Bro I never played Marvel but that plink dashing *is fucking terrifying*

Cool video! But I was waiting for when you would transfer from "glitch" to "mechanic", because for every game post 2008 it's definitely not a bug, it's a feature Maybe mvc3 plink dashing is an exploit. Everything in that game is a glitch it's hard to tell.

lol I was at that third strike tournament that clip is from. that dude's commentary energy was impeccable the whole night. I hope he's having a nice day.

clickbait idea: Change the title to "the OTHER glitch fighting games kept" so people dont think it's about combos and skip it

Never bothered to learn kara-cancelling until the Strive beta. Command grabbing your opponent from the starting position with Potemkin is just hilarious

My favorite instance of Kara cancels is in Smash Ultimate with Ryu, because he originally didn’t have them and it’s still unknown if the patch that added his ability to Kara cancel his down smash was a bug or intentional. If it was a bug then that’s hilarious because they added in a SF bug into smash with Ryu unintentionally and if it was intentional then that’s also cool because what was initially a SF bug was elevated to the point where it was incorporated into Ryu’s design in a different game.

honorable mention to Sean in 2nd Impact who could kara cancel a whiffed normal into a 2nd whiffed normal & double his meter gain.

I've always loved Kara cancelling, as someone who played Sagat in SF4, it's great. Kara cancels really make things interesting

Kara cancelling was the first mechanic that really showed me how deep fighting games can be in the micro level. It's probably one of the reasons I ended up getting so into fighting games and I find that pretty cool.

Regardless of its metagame implications, it's also just a useful input leniency feature. In case you misinput a higher-priority action and perform a lower-priority action instead (e.g. you wanted a DP but you pressed punch on "down" instead of "down-toward" exactly), you get an extra couple frames for the game to spot the higher-priority command and correct it.

I think one of the reasons it'll almost ALWAYS exist is because it often exists as part of a system that makes certain types of input easier. In a game where throws are two buttons, it may be hard for a beginner to press both buttons on the exact same frame. So, if a move's startup is cancellable into throw, they can perform a throw slightly more sloppily, perhaps pressing the buttons a frame apart. The move will be slightly slower, but they won't notice and will be glad the throw came out. This system can also make specials easier to perform if you're mashing the button. Say you're trying for a DP, but you press the button before completing the motion. Your character might start throwing out a punch, but if you finish the motion while mashing fast enough, the DP will come out by cancelling the startup of the the punch. I think it's interesting how a system can exist that makes the game much more forgiving for new players, but also adds a massive amount of depth for people that understand it.

i never knew what kara cancelling was never had it explained well to an understandable degree but this video gave a concise explanation cheers

I got clickbaited i thought we were gonna talk about "accidental throw invulnerable" moves lol

It was this bit of tech that made me fall in love with fighting games recently. Kara-buster on round start was the first thing to ever make me think "I need to sit in training mode and practice execution for 2 hours"

Chun-li's kara grab is definitely the most infamous one in the FGC !

I was gonna say during the vid "How can you have a vid about Kara Canceling and not even mention Roll Canceling in CvS2?" But the ending made me super hype.

My favorite instance of Kara canceling is Peacock’s cr. MK. If you do it fast enough, the ant will scurry off screen instead of getting being burned alive

I’ve been doing this unintentionally for years and i never knew it was a recorded legitimate technique, and I certainly never knew it had so many different uses. You learn something new every day.

I come for the theory, stay for the doom metal. God bless your taste theory fighter

Remember that in the arcade version of 3rd Strike, Akuma gets throw invincibility with a Kara Demon Edit: Yes I mean his 6MP. It’s throw invincible in the arcade version (this includes fightcade), and not it console versions

I knew about Kara but I didn't know all these things associated with it, thank you.

Always liked the idea of "feints" in fighting games it adds another level of complexity, like a boxer feinting a jab to get a reaction then coming in with a overhead right

Honestly, I really love the amount of regularity of your content. It enlightens me to a lot more of the nuance to these topics and are also great entry pieces for my friends on the outskirts of fighting games. Please keep them coming!

I remember watching Daigo do a Karademon with Evil Ryu, i started to practice that shit for days, landing that make me feel so much joy.

Technically Kara Cancelling isn't a glitch, it is an exploit. It is the natural but unforeseen outcome of the systems used to improve game feel such as input leniency.

gang gang

I just found ur channel u r doing a great job. I only play smash but I love fighting games discussions and interesting topics keep up the good work brother.

Thanks for getting me hooked on Windhand! Great video!

