Kamen Rider: Super Climax Heroes/System

Climax Time

As both players deal and take damage, the Climax Gauge under the match timer will fill up. When this gauge is completely filled, the next time any player goes back to neutral, Climax Time will be initiated, and will last until the end of the round.

Once Climax Time is initiated, both players have their Rider Gauges completely refilled, and gain access to a Final Reflect. At any point when you have a full Rider Gauge and are not in hitstun, if your opponent attempts a Rider Finale, pressing Rider Finale at the prompt will initiate a Final Reflect. This is essentially a quick-time event played by both players to determine who gets to perform their Rider Finale.

During Climax Time, meter gain is increased for both players.

Battle Styles

There are six different Battle Styles that can be used in the game, all of which are chosen at character select after picking your character. The chosen Battle Style determines what your character's Style Action will be in the match.

Form Change

Form Change Style allows a character to freely switch between multiple forms on the fly, offering different strings, special moves and sometimes Rider Arts. This gauge can provide a lot of versatility if you're willing to learn all your character's forms.

After selecting Form Change, you are usually given a choice of which form to start as. Some characters, such as Fourze, have non-standard options on Form Change that will be detailed on those characters' pages.

Form Change transformations have a lengthy animation, but have invincible recovery frames.

Power Up

Power Up Style allows a character to transform into their selected Power-Up form for three stocks of the Rider Gauge. Much like Form Change, Power-Up offers new moves, but unlike Form Change, Power Up's Style Action can be used to cancel strings and blockstun, making it useful in both offensive and defensive situations.

While current health remains the same, guard meters and current damage scaling does not. This means Power Up can be used in two interesting ways:

• Using (or cancelling) a Power Up mid-combo will effectively reset damage scaling, boosting the damage of a followup combo.
• Using (or cancelling) Power Up will refresh the guard meter.

Speed Up

Speed Up Style allows a character to activate Speed Up mode, where everything except that character is slowed down tremendously. This requires at least 2 stocks of the Rider Gauge, and lasts until the gauge fully drains.

During a Speed Up, the initiating character will have access to extra moves for the duration. The activation itself can cancel from normals, and is useful for both whiff punishes at any range, and heavily damaging custom combos.

Speed Up mode can end prematurely under some circumstances, such as the initiating character entering an opponent's cinematic (ie throw) or being knocked down. When this happens, the gauge drain stops without using up the remainder of the Rider Gauge.

There is also a grace period at the end of Speed Up's timer to stabilize Speed Up combos, during which Speed Up won't end until the character returns to neutral.

Assault

Assault Style allows a character to activate Assault mode, where they gain extra or altered moves, increased damage output, and a defense boost. Assault activation requires at least 2 stocks of the Rider Gauge, and lasts until the gauge fully drains.

Like Power Up, Assault activations can be used to cancel normals and blockstun.

Assault characters also have access to Instant Charge -- by pressing Special at the end of certain strings that knock the opponent backwards, the camera will focus on them while they pose, instantly granting one full stock of the Rider Gauge.

Support Attack

Support Attack Style allows your character to call in a Striker, a special support attack that has different effects depending on the character. Striker calls cost two stocks of the Rider Gauge, and can be called at almost any point, making them very effective as both offensive and defensive tools.

You can also call your striker during hitstun at an increased cost of 4 stocks of the Rider Gauge. Their function is otherwise unchanged, dealing full damage and potentially starting a combo or KOing your opponent.

Tag

Note: Tag Style is banned in structured play.

The only style usable by all characters, Tag Style allows you to play as a team of two characters that share the same health bar. The Tag gauge has two Style Actions: Tag-Out and Tag Assault. It also replaces the Rider Art command with a special version of Tag Assault.

Tag-Out swaps your point character with your reserve character. These can be used to cancel strings at the cost of two stocks of the Rider Gauge. While tagging out, the point character is vulnerable until the moment they jump out, at which point the reserve character will enter the ring with a flying kick.

Similar to Power-Up forms, Tag-Out refreshes damage scaling and the guard gauge.

Tag Assault brings your reserve character into the ring, allowing you to control both characters at once. This can be used at any level of the Rider Gauge, but will drain whatever is left, with the reserve character leaving when the gauge is emptied. In this state, all inputs will be executed by both characters, making it difficult to control, but incredibly powerful if used correctly.

Alternatively, the Rider Art button will activate Tag Assault, but the reserve character will be controlled by the computer.

HP & Defense Values

Every character in Super Climax Heroes has a hit point value of 10,000 points. Damage taken by each character is dependent on their defense value, of which there are high, medium and low categories.

High Defense Characters

High defense characters take 85% of full damage (i.e. 15% damage reduction).

Wizard, Fourze, OOO, Accel, Den-O, New Den-O, Ibuki, Todoroki, Chalice, Agito, G3-X, Gills, BLACK RX, 2gou

Medium Defense Characters

Medium defense characters take 100% damage.

Birth, W, Skull, Eternal, Decade, Kiva, Zeronos, Nega Den-O, Gatack, TheBee, Dark Kabuto, Hibiki, Zanki, Blade, Faiz, Kaixa, Delta, Ryuki, Raia, Gai, Ouja, Verde, Imperer, Ryuga, Kuuga, BLACK, Shadow Moon, Amazon, V3, 1gou

Low Defense Characters

Low defense characters take 105% of full damage (i.e. 5% bonus damage).

