Kinnikuman Muscle Grand Prix 2/Esoterics

As the game continues to get unearthed, there has been a number of system mechanics that have been discovered but not fully understood as of writing these. This page serves as a loosely organized WIP of sorts for those mechanics, listing what is known and what still needs to be researched.

Cancels

Cancelling refers to anything that can cut the recovery of a move. There are currently 6 known cancels a move can have. The full list of cancels as well as their properties is currently unknown. This section will only discuss what the functions of the cancels are; all currently known cancel data can be found in the MGP2 Frame Data sheet.

Generic Cancel

This cancel applies to any move cancellable into another part of a string, charge, and non-special throws. Throws will come out 1 frame later than the other cancels but will still have the generic cancel range as the other cancels. If a move leaves you airborne or in a juggleable state during the generic cancel window, you will not be able to cancel into throw.

Special Cancel

This cancel applies to any move cancellable into a special attack or special throw. Special throws occur 1 frame later than special attacks, but these do appear to have a matching range. However, the final cancel frame is currently unknown and can only be found by hand. Generally, the final special cancel frame is one frame shorter than the generic cancel. If a move leaves you airborne or in a juggleable state during the special cancel window, you will not be able to cancel into a special throw.

KKD Cancel

Any move with a cancel when True KKD is active applies here. These will generally be faster than generic or special cancels, but what cancels are affected is dependent on which KKD type is used. Blue KKD will have faster generic cancels while Red KKD will have faster special cancels. Throws and special throws will still be 1 frame later than their counterparts. These cancels also tend to have longer cancel ranges than their generic or special counterparts, being able to cancel up to the second to last frame of the move. If a move leaves you airborne or in a juggleable state during the KKD cancel window, your throw or special throw cancel will come out after you leave the airborne or juggleable state if possible.

Tail-end Cancel

Almost every attack and special in the game has a cancel that goes up to its final recovery frame. This is the most versatile of the cancels, allowing you to cancel into guard, attacks outside of strings, non-special throws, stepdashes, and super. Typically moves will only have a tail end cancel during the last 3 or 4 frames of recovery, but there are moves such as Benkiman 214A which can cancel upward of 30 frames before the final recovery frame. The buffer for motion inputs is currently unknown, but with the exception of guarding, there is no buffer window for button inputs, meaning any of the other cancels must be input during the tail-end cancel window. If the tail-end cancel window overlaps with the generic cancel window, the attack cancel will not work. If a move leaves you airborne or in a juggleable state during the tail-end cancel window, you will not be able to cancel into throw. If your move gets parried, you can still tail-end cancel, with the additional bonus of being able to special cancel during the tail-end window.

Grounded Untech

Every move in the game has a hidden fixed value attached to it which determines how many frames a grounded opponent must stay on the ground before they can do a getup option. This value is informally known as grounded untech. Some properties of grounded untech are:

• Does not stack: only the last move to hit the player before they become grounded will count towards the grounded untech value.
• Only applies when the player is fully grounded: if they have touched the ground but can still be juggled (i.e. at the beginning of the SKD animation), the grounded untech timer does not begin counting down.
• Can be mashed: the pressing the A, T, G, or S buttons will cause the grounded untech timer to go down by 2, effectively halving the untech duration (with the exception of input dropping frames).
• After the untech timer hits 0, the player will have 180 frames (3 seconds) to choose a getup option. If the player does not input any getup option within 180 frames, the game will do a neutral getup automatically.
• Moves that self-knockdown (i.e. Sunshine 2A or 214A) will only have 1 frame of grounded untech regardless of what they were last hit with.
• True Green KKD reduces all oncoming moves to have 1 frame of grounded untech.

It is important to note that moves may recover before or after the grounded untech timer begins counting down, meaning that grounded untech values do not necessarily correlate with the capability of OTGing.

The formula for grounded untech is (Damage of move + 1)/4, always rounded up. Because only the last attack to hit the opponent will count towards the untech time, multihitting moves will only consider the damage of the last hit, not the total damage of the multihit. This also means that the grounded untech time is susceptible to scaling or other sources of damage reduction.

All untech values are currently being compiled in the MGP2 Frame Data sheet.

