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Street Fighter 3:Third Strike - Kara Throw Offense
By John Choi, Derek Daniels, Maxstah March, 13 2000 | "Kara Cancel Throw" is the Japanese term given to a technique that lets a character advance forward before throwing. What this means is that your character moves forward slightly, and then executes a throw, essentially increasing your throw range. This is executed by doing a normal attack that moves your character forward, then quickly canceling that attack into a throw. If done correctly, it will appear as if your charactermagically grabbed the opponent from a much larger throw range than they normally have. SF3: 3rd Strike Throw System Let's first look at how 3rd Strike
throws work. 3rd Strike is the first III series game in which your character must throw with
two buttons. Pressing the Jab and Short buttons simultaneously while holding the joystick
towards, back, or neutral will result in a throw attempt. Each of these three joystick positions
can result in a different throw, depending on the character being used.
Since a throw requires simultaneously pressing 2 buttons, Capcom put in a window of leeway in the timing of the button presses to compensate for human error. So a player can push Jab, then wait a split second and then push the Short button in order to get a throw animation. The Jab will start to come out, then when the Short button is pressed, it will cancel the Jab animation and go immediately into a throw. This window of leeway can be applied to other normal moves as well in order to increase throw range, which is why Kara-Canceling is so powerful. Kara Throw Kara-Throwing, as mentioned above, means advancing
forward during a throw attempt. This is done by canceling a normal move that makes you step
forward into a throw attempt (Jab+Short). Canceling a normal move into a throw is no easy
task, since the leeway to cancel the normal into a throw is only a few frames of animation.
Keep in mind that the game runs at 60 frames per second, so a 10-frame leeway means 10 out
of 60 frames, or 1/6th of a second. This means you have to cancel the normal attack into the
throw VERY QUICKLY.
You must hit the normal attack button then RIGHT AWAY cancel into a throw with Jab+Short. If the actual normal move itself comes out completely, you are doing the cancel too slowly. All that you should see is a VERY, VERY small glitch of a normal move going right into a throw or a throw-whiff animation. Desired effect of Kara-Throwing is to ADVANCE your character with a normal move to gain much more throwing range with your throw. You can Kara-Cancel with any standing normal in the game, but not all of them are worth using since you may not advance using that normal. Some attacks such as Alex’s standing Roundhouse kick will actually make your character step backwards if canceled! The chart below shows the best desired normal move to Kara-Cancel with each character and their total Kara throw range in number of pixels.
Uses of Kara Cancel Once you learn how to execute a Kara throw, you are
ready to incorporate it into your normal gameplay, bringing to light a whole new world of close
combat. I will use Ryu in these instances with overhead Strong punch (toward+Strong) since it
is his best Kara-cancel. Say you are fighting a very defensive player who just sits there and
plays really safe. And no matter what you try, you just can’t seem to break his defense. You
mix up a lot of attacks and try for a throw as you get in normal throw range but he sees it
coming a mile away since he is used to Ryu’s normal throw range and counters appropriately.
In this case, instead of trying to work your way in, just stay right at about the max range
of low Short kick and Kara-throw him. He will never see it coming because that’s not Ryu’s
normal throw range! Another good use for Kara-canceling is doing it after a Universal Overhead (Strong+Forward). You can hit them with a surprise Universal Overhead (UOH) and whether it hits or not, you can go directly into a Kara throw from that range. After a UOH, players tend to look for a low attack or another UOH. They will not be used to looking for throws. Dash in Kara-throw is also really effective if you are using a quick dash recovery character such as Ken, Ryu, Akuma, Makoto, or Remy. Dash at them so that you finish your dash at your characters max Kara-throw range, and Kara-throw them immediately. Another advanced trick is to try to draw them into a throw attempt by staying near them after a knock down. As they get up and try to throw you, quickly back up just outside of throw range,then Kara-throw them when they are in missed animation. You can also Kara-Cancel into special moves. Alex can use his new Fierce (toward+Fierce) into a Hyperbomb for increased range on the super. This also works on a few other special throws such as Alex's Powerbomb and Hugo's Spinning Pile Driver. You can also Kara-Cancel into a taunt (Fierce+Roundhouse) just so you can look cool. One last thing to keep in mind is that when you go for a Kara-throw, if the opponent does a normal move as you go for the throw attempt, you can sometimes gain even more throw range. This is true of a normal throw attempt as well, but it seems to occur more frequently during Kara-throw situations since you are at a poking range. Air Kara Kara-canceling is not limited to just normal ground
throws. You can Kara-cancel into air throws as well. Ibuki, Oro, and Chun Li have air throws
that can be Kara-canceled for increased throw range. But the only one really worth noting
is Chun Li's Kara of jump Fierce into air throw. She gets a noticeable increase in range
that makes her air throw even deadlier.
Kara Training Having problems? Don’t worry, a lot of people
have trouble pulling out a Kara cancel at first. Here are some basic tips to help you in
your training. First, start out with Akuma as your Kara practice character and stay far
away enough from the opponent so that you do not throw him. Notice from the chart that his
best Kara-cancel is towards+Strong. Now, hold towards on the joystick while positioning your
fingers over the appropriate buttons. I prefer to push Strong with my middle finger, index
finger for Jab and thumb for Short.If you curve you fingers and position them over the corresponding buttons as if you were picking up an egg, you will see that your middle finger reaches the furthest. If you move your hand down straight with your fingers in that position, your middle finger will reach the Strong Button first followed closely by the other 2 buttons. This should result in a correct Kara cancel. Although this sort of finger positioning can not be applied to every character due to the differences in the normal moves needed for Kara cancel, it should still give you a good feel of the timing needed for Kara cancel. Besides the visual cues, you can also listen to see if you did a Kara cancel correctly. Akuma makes a grunt noise as he does his overhead Strong punch. This is very important since Akuma is giving you an additional audio cue if you successfully Kara-cancel. If Akuma did not make a noise along with the throw, you either missed the Strong button or pressed the throw buttons too early. If you simply see Akuma doing his Strong punch, the throw buttons were not pressed in time. The goal here is to hear Akuma grunt as he throws, which means you successfully did a Kara-throw. Once you have the timing down, you should move closer to your opponent and play with Kara-canceling so that you can find the max range of Akuma’s Kara-throw. Once you master these basics, it should be much easier for you to master the Kara throw with other characters. Good luck and happy throwing! Thanks go out to Rylan Hilman for translating the SkillSmith Kara
Cancel chart.
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