Glitches have played an important role in the realm of fighting games that could unlock unintended new levels of techniques and abilities that were not just limited to the classic arcade era.
Even Street Fighter 4 throughout its life featured a bug that gave some characters frighteningly better options, but they were held back by the difficulty of actually taking advantage of the strict glitch.
TheoryFighter recently put together a very nice and fascinating video taking a deep look at Street Fighter 4’s frame-perfect bug.
Armor cancels in SF4 work in a similar fashion to kara cancels where one action can be essentially swapped out for another with added benefits during the initial startup frames.
It’s even harder to use armor cancels in most situations, however, because a character has to use a move that has armor properties from frame one while the opponent is hitting them at the same time.
TheoryFighter breaks down how there’s only a five frame window to pull off the cancel, which typically means you have to input the second move before the first one activates.
While most characters can’t take advantage of the glitch with Focus Attacks, it gives Rufus in particular a pretty nasty way to beat option selects.
Rufus can use back throw to armor cancel Focus, which allows him to hit option selects meant to beat his grab after his signature dive kick.
Even if they don’t hit the attack, Rufus can backdash and leave himself at only -11, hold Focus for a guard crush or go for a dash before the move comes out.
Gen can stance switch from the armor cancel that makes it more like a parry, but the one-frame timing restriction means the technique is difficult to use during a match consistently.
Armor cancels can also work out of certain EX specials and actually allows for options that shouldn’t be possible in SF4’s game rules.
Some characters can use armor cancel to go from an EX attack into a Super Art going EX into Super was possible because the small amount of time during the cancel doesn’t calculate the meter change on that first frame.
Balrog’s EX Dash Straight is good for this since he can go into Super, a different rush punch for more armor or just complete the move and stay safe on block.
There’s other interesting applications highlighted with Juri able to cancel her EX counter into Feng Shui Engine for big damage on a punish, Guy can do different options out of his run, and Gouken can cancel his EX counter into Super or Ultra if you’re an input god too.
TheoryFighter does include actual tournament footage of this tech being used in matches during the era too, so it was definitely around and something to be wary of despite the difficulty.
We highly recommend checking out TheoryFighter’s full video below for much more detail like all of the wild stuff the glitch allows Abel to do.