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 a character airborne or in a juggleable state during the generic cancel window, the throw will only come out if the character returns to a grounded state during the generic cancel period, otherwise it will not come out.
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. Generally, the final special cancel frame is one frame shorter than the generic cancel. If a move leaves a character airborne or in a juggleable state during the special cancel window, the special throw will only come out if the character returns to a grounded state during the special cancel period, otherwise it will not come out.
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 overwrite the generic cancel while Red KKD will overwrite 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 or last frame of the move. If a move leaves a character airborne or in a juggleable state during the KKD cancel window, throw or special throw cancels will come out once the character has left the airborne or juggleable state if possible, otherwise it will not come out.
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 cancels into guard, attacks outside of strings, non-special throws, dashes, and super. Move will typically only have a tail end cancel during the last 3 or 4 frames of recovery, but there are moves such as Benkiman 214A, where the cancel can be 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 action done during the tail-end cancel window overlaps with an input in another active cancel window, the other cancel will take priority. 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 a 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.
This may be a limitation of emulation, with the cause and workaround for this currently being 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 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, although it is suspected that it is due to their unique guard animation. Worth noting that LS moves that hit high against these characters do have the same pushback as a MS move against everyone else, suggesting the high LS moves become MS moves against Soldier, Terryman, and Terry the Kid.
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
Projectiles behave slightly differently. They share the same base stun value that attacks do, but that only affects the type of blockstun a projectile does. On hit, projectiles have their own stun system, which is identical to the attack stun system, with the exception that the base hit value is shared with the rope bounce value.
Interestingly, there is no change in stun type values 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. For the former, it is likely that moves in True Blue KKD only use their base and rope bounce stun type value, but the mechanism behind True Blue KKD and running stun are currently unknown.
Kara KKD
Every attack, special attack, and attack super has an 8 frame window at the beginning of their startup where they can kara cancel into KKD activation. The kara'd move must be done raw, meaning this cannot be done during a string or special cancel. There are a number of unique properties of kara KKD cancels compared to any other cancel:
- Counter specials cannot be kara cancelled on successful counter, with the exception of Brocken Jr, Pentagon, Soldier, and The Ninja's counter specials, but only when a non-hitgrab attack or special attack is countered.
- If a projectile starts appearing before the 8 frame kara cancel window, the projectile will continue to come out, even if its startup is longer than 8 frames. Examples of projectiles that come out after a kara cancel include Neptuneman 66S, The Mountain 44S, and The Ninja 236S
- If a special is kara cancelled, the meter cost of the special will be refunded.
- Moves do not retain their invulnerability properties after a kara KKD, the invulnerability of KKD activation overwrites it.
- A kara KKD can be performed even after the move is parried.
- If a projectile is kara cancelled, the blockstun value of KKD activation will overwrite the projectile's blockstun value, meaning the projectile will have MS blockstun.
Scaling
There are two mechanics which determine the base damage of the move: the assigned base damage value of the move, and the character's damage rating, which is what the base damage value gets multiplied by. In juggles and True Blue and Red KKD, there are additional factors which result in the damage scaling.
Juggle Scaling
Juggles only affect the base damage value, decreasing for each hit in the juggle until it finally reaches a damage value of 1. The number of hits before the opponent is airborne do not affect the juggle scaling.
One quirk of juggle scaling is that if the opponent attempts a tech roll, there is a 2 frame window before their tech roll starts where hitting them will cause the juggle scaling to reset.
Alongside the damage scaling is gravity scaling, where each hit of the juggle will launch the opponent up less. It is currently unknown how the gravity scaling works at the moment.
KKD Scaling
Both KKD's have no effect on the base damage value or damage rating, and instead add a flat percentage decrease to moves. The low health buffs has no effect on the combo scaling formula, and in the case of Blue KKD, grounded untech does not factor in the 30% damage buff in its calculations. Juggle scaling is unchanged in either KKD.
Blue KKD
True Blue KKD scales differently depending on what type of move is being used. For attacks and throws, the first hit will be unscaled, the second hit will do half damage, the third will do one third damage, and so on. This can be expressed as (Damage Rating * Base Damage)/Number of Hits in Combo, following typical rounding rules. However, there are two exceptions: the first being that when alternating between strings or doing a string after a special cancel, the first hit of each string will always be unscaled. The second exception is if the base damage of the move is 0, or the combo has scaled enough that it would round down to 0 damage, the move will do 1 damage instead. Worth noting that the scaling only looks at total hits in the combo, and not hits while KKD is active, so activating KKD in the middle of a combo will scale the subsequent hits as though KKD was always active.
Specials and supers scale differently, instead having a flat 50% damage reduction, always rounding down. If the base damage of a special or initial super hit is 0, it will do 1 damage instead, with the exception of hits in a cinematic super that normally do 0 damage, as those will continue to do 0 damage.
Red KKD
For True Red KKD, the game looks at the base damage and puts a flat 31% damage reduction to it, with an additional 1 point of damage for each for every hundred past 100. This makes the damage formula become Damage Rating * Base Damage * 0.69 + x, where x is the number of hundreds past 100. This follows standard rounding rules. The only exception to this formula are supers, which are always unscaled.
Transition Frames
Name subject to change
During the final frame of a state, there may be one additional frame where the character is stuck in that state before they go into the next available state. This is known as a transition frame. This transition frame does not occur every time a character transitions from one state to another, which causes unusual interactions. Examples of this include a move whiffing if there is no transition frame when the opponent recovers from a parry or releases guard, but this can also cause strings that are one frame short of being natural combos to natural combo anyway, such as Ilioukhine's A,A. What causes a transition frame to occur and when are currently unknown.
