Chris/Move List

Overview


Chris is a speed-type Rushdown/Mixup character, with a bevy of bulky pokes to play neutral footsies with, and speedy-approach options to confound his foes with. Chris is equipped mainly with an abundance of pressure and high-low-hitting options that can further confound defenders during blockstrings at the cost of longer range that other characters have. Added with a side-switching non-damage grab in the form of Direction Change and both his Scramble Dash and short-hop/diagonal j. for cross-ups, a strong Chris player is able to continuously rush his foe down with ease with okay damage to spare (and an invincible reversal option in the form of Hunting Air).

While Chris was initially underpowered with notable gaps in his moves in The King of Fighters '97, many of his moves saw a massive rework for streamlined-usability since The King of Fighters '98. Even then, among his tools that despite its nerfs in later games, has been his infamous jumping Blowback attack (j.) with its strong forward-and-downward hitbox and blockstun, making it one of the series' most powerful jump-ins to date.

Regardless, major weakness Chris has are lack of strong knockdowns and high damage. Without the former, powerful okizeme isn't often as guaranteed to balance out his strong high-low-left-right-mixups (especially since his hard knockdown options have him recover too late to take advantage of them). The latter also causes him to be lacking as a middle or anchor character in most teams due to his resource consumption resulting only passable damage (forcing him to stagger damage through short continuous combos and resets). On top of lack of projectiles or answers to truly deal with them, Chris has difficulty in enforcing his reward more often times than not, though his forte still makes him hard to underestimate.