This is the final part in a three part series about fighting game motions. It is highly recommended you read the first part, Circular Motions, followed by the second, Directional Motions.

Charge motions are the bane of my existence, I can’t do them at all. They are fairly simple in input, you hold one direction for a certain amount of time, then you press the opposite and press a button. However if you accidentally make a circular motion, your charge motion is ruined.

In any case, the first charge motion is the Sonic Boom motion. It is written as 4(x)6 where x is the amount of time you are required to hold back. Usually it is a second or two, nothing too long, but it does leave to a disadvantage to Ryu’s fireballs, because Ryu can move forward and then fireball, but you are stuck holding back. The Sonic Boom motion is most well known for Guile’s Sonic Boom attack.

The second charge motion i the Flash Kick motion. It is written as 2(x)8, where x is also time. It is most well known as Guile’s Flash Kick attack.

Charge moves ask for a player who can be precise in timing and can remember to hold down or back while inputting their other attacks.

That concludes this three part series on common fighting game motions. I thank you all for reading this.

This is Part 2 of a three part series on the most common fighting game motions. I highly recommend viewing the first part, Circular Motions, where I explained how these motions are written.

In this part of the series, Directional Motions will be discussed. The best way to describe these motions is that they aren’t part of a circle and are based on inputting directions. There are only a few of these motions, however they are quite common in games.

The first is what is called as the Dragon Punch motion. This motion comes in two versions, Dragon Punch and Reverse Dragon Punch. They are both 623 and 421, respectively. The Dragon Punch motion is most well known for activating Ryu’s Dragon Punch, or Shoryuken, attack.

The next is what I would call the Down motion. There are two variants of this motion, but both are based on pressing the down button multiple times. The first is 22, and the other is 222. Basically, one is pressing down twice, and the other is pressing down three times. There are no well known moves that go along with these motions, but there are a lot of games that use them.

That concludes this part of the series. The next part will be the third and last post, Charge Motions.

This will be the first part in a series on fighting games. In this series I will talk about the most common motions used in fighting games for a player to activate specials.

A Fighting Game motion is when a player in a fighting game, inputs a sequence of directional inputs, followed by a button that activates an attack that is unlike most attacks that are activated at the press of a button. These would be attacks like Ryu’s Fireball, Hurricane Kick, and Dragon Punch.

Before we discuss what these motions are, I will briefly mention how motions are notated in writing. If you look at the directional buttons of a controller there are four buttons, Up, Down, Left, and Right. With these four buttons, we get 8 directions, the extra 4 being diagonal combinations. To write these directions, we use the style of a number pad on an extended keyboard like so:

789
456
123

This is where 5 is no direction held, 8 is up, and 2 is down. All inputs are assuming the player is on the left side of the screen facing right, so 6 is forward and 4 is backward. Inputs that are executed in succession are written as one number, such as 236.

The most common of motions used by fighting games are circle based motions. Each of these are based on a circle. The first is the Quarter Circle. There are two quarter circle motions, one that goes forward and one that goes backward. They are both respectively 236 and 214.

236 is most well known for Ryu’s Fireball, also known as a Hadoken. It is most commonly used for projectile moves like the fireball.

214 is most well known for Ryu’s Hurricane Kick, also known as Tatsumaki Senpukyaku.

The next motion is the half circle, once again they can go forward or backward. They are both 63214 and 41236 respectively. These two have no well known moves, however they are usually special throws on character who don’t specialize in throws.

The last is the full circle. Full circles can go either way, but most games only accept counter clockwise circles, such as 63214789. These are most well known as a throwing character’s ultimate throw.

That is all for circular moves. There are some variants, such as two circle moves where you just spin two circles, but they are all made of these lesser moves. This part is concluded, however look forward to the next part about Directional Moves.