Input Dropping Cycle

MGP2 has a cycle where inputs will not be read on a certain frame. Starting from the first frame of a match, inputs will drop on frame 16, 23, and 32. This 16 > 7 > 9 frame interval will loop indefinitely for the rest of the match. There's a couple implications and interactions to note:

• This only affects universal movement options if you started moving on an input dropping frame.
• Attacks will not come out if you only press the button on the input dropping frame. However, if the button is held for another frame, the move will come out, albeit a frame later than intended.
• Mashing out of grounded untech's above 31 frames will take at least one frame longer than what the value suggests.
• Considering there appears to be a limit to how much you can reduce a Heavy Stun's hitstun, it is unclear how much of an effect this has to it.

The cause and ways to workaround are currently unknown.

Multihits

MGP2 handles multihits unusually. Multihitting moves are actually one move which are always active during the active frame period, but have a fixed loop which determines the gap between each hit registering. One implication of this is that there is no gap as far as meaties are concerned; as long as it's during the active frame window, it will hit meaty.

In the MGP2 Frame Data sheet, these multihits have the gap in square brackets, adjacent to the total active frames to highlight this fact. For example, a move notated as "10 [3]" has 10 active frames that you can meaty with, but the subsequent hit must come after the 3 frame gap to register. If the active frames end before the 3 frame gap can be completed, there will not be another hit. This means the number of hits a multihit does is dependent on how many gaps can be completed within the active window, which would be 3 hits in this case. This also means a move hitting on the 2nd or 6th frame will have the same frame advantage since both will have the last hit be on the 10th frame, while a move hitting on the 3rd or 7th frame would have worse frame advantage despite hitting later since the 10th frame is a gap frame in those cases.

There is currently some confusion as to how this interacts with parries.

Grounded Roll Invulnerability

The total amount of frames a grounded roll is invulnerable for depends on whether the downed opponent is facing up or down and where the opponent is with respect to the person on the ground. To illustrate, the table below lists Kinnikuman's full invulnerability frames for all possible roll combinations.

Kinnikuman	Roll Direction
	Forward	Back	Side
Face Up, Opponent in Front	1-36	1-40	1-46
Face Up, Opponent Behind	1-40	1-36	1-40
Face Up, Opponent on Side	1-40	1-36	1-40
Face Down, Opponent in Front	1-40	1-40	1-40
Face Down, Opponent Behind	1-44	1-42	1-44
Face Down, Opponent on Side	1-44	1-42	1-44

Main things to note is that roll options are generally faster when Kinnikuman is facing up, behind and to the side will have the same invulnerability frames for each respective roll direction, and back rolls are typically the fastest roll. The main exception to these rules comes when the opponent is in front of you, as facing down has the same invulnerability frames for all rolls, and face up has the invulnerability frames of forward and back rolls reversed on top of a slower side roll.

The invulnerability frames of all characters has not yet been found, but the only exception to the table above that has been found is Sunshine, having back roll invulnerability from 1-42 and every other roll having invulnerability from 1-46, regardless of which direction Sunshine faces or where the opponent is positioned.

Soldier, Terry the Kid, and Terryman Blockstun

Blockstun is determined by the stun level and where the attack hits the opponents hurtbox, which can be divided into highs, mids, and lows. These blockstun values are universal with the exceptions of Soldier, Terry the Kid, and Terryman. For these characters, Light Stuns have 6 more frames of blockstun than normal if they hit high, and Heavy/Special Stuns have 4 more frames if they hit low. For the exact values and how they compare to the rest of the cast, see the table below:

Characters	Stun Level	Blockstun Animation
		High	Mid	Low
	LS	8	8	10
Everyone Else	MS	14	14	16
	HS/Special	30	30	26
	LS	14	8	10
Soldier, Terry the Kid, and Terryman	MS	14	14	16
	HS/Special	30	30	30

The reason for this is currently unknown.

Stun Types and the Stun System

Every attack and special attack has a fixed value which determines its stun type, which affects the hitstun duration, blockstun duration, and hitstun animation of a move. There are 29 possible values, which are listed here. For the launching values, it is currently unknown what determines the launch height.

All attacks will also have values for certain combo conditions, making up the stun system. The list of possible conditions are

• If the opponent is currently in medium stun
• If the opponent is currently in heavy stun
• If the opponent is currently in a heavy stun which pulls inward
• If the opponent is currently in the running state after a rope bounce
• One unknown state

Interestingly, there is no stun type value when in True Blue KKD or if the opponent runs into an attack, despite these usually having different stun types than what the stun system conditions would suggest.