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Learn essential Red Bull Kumite lingo with this fighting game cheat sheet
All the video game tutorials in the world mean nothing if you can’t speak the language so get ready for Red Bull Kumite with our essential guide to fighting game terminology.
It's time to swot up for the world’s most prestigious fighting game tournament.
Red Bull Kumite takes place on March 16-17 at New York’s Greenpoint Terminal Warehouse in Brooklyn, so get the lowdown on some need-to-know fighting game terms with our glossary of its most important words right here.
01
Genre
2D
The most common type of fighting game, in which the fighters can move horizontally and vertically, but cannot move in the third dimension. This category usually values quick moves that control space in neutral. The offensive threats usually are high/low set-ups and strike/throw mixups. Street Fighter, Guilty Gear, Samurai Shodown, and countless other titles are 2D fighting games.
Samurai Shodown is a 2D fighting game
© Athlon
3D
Games that allow movement in the third dimension. Characters can move within a 3D space, moving along the Z axis of the screen to create a better position and often to sidestep the opponent’s offence. This subgenre has a major focus on positioning, with moves taking longer to start up, and finish, making whiff punishing deadly. Examples include Virtual Fighter and Tekken.
4/5/6 button game
A way to categorise games based on how many buttons you will be using to attack and do special moves. ABCD buttons in games like Marvel, PKSHD for Guilty Gear, LMH punches and LMH kicks for Street Fighter.
Airdasher
A type of fighting game, usually with anime aesthetics featuring high mobility, specifically a universal airdash. This includes franchises like Melty Blood, Blazblue and Guilty Gear.
Arena Fighter
An offshoot of the 3D genre, it largely differs in the scope of the map as well as how the camera follows closely behind the player character, rather than simply staying between the two. Arena fighters give you way more ability to move around and engage with the environment of the stage. Many of the subgenre’s most popular games are based on anime, and zipping around the stage recreates that bombastic energy.
Platform Fighter
Adding platforms makes for a radical change in these generally in 2D games. The possible types of stages are endless as showcased in series like Super Smash Brothers, and Rivals of Aether. The rules often change to a knockout system as opposed to bringing the opponent’s health to zero.
Super Smash Bros
© Nintendo
Team Game
A game in which you can have two or more characters. Games with two characters on a team are usually referred to as tag games. Team games change the way the player has to look at their decision making, before the match even starts. Team synergy, overall strategy, as well as understanding matchups become all too present in the minds of good team game players.
X-touch game/character
This saying refers to the amount of times a character has to get an opening in order to fully deplete the health bar of the opponent, considering the maximum optimization that is feasible in game. This takes into account the whole process of getting the first hit, the combo that will lead to your next opening, usually through okizeme.
02
Basics
7 Golden Letters
A flawless victory where the winner took zero damage or, in some games, zero chip damage. Flashing the word 'perfect' on screen, the game makes sure to let the loser know they have some work to put in the next round. This could also be referred to as 'five' golden letters if you’re up on your FGC memes.
Abare
Challenging the opponent’s attach with an attack of your own. This is usually with a jab, but doesn’t have to be. If the defender is confident the attacker is leaving big gaps, they can use a strong starter to punish and disincentivize the opponent from stretching them thin.
Air to Air
A neutral technique where you meet the opponent in the air to either pre-empt their air approach or punish unsafe movement.
Assist
An assist is a move you can call on that corresponds with your team-mates who are not currently on screen. They will pop out and unleash their assist attack, which is often one of a few options available at character selection.
Barrier/Faultless Defence/FD
Barrier/Faultless Defence is a similar concept shared by the BlazBlue and Guilty Gear franchises. Both negate chip damage and allow the defender to block grounded attacks despite being airborne. Both add blockstun and cost meter. Most importantly, both add more pushback to the opponent’s attacks.
Conversion
A conversion is how well a player goes from getting a hit into maximizing the damage and advantage afterwards. The best possible combo from any given hit would be considered the best conversion. The process is: land a hit in neutral, recognize what kind of hit you landed, choose the best option, and execute. Often, you have to do this very quickly before the combo opportunity passes.
