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Gato overview & gameplay guide

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Character specification

Character story

A man who fights in order to settle the score with his father, Gao. In the previous tournament, Gato was nearly blinded after a vicious attack from him. Although he has for the most part recovered his sense of sight, after realizing the sluggishness in his movements he now willingly chooses to fight in complete darkness. Hearing news of the latest King of Fighters tournament, Gato once again steps into the fray in order to enact his vengeance.

Difficulty

MEDIUM
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Fighting Style

Hard kung fu styles(Bajiquan, Xinyi Liuhequan, etc.)

Gato icon

Gato Gameplay Trailer

PDF Command List

Gato

Arcade Style + Smart Style
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Gameplay Overview

Gato is a rushdown character who uses his massive toolkit to extend pressure, mix up, and damage an opponent's guard like no other.

Gato's most impressive strength are his arensal of close range buttons. He has great feint pressure options, incredibly fast and long reaching lights, an excellent H DP brake, and multiple safe ways to enforce frametraps. With so many ways to put pressure on the opponent, they're doubtlessly going to try and escape, but Gato has excellent options for punishing careless abare. His frametraps are fairly safe on block and deal excellent damage, while he has numerous ways to bait DPs such as his air flips and his step dash.

More than any other character, Gato is a true nightmare up close. Not only can he threaten strong throw mixups very easily, but he has a number of good ways to open the opponents up. His 214P backturn stance, new to this series, gives Gato numerous pressure tools. He has a counter, a safe frame trap combo starter, and a command grab, all of which can be supplemented by cancelling out of the stance to remain safe. Once he's found the hit, Gato can push damage very high very quickly, with minimal use of Rev to start his more damaging combos. His okizeme is also frightening, with numerous ways to layer meaties, including a 19f overhead that leads into full combos.

Of course, this insane up close strength comes at a steep cost. Gato struggles to close the gap against zoners in COTW, of which many are quite strong. He lacks a fireball, and while he has options to counter them, he will have to play patient if he wants to overcome them. As well, Gato needs to close the gap, as his long range offense is severely limited. Gato plays along the razor's edge, looking for the right opening to strike, and this can require a lot of patience. Still, if you want to play a rushdown character with a unique kit and an unconventional approach to neutral, Gato will reward you will extreme martial prowess.

Pros & Cons

thumb_up PROS

  • Overwhelming Offense: Gato's dash and strong pressure options give him ferocious offensive potential. His c.C feint is +2 on block, and canceling it into Soaring Fang grants safe, high damage frametraps that deal high guard damage. He is also among the few chars with a safe, meterless frametrap after a far heavy normal with D Wind Fang - which can be followed up with safe frametraps on its own and is only -2 when braked. Most of his frametraps have very high reward, as well, making sure your opponent is punished heavily for their mistakes.
  • In Your Head: Gato excels at baiting opponent responses, with numerous tools to do so. His air flip has a turnaround that shifts his hurtbox, allowing you to jump over wakeup reversals while maintaining offense. His 214P backturn stance has options for frametraps, command grabs, and DP baits, and his incredible 6A is a 19f overhead that leads to combos.
  • Fantastic Defense: Gato's lights (particularly f.A) have great range and hitconfirmability. Moreover, Gato's high dodge attack, DP, and DP brake cover a wide array of air approaches. Each of these grant Gato conversions with corner carry, damage, and even side swaps being on the table. His light DP is the star of the show, with mutlihits making it hard to JD, and giving him better frame advantage than other characters.
  • Close Range Demon: Gato's buttons, speed, and Wind Fang make him quite the annoyance to deal with in close range. His 6B is an insane button for poking wars thanks to its high reward on counterhit, fast startup, and low recovery. His upper body dodge attack is only matched by Tizoc's in terms of its ability to blow through pokes, his massive range lights are great for forcing opponents to play a more patient game, he has a feint that mimics his 5D, and Wind Fang is a great tool for harassing more defensive players into doing something aggressive.

thumb_down CONS

  • Weak Far Heavies: Gato's far heavy normals are quite lackluster, with limited range, coverage, and a whole load of recovery. This means he has to use them precisely, or risk being punished massively. This is Gato's largest weakness and it is one you will feel constantly while playing the character.
  • Step Dash: While Gato's step dash makes pressure more simple (as it's easier to avoid accidental command normal usage), it creates problems in his neutral. Though wavedashing allows him to close in quickly, you cannot wavedash into a normal without delaying the normal first. With Gato, this is worse than other step dash characters, as he has no specials he would ever want to wavedash into on a qcf (or worse, DP) motion.
  • Weak Afar: With most characters in this game having projectiles or some special way to circumvent them, Gato having neither leaves him needing to play incredibly patient - and to make good reads - to get in on characters that have long range harassment tools. His longer range buttons lead to worse reward than the rest of the cast, encouraging him to close the gap at any cost.
  • Death on Drop: Gato's more optimal combo enders will get you punished for extreme damage if you drop them, and require more execution than other characters to land them as well.

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