Meteor, Diend, Ixa, Saga, Kabuto, Drake, Sasword, Kickhopper, Punchhopper, Garren, Leangle, Knight, Scissors, Zolda, Tiger, Odin, Femme

Combo and Meter Gain Limitations

Further exploration of these concepts is required, but we do know a couple of things for sure.

Combo damage scaling does exist, and at present it can be assumed that damage scaling is applied on a per-hit basis, although some moves seem to ignore damage scaling. Damage scaling seems to be harsher on moves that are repeated within a combo, so it's reasonable to assume that [LHH RC f+LHH RC HHH] would do more damage than [HHH RC HHH RC HHH].

There is also a restriction applied to juggle combos in that the more you juggle the opponent, the faster they fall to the ground. This also applies to launchers. This so-called "gravity scaling" seems to be harsher when you re-launch an opponent from an OTG state. Some moves seem to be unaffected by gravity scaling.

The majority of knockdowns in the game can be teched, either by air tech or ground tech. Very few knockdowns are untechable, but for those that are, a guaranteed OTG follow-up is possible. This knockdown is achieved through "harpoon"-style projectiles such as Fourze Magic Hand or G3-X dir+SP, most throws, and a small number of "cutscene" attacks, though only a small handful of characters are able to pick up a combo after these knockdowns. OTG pickups after knockdowns are not guaranteed outside of these attacks.

Meter gain does not get progressively scaled as a combo goes on, but meter gain does get stopped outright once a combo has dealt over 50 hits.

Advanced Techniques

Throw Break Option Select

While guarding, inputting 4H alongside Rider Cancel or Jump in time with the opponent's attacks will result in a Guard Cancel if the opponent used a strike, and a throw break if the opponent used a throw.

Jump Cancel Throw

By inputting a throw during the startup frames of a jump, you will cancel your jump startup and instead perform the throw. This can be used with forward jumps to extend the range of your throw, but it also has the added benefit of essentially creating a throw-invulnerable (albeit slower) throw attempt, as jumping is immune to throws from frame one.

Instant Rider Art

When transforming while in Power Up Style (either to or from the Power Up form), a Rider Art can be performed on the first possible frame by holding Rider Art while the transformation takes place. This is useful for a number of characters, as the transformation itself carries generous invincibility, and given that transformations can be used during blockstun, these attacks become very viable reversal options.

Rider Finale Cancel

Normally, because a character must have a full four stocks of meter to perform a Rider Finale, you cannot Rider Cancel in order to combo into a Rider Finale. However, by inputting Rider Cancel on the same frame as Rider Finale, it's possible to cancel a normal directly into a Finale. This will cost three bars of meter to attempt instead of two, due to the Rider Cancel and the Finale happening at the same time, but otherwise does not change the Rider Finale in any way.

Rider Art Throw Cancel

The throw action takes priority over other actions, even when another action is already being performed. This results in Jump Cancel Throw as mentioned above, but this is also possible with certain Rider Arts by inputting Rider Art followed by 4H within a short window. Pending more research, this window is 1-2 frames.

Most notably, when the Showa Riders (Rider 1/2, V3, Black, Black RX) use a Rider Art Throw Cancel, the game gets seriously affected in some very strange ways. When successfully performed, the character will perform their throw while the camera focuses on them, and Finisher Mode's sepia-tone screen filter will not be applied. From here, most visual effects do not get drawn, including hitsparks and the effects for projectiles and other attacks, including Black RX's RevolCane. This can also affect hitboxes of some attacks, e.g. V3's Support Attack will lose both the hook visual element and its associated hitbox, rendering the move useless. The buff from Finisher Mode still applies, however, and the attack will deal extra damage and trigger the narration, but both characters will disappear from the screen until the narration is over.

Activating Style Actions between activating a Finisher Mode Throw Cancel and that throw recovering affects the game even more. Activating Assault mode under these circumstances will momentarily freeze the other character in whatever animation they were performing, leading to a bizarre time stop-esque effect. If they were not blocking beforehand, they will not be able to block an attack that connects while they are frozen. In the case of Black RX, transforming under these circumstances will trigger the Vanish bug, where he completely disappears from the playing field, unable to move, attack or be attacked, effectively stalling the match indefinitely.

The game can be returned to a normal state by normally resolving most superfreezes. This includes activating Finisher Mode again or activating Assault mode normally, activating Climax Time, landing a cutscene attack, or attempting a Rider Finale. It crucially does not include the narration after a Finisher Mode special move.

Throw Break Rider Cancel

While performing a throw break, it is possible to input a Rider Cancel, which will cancel the throw break animation. This is only possible for the defending player, although the attacking player is completely invincible during the throw break animation, so they cannot be punished during it.

Unburstable Combos

A number of Rider Art attacks allow for combo follow-ups. For a small number of these characters, landing this Rider Art attack disables the opponent's ability to burst for the rest of the combo. This does not apply universally to Rider Art combos, however. For example, Kabuto and Fourze Meteor Fusion States's Rider Arts disable bursting, while Ultimate Kuuga's Rider Art does not.