Kof 2002 Faq

KOF 2002 – Shura’s Ultimate Faq
With this I intend to give an easy but detailed approach to the kof2002 game
system to give you an understanding of how it’s played at a higher level. In
addition I want to go deep into some stuff that is not so clear to everyone
concerning fighting games in general e.g. frames and their use. Keep in
mind that I will not write a lot dictating what you have todo frame by
frame, rather I want to give you some gameplay ideas and detailed
information on how kof2002’s engine works so you can develop your own
play style to improve your game and combo execution.
Also I always prefer to give more than one point of view so you can judge
each aspect of the feature and find what suits your style or situation.
Let’s start.

1

Table of contents
FAQnotation
1)

Frames
i.
ii.
iii.
iv.

2)

Game engine
a) Tricks

b)

c)

3)

i.
ii.
iii.
Features
i.
ii.
iii.
iv.

Input priority
Buffers
Hold the key

Crossup
Backturn
Corner reverse guard glitch
Attacks properties
High / low
Recovery
Empty cancels
Invincibility
Auto guard
Reversal
Counter and counter wire
Juggle anywhere and OTG
Grabs & throws
i.Overview
ii. Strategies
iii. Alternate guard

BC mode
i.
ii.
iii.

iv.

v.
4)

Hit confirm
Retaliations
Gaps
Hitboxes
Dark change

Activation & features
First approach: bypass
Intermediate:
BC walk
BC run
Advanced:
Quickpress
Quickpress for other combos
BC applications and strategies
Stock building

Tiering
i.
ii.

Parameters
Counter pick

5)

General strategiesand versus match approach

6)

Credits

2

FAQ NOTATION

UB - up back
U - up
UF – up forward
BCK – back
N – neutral position
FWD – forward
DB – down back
DF – down forward
A – weak punch
B – weak kick
C – strong punch
D – strong kick
QCF – quarter circle forward
QCB – quarter circle back
HCF – half circle forward
HCB – half circle back
CR – crouching
ST – standing
CL –close
J – jumping

3

1) Frames
A frame is the unit of time used in videogames. Modern games run at 60fps
(frames per second) so one frame is exactly 1/60 of a second. Characters
movements and attacks are animated by frames.
Each normal, special or DM’s attack animations can be split into three
portions:
1. Startup: is the time before a move reaches the Active frame status.
2. Activeframes: are the ones that allow the move to hit (there can be more
than one).
3. Recovery: is the amount of frames before your character reaches neutral
status again. Also, once a move hits, the rest of the Active frames are added
to the Recovery frames.
An example of frame data is:
Leona’s CD: 18 / 2 / 27
This tells us that Leona uses 18 frames before reaching the first active one,
herstance can hit for 2 frames, then once the active frames are gone she
takes 27 frames to go back to neutral stance.
If she hit CD on the first of the 2 active frames the other one is added to
recovery, so she reaches neutral stance in a total of 28 frames.
If she whiffed CD completely she needs 47 frames to go back to neutral
stance.
Studying frame charts can help in finding links, combos anddeveloping
various Pressing strategies.
Obviously don’t go mad with the frame data, most of these things
concerning King of Fighters can be easily seen. But with regards to
retaliation or combos, frame data knowledge is very useful due to some
unfriendly animation.
Beware while dealing with frame data and charts. Players sometimes are
dumb and they don’t think out of the schemes. I’ve seensome discussions
where they say that a move has to be avoided due to it having only a -1
frame disadvantage.

4

This is retarded as the bait concept can heavily rely on some frame
disadvantage or openings. Unless it is clear that a move can punish a
pressing string you can still bait the reaction you want.
Clark’s close C (1 hit) fwdB has some frame disadvantage and doesn’t seem
to...