Techniques

Jumping
High Jump - Press down, then upwards in any direction. Super Jumping is slower than normal jumping, but jumps higher and farther. It's useful for a number of situations when you might need to alter your jump trajectory.

Dash Jump - While Dashing Forward, you can Jump or Super Jump. Doing this gives you additional forward movement in any of your jumps. Using Dash Jump along with the two normal jump types can give you very fine control of how far you jump.
In addition, you can use Dash Jump to make your dashes more safe. If you begin a forward dash and a projectile or poke is throw, you can cancel your dash into a back jump, or even cancel your dash into a jump and instantly Gatchi. You can use this to bait and punish Gatchi Drives.

Tiger Knee

Tiger Knee is a technique for pulling off Air moves the instant you leave the ground. This can be useful for Olivia, Ashley, Watson, and maybe others. To do this, input the motion for the air move while you are still on the ground, but continue to roll the input into a jump before pressing the button.

For example, to instantly do Olivia's Empress Lily, input the motion 2147B. Rolling to Up Back will cause Olivia to jump, and the move (which is j.214B) will come out right off the ground.

As another example, Watson can do this with his tiny Drop (j.236K). To do this, input 2369K. Rolling to Up Forward causes Watson to jump, and then the Tiny Drop comes out as soon as he leaves the ground.

Tiger Kneeing (or TKing) requires a bit of practice but is very useful, especially for Ashley. As a helpful hint, if you do not leave the ground at all or you leave the ground and nothing comes out, you are probably inputting the button too early. If you jump but only get a Normal to come out, you are probably inputting the special too slowly.

Character Specific

Jump Cancel - Coyori and Odile can Jump Cancel in certain situations. This technique allows you to cancel a special or normal into a Jump, generally for the purpose of comboing or making a move safer. To do this, simply press and hold Up once a Jump Cancelable move has connected. See Odile or Coyori's sections for additional details.

Double Jump - Coyori and Odile can Double Jump while in Heat Up mode. To do this technique, simply jump again while in mid air. This can be used along with Jump Cancel for both characters. See their sections for additional details.
Juggle Rules
Launches - Moves that Launch will cause the enemy to pop up into the air, where they can be hit for extra juggle hits.
Knocks Down (Sweep) - Moves that Knock Down (or Sweep) will pop the enemy up into the air very slightly, causing them to quickly hit the floor. Some of these moves can still be juggled off of in certain situations, such as Odile's 2D.

Air Recovery - Some moves when they hit during a juggle, will cause the enemy to recover in the air quickly. When this happens, it may be possible to hit them again as a reset, but since it is not a combo, they may Gatchi on the way down.
Air Unrecoverable - Certain others moves will not allow the enemy to recover while in the air, which makes for legitimate juggle combos.
Gatchi Drive Unrecoverable - During High Gatchi Drive or Low Gatchi Drive, NO moves are Air Recoverable. In addition, the enemy will float down much slower than normal, allowing for some advanced combos. This does mean however, that you cannot do Resets off a Gatchi Drive.

Red Hit vs Blue Hit

When hitting the enemy, their portrait (next to their life bar) will flash either Red or Blue:
Red Hit - If the portrait flashes Red, it is possible to continue hitting them in a combo/juggle.
Blue Hit - If the portrait flashes Blue, it is impossible to hit them any more until they have landed on the ground and recovered.

When you get a Red or Blue hit is based on the move used. For Juggles, this may depend on the move used to start the juggle, AND the move used during the juggle. Learning what extra hits you can get, and how to maximize the number of hits and damage you can get, is an important part of the game.

How many Red Hits you can score without reaching a Blue Hit is referred to as Juggle Potential.

Juggle Potential is not reset even if the enemy is reset using Air Recoverable moves.

Juggle Potential is greatly increased if a combo is done off of a High Gatchi Drive or while in Heat Up. Combining these two together can allow for some very long juggles.

Same Move Penalty

Using the same move twice in a row in a combo will greatly reduce your Juggle Potential. This is why most juggles rarely involve comboing the same move into itself.

There are a few noteworthy exceptions to this rule though. Coyori's j.A and j.B don't follow this rule. Hitting with only 1 hit of Odile's 214C does not follow this rule.