Chip Damage
Another fighting game staple, chip damage is the damage done to one’s health bar despite blocking the incoming attack. Some games have options to mitigate chip damage like Barrier/Faultless Defence, or giving the player the ability to reclaim the health lost to chip somehow.
Delayed Hyper Combo (DHC)
A type of tag that a player can do in team games after their point character does their super. The input changes depending on the game, but it tags in the next character on the team into their super. This is one of the main areas that demands synergy in team games since picking incompatible supers can lead to whiffs on incoming.
Team Hyper Combo (THC)
Similar to the DHC, in how it involves multiple supers, this mechanic summons all characters on the team at once (if you had the meter) to do their supers. Instead of ending the first character’s super like the DHC, the THC has all the supers happening simultaneously, which can create even more mayhem and team strategies.
F-shiki, aka fuzzy (it will get weird)
The act of locking the opponent in standing blockstun, and taking advantage by delivering a surprising overhead mixup. This could be through forcing them to block a rising overhead, or even an instant airdash mixup. Since they have to keep standing, moves that would normally not hit a crouching opponent will connect, so if they don’t adjust their input accordingly.
Fuzzy Techniques (told you it gets weird)
Fuzzy mash, fuzzy tech, fuzzy jump etc. Despite the earlier mention of instant overheads and mixups, this has nothing to do with the previous entry. Inputting something 'fuzzy' is about timing your inputs so that you can adequately respond to the opponent’s offence based on the possible order they might run. (Blocking but inputting throw tech a bit later to cover if your opponent grabs instead of attacking, you would still be able to tech the throw).
Grab
One of the main pillars of fighting game decisions is throwing the opponent. In most games, every character has a regular grab, which is one of their primary tools to combat blocking.
Command Grab
Very similar to regular grabs, but a command grab is in the form of a special move. A command is input and the character will grab the opponent if they are in range. The effect of this grab is usually more pronounced than the universal grab.
Guard Cancel/Alpha Counter
Guard Cancel usually costs meter and exchanges it for an invincible attack out of blockstun, intended to get the opponent off of you in overwhelming situations. Most often, the attack itself does no damage, and leaves the opponent in a generally neutral position after. In team games, it is often in the form of an Alpha Counter, where one of your team-mates replaces the character on screen and does an attack with the same intention as the Guard Cancel. If this move is baited, you are probably about to take a max damage punish, so be careful.
Happy Birthday
A combo in team games that hits an assist as well as the opponent’s point character, this can mean the game ending without them getting to play their second character. Damage on assists often has little to no scaling so, with optimization, players can usually touch-of-death at least the assist character, especially when you consider they are receiving twice the meter for each hit.
High
A type of attack that must be blocked standing in most games. These attacks can be ducked in games like Tekken.
Hit Confirm
A hit confirm is when a player visually registers that their current attack hit the opponent, and then reacts in time to change sequences and deliver a combo they otherwise wouldn’t have mindlessly went into. A mark of focus and reaction, it’s a key component of conversion.
Infinite
An infinite combo is a combo that, if done correctly, can only end through the opponent’s health bar depleting or the timer running out. Usually games have systems in place to stop would-be infinites, but players sometimes find ways to access them, such as the TAC glitch in Marvel vs Capcom 3.
Marvel vs Capcom is a very different fighting game
© Capcom
Instant Block/Just Block
A technique present in many airdasher-type games, where an attack is blocked right before it makes contact, usually giving the defender some benefit, such as less block stun or more meter gain.
Instant Overheads
One of the staple ways to close out the round, instant overheads are jumping attacks that are basically impossible to react to. In older, more messed up games, often an instant overhead simply hit crouching opponents anyway, but now you probably have to set up a fuzzy situation.
Knockdown/Wakeup
When a character is hit by a move that sends them onto the ground, they are referred to as being 'knocked down' or in 'knockdown' state. How you can interact with the opponent when they are knocked down depends on the game, but one thing is common, the opponent will get up eventually, referred to as their 'wakeup.
