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Kattobi Cancel in CvS2

By Maj

Kattobi canceling originated in Street Fighter Alpha 3 and makes its return in the first game since SFA3 to feature Custom Combos - Capcom vs SNK 2. Quoting Shoryuken.com's Alpha 3 Kattobi Cancel article, Kattobi canceling "involves doing a normal move and canceling the first few frames into a Variable Combo (VC), which produces some interesting results." In CvS2, Kattobi cancels involve Custom Combos rather than Variable Combos and are only available in A-Groove. The basic principle remains the same in CvS2 - with your meter fully charged, perform a normal attack with a strange trajectory, immediately cancel it into CC Activation, and your character will retain the trajectory of the normal move performed. The timing of this cancel closely resembles the timing for Kara Throwing in SFIII: Third Strike and works for the same basic reason.

Capcom, in an effort to make its fighting games more beginner-friendly, allows all normal moves to be cancelled into any special or super move in the very early frames of their startup. By implementing this window of allowable error, Capcom has made it much easier to get specials and supers out even when the commands to perform them are not performed perfectly. The side effect is that canceling certain normal moves this way into certain special actions (command throws, CC activation, etc.) causes the character to behave in a different way than if the special action was performed without canceling out of that normal. So essentially, Kattobi Canceling and Kara Throws are a natural consequence of the Capcom buffering system and that's why Kattobi Cancels still exist in CvS2 even though they were identified as bugs in SFA3. However, the ones in CvS2 are far less valuable in gameplay than those in SFA3.

The most powerful ones in SFA3 were V-Zangief's F+MP (hopping headbutt) Kattobi and V-Ryu's F+MK (hopkick) Kattobi. Neither of these two exist in CvS2 because Zangief no longer has the hopping headbutt and Ryu's hopkick takes much longer to get off the ground than it did in SFA3 - too long to produce a useful Kattobi Cancel.

V-Guy's and V-Rolento's Kattobi Cancels caused the biggest glitches in SFA3, but neither carries through to CvS2. Guy is not a selectable character in CvS2, and his replacement, Maki, has no normals that lift her off the ground the way Guy's DF+HK move did. V-Rolento's F+MK (pogo attack) Kattobi is still doable in CvS2, but the CvS2 version simply has A-Rolento Activate CC while airborne and land immediately with no time to even get an attack out, effectively eliminating its ability to affect gameplay.

V-Akuma's j.D+MK (divekick) and V-Dhalsim's j.D+HP/j.D+K (drill) SFA3 Kattobi Cancels are both present and intact in CvS2 without any major changes to either. Capcom must have realized they existed, but did not consider them major problems. This makes sense because any time during gameplay that Akuma or Dhalsim could use their Kattobi Cancels, they could instead CC and use their dive attacks to pretty much the same effect. Yun, a new character in CvS2 who also has a normal dive attack, can produce a Kattobi Cancel effect very similar to Akuma's and Dhalsim's.

V-Chun Li's DF+HK (flip attack) Kattobi Cancel is yet another one that translates directly to CvS2, but nothing cool results from this other than a strange jump trajectory and the (randomly occurring) ability to do her powerful vertical jumping HK attack while moving forward in the air.

CvS2's A-Guile has the newest Kattobi in the game, and results from canceling his far s.HK into CC Activation. Guile hops forward slightly and is considered airborne very early on during the startup of this move. The Kattobi Cancel results in Guile leaping forward about 1/4 screen length over a period of time so short that it doesn't even allow him to get an air attack out before he's grounded again. Nevertheless, this technique can be useful in footsies when playing against an opponent with more range than Guile, but this is an even rarer occurence than someone using Guile in A-Groove. Still, this Kattobi is worth noting simply for the fact that most hopkicks in CvS2 (including Guile's own F+MK hopkick) are never actually considered airborne. To test this, have the Training Mode dummy throw a fireball at you and try to hopkick against it with your character of choice. You'll notice that instead of causing a knockdown as it would if your character were airborne, the fireball only causes your character to reel backwards, still on his or her feet. Guile's far s.HK is one of the rare exceptions to this convention, and therefore a unique candidate for Kattobi canceling.

Armed with this super secret knowledge available only to the other nine sonichurricane.com readers, you may now go forth and dominate with the new top tier team of A-Guile/ChunLi(2)/Yun!! It wouldn't hurt to drop me an e-mail either.

Special thanks to ohayo1234, Mouko, omni, and Choiboy.