Salvatore Ganacci overview & gameplay guide
Character specification
Character story
Salvatore is a justice-dealing Artist who has arrived in South Town looking for inspiration to help finish his latest (and hopefully greatest) anime music video. When his good friend Duck King tells him about the KOF tournament on the horizon, Salvatore decides it just might give him the spark he needs. Combining DJing and martial arts, Salvatore is nothing if not versatile—mixing music, muscles, and mayhem leaving even the most formidable opponents stunned and disoriented by his extraordinary abilities.
Difficulty
MEDIUM
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Fighting Style
Salvatore Ganacci
Salvatore Ganacci Gameplay Trailer
PDF Command List
Gameplay Overview
Salvatore is a wholly unique offensive character who creates chaos and confusion through his bizarre normals, multiple stances, and some of the game’s most potent hit confirms.
Salvatore is defined by his multiple stances with unique followups, giving him more options to push his offense than anyone else in the game. His stances all let him hit high or low, create spacing traps, vary up his timing to prevent any Just Defense, or even keep his turn thanks to his constant access to plus frames. As if trying to play defense against this guy wasn’t hard enough with all of that, Salvatore’s aerial attacks are incredibly powerful, especially his j.C, a constantly active normal that hits on both sides and alters his jump. If at any point he lands a hit, he has multiple ways to confirm into massive damage, straight into some of the game’s best okizeme.
But to play Salvatore, it’s important to understand the extent to which he plays by his own rules. While he’s got the normals to play the footsies game, he’s better off making the opponent respect his approach tools, frustrating them with his air attacks, faking them out with stance stops, stopping their own aerial assault with his great anti-airs, and piling on tricks for them to worry about. Try to do too much, however, and you’ll get smacked out of your groove, and with Salvatore sporting no invincible reversal aside from his supers, you’ll be struggling to get the opponent off of you.
All in all, Salvatore is for the players who thrive in chaos. Unique in his offense, defense, and just about everything he does in this game, his quirkiness is what makes him one of Fatal Fury’s most fun characters.
Pros & Cons
thumb_up PROS
- Aerodynamic: Salvatore's jumping heavy normals are stupidly good. j.C is maybe the best crossup in the entire game, and j.D alters your jump arc to be even shallower than a regular hop when done early enough, or extend your jump if done late, and both are active until landing on top of that.
- Take (+) Five: So much of Savatore's kit either is or can be made plus that it's actually kind of alarming. This includes all of his close normals, meaty stance overheads, his EX Stomp, and even two of his pokes in far A and C. Once you're in, it will be hard to get you out.
- Fight Dirty: With so many weird tools at his disposal, Salvatore players can overwhelm opponents just by using more of his options, which especially helps his mixup and pressure game. It's simply not realistic to properly defend against each of his counterable attacks while also reacting to his abundance of High/Low mix options.
thumb_down CONS
- Rev Theory: While he can admittedly put together strong combos, most of Salvatore's routing is highly meter reliant; he cannot economically start most combos, and often has to forego a lot of damage when ending them economically, and his meterless routes are very unrewarding compared to most. This is also not helped by how much he actually relies on Rev for his best offense and even some of his neutral.
- Under Pressure: Salvatore lacks a DP, even a meterless parry, crouching 4 framer or strong Rev Blow of any kind, and his metered options can be difficult to use: parries can be more conditional than a DP, and his reversal supers are all quite slow outside of Hidden Gear. When it comes to getting out of pressure, he can leave much to be desired.
- Systematic Chaos: Salvatore's universal System Tools are among the weakest of the cast. He suffers from the slowest backdash with no upside, bad walk speed, a short dash, and a below average High Dodge Attack. His Rev Blows also leave much to be desired with his air version being a contender for worst in the game.