How To Play Arcana Heart 3 – Part 2: Basic Movement

Table of Contents

• Part 1 – Choosing a Character & Arcana

Now that you’ve picked a character and an Arcana, you can finally think about playing Arcana Heart 3. For the most part, moving around is the most important basic aspect in Arcana Heart 3, as when you begin a match, you are usually too far away to hit your opponent without moving first. With that in mind, let’s discuss all of the basic movement options in Arcana Heart 3 so you can get close enough to hit your opponent.

Basic Movement – Like Every Other Game

There are only a few basic movement options in Arcana Heart 3 and most of them should be pretty familiar to you if you’ve played any sort of 2D game. Regardless, let’s go through each and every one so we don’t accidently leave anyone in the dust. For the record, all controls assume that your character is facing right.

Walking – By inputting and holding ← or →, you will walk backward or forward, respectively. This is definitely one way that you can use to move around, though it is by far the slowest. Still, it’s important to walk before you fly, so there you have it. It bears mentioning that walking backward will double as a Standing Guard, so keep this in mind.

Crouching – By inputting and holding ↓, ↙, or ↘, your character will crouch. Since ↙ also counts as a Crouching guard, this is probably the most useful input used for crouching. Crouching gives you access to different normal attacks, which is probably the biggest use of crouching, aside from blocking an opponent’s low attacks.

Jump – By inputting ↗, ↑, or ↖, your character will jump in the direction that you inputted. Jumps provide a way for your character to move upward, which is definitely a plus since there’s a whole lot of empty screen for you to occupy in this game. Whether you choose to use this mobility for offense or defense however, is up to you.

Intermediate Movement – Like Some Other Games

These are movement options that you commonly see in other fighting games, including Street Fighter IV and BlazBlue. They have slightly different properties from most conventional games, so each and every one is also listed in full detail here. It is important to note that the character or Arcana you play may affect these abilities (such as Scharlachrot’s Forward Step or the Wind Arcana’s ability to Triple Jump), but they should be taken as the exception and not the rule.

Forward Step – By inputting →→ quickly, your character will perform a Forward Step, also known as a Forward Dash. Relative to walking, this will move you forward pretty quickly, but by inputting Forward Step, you are committed to moving forward. The Forward Dash is fully cancelable at any time, so you can always cut your forward movement short by attacking, jumping, and or even blocking during the animation. That said, the Forward Step is quite useful.

Back Step – By inputting ←← quickly, your character will perform a Back Step, also known as a Back Dash. Once again, relative to walking, this will move your character backward pretty quickly. However, unlike the Forward Step, the Back Step has a period of recovery after the animation is finished and is NOT fully cancelable. Instead, the Back Step has invincibility for about half of its animation, followed by a window where it can be canceled into special attacks, and then finally a small bit of recovery where you cannot do anything at all. With that in mind, the Back Step is useful for avoiding incoming attacks and for creating space between yourself and your opponent, but it is far from fool-proof.

High Jump – By inputting ↓, then quickly inputting a jump (↗, ↑, or ↖,), your character will perform a High Jump, otherwise known as a Super Jump. When done correctly, the jump animation is quite different and your opponent will go much, much higher than a normal jump. Depending on which direction you input your High Jump, your character will travel slightly further in that direction, though probably not as far as you’d expect out of a High Jump if you’ve played other games. However, relative to the normal Jump, the High Jump takes a little longer to get off the ground to offset the extra height you gain from performing it. Regardless, the practical application of the High Jump still remains the same, get higher faster.

Double Jump – By inputting ↗, ↑, or ↖ while your character is midair, your character will perform a Double Jump. A double jump is exactly what it sounds like, a second jump performed in the air. As with its namesake, you can only perform one Double Jump each time you take to the sky, but you can always perform one, regardless of how you got into the air (double jumping, being knocked into the sky). As you would expect, this option gives you more mobility in the air for either offense or defense.

Aerial Dash – By inputting →→ or ←← quickly while in midair, your character will perform an Aerial Dash. An Aerial Dash is a way to move laterally in the air, so it has many applications in both offense and defense. Compared to… not doing anything, this is a good way to move around, but you will not be able to block in the entire duration of the Aerial Dash and can only cancel the animation into an attack or movement option after the initial startup. Regardless, this is still a good movement option and has considerably less risk than some other options for closing in or getting away.

Closing – Wait, how do I get up there!?

You may have learned all the basic and intermediate ways to move around, but you’ve still got a long ways to go before you’re able to master movement in Arcana Heart 3! Tune in next time, when we’ll go the very heart and soul of Arcana Heart 3, “Homing”!