Low
An attack that must be blocked crouching, watch your toes!
Merry Christmas
A Happy Birthday in team games that hits all three characters on the opponent’s team. Just like before, damage scaling and the extra meter gain mean that players can usually kill the assist characters with a good combo.
Mid
This type of attack can mostly be blocked no matter if the opponent is crouching or standing, these must be blocked standing in Tekken, however.
The long-awaited Tekken 8 is here
© Bandai Namco Studios
Neutral
Neutral is the game state where neither player is actively blocking, getting hit, or knocked down. Players are free to move and try to gain space, or close in and get their attack started.
Okizeme
Oki for short, this is the opponent’s offensive decision intended to strike the opponent as they get up from being knocked down. Players often look to mix up the opponent, or simply try to re-establish their attack.
Pushblock
Usually seen in games with suffocating attack like team games, pushblock is an enhanced guard that sometimes takes meter to input that will push the attacker off the defender with varying degrees of distance depending on the game.
Setplay
Setplay is a type of game plan that loops terrifying mixups and okizeme situations. You’ll often see this with characters that set up projectiles and mix from there. If you manage to get the hit and knock the opponent down, run your sequence over and over until they figure out an escape.
Tag
Tagging in a team-mate character, tag-team wrestling style. When you are able to do this depends on the game. Often the tag is very punishable if the opponent is ready, so you have to be careful. The most exciting tag games incorporate tag through active tag, which will
Throw Tech
When the opponent attempts to hit you with a regular throw, most games allow you to counteract it, usually by inputting throw yourself. In this situation, you will “tech” the throw, mostly leaving both players in neutral with no one having a heavy advantage over the other. Though it’s niche take on throw tech, games like Granblue Fantasy Versus have a late tech, which will have the defender break the throw, but give the other player a slight advantage, allowing them to continue their offence.
Touch of Death (TOD)
A combo that does 100 percent of the opponent’s health bar.
Unblockable
A type of attack that cannot be guarded against regularly. In some games, this can be achieved by doing moves that hit high and low at the same time (using an assist like X-23’s Ankle Slice in UMVC3). There are also moves that you just can’t block, Slayer from Guilty Gear has one such move called Undertow.
Whiff
A whiffed attack is a move that completely misses its target, not even reaching the opponent. This leaves you open to being whiff punished if the opponent is ready to collect their reward for being patient in neutral.
03
Inputs/Moves
Buffering
Buffering is the act of inputting a move before the game technically requires you to do so. This lets you preemptively input a special attack or super that will only trigger if a poke hits, therefore protecting you from doing it when it wouldn’t connect. These will appear as hit confirms to the untrained eye.
Cancel
A cancel in a fighting game is when a move is interrupted by inputting another move. This can be different normal moves into the next, such as close slash into far slash in Guilty Gear. Special cancelling is when something is cancelled into a special move, such as the classic crouching medium kick into Hadouken in Street Fighter.
Akuma practises his fireballs
© Bandai Namco Entertainment
Charge
An input technique present in at least one character in almost every fighting game since Street Fighter 2. It requires holding a direction (usually back or down) for a certain number of frames, then rubberbanding to the opposite direction and inputting a required button. You will often see strong projectiles or invincible reversals relegated to charge inputs.
Dragon Punch (DP)
Though it originated from Ryu and Ken’s Shoryuken, it now really just means a move with an invincible startup that can interrupt offence.
Ryu’s Shoryuken
© Capcom
Fireball
A fireball is a projectile that travels across the screen, often one that is done with a quarter-circle forward motion. Doesn’t actually need to be a ball made out of fire.
Gatling
The gatling system in a game dictates which normal moves a character can cancel into from other normal moves. A visualization of this can be a tree with different branches depending on the normal you start with. In GGST for example, each character has the same gatling system. (punches>command normals, kicks>sweep/command normals, slashes>slashes/heavy slashes/command normals)
Kara Cancel
Yet another type of cancel, this is done by cancelling a move before its active frames (the part that actually hits the opponent) comes out. You usually see this when a player cancels a move that advances them forward into a throw to greatly increase the range of their throw, this is known as a kara throw.
