Red Earth/War-Zard/Controls ⁄ System
Password Screen
You will notice when selecting your character that there is a password option.
That’s right, Red Earth has a password system! This usually only comes to play when going through the story mode as you earn moves and damage resistances when you level up while playing through it. You will need to know your character’s level 32 password in order to obtain all the quirks that come with each character. These can be found on their respective wiki page. If you lose you do not need to reenter the password, as the game remembers your last used password. Simply select the same character and press "No". Note that if the continue timer reaches 0, the game will forget your password and you'll have to reenter it again.
In order to input the password, you must use the punch and kick buttons. If you make an error, you can press "Left" to go back and fix it.
This is actually useful as it will help you learn the notation!
That’s right Red Earth has its own notation, based on the password screen!
Observe the graphic:
Ultimate Guard
When you input one kick and one punch button of the same strength (i.e., 1+4, 2+5, 3+6) your character will begin to flash red for about a second. During this animation, if you are hit by any move (except grabs), your character will briefly enter a sort of "parry" state that automatically blocks the attack regardless of direction as well as nullify any chip damage (which is important as you can die from chip damage in Red Earth). This "parry" state has a fixed length of time, however it can be extended if you are hit again while in the parry state. It can also be extended by holding back if there are still follow up attacks on screen, whether or not they hit you or miss. Now, if you perform an Ultimate Guard and do NOT enter this parry state (i.e., an attack never connected during the red flashing animation), your character will go into a lengthy recovery animation afterwards where you are likely to get punished with the most damaging combos in the game. It is important to note that you can perform an Ultimate Guard even during regular block stun, which is a good way to prevent guard breaking. Lastly, you cannot perform an Ultimate Guard while airborne, so you'll need to watch out for chip and guard break while jumping.
Ultimate Counter
When you are in the parry state during Ultimate Guard, you can perform an Ultimate Counter. This is done by inputting reverse qcb.1/2/3 or reverse qcb.4/5/6, with the kick variants of the Ultimate Counter generally causing knockdown while the punch variants are usually used against airborne moves. Use these Ultimate Counters wisely, as they can either be the reason for your victory or defeat. It is important to note that you are not invulnerable while performing the Ultimate Counter, so multiple hit moves that are independent from the opponent such as Lighting super will still hit you if your Ultimate Counter is mistimed.
Guard Break
When in block stun, if you take too many consecutive hits without ultimate guarding your guard will break and you will be temporarily stunned and incapacitated for a couple of seconds or instantly if your guard is broken while airborne. While generally it’s not too much of an issue when grounded due to how quickly you recover, it can be a problem in the corner or when you are in the air and are caught out by an elemental super that attacks airborne opponents. It is recommended that if you are low on health that you do not jump around too often against an opponent with multiple orbs, as it will most likely cost the round.
Air Blocking
Almost every single move in the game can be blocked in the air, meaning that there are no true anti-airs. However as mentioned in Ultimate Guard, you cannot perform an Ultimate Guard while airborne so it is easy to either get chipped to death, juggled or get Guard Broken. This ensures that constantly jumping around is not too overpowered.
Dash
Dashing is performed by inputting forward twice. Each character has a unique dash speed and properties, be sure to check your character’s page for more details.
Super Jumps
Super jumps are performed by inputting down just before you jump, which results in a super high jump that grants you greater freedom of movement in the air compared to standard jumping. During a super jump, you're able to steer back and forth as you please, as well as perform multiple airborne attacks. Some moves can only be performed when super jumping, e.g. Tessa’s divekick.
Stun ⁄ Dizzy
If you take too many consecutive hits, you’ll be at risk of getting Dizzy. While you are dizzy, you’re completely vulnerable to your opponent’s attacks. You can’t move, block, attack, or ultimate guard. Each hit increases the stun meter by a random amount, and the size of each character’s stun meter is different. After a character has been stunned, their stun meter will increase for the rest of the round and reset at the start of the next one. Mai Ling has the smallest stun meter followed by Tessa, then Kenji, then Leo. There are three types of stun: duck stun, star stun, and fake star stun. Duck stun lasts the longest giving the other player plenty of time to set up their follow-up combo. The regular star stun lasts shorter than duck stun, and the fake star stun is just that: fake. When a character undergoes fake star stun, they will immediately shake out of it and be able to perform actions. The type of stun will be random.
Orbs
Performing supers in this game require spending “orbs” which will randomly appear in chests after a character gets knocked down. To open a chest, either hit it with an attack or press down while over it. An orb of a random element will pop out that you can collect. You can hold up to 3 of these. The supers can either be character-specific supers or universal elemental supers called "Mystic Force" which can be performed by inputting qcb.PP. Each orb will be one of six elements: meteor, poison, fire, wind, lightning, or ice. You can cycle the element of the first orb by pressing Start. Each elemental super has different utility, although ice and lightning are commonly regarded as the best. Each super has a startup hitbox that covers the area in front of you making for good reversals and anti-airs, and the supers can be mashed for extra hits or faster activation.
Meteor: Meteors rain down from the sky at your opponent. Very very slow even if mashed, so it's only used in fringe cases.
Poison: Mists of poison shoot out in front of and behind you along the ground. Only use is pickup OTG combos which are as stylish as they are impractical.
Fire: Flames shoot out along the ground from your feet, going about ¾ screen. Very unsafe even on hit but can sometimes be useful in the Tessa matchup.
