancel, more notable on heavy normals, to throw them off from challenging you after blocking.

Auto Guard

After blocking an attack, you're automatically able to block every following attack as long as you're still in the original blockstun. You can hold back to block a jumping attack, and if they do any low attacks afterward you can automatically block them even if you remain in high block. Once blockstun has ended, you must block the next move in the correct direction.

Stance Shifting

When in either blockstun or hitstun, it's possible to switch from a standing to crouching position (and vice versa) between hits of your opponent's combo or block string. You might think it would be better to always go into crouching position once you are being hit, as going into crouch could make some high attacks whiff. But there is a very important additional factor in play in this game - when you go into a crouching position, it changes the hitbox for your weak spot too. Attacks that might not have hit your weak spot when you were standing could very well register when you're crouching instead!

Example: if Ray does his Thunder Dynamite Tackle against a crouching Karnov, three hits will register on his weak point and dizzy him instantly! But, if Karnov remains standing, none of the hits will connect against his weak point and he will not be dizzied. It's very important to learn how your character's hitbox changes in crouch - don't assume it's always a good idea to hold Down-Back once a combo starts!

Charge Motion Tricks

Charge time for the majority of charge-based special moves are very short - 40 frames, roughly two-thirds of a second. Some moves require double the charge time, however. They are:

Ray's Thunder Dynamite Tackle - 64f
Marstorius's Dash Lariat - 72f
Marstorius's Kneel Kick - 72f
Jean's Rondato - 64f

Charge buffering exists in this game too. Instead of doing a move as just Charge , + Button, you can instead do it as Charge , + Button. This allows you to immediately start charging immediately after the move is performed. You can also substitute the last press of with as well. You can even charge immediately after a flash-kick type move by doing Charge , + Button, but you have to be fast!

The input system shows some leniency for the last motion of charge moves - Charge , + Button moves can be finished with or , and Charge , + Button moves can be finished with or . Since you can also charge by holding , this makes some charge moves even easier to do - you can perform the ones that require a charge by simply starting the charge in , and then slide the joystick to and hit the button.

Damage Scaling

There are two different mechanics that adjust damage dealt in FHD.

Low health ("Guts"): when character is down to less than 20% health (not the same time the music speeds up, but a little after that), all damage from attacks is reduced by 50% (except normal and command throws). This makes it harder to kill with a chain combo that isn't cancelled into a special move near the end of the round. The best visual clue to see the threshold is character's name under the healthbar, look at the three letters that are closer to the timer.

Combo scaling: There's a damage scaling system for combos, but its rules are confusing at first. The game has two separate scaling systems for normal moves and special moves. Each of these have their own scaling values, which apply immediately after the first hit:

Normals: 100% → 75% → 75% ...
Specials and command throws: 100% → 50% → 50% ...

These two scaling values work independently from each other. Here are some examples to illustrate:

Samchay: cr.LKx2 xx HK Ti Kau Koon(2 hits)
Result: 7 → 4 → 24 → 12
Yungmie: jump-in HK(1st hit) xx Aura smash, cr.HK
Result: 20 → 16 → 21(28)

Player Side Differences

FHD does have differences between Player 1 and Player 2, though it's not unique for earlier Neo Geo titles. The known differences are:

P1 Lee can cross up foes in the corner with HP version of quick lunge punch, whereas P2 Lee cannot;
P2 always has +1 frame advantage over P1, thus making some links easier. This happens because of a bug causing P1 to suffer from 1 more frame of impact freeze (aka hitstop) than P2. This applies to normal and special moves (except fireballs), and makes trades work in P2's favor;
- Pushback also starts on this particular bugged frame, thus P1 suffers more pushback while doing combos or multi-hit attacks than he should.

As a result of these differences, tournament players tend to decide who picks their side by coin flip or rock-paper-scissors.

There are some exceptions to the P1 rule, so each character will have it noted on their page what moves can cross up in the corner. For example, only P2 Marstorius can cross up in the corner with D, U+LP or D, U+K