At other times, it simply does not matter as the combo will end one way or another. This is why Cedric often does combos involving two Holy Devotions in a row.

Advanced Juggle Potential Rules

For moves that hit multiple times, often the amount of Juggle Potential used is based on the hits that connect. Certain moves will have very little Juggle Potential used on the first hits, but a lot used on the last hit. Knowing this, many characters (such as Coyori, Watson, and Odile) can do advanced air juggle combos by purposefully wiffing the last hit of their moves.

As an example, Coyori has a High Gatchi Drive combo that is:
HGD, j.D(1) |> 5C(1), 623B, 623D 2D

For this combo, Coyori must hit with only the first hit of her j.D, and only the first hit of her 5C. This allows her to get many extra hits in her combo and thus get a lot more damage.

Instant Heat Up
Activating Heat Up does not have any Start Up, and can even be done during certain actions (such as Gatchi Driving). This allows you to do some useful techniques to activate Heat Up and Instantly perform a move.

Three Button Instant Heat Up

This method allows you to instantly activate Heat Up AND any super, special, or normal at the same time.

To do this method, you must input the move you want as normal, but press two extra buttons for Heat Up at the same time.

For example, if Freed wishes to instantly activate [4]6B, he will have to use both Punch buttons to activate Heat Up. So the move should actually be inputted as: [4]6B+A+C.
As a second example, if Marco wanted to instantly activate his Dragon Breath special (236C in Heat Up), he could input it as 236C+B+D.

A word of warning: Due to the way the input buffer works in Battle Fantasia, it is possible to try and activate Heat Up instantly as a reversal or link too early, and as a result you may get a Heat Up with no move, or you may get the wrong move entirely. Keep this in mind if you are getting the wrong move coming out when attempting to Instant Heat Up. Try and do the move later instead and you should have no problems.

Two Button Method (Negative Edge)

This method is 1 Frame slower than the three button method, and does not allow you to do Normals, but only requires you to use 2 buttons and is much easier for certain moves.

To do this method, you must input the move you want as normal, but then press both Strengths of the move you want, then release the button for the Strength you desire.

For example, if Freed wishes to instantly activate [2]8C, he will have to press both Punch buttons and release the C button. So the input would be like, [2]8, Press A+C, Release C.

For moves where there is no distinction between button strength, such as Urs's 236K, you can simply press and release both kick buttons without worrying.

If the move DOES have a distinction between button strengths, and BOTH buttons are released on the same Frame, the game will decide which version to do based on button priority:
·If both Punches are released at the same time, Light Punch is used.
·If both Kicks are released at the same time, Heavy Kick is used.

Gatchi Match vs Gatchi Drive
Gatchi Match, otherwise just known as Gatchi, is done simply by pressing the Gatchi button for High hits, or Down + Gatchi for Low hits. Doing this will negate all chip damage and guard stun from a move, and allow you to counter attack instantly and score a G-Counter (see below).

·Gatchi Match can be done while in the air, and is the only way to block hits while doing so.
·You can Gatchi multiple times in a row to beat multi-hit moves and supers.
·After Gatching, you can always block if you need to.
·Gatching gives you a few Frames to act while the other person is still paused. This allows you to use some moves with small startup that you might not be able to use as a reversal otherwise.

Gatchi Drive is done by pressing Forward + Gatchi for High hits, or Down Forward + Gatchi for Low hits. Gatchi Drive, if it successfully parries a hit, will immediately do a forward rush attack. If this attack connects, it will give you a special Gatchi Drive hit effect and allow you to do special combos.

·Note that the Gatchi Drive attack is not invincible, and thus will be beaten by fast, or multi-hit attacks. It is also fairly slow, so it can often be blocked or even punished!
·Gatchi Drive cannot be done in the air at all. ·High Gatchi Drive and Low Gatchi Drive have different properties on hit. Both have a completely different set of combos to use.
·During a Gatchi Drive combo, characters can Chain Cancel a lot more Normals.