Wind: A flurry of tornadoes slowly fly out in front of you. Would be great for chip and guard break if Ultimate Guard didn’t exist. Still, if blocked or Ultimate Guarded they cause a lot of pushback which makes it difficult to punish.
Lightning: Bolts of lightning will appear instantaneously all around the screen, except for the top of the screen. Useful for just about any situation. Each bolt’s position is random however, so it can be very inconsistent.
Ice: Several icicles appear that will home in on your opponent wherever they are. Mashing buttons will make them shoot out faster. Excellent for punishes, combos, chip, and guard break. This super's existence makes jumping a risk.
Having an orb advantage over your opponent is important, you’ll be able to threaten them with guard break if they choose to jump at the wrong time. Denying your opponent orbs is a critical part of high-level play. There will come moments where you’ll have to make the decision to continue your offense or to hang back and collect the orb either for your own supply or to keep your opponent starving.
Throws
Every character has at least one throw which is performed by inputting forward and an attack button (some characters have button-specific throws). Most are generally techable by inputting down or forward at the right time depending on the throw, with some throws having two points where they are techable. Let’s take Leo as an example. He has two throws, a 2 throw and a 3 throw. The 2 throw can be teched almost immediately by inputting forward right as you are grabbed and you will take very little damage. His 3 throw however must be teched instead by inputting down just as you make impact with the ground, which is called "softening". A softened grab will allow you to land on your feet, and the damage received will be reduced, albeit not as much as a fully teched throw. Each throw has a specific way to be broken (either teched or softened), the details of which are explained in this video:
Some throws have a strange property that allows the character that was thrown to be thrown again as an OTG, effectively looping the victim with throws if they aren't teched. Every character has a throw loop, some corner specific some not, and if you do not know how to properly tech throws you will be in trouble so be sure to learn the techs.
Pursuits
Every character has a pursuit attack that can be performed by inputting up and any kick button while the opponent is on the ground or launched in the air. Each character's pursuits have different speeds and qualities, with Kenji’s being the slowest and Tessa’s being the safest. If you time your pursuit too slowly your opponent will wake up and possibly be able to punish you.
Rolls
Each character can perform a roll in any direction on wakeup by holding said direction. This is important as if you are not careful your roll can be read and subsequently be meatied. Sometimes it is best to not roll at all in these situations. It is interesting to note that only Mai Ling can alter the duration of her roll out of all the playable characters, making her difficult to okizeme.
Backturn Blocking
Blocking in Red Earth works how you'd expect, for the most part. Holding a direction away from the opponent while on the ground or in the air will block their attacks, with high blocking guarding against overheads and low blocking guarding against lows. The thing is, that’s not exactly how blocking was programmed in Red Earth. You see, the direction you need to block is not away from the opponent, but away from where your character is facing. In almost every circumstance, there’s no difference in those two descriptions. However, there are situations in this game where you’ll be facing the wrong way, i.e. "backturned". When your character is backturned, you need to hold the direction away from where your character is facing, not the direction away from the opponent.
For example, jumping over the opponent. Here, Kenji is jumping over Tessa and facing left. In order to block the upcoming Reverie Sword, Kenji needs to be holding Right even though Tessa is to the right of him.
A very common backturn state occurs when, during your wakeup roll, you roll past the opponent to the other side of them. For the very first frame when waking up after crossing them up, you are backturned and will need to block in the “wrong” direction. In this case here, Kenji needs to be holding Right in order to block Mai Ling’s meaty 2.
This means that rolling past the opponent on wakeup will make their meaties hit crossup, so you need to be aware of that both as the defender and the attacker. This only applies to the first frame however, so if Mai Ling mistimes her meaty so that it does NOT land on that first wakeup frame (whether on accident or on purpose), then Kenji will be facing the correct way and will need to be holding Left in order to block.
Finally, and most infamously, the Double Crossup. Characters with crossups such as Leo and Mai Ling can really abuse this technique. The following example is a very common occurrence when fighting Leo. Here, he jumps over Kenji and goes for a crossup j.4. When characters are in a neutral state, they turn around to face the opponent almost instantly, so your typical fighting game jumping crossups still function how'd you expect. Kenji turns to face Leo on the right, and as such, Kenji needs to hold Left to block it. Notice however, that when Kenji enters blockstun from the move, he's facing left again due to his turn around animation being interrupted by his preblock animation. When Leo lands, the typical next move in the Double Crossup blockstring is his standing 5. Now the issue for Kenji here is that he’s still stuck in the blockstun from j.4 and is still facing left. Therefore, in order to block Leo’s upcoming 5, Kenji actually needs to hold Right. This is where the Double in "Double Crossup" comes from. Notice that Kenji again turns to face Leo. Lastly, Leo will usually cancel the 5 into one of his rush specials. Now that Kenji is finally facing the correct way, he needs to be holding Left to block the rest of this string.
So the full sequence for Kenji in this example is Left, Right, Left. Keep in mind that this is just one example. Any blockstring that starts with a crossup will have the capabilities of turning into double crossups. Thankfully, most of these crossup shenanigans can be completely nullified by simply Ultimate Guarding after blocking the initial crossup (or even just UGing the initial crossup), as UGs will parry from either direction. Do keep in mind however that a patient opponent can simply do their initial crossup and wait to see if you UG in order to punish it.
