Mechanics Showcase 2

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Hey Everyone!

Today I’m going to be focusing on a few of the game’s universal mechanics. These options are available to pretty much all characters meaning no matter who you choose to play, knowing these tools will be useful.

First of all we have the basic offensive/defensive interactions. When you’re attacking an opponent but haven't managed to land a hit yet, they can block, causing your hits to deal reduced damage and preventing them from entering a combo-able state. The attacker does have a few options here to get around a blocking defender, the most straightforward of which is throws. All characters have access to at least a grounded and an airborne throw, with a few characters having additional throws in their movesets. Throws will hit through blocks, allowing you to use them to open up a guarding opponent.

The other way to beat a blocking opponent is through crossups. When an opponent is guarding, they can only defend in one direction. If you hit them from the opposite side, they’ll be unable to block the attack unless they also change the direction they’re guarding.

Next is the two primary movement mechanics: jumping and dashing. Jump is fairly straightforward, acting pretty much exactly as you’d expect: it moves you upwards. Characters have varying jump heights and fall speeds, as well as differing numbers of air jumps, allowing you to jump additional times in the air, but at their core, they’re all the same.

Jumping does have a few special applications on defense. During your jumping animation, you become completely invincible to throw attacks but, as a tradeoff, you lose the ability to block until the animation ends. This means if you suspect someone is about to throw you, you can jump out of the way, but if you’re wrong and they hit you with a non-throw, you won't be able to defend yourself.

Dash is an easy mechanic to use with a ton of different applications. It allows you to move with a quick burst of speed left or right both on the ground and in the air. Characters may also have differing numbers of air dashes, which are restored when they touch the ground. Dashes are immune to non-throws partway through the motion which can allow you to slip past attacks to get in on someone, or slip out of a blockstring, allowing you to escape an aggressive opponent.

Additionally, the motion can be canceled into an attack of your own, letting you counterattack after avoiding an attack, or after using the dash to reposition, making your offense hard to block.

That’s all for now, we’ll see you next month with more DFN!