Character Types

#1

As the title says, this is about the types of characters. I’m not talking about the archetypes or whatever (hero, cute girl, etc), but more like game play types.

I’m not new to fighting games at all, but I’ve never found a community in town for these kinds of games…course the one arcade we had got shutdown, so that pretty much kills any chance of that. Even still, I’m not a complete noob at them. I’d say I’m on that line between beginner and intermediate. I can do some basic canceling and all that, but I’m unfamiliar with the majority of terms used out there, especially when labeling a character as such…even more so, what it is about said characters that makes them such.

Rushdown, turterler, technical, all words I’ve seen used in various guides…but I’m unfamiliar with them and in most cases, can’t figure out why a character would be labeled as such (especially when it comes to technical).

So pretty much, if it’s not too much trouble at all, if one (or more) of you could enlighten me on this subject (via here or a link). I’m pretty much curious about all the different types and what kind of techniques generally make up that kind of character type.

Thanks in advance.

#2

http://sonichurricane.com/articles/sfterms.html

#3

Thanks for that link there. It has cleared a lot of things up for me. I’m gathering that rush down characters are more of the big combo types of characters and turtles are more of the hit and run types. So, when considering those two, is it the type of moves they have that play more of a factor in which category they fall into, or is it more of their recovery and all that? And still, what, if anything, makes a character technical compared to rush down and turtle? Or is that just another way to describe a character better played defensively?

#4

the simple way to generalize is this:

rush down characters force mistakes

turtle characters wait for mistakes

most of the best characters in their respective games can do both. The moves that let them rush or turtle are game dependant. You’d really have to be character and game specific. But mostly you can just watch for style.

#5

I see. When reading those terms, I was under the impression that there were specific categories of specials and supers (in general, not character specific) that made up those two styles, rather than them being game and character specific. Though from the sound of things, chain attacks are more for rushdown characters and counters are more for turtle characters.

By chain attacks, I’m talking about specials like KOF’s Kyo Kusanagi -gami chains and Street Fighter’s Fei Long special (forgot the name) that you perform three times in a row, different animation each time. Specials like those, not the Darkstalkers and MVC normal (for lack of a better term) chain combos. For counters, though I guess they’re not normally counted in this category, I am including specials that either absorb or reflect projectile attacks, not just stuff like Geese and Rock’s (King of Fighters, Fatal Fury) counter specials.

Anyway, thanks for clearing that up for me.

#6

I wouldn’t try too hard to categorize characters. Most characters in modern fighters are a mix of everything more or less. They might do better at one thing, but that doesn’t mean they can’t do others.

#7

Yeah, but it’s when people classify a character as one specific category, seemingly like they should only be played that way, that throws me off though. Like for example, I’ve seen some people label Kim Kaphwan in King of Fighters (2k2 and up) as “pure rushdown.” Yet after learning what I have, I don’t see how. I don’t know, maybe I just suck with him, but still. That’s just one example of many.

I must admit I had another reason for asking, though genuine curiosity was the main one. A group of online friends and me do a lot of forum style role playing (where it’s like you’re writing a story, no dice or numbers or anything like that). One that I started with them is pretty much based on the action (near as can be) of 2d fighters, as well as anime in general, and I pretty much got stuck with making the lists for two of them, one pure offensive, the other pure defensive.

I figured it’d help if I learned what move categories make up a specific playing style, but since I’m not…knowledgeable about that, and haven’t had luck in finding exactly what I was looking for, I figured it’d be best to join this place (from what I gathered on reading gamefaqs and looking through other sites, this is probably one of, if not the biggest, fighting game site, especially for 2d) and ask. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t join specifically for this question, I’ll be posting elsewhere and all. But yeah, like I mentioned before, I see that I was pretty much wrong about the whole categories thing and that it seems more like the type of move doesn’t matter as much as it’s speed and recovery.

#8

Post-2k2 Kim is pretty much a pure rushdown characters.
They took away the priority of his anti-airs, so you can’t pretty much sit back and turtle. They also improved his Triple Crunch (QCB+Px3) so much that they’re no reason NOT to use it in combos. So also because far more combo-centric than in older KOFs.

As a side-note, the multiple repeated command specials (Fei Long’s Rekka Ken, Kyo’s Aragami, Iori’s Aoi Hana, and Kim’s Triple Crunch) are usually just referred to as “rekkas” than chain special moves.

#9

Thanks for explaining that to me (as well as reminding me of the name of Fei Long’s special), Return of Shiki. I just used chain cause I didn’t really know what else to call it…and I have no illusions as to where that name comes from…lol.