I haven’t seen this video yet but just glazing over your channel and videos, this is the yt channel I have been waiting for for a while.

Thanks for the description. I defiinitely came in here thinking that it was gonna be about combos

Cancels are the kind of thing that'll dislocate my damned wrists.

Hey man I'm new to 2d fighters and this is a really good explanation/tutorial to what Kara cancelling actually is thank you!

You just opened my eyes to a whole new world it took me 10 years to perfect my raging demon I never knew much about gaming mechanics the past 3 years I’ve been learning the various techniques of fighting games and now my raging demon will be unbeatable

A bit of misinformation. First of all, the karas themselves are not glitches (at least not in games from alpha onwards as far as I know). They are an intended mechanic meant to give a bit of input leniency. What IS a glitch is using this "hidden" mechanic as a way of achieving something else (like extra range). About Akuma's demon, the input doesn't require you to do forward + LK, you can do forward, release forward, then LK. It's more like LP LP forward LK HP, all of these in separate frames. The other demon setups outside of kara demon with forward MP are not gimmicks really. Dash demon can be quite good. "Akuma's kara cancellable overhead". Pointing out the fact that this move in particular is kara cancellable is quite misleading, since almost every single move in the game is kara cancellable. Also, the kara for the kara demon is quite different to the other karas mentioned (or well, to karas in general). Why? Because (at least for 3s) regular karas are just cancelling *the very first frame* of a move's startup into something of higher hierarchy (like the first frame of a special cancelled into a super, or the first frame of a normal cancelled into a special). However, for Akuma's kara demon the cancel that you are using is a special type of cancel that involves demon exclusively. Akuma can cancel any frame (startup, active, recovery, literally any frame) of any normal, on whiff, hit, parry or block to his raging demon. So the biggest mistake is saying this: "Taking a move that is kind of mediocre and turning it into an incredible practical and terrifying tool just because of a glitch is the sort of stuff I play FGs for". That's the thing. This is more than likely not a glitch. They programmed this exception to Akuma's demon so that you can cancel it out of nowhere. They were aware of the limitations of doing the input while being close, so they left all of these "free cancels" for you to get creative and find how to land the demon (for instance it also works if your normal gets parried up close, even if it's not supposed to be a cancellable normal).

Thank you for the synopsis on this mechanic!

In the thumbnail, Ryu looks like he's gonna get slapped to hell.

I always called it kara cancelling if the move was cancelled before active frames (or if there are no attack frames on the action (IE cancelling teleport start up with Akuma's ultra 2 in USF4)) and whiff cancelling if cancelled after the attack becomes active but has not hit the opponent (yet (IE Breakers revenge Saizo in the vid)). Kinda like how all squares (whiff cancels) are rectangles (kara cancels) but not all rectangles are squares. Good to know it is all fits under the umbrella term of kara cancel, but I'll probably continue to use the 2 terms separately.

I'd love to see a video on roll cancelling! I'm super intrigued.

Oh, hey this is exactly the same as DACUS in smash (dash-attack-cancel-up-smash)! As a person who started playing fighting games with melee/pm and then slowly expanded into 'traditional' fighting games, i always find it interested when the two communities have different names for the same technique. Although, in smash you can only really do this with up smashes for some reason. Another example: in smash, an empty jump is most often referred to as a "tomahawk," most often in the case of empty jump throw. I assume this is because it was named after the player who popularized it (as with many other smash tech, e.g. Ken Combo, Haxdashing, Amsah Tech, etc), but i don't really know.

I was like "eh video is probably about combos but I'll check it out anyways". I check the description and the first thing I see if "No, this is not about combos." Amazing video!!

The most important glitch that fighting games kept is the combos. At the start combos weren't intended, and it was just something someone found out to be able to reliably connect an attack after another one

This well made, very informative video, made me sub

I'm very early but just making sure I understand: Would DACUS in Smash Bros be considered an example of kara cancelling?

I dont know if anyone has mentioned this in the comments, but initially I thought the video is going to be about basic cancels, reminded me of how canceling was accidentally created in SF2 and was kept and used ever since. Pretty funny

Love the Vids TheoryFighter!!! You Rock!!!

my thoughts on glitches in fighters is mostly that i think theyre healthy if they benefit the depth of gameplay, ie, arent themselves centralizing. Melee's a platform fighter but it still works for this argument as it has both glitches that do and don't accomplish this well. For instance, Mario in particular has the ability to wall jump out of his recovery move, which while tricky and situational, adds some extra reward and capabilities to him when offstage on stages with walls without making the entire mario matchup be about that glitch. It adds something to the character without detracting from any core element of the game. On the other side, an oversight regarding grab releases allows Ice Climbers to wobble, getting a zero-to-death true infinite off of a grab as long as the AI climber is still alive. This centralizes the characters' metas by making grabbing a win condition by itself and is overall unhealthy for the meta and makes the character unfun to play against or watch.

