It’s the kind of thing that probably won’t ever happen again since developers in the modern age of fighting games can simply and rapidly patch out any unintended functions, bugs, or glitches that pop up, but older titles were more or less stuck with such blemishes.
That wasn’t always a bad thing, however, as in some instances such hiccups actually changed how a respective fighting game was played. In his latest video MrMixtape covers four such happenings as he takes a closer look at Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Street Fighter Alpha 2, Capcom vs. SNK 2, and Super Smash Bros. Melee (which is Super Smash Bros. 2, for those keeping track).
We’ll highlight one of the unintended abilities here as it’s something that would most definitely never fly if it popped up in a more recent release: Capcom vs. SNK 2’s roll glitch.
Capcom vs. SNK 2 offers players six different “Grooves” to choose from at character select, and your choice will grant your character(s) particular special abilities to strategize around. (Many of us will experience this firsthand once the upcoming Capcom Fighting Collection 2 drops next month.
The game’s “A-Groove” option allows characters to perform invincible dodge rolls so as to maneuver through fireballs or longer poke attacks, but it turns out you can actually cancel the start up of your roll into a special attack. If you do this, the invincibility meant for the roll transfers into the start up frames of the special move.
If you’re good at it, this implies that you can add invincibility frames to most any of your special attacks in CVS2, which has major implications for gameplay flow and balance potential. Capcom let this one ride and thus it became part of the meta for the handful of characters who could take extra advantage.
There are three other such glitches MrWinQuote covers in the full video below, plus he goes into a good bit more detail on the CVS2 example. Give the video a watch and let us know in the comments if there are other similar examples of meta changing glitches from other fighting games not covered here.