Introducing The Fighting Game Glossary. Over 650 terms carefully explained with 200+ video examples and Japanese translations. Easily search by term or game, share links to terms with your friends, and explore related concepts without losing your place.

I hadn't updated the site for about a year. This update was a few months in the making, it just proved hard to finish for several reasons. My next update will probably be a small one after City of the Wolves comes out to update with those terms, and then 2XKO later in the year.

The new icons are a bit experimental, especially which terms are "commonly used". I didn't want to update with a "general term" icon for a long time because I felt it cluttered the page a bit, but let's see how it feels to use the site with these icons available for now.

My latest update is live! It adds 32 terms, 17 videos, and three specific new icons, two of which are for "general term" (giving a searchable icon to non-game-specific terms) and "commonly used" (for important everyday terms).

"safe" button with high damage threat behind it is a core principle of every SF game (3s chun/dudley, sf4 eryu crMK etc etc), at least in sf6 you can block button xx DR, force them off 3 bars, and your opponent could easily have just made a round losing mistake.

if anything, normals in SF6 are *too* whiff punishable (but because of DR and mental stack, it's ok). we are a long cry away from ST, 3s chun, sf4 fei long etc where you can swing directly in your opponent's face 3x per second and if you got counter-poked, it was basically luck.

i've never seen a SF game with more whiff punishable normals than SF6 (and every patch they pick the best normals and add even more recovery to them). it's a complex game so you can't get it every time, but IMO empty button xx buffer being unpunishable is an absurd complaint.

guessing allows all the fun stuff in fighting games to actually work, otherwise you would never hit a human player with good defense. it allows for creative gambles and "playing the player" by making emotion-based reads. it's what keeps the genre unsolvable, energetic, and fun.

good FGs will have appropriate risk/reward on guesses and also offer a wide variety of types (basic 50/50s, layered offense, good movement to bait defensive reflexes, etc), but i've noticed recently it's been more common to question the core concept of guessing and i don't follow.

virtually every interaction where a good player can hit another good player in any fighting game happened because of a wrong guess. this includes basic mixups and 50/50s, but also whiff punishes, movement mixups, etc. it can't be removed; it's a staple of how the genre works.

terry's "you down for one more?" win pose is different depending on how far away he is from you when the round ends. if he's far away, he walks over to you before extending his hand

replay takeover in SF6 is really great. it won't be as useful for defending mixups as a game like +R (although still situationally useful of course), but the best question it will let you answer is "could I have killed with a different combo", something you ask very often in SF6.

yes some people will bounce off it, but they would also bounce off an "easy" game (as FG history has shown time and time again). then all you've done is made a game for nobody that dies in 6 months. making a game with lots to dig into is the only way to have longevity in FGs.

this "2xko is too messed up for beginners" discussion is silly imo. they're trying to make a FG that lasts 10 years, you don't do that by making a baby game with nothing to dig into. you attract newcomers by making a game that looks too fun to ignore and a welcoming community.

I'll keep this database up to date with each new EVO, which is much easier to do than updating my old tweet by hand. Hopefully I don't regret taking on yet another project I must keep updating every year.

The website lets you make fun queries. You can restrict by placement, year, and event, and count by total number of appearances (rather than unique games) if you prefer. Hover over a circle to get more info. Here's the top end of total 1st-3rd placements (including EVO Japan):

If you notice a mistake in the data, please let me know. I've done my best to identify when one person uses multiple usernames and so on, but it's easy to miss something. I'll make any corrections in the DB, so for the most up-to-date info, use the website linked above!.

Here is a list of every player who has made Top 8 in at least two different games at the main EVO tournament from 2002-2024. Check out the interactive database I made where you can play around with this data (including EVO Japan and EVO Online results):.

This is a great feature. I don't even mind spending money on it, since I like the game. My only asks are that the price is reasonable (at a few bucks per game, I'll buy it all, at $10 per game I won't buy any of it), and hopefully CvS2, SFEX etc games get included eventually.

Also, if you want to read a bit about the history of how I made the glossary and my many struggles with virtually every aspect of the design, check out this (long) thread! .