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Aside from its over-the-top aesthetic and flashy fast-paced gameplay, Guilty Gear Strive is known for reviving the Guilty Gear franchise for modern console generations. Unlike more fluid fighting games of today’s time, Guilty Gear Strive returns to doing what made Guilty Gear quite an iconic franchise: give players multiple mechanics that can allow them to manipulate almost any aspect of the game.

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One such iconic Guilty Gear feature comes in the form of the Roman Cancel. A derivative of the traditional “move cancel” that stops an ongoing move from happening, the Roman Cancel in Guilty Gear transforms this into an actual mechanic. When a circle flash appears for a split second, a Roman Cancel can do various things - from extending combos to applying pressure. However, just how exactly does Roman Canceling work for players?

History Of The Roman Cancel

An old Roman Cancel in Guilty Gear

Fans of fighting games might hear of the term “teching” while dishing out combos in most hit franchises, such as Street Fighter or even Tekken. At its core, this simply means “skipping” the ending frames of a particular motion through timed button presses. In the community, this is referred to as “cancelling” a move, and this applies to all situations where a timed press of a button mid-motion “skips” frames entirely in favor of the new motion.

Interestingly, Guilty Gear takes this concept and makes it into a separate mechanic, now known as Roman Cancels. In Guilty Gear speak, a Roman Cancel works as a teching move, albeit formalized.

The Basics: What Is A Roman Cancel?

Ky Kiske Performing the Roman Cancel as a Counter

The Roman Cancel literally cancels the ending motion of an attack in order to perform more moves, be it running away, applying pressure, or dishing out more combos. Colors denote the kind of Roman Cancel that players perform, which appear depending on the circumstances surrounding the move’s activation. Here is a summary of the important elements of a Roman Cancel:

  • Cost: The move immediately costs 50-percent Tension.
  • Red RC: This variant happens when an opponent is suffering the block-stun or hit-stun phase.
  • Blue RC: This variant happens during a player’s neutral state.
  • Purple RC: This variant is possible during a move’s active frames.
  • Yellow RC: This variant is only possible if a player is in hitstun.

The Roman Cancel Mechanic

Someone performing a Roman Cancel

Unlike in other games where players have to press specific buttons to dish out specific cancels, Guilty Gear Strive has a straightforward combo notation to be able to perform a Roman Cancel successfully. Theoretically, doing this allows Guilty Gear players to perform both defensively and offensively, with little room for error.

At its core, players simply need to press three attack buttons at the same time in order to successfully perform a Roman Cancel. The Dust button isn’t counted in these presses, however. Players know they’ve performed a proper Roman Cancel once a colored circle flashes around their character, as well as players noticing the game immediately allowing their character to move normally unlike the usual movement associated with their action.

Red Roman Cancel

Red Roman Cancel
  • Tension: 50%
  • Startup: Super Freeze 25F, 1(+44)
  • Recovery: -
  • On-Block: +24
  • Slowdown: 39F
  • Cancel: During Super Freeze, 7~13F

When Guilty Gear Strive players dish out a successful throw or a hit against an opponent, they can perform a Red Roman Cancel right away. Its window for slowdown is even larger when performing this during Counter Hits. At its core, the shockwave this releases will be launching the enemy faraway, even causing a knockdown.

Due to the stagger and knockdown effect, the Red Roman Cancel becomes perfect for extending combos or securing the pressure on foes. Characters with intense juggling mechanics such as Giovanna or Nagoriyuki may be able to benefit from Red Roman Cancels due to this juggle-prone move.

Purple Roman Cancel

Purple Roman Cancel
  • Tension: 50%
  • Startup: Super Freeze 20F, 6(+39)
  • Recovery: -
  • On-Block: -
  • Slowdown: 19F
  • Cancel: During Super Freeze, 8~14F

In the moment Guilty Gear Strive players try to perform an attack that doesn’t hit or when they dish out a Roman Cancel during the latter stages of a combo, the variant becomes a Purple Roman Cancel instead of Red. Similar to the Red Roman Cancel, the Purple variant will still release shockwaves. However, instead of hitting opponents outright, this simply slows them down.

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Despite this rather limited nature, the Purple Roman Cancel is a great way to ensure opponents don’t have room to punish players during long combo stretches. This is useful for combo specialists like Giovanna who don’t deal as much damage but need a lot of room to juggle opponents. However, players need to take note that certain attacks with invincibility frames may not be able to work with the Purple Roman Cancel.

