Special Move

In the fighting genre of video games a **Special** movement (also known as Special Skill, Special Attack, or simply Special Move, and best known in Japan as **Deadly Technique** (必殺ひっさつ技わざ, **Hissatsuwaza**?, translated as *Deathblow*, *Killing Art*, or *Finisher Technique*), is a skill category available for all characters within a game.

Usually the Special moves are more powerful than normal attacks, unique techniques, or throws, and each character (playable or non-playable) has his own set of Special moves. The main difference from normal attacks are that Special moves requires more than just press 1 button to perform; instead the input of directions in the arcade joystick/directional pad and/or push 2 or more buttons are required to perform Special moves.

More powerful versions of Special movements are usually dubbed as Super Special moves, with the Samurai Shodown series having 3 different types: Weapon-Breaking Technique, Weapon-Flipping Technique, and Hidden Super Special move.

## Concept for the *Samurai Shodown* series

Oficially called **Methods of Mayhem** by SNK during the early years of the *SamSho* series, the Special moves allows the players to perform stylish attacks that shown the warrior's fighting style and their specialty of offense when engaging combat, which are different from the normal attacks.

Ironically and unlike most fighting games, in any *Samurai Shodown* game a Strong Slash usually will be more powerful than a Special move, but still this kind of attacks may have properties to adopt a battle style or strategy, like pressuring the opponent with proyectiles or disrupt air offensive. Also, unlike regular attacks, the Special moves can deal "chip damage" if the opponent block them, this can also be taken advantage of when the situation lends itself.

## Types of Special moves

While some Specials can be very simple or useless, others are very effective.

* **Projectile** - this is the more common and famous type of Special move. It consists of throwing objects (related to the controlled character like a weapon or other item) or a supernatural technique/magic towards the opponent. With projectiles the player can put pressure on the opponent, forcing him/her to block all the attacks or to provoke a movement that puts him/her at a disadvantage.
* **Anti-Aerial** - are vertical attacks useful to disrupt and punish opponent's jumps, or to counter air-attacks towards ourselves. Commonly are also known as "**Dragon Punch**" attacks thanks to the Shoryuken made famous by Ryu from *Street Fighter*.
* **Screen Traversal** - these are rush moves (speed may vary) where the player's character perform a weapon attack and moves horizontally across the stage towards the opponent (this can be from left to right or vise-versa). Alternatively can be used to strategically move the character to another spot while providing some offensive.
* **Teleportation** - as the name implies, are Special moves to change the character's location instantly. Some of these may include offensive capabilities.
* **Command Grab** - all characters have a normal grab to catch opponents, but only few characters (with a close-combat fighting style) have special grabs only available through command input.
* **Rekka** - named after Fei-Long's Rekkaken, are Special attacks that after perform can be followed-up by 1 or more inputs to multiply the hits.
* **Counter** - usually are not capable of inflicting damage. They must interact with enemy attacks. When the player's character perform a counter special move stands in a certain pose. If is touched by the opponent his/her attack will be canceled and will receive an attack to deal damage. Depending on the character and the Special Move weapon attacks or projectiles can be countered.
* **Power-up** - these are commands that certain characters can perform to obtain "stocks" for multiple projectiles, or "charge" to prepare a more-than-usual powerful projectile or weapon attack.

## Enhanced moves

Exclusive for the *Samurai Shodown* series, since *Amakusa's Revenge* some Special moves of eah characters can be "**enhanced**" or empowered if the Rage Gauge is at MAX. The same applies during the Rage Explosion. When performed and hit the opponent successfully certain Special moves can inflict more damage than usual adding extra hits.

## The Input

Unlike normal moves (which simply require to press a button) or unique techniques (move the joystick/directional pad to a single direction) the Special moves requires a motion in the joystick/directional pad that involves 2 or more directions while pressing an attack button. The power, duration, and range of Special moves can depend of the Slash button intensity, from Light to Strong. There are several input types:

### Motion-based

Implies rotate the arcade joystick or press the directional pad "drawing" directions in sequence. The most popular are:

* **Quarter Circle Forward and Back**  /  - also known as QCF or QCB. The easier input in any fighting game, ideal for projectiles or some weapon attacks.
* **Half Circle Forward and Back**  /  - best known as HCF or HCB. These are usually a bit more complex attacks than the ones that use Quarter Circles.
* **Dragon Punch**  /  - also referred as DP or "DP inverted". Named after the classic Shoryuken. This motion is mainly reserved for Anti-Aerial moves that can hit while the opponent is in the air.
* **Full Circle**  /  - also known as "360" and "360 inverted". The player need to do a full circular move to touch all cardinal directions, this can be clockwise or inverted clockwise. This input is for very rare moves or some Super Special moves.
* **Half/Quarter Circle + Forward/Back** - only for some Super Special moves, rarely used in Special techniques.

### Charge-motion

Press and hold certain direction in the joystick/directional pad during a brief moment (2 seconds aprox.), and then press the opposite direction along with a attack button. Special moves with this input type are not so spontaneous as motion-based moves because the player needs to "prepare" the charge first. Here the examples:   **/**  **/**

### Rapid-button tap

Special attacks using this kind of input requires the player to press the same button many times quickly in succession. Normally the games allows the players to hold Forward or Back in the joystick/directional pad for additional character movement. In this Wiki we use the icon

## Also see

* Special Moves (category)
* Character Moveset (category)