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                 - Archived Entry -

06.07.2004 - CvS2 Roll-Cancel Low Fierce
(originally posted without multimedia at VideoOpera.com on 02.04.2004)

Game Version: Capcom vs SNK 2 / Dreamcast / Japan / 2001

So i finally got around to doing something with lowfierce.com (which is a domain i registered as storage space to use during a big project). Head over and click on the image to see a video of how it was done. Just don't expect anything more to be added in the foreseeable future. I guess this is as good a place as any to put the explanation.

In CvS2, there are a handful of instances where a move must connect in order to become cancelable. The most obvious ones are C-Groove lvl2 supers and A-Groove Custom Combos. In order to do any cancel other than a normal move into a special move during a CC, the attack must connect. Well, the quirk is that it doesn't matter what connects as long as something connects after you start the move you want to cancel. So if you do standing roundhouse and it connects, you can cancel into another standing roundhouse. But if you throw a Sonic Boom from full screen distance and do a standing roundhouse just before the Sonic Boom connects, you can cancel into another standing roundhouse after the Sonic Boom connects even if the first standing roundhouse whiffs entirely.

So it turns out that you can cancel all normal moves and special moves this way, but you can't cancel certain other moves using this method. Roll and dash are two such moves. Even if you get something to connect after you've started a roll or dash, you still can't cancel out of it.

But of course everyone knows about roll-canceling, which is done by kara-canceling the first three frames of the roll into a special move. So what you can do is throw a projectile, perform a roll just before it connects, kara-cancel the roll into a special move, then once the projectile connects you can cancel the special move into whatever you want.

Well, it seems as though Taunts fall under this category of cancelable special moves. There are a couple of Taunts in CvS2 that can hit the opponent, so Capcom must have just gotten lazy and turned the whole set of them into cancelable moves. It's not that surprising, considering that Taunts have pretty much always been considered special moves. For example, Ryu has always been able to do low forward xx Taunt in any game he's had a Taunt.

So with all of this in mind, what A-Sagat does in the clip is activate A-Groove CC mode, throw a jab Tiger Shot, do a roll-cancel Taunt right before it connects, and cancel it into a low fierce once it does connect. The low fierce retains the invincibility from the roll so you have Roll-Cancel Low Fierce. But really it's Roll-Cancel Taunt Projectile Cancel Low Fierce.

There are a couple of ways to make this whole scenario look more flashy. First, you can throw the jab Tiger Shot and then activate CC. In other words, it's not necessary for the Tiger Shot to be done during CC. Second, you can substitute a Tiger Uppercut or Tiger Knee for the Taunt, which gives you the sound byte "Tiger Uppercut" without the uppercut ever appearing. Third, you can use a mid-range super fireball instead of a ground fireball by timing the super correctly so that the opponent releases the super fireball, then runs out of invincibility and gets hit by Sagat's Tiger Shot. And fourth, you can take that a step further and use a roll-canceled mid-range fireball, but that's making things pointlessly difficult. Then again, this whole thing is pretty pointless aside from mildly amusing people. The worst part is that they won't even know what's going on until you make them read this essay, and reading technical essays kills mild amusement. Catch 22.

cvs2fbcancel04.jpg (320x240, 50 KB, JPG)
cvs2fbcancel04.wmv (0:09, 891 KB, WMV9)