I heard the stoner doom in the background and went to check my other tabs. Good taste, good theory.

"A lot of videos have a theme: I start talking about something and halfway through it, it's a SFxT video" All jokes aside, amazing video as ever. Your content is great. Even though I knew about kara cancel and understood the term conceptually, having this in-depth explanation helped me a lot in understanding its uses. Now I need to practice. Edit: I just read your description and thank you SO MUCH! The "combos were originally a glitch" story has become so old at this point and yet there will always be a game trivia channel making a video about as if it's something new. When I saw the title of this new video in my notifications, I was scared, but it was a very pleasant surprise.

I'm hyped for that upcoming RC video

Thank you for reminding me of that pop off.

Loving that Windhand music choice man

Even Super Smash Bros has karas, though they usually go by other names. In Melee, you can cancel your dash attack or initial jump animations with a grab, called a boost-grab and JC grab respectively. With a boost grab, the initial momentum increase of the dash attack caries into the running grab like a traditoinal kara cancel. For a JC grab, it allows characters to perform a less laggy standing grab out of a dash by inputting grab to cancel the jump start up. There's also the "DACUS" or dash attack canceled up-smash that similarly interupts the start up of a dash attack with an up smash attack. In the case of some characters, the window for the cancel actually overlaps with the first hitboxes of the attack, letting them link together, while others like snake and sheik, have such a huge boost to their momentum they can slide across an entire stage with the cancel. And there's "Glide tossing" items, where characters cancel the start of their roll animations with an item throw, resulting in similar huge slides for various characters. Similarly, roll-cancel grabs exist in some games, and similar to dacus there's the increadibly stupidly named "Dash item throw cancel item throw," which cancels the start of a running item throw into an upward item throw with the same methodology of the DACUS. You could argue even more variants of karas exist as far back as smash 64 with its "teleport" technique that cancels the running turn around animations of samus and jigglypuff with a jump to slide forward, and, being a jump, can be further canceled with Up- smash or special attacks.

Great content brother keep it coming :)

Looking forward to the CvS2 video :)

video suggestion, a video on over heads and lows and the mind games those bring

That pop off was legendary

the fact that you can whiffcancel e. honda's 5mp xx 3hk target combo into a hundred hand slap or a command grab in street fighter 4 AND street fighter 5 is an interesting karacancel factoid for the triviabooks

It'll be cool to see your take on CvS2

I was expecting combos but kara cancelling is way more interesting

We gonna talk about 2G in Soul Calibur 2 anytime soon? I know Aris covered it but it's a technique I missed out on and never heard about until well after it stopped being played competitively.

That gutter trash pop off is fucking awesome. Love demon tech in third strike. I've been trying to perfect the "tick throw demon" where you hide your 2 light punches inside a single low short by holding down HP so they don't come out (another weird akuma glitch) walk up then finish the input without a kara. Barely telegraphed and feels awesome.

Godlike content with a godlike soundtrack

Man those scanlines are so pretty

Kara grabs are fun. Ragna's 5B in BB moves him forward a little bit on early startup. Barrier in BBCF pushes you far enough away that after a barrier'd 2A, you're out of range for a throw. However, kara 5B/Throw works, and barrier/throw OS is very common. You can still jump/mash/fuzzy jump, but the range on kara 5B helps him keep probably his most consistent mixup available even after barrier. Naoto and Susanoo have it too and a few other characters iirc.

VERY INFORMATIVE ALWAYS WONDERED WHAT KARA WAS

@7:09 Akuma: “eeeeYAAA!!!” *the SLOW MOTION raging demon actives* Ryu: “Nani???”

I like that you've mentioned V's Sagat. In his trials, there's intentional use of short Kara upper by the devs.

@7:39 Heeeyyy I know that voice. That's my boy Indy. Glad to know he's still doing well and commentating 3rd strike. He always loved that game.

I learned about kara cancel specifically in dragonball fighterz. It's most useful in quick startup moves into grab so your opponent sees a move coming but then it's really a grab. With gogeta ssj4 you can even make the sound of his ki blast come out then kara cancel.

This and Leon Massey's fighting game channel are in my top 5 favorite FG related channels of all time. I hope to return and spam these channels soon

5:28-6:12 that was the single longest stretch of neutral I've ever seen in any MvC game ever

Kara cancelling is even one of the core mechanichs of 2D Narutos, and that's awesome!