Gatchi Match vs Gatchi Drive
  Gatchi Match Gatchi Drive
Input 5G, 2G 6G, 3G
Handles Multi-Hit Moves Yes No
Special Drive Combos No Yes
Extra Normal Cancels No Yes
Safe on Success Yes Maybe
Punishable No Maybe
Builds Super Meter Little Lot
·Both Gatchi types have a fair amount of recovery on wiff and thus are not very safe to use unless you KNOW what is coming.
·Both Gatchis are Instant, they have no startup.
·Both Gatchis are vulnerable to Throws and Command Throws.
·It is not possible to Gatchi while in a solid block string.

When to use Gatchi Match or Gatchi Drive

Knowing which Gatchi to use and when is very important. Which to use is based on the situation, and the character involved. Some characters, like Coyori will use regular Gatchi almost exclusively, while Deathbringer will often use Drive almost exclusive.

Some possible things that may determine which type you use are:
·Move Used - Some moves can't be Drived safely. Some moves recover fast enough that they are Safe against Drives (especially jabs and low jumping normals).
·Combos - Some characters have very strong Drive combos, some characters have very weak ones. Make sure you know what your options are for your character, and know if it's better for you to go for Drives or stick to Matches.
·Distance - Some characters have strong G-Counter combos, but some only work when very close. Against certain long range pokes, a character may not be able to punish well with G-Counter and may opt for Drive instead.
·Enemy Position - If the enemy is in the Air, often you can't get very good G-Counter combos. However, High Gatchi Drive will operate just as normal.
·Meter - Some character's Drives are much more useful with Super meter (especially Deathbringer). Drive also builds twice as much meter for doing so keep that in mind.

As an example, Urs's G-Counter combos are very strong if he is close enough to use c.C. If he is too far for it though, he does more damage with his High Gatchi Drive.
To make matters more complicated, without meter, or from far away, Urs's Low Gatchi Drive will get more damage than his G-Counter. So the decision is also based on if it is a low hit, or high hit.
Finally, Urs can't do his G-Counter combos against airborne enemies, so if the enemy is high in the air, he may Gatchi Drive. However if they are low enough to the ground, such to be safe against Drives, then he may be forced to Gatchi Match anyway.

Reaction Gatching Supers, Option Select Gatchi
All supers can be Gatchied on reaction (after the super flash occurs) if the player wasn't in the middle of doing anything (or in guard stun). The timing for this is quite strict though.

Fortunately, you can Option Select your Gatchi to make an attempt a lot safer. To do this, just make sure to hold Back when you attempt to Gatchi the super.

The reason this works is because supers start very, very fast after the super flash. If you Gatchi too early (during the super flash), nothing comes out and you simply get a block. If you Gatchi too late, you will already be blocking and thus be safe.

You can also use this technique to make Gatching Multi-Hit moves much safer. The principal works the same, always hold back when trying to Gatchi multi-hit moves. If you mess up the timing, you will at least get a block.

The exception to this rule is if there is a large gap between hits in a move. In this situation, it is possible to Gatchi early enough that your Gatchi will simply wiff, and you will eat the next hit. An obvious example is Marco's Dyna Rush, which has a long pause between uppercuts. Be aware of moves like this and know how to Gatchi them!

Counter Hit vs Gatchi-Counter
Counter Hits happen when one move is interrupted by another move, such as if one poke is beaten by another, or if a move is stuffed by a Dragon Punch. When a Counter Hit happens, the word 'Counter!' appears on screen.
Gatchi Counters, otherwise known as G-Counters, happen when a move is Gatchied, then punished. The word 'G-Counter!' appears on screen when this happens, and you and the enemy will flash Yellow.

While these two effects are similar, they are not entirely the same.
Counter Hit vs Gatchi-Counter
  Counter Hit G-Counter
Extra Hit Stun Yes Yes
Extra Hit Pause No Yes
Special Hit Properties Yes No
Damage Normal 140%
Extra Hit Stun allows you to do combos that would otherwise not be possible. For example, Olivia can link c.C into 2C on either Counter Hit or G-Counter.
Special Hit Properties are extra effects that can happen on Counter-Hit ONLY. An example, Freed's [4]6K special will cause Bounce on Counter Hit, but will NOT on G-Counter.
Extra Damage from G-Counter applies to the NEXT hit only. Multiple hit moves will have only their first hit enhanced.