Blue Roman Cancel

Blue Roman Cancel
  • Tension: 50%
  • Startup: Super Freeze 20F, 6(+39)
  • Recovery: -
  • On-Block: -
  • Slowdown: 59F
  • Cancel: During Super Freeze, 5~11F

When players perform the Blue Roman Cancel, they have to do so during either normal movement or in a neutral state. Players of Guilty Gear Strive cannot be engaging the opponent in any way, as the point of this cancellation is to serve as a startup for more complex combos while punishing the opponent’s actions. This is helpful for the likes of Nagoriyuki who can still reach opponents with deadly attacks even when faraway.

Technically-speaking, the blue shockwave this releases will be slowing down opponents who aren’t blocking. Since this has the longest slowdown among the RC types, this move doesn’t end when opponents perform a block or when they get hit. This makes it the best RC move to punish long-distance attackers and those who try to do other forms of actions from afar.

Yellow Roman Cancel

Yellow Roman Cancel
  • Tension: 50%
  • Startup: Super Freeze 12F, 14(+28)
  • Recovery: 33
  • On-Block: -16
  • Slowdown: 9F
  • Cancel: -

When players become the receiving end of hits from the opponent in Guilty Gear Strive, the Yellow Roman Cancel is a great way to initiate a counter-offensive. Activated only when players are in a blockstun, the Yellow Roman Cancel gives players invincibility until the end of the super freeze state. Not only that, but players may be able to dish out Counter Hits during this recovery stage. This is helpful when using the likes of slow Potemkin who may need the extra defensive support.

Enemies on the receiving end of a Yellow Roman Cancel suffer the effects of a Guard Crush, albeit with no damage. However, this still ensures that opponents are left vulnerable at a state where players can still dish out brutal counters.

Special Mechanics

Hitting someone after Roman Cancel Stun

Players who want to master their movement with the Roman Cancel may also be able to input particular mobility patterns in order to maximize their usage of the technique in Guilty Gear Strive. This is particularly helpful in situations where players may need to jump the gun on an opponent or if they need to lure the opponent into a trap. Here are some advanced mechanics involving the Roman Cancel mechanic:

Dash Roman Cancels

Dash Roman Cancel

Except with Yellow Roman Cancels, players may actually be able to dash towards the opponents before performing a Roman Cancel. This theoretically gives them an edge in terms of distance, as they close the gap with the opponent to get better room when dishing out combos.

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  • To perform this, players need to do a Dash right before the Roman Cancel input.
  • This Dash motion can happen in any direction, except diagonals.
  • When performed with Red Roman Cancels, the Dash input will be throwing opponents in a different manner.

Roman Cancel Cancels

Roman Cancel Cancel

Despite the double negative, it is totally possible to cancel the Roman Cancel input within the right timing. Again, this is possible for any Roman Cancel input except Yellow Roman Cancels. This is extremely helpful when luring opponents into a false sense of security, similar to the gameplay of confusing Faust.

  • Players need to perform this during a specific part of the animation, specifically right before the shockwave portion of the super freeze.
  • Thanks to Roman Cancel Cancels, players don’t necessarily have to release 50-percent Tension, but still enjoy the basic cancellation effects of the Roman Cancel.
  • If this occurs in extremely close range, enemies still suffer a bit of slowdown.

On The Tension Gauge

Tension Gauge

One of the most fundamental components of Guilty Gear Strive mechanics is its Tension Gauge, which essentially acts as the game’s overall resource gauge. All of the game’s more technical components cost Tension Gauge, which means players need to take note whether using a Roman Cancel is more worthwhile compared to these uses:

  • Overdrives: A character’s super move, called an Overdrive, also costs 50-percent Tension.
  • Faultless Defense: This pure defensive block consumes Tension on both usage and on a successful block.
  • Negative Penalty: Using too much defense puts players on a Negative Penalty, which removes all their Tension entirely.

Regaining Tension

Doing an Overdrive costs Tension

Thankfully, players who do have to use any of the moves above but want to reserve a Roman Cancel can explore a multitude of ways of regaining their Tension, especially depending on which Gulty Gear character they use. When done properly, a player may be able to quickly regain the Tension they’ve used up to spam Roman Cancels in quick succession, allowing them to dish out more moves. Here are moves players may want to string with their Roman Cancels to allow RCs to pave the way for a Tension refill:

  • Movement: Players who move towards the opponent count as aggression and contribute up to 10-percent bonus Tension.
  • Normals: Both on-hit and blocked Normal Attacks can build Tension, depending on the intensity of the moves.
  • Blocking: Successful Blocks slowly give Tension, and the amount is doubled during a successful Instant Block.
  • Specials: Performing a Special Move earns Tension on both startup and on execution, regardless if it’s on-hit or blocked.
  • Gold Burst: Hitting the opponent with a Gold Burst will instantly fill Tension.

Guilty Gear Strive is available for the PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X and S.

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