Ryu has kara cancelling in Smash Ultimate. He can do Down Smash and charge it as a way to mask "True inputs" for Shoryuken and other moves. This was my introduction to Kara-cancelling and i never really understood the level of application it could have until this video. Thanks! On a similar note, the closest thing i can think of that gives Smash bros this level of freedom is obviously the Wavedash in Melee, but I would also like to point out edge-cancelling as the one thing that adds incredible depth to a platform fighter.

I learned something new today :)

Nice video! I'm just a little sad that you didn't include the "d-d-d-d-deeemooon" clip when Mr Naps hit Justin Wong with a Kara demon in USFIV.

something about getting fighting game mechanics explained while listen to metal is awesome

I love the use of my favorite stoner metal band in the background for a 4/20 release.

Ryu-Son: Forgive me father, I was lured out in this haunted forest by Ken Shin-Papa-Akuma: Excuses again son? I am tired of excuses! *Mighty faceslap of a thousand child punishments* *Just what watching that thumbnail made me think of...*

I saw the thumbnail and I *immediately* knew what the video was gonna be about lmao

7:08 - I think also a side effect of having the overhead come out as a kara before the demon is they can't jump out of it. Because of the way the move works, you can't jump to escape it once they throw that overhead out. So if that move comes out and you're caught blocking, that makes it inescapable (to jump out of)

Showed up for the theory, stayed for the Windhand.

Nice explanation. Now the real question: Where did you get that nice logo?

I’mma need to see the set that popoff is from right now

it's less kara cancelling and more whiff cancelling but I find it interesting how you could whiff a move in its entirety in skullgirls and be able to cancel it. What I liked to do was do a heavy chair throw but cancelling into gigantic arm before it went off. Effectively extending the i frames of the super while keeping the chair

-be me -come home, load up youtube, watch a fighting game vid -keep compulsively looking if I left a Windhand album playing on spotify from earlier in the day. -program is closed -also turned off computer before I left -wat? -keep hearing riffs -well this is it boys, the last cog in my mind slipped, I'm just hallucinating doom metal now I guess -fighting game video ends and music comes up -Ah, I see now you also like it slow and heavy. -insanity dodged yet again -all in a days work kings

Thanks for including the gutter trash clip. I used to run the event, did you always use to play ST at the HOG? I don’t know why but I think you’re that guy

Thumbnail made me think that he's talking about the glitch where akuma's throwbox disappears during his forward mp overhead, making move throw invincible.

We never did get that Roll Cancel video...

one of my new favorite kara cancels is andy bogard's in kofxv. you can kara cancel his stand CD into a heavy zan'eiken which can be FURTHER kara canceled into another special, be it his uppercut, his fireball, or a meterless launcher. its not super impactful but it is GLORIOUS

Kara demon turned Akuma into a terrifying monster. It really brought me back to the days I watched JR Rodriguez

My favorite Kara cancel is one that I'm not even sure if its a kara cancel. Basically in super smash bros melee you can actions into grab. The basic one is call jump cancelled grab, where u cancel your jump start up into a grab, this is useful while running because a running grab usually has extra recovery, but by jump canceling u perform a standing grab, a much safer option. The second is only useful on 1 character, sheik. It's call boost grab, u perform it by using your dash attack and canceling its start up into a grab, giving you a huge boost forward with your grab, and the distance of this boost is increased if you time it frame 1 of it 3 frame input window.

This reminds me of Parry cancel in MK Armageddon.. use Parry, cancel it with an attack. Made for some CRAZY Combos vids. What a gem.

I love how they made pot's giganter kai go from an awful reversal to an incredible combo tool with just 1 change to the move and 1 universal change

I see no one mentioning this in Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, where cancelling a High Punch into another High Punch enabled Touch of Death combos for Rain and Reptile, and enabled more damaging potential in nearly every other character. Modern MK games also have this, mainly MKX, where it's built-in. You can cancel certain charge moves into running, which can extend combos, frame trap, and sometimes avoid wake-ups.

I wish these glitches and techs would get adapted from devs when taking in consideration these mechanics into their designs. Imagine how great if Tekken would have Kara specific animations for it's characters or unique wavedashes

Came for the content, stayed for the soundtrack

I used to love getting random unintended throws while plink dashing. Made me switch to a team that could actually combo off it.

I like that they gave sagat kara cancels in sfv. It's fun to do

I like how this is even applicable to tekken when KBD was discovered

I had no idea there was an actual term for this.