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SUBJECT: FRAME CANCELING
BY
Architect: Lynxara
Platform: PlayStation Portable BLUEPRINTS FOR:
Generation of Chaos is unusual among strategy RPGs for its real-time battle system. This and the game’s 2D graphics combine to
introduce a very important element into battles: hitstun and frame canceling. Exploiting this properly lets you win battles even if
your unit is pretty underpowered. When you’re fighting bosses like the Dragon Kings, it can end up being the only way to win.
It just takes too long to aim those
little bows.
Before we can get into frame canceling, though, let’s
go through some basics. Hitstun is a concept that should
Once you’re in hitstun, you’re gonna
be stuck there for awhile.
be quite familiar to anyone who’s ever played a 2D action
game, particularly a 2D fighting game. As a character takes
damage, he or she becomes temporarily immobile and
becomes trapped for a few fractions of a second in a “getting
hit” animation. In GoC, each character on the field is
subject to hitstun when damaged by an enemy attack.
The attack cycle is the period of time
required for a character to complete an attack,
including their wait period and the time
it takes to complete their attack animation.
The length of the attack cycle varies according
to a character’s SPD stat and their unit
type. A high-SPD archer like a Marine
may still have a longer attack cycle
than a low-SPD Knight, simply because archers have more frames of animation to get through before they can
start dealing damage. Hitstun is a significant factor in GoC’s combats because entering hitstun forces a character
to restart their attack cycle from the beginning.
Frame canceling is a trick for avoiding damage you can pull off by carefully exploiting the way the attack cycle works. Any given
attack cycle culminates in damage frames, the precise moments in the attack animation where the opponent takes damage. A curious
element of GoC’s battle engine is that damage is not subtracted from
your opponent’s HP total until after your damage frame has connected, the
opponent has entered hitstun,
and the damage total numbers
The battle stops as you make your have appeared above his or her
decision.
head. If any given frame of this
process is interrupted before the
damage numbers appear, then the
attacker must restart his or her attack cycle as if they had entered hitstun and
no damage is dealt to the opponent.
It’s entirely possible for one of your troops to hit an opponent at just the
right time, and frame cancel by abruptly forcing him or her into hitstun. Taking
damage in GoC always takes priority over dealing damage. The problem
with relying on your troops to produce frame cancels is, of course, that your troops aren’t directly under your control. Whether or not
their attacks happen to have the right timing for a frame cancel is entirely a matter of chance.
The best ways to achieve a frame cancel is by using interrupting events — Items, Skills, and Supers. The menu you access these
commands from is causes all action onscreen to freeze — effectively, giving the menu priority over all other combat actions. If you simply
exit the menu the attack cycle will proceed normally, but if you use the Item, Skills, or Super commands, then that event interrupts
everything else happening on the battlefield. These events are themselves
completely uninterruptible and cannot be cancelled.
Which of your options
you pick and what it does
makes no real difference in
terms of frame canceling your
opponent’s attack. A weatherchange
Super or a healing
See all those attacks not connecting?
That’s lost damage.
Item cancels just as well as a massive-damage Skill or Super. It’s smartest to
use the most abundant resources you can for canceling. Super meter builds
automatically throughout the battle, so it’s best to cancel with Supers when
you have the option. If you can’t use a Super, then resort to whatever Skills
your commander has available. Canceling with an Item should be a last-ditch
desperation move, unless it’s something like Soul Contract where you benefit more from using it earlier in the combat.
Bear in mind that interrupting events like Supers, Skills, and Items can frame cancel your own actions as well as those of the
enemy. If your commander is finishing his attack cycle but hasn’t yet gotten to his damage frames, then triggering an interrupting event
duly cancels his attack. It’s easy to avoid doing this to your commander, but it’s a bit harder to make sure you aren’t needlessly canceling
your own troops’ attacks when you go to frame cancel. Before trying to use frame canceling heavily in battle, make sure you have a
very good grasp of roughly how long your troops’ attack cycles are and what their damage frames look like. It’s simply a waste to use an
interrupting event to frame cancel if your troops were about to cancel the attack anyway.
There’s a big exception to this caution if you’re using a long-range unit, like a Magician, Marine, or Gunner. GoC’s combat engine
interprets the attack cycle of long-range characters in an interesting way, with the projectile launched by the character functioning as
their damage frames. The projectiles, however, exist persistently, while the
damage frame of a melee-range character exists only for as long as it takes
them to cycle through that part of
Think of that little ball of a light
as a traveling damage frame.
their attack animation.
If you’re using a longrange
unit, it’s entirely possible
to have your unit launch their
attack projectiles, quickly use an
interrupting event to frame cancel whatever the enemy is doing, and then
watch as all the attack projectiles hit the helpless enemy after the event
finishes. When fighting a long-range unit, you need to remember that you
have to frame cancel the enemy’s attack before they reach the part of their
attack cycle where their projectile appears. it’s too late to try and cancel
once the enemy’s projectile has begun its approach. It is possible to cancel damage from projectiles by letting them hit you and then
quickly triggering an event before the damage total appears, but the window of time for doing this is so short that it’s difficult to pull
off consistently.
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