What Are the Six Grooves in Capcom vs. SNK 2?

C-Groove is the Street Fighter Alpha system: a three level super meter, air blocking, and counter attacks. A-Groove is the Alpha series' other idea, the custom combo: spend the meter to chain moves freely and improvise. P-Groove imports Street Fighter III's signature skill, the parry, nullifying attacks with a timed tap toward them, backed by a single long meter that fires only level 3 supers.

Pick a Capcom groove and the game even dresses like Capcom: the in fight portraits switch to Kinu Nishimura's art.

S-Groove is The King of Fighters' Extra mode style, from KOF '94 onward: charge the meter manually, dodge instead of blocking, and at low health your level 1 supers become unlimited. N-Groove is KOF '98's Advanced style: a meter you stock in up to three levels, spent on supers or on a Power Max that raises your attack strength. K-Groove fuses two SNK ideas, Garou: Mark of the Wolves' Just Defend, blocking at the last instant for bonuses, and Samurai Shodown's Rage Gauge, which fills as you take damage and, once full, raises your power and unlocks your strongest super.

Pick an SNK groove and the portraits switch to Shinkiro's realistic SNK style. The home versions go one step further and let you build custom grooves of your own.

Any character can fight under any groove. Ryu can parry like a Street Fighter III character or Just Defend like a Garou character; Kyo can run a custom combo. The grooves are the real crossover of Capcom vs. SNK 2: the roster merged the casts, and the grooves merged the rulebooks those casts were raised under. How teams are priced under any groove is the companion system on this shelf: the ratio system. The game's full story is on the history page.