Links
A link is when a move combos into the next, but without cancelling the recovery of the first move. This usually refers to grounded attacks, where the frame advantage after landing an attack gives the player enough hitstun to connect the next attack. For example: Ryu standing medium punch into crouching medium punch in Street Fighter V.
Ryu in Street Fighter V
© Capcom
Normals
A normal is a basic attack a character can use without the use of motion inputs that special attacks would require. Jabs, sweeps, standing/crouching heavies, etc. Normals that require a forward or back input are referred to as command normals.
Negative Edge
Another input technique, negative edge is when a move requires a button to be released in order to activate. This is often seen in setup characters such as Zato in Guilty Gear and Aoko in Melty Blood, to use Eddie specials and detonate traps, respectively.
Melty Blood
© Type Moon
Numpad Notation
A system to denote inputs used primarily by anime FG players. Broken into numbers that represent directions, with each direction being a position on a keyboard’s numpad, considering 5 to be the neutral position where the controller isn’t being manipulated.
Rekka
A rekka is a series of special moves that chain into the next through branching, sometimes interconnected paths. These are often mixup tools such as Chipp’s Resshou or Yamcha’s Wolf Fang Fist, switching between highs and lows in order to break down the opponent’s defence.
Short Hop/Hyper Hop
A technique that started in SnK games, shorter, quicker, and further reaching variations on the regular jump.
04
Frame data stuff for our fellow tryhards
Active Frames
The portion of an attack where it delivers its intended effect and makes contact with the opponent.
Blockstun
The state of blocking. Similarly to hitstun, there’s not much you can do in this state. Some games allow you to do things like Guard Cancel, or interact with the opponent’s attack through pushblock, instant block, barrier/faultless defence, etc. Keeping your opponent in blockstun is known as a blockstring.
Frame Advantage (plus/minus)
Frame advantage refers to being plus or minus, simply put, if you are plus, you can act before the opponent can, and if you are minus, the opponent can act before you can. Being plus 1 for example means you can act 1 frame sooner than the opponent can after a given situation.
Frame Data
The numerical breakdown of how many frames a given move spends in each period, startup frames, active frames, and recovery frames.
Hitbox
The invisible area that represents how the attacks are coded. This box is what interacts with objects around it. A mismatched hitbox and animation pairing is what makes attacks seem bigger or smaller than they should be.
Hitstun
The state of being hit. The affected player usually cannot act while in this state, and has to wait for the end of the hitstun period of whatever move last hit them. Keeping your opponent in hitstun results in a combo
Hurtbox
The opposite of a hitbox, this invisible box represents the character on screen. An attack hits a player when the hitbox of an attack makes contact with the hurtbox of the character.
Recovery
Recovery is the portion of any move after the active frames where the character can’t do anything until the move finishes.
Startup
Startup is the beginning portion of a move, the amount of frames the move spends before its hitbox is active.
05
Miscellaneous
Max Mode
A King of Fighters specific mechanic, Max Mode is a state you enter using meter and, while in it, the player can cancel special moves into each other. This mode even allows the player to cancel supers into other supers.
One Character Victory (OCV)/ Reverse OCV
An OCV occurs in a crew battle when one player runs through the entire enemy team on their own. An immense feat since the entire team has had a chance to watch the one player fight, and still couldn’t get it down. A Reverse OCV is when the last player on a team turns the crew battle around by defeating every player on the other team, the ultimate comeback.
Pulling a Woshige (aka what are you standing up for?)
In a tournament set, you must win multiple rounds and multiple games. It can be easy to lose track of what game you’re on, but mistakenly believing you won a game, getting up to celebrate and consequently losing the game as your opponent takes advantage sounds bad, but it really happens. Don’t let this be you
Korean backdash
A movement technique in Tekken that involves repeatedly chaining backdashes through cancelling them into crouches and vice versa.
