Fighters Destiny/Mechanics

Health & Piyori Condition

Characters have varying amounts of Health. Unlike most games which do this, Fighters Destiny's health bars are physically longer with more health, making the distinction obvious. Characters slowly regenerate Health automatically, and can regain it faster by holding A+B (holding G/H halts the effect). Different characters regain Health at different speeds.

When Health is drained, the character turns purple and sees stars. This dizzy status is dubbed "Piyori" condition. While in Piyori, you may only move, jump and duck, cannot escape Throws/Locks, and become vulnerable to many Special attacks. You can shorten this condition by mashing A/B, so characters with long Health bars take longer to recover.

Point System

Fighter’s Destiny eschews the conventional rounds of fighting games in favour of scoring points. Whoever gets 7 first (default rules) wins.

Ring Out: 1 Point

Depending on choice of ring size, this can be very easy or very hard. Players don’t fall off the ledge, they grab it instead. Attacking them (or making them wait too long) knocks them off for a Ring Out. The ledge can be considered this game’s version of oki (or advantage state, for Smash Bros fans). Your options are as follows:

B/A is akin to a wakeup kick, but very slow. Great frames on contact, but it’s easily reacted to and dodged, where you'll get hit... and 
wind up back on the ledge.
6 climbs up the old fashioned way. It’s only marginally faster than kicking, but the climbing animation may mislead the opponent into 
hesitating and giving you some breathing room.
2/8 lets you shimmy along the edge for as long as you hold the direction. Once you release, you’ll initiate the basic 
climb. Good for stalling on the ledge, but naturally slow and vulnerable.
9 climbs up and starts a strange, floaty leap to the ring. It’s extremely slow and you have no attack options from 
this, but may avoid attacks.
4/3 is a roll. Probably the riskiest option, since you can tumble under offense but are a sitting duck as you rise to your feet. 
A+B can potentially snare your opponent’s foot and get a Throwdown! But if they escape, you’re at neutral and still on the ledge.

Overall, it can be quite a feat to return safely to the stage—but it’s only one point if you fail.

Judge: 1 Point

Essentially a Time Over. Depending on hit accuracy, attacks thrown, damage dealt, and so on, points are tallied. The stronger combatant wins the round. Default round time is 30 seconds.

Throwdown: 2 Points

If a Throw is not escaped, or a Lock KO’s the opponent, or you land a successful parry, or you pull the enemy from the ledge, it’s a Throwdown.

Knockdown: 3 Points

Some attacks are dedicated Knockdown moves (typified by a blue glow) and work regardless of health, while other attacks only knock down when the victim is in Piyori.

Counter: 3 Points

Distinct from a 'counter-hit,' as these are a unique move class. Counters, if they connect with the active frames of another attack, cause a bright flash indicating a successful connect. Counters work on any non-throw attack (including parries, hitboxes pending). Counter attacks tend to be extremely unsafe on normal hit or block; use caution. You can tech High/Low Counters by holding A+B, but depending on the Counter you can be put into pretty severe disadvantage.

Special: 4 Points

When the opponent is in Piyori condition, characters can use unique moves to score an especially effective knockdown (consider it a fatality, if you like). These Special attacks are usually only usable when the opponent reaches Piyori, but some characters can access Special attacks as normal parts of their movelist. Be aware that some Specials can be avoided by the enemy, even while in Piyori!

Attack Properties

Attacking shares some similarities to Virtua Fighter or Tekken, except Mids only hit dodging opponents, and Throws/Locks cannot be ducked.

Colour-Coding

Attacks often have properties sorted by colour:

Blue streak: Counter
Blue/White glow: Knockdown
Orange: Counter-hit launcher
Red: Normal hit launcher

Reel State

"Reels" are attacks that cause a lengthy stun animation on hit. Any attacks dealt to Reeling characters qualify as counter-hit. Recovery from Knockdown attacks, parries and Counters are considered to have Reel state also.

Guarding a Knockdown attack causes the Guarding player to Reel--in effect, turning the Knockdown into a guard break with massive frame advantage.

Mental Attack

These are odd taunts which cause your opponent's Rumble Pak™ to vibrate violently... if they have one plugged in. Due to the nature of this game's unlocked moves, don't expect to experience these much.

"Okizeme"

There are no conventional downed states in this game! Landing from a launcher causes the victim to essentially recover and rise immediately. During this period, they are still vulnerable to attack before Guard and Hirari can buffer in (Guard is available first; see explanation below). Functionally, this makes recovery an OTG state which restands on hit.

Frame Data & Hitstun

This game runs at 30FPS visually. To prevent confusion, we'll be referring to moves with this in mind (if you like, just double up the numbers yourself for more familiar 60FPS output).

An important note: aside from having values on block/dodge, hitstun in Fighters Destiny has two 'exit points.' The normal frame data on hit can be exited sooner with Guard, jumps, or crouch-dashes.

For lack of a better term, this phenomenon can be called "early" or "late" hitstun. In short:

'Light' hitstun exited "early" is 5 frames faster,
'Heavy' hitstun exited "early" is 9 frames faster.

Additionally, there is 1 frame of 'unblocking,' so if you exit "early" with G you still lose at least one frame even if timed perfectly.

This oddity can cause various things to become impossible to Hirari, since it's permitted to buffer in later than Guard. When and how this matters will be addressed in Character sections as required.