Skullgirls Controls, Moves, and Basic Combos

Experience with any fighting game starts from learning the controls. What can I do here? What moves does this button activate? And then, it’s pretty important to figure out how the basic attacks and moves connect to each other for simplest combos.

There are different ways of getting familiar with such stuff. Quite a lot of people jump directly into the fights — to adapt on the run. In-built tutorials make the process significantly easier. But if you use a dedicated control / combo guide, you definitely don’t miss anything and will boost your progress substantially.

Skullgirls shows the ropes in the Training mode, as it has a series of pretty straightforward Tutorials. Even more information and details are here, in this Skullgirls guide on DashFight. 

Basic Controls

There are six primary attack buttons in Skullgirls, three Punches and three Kicks:

• Light, Medium, Heavy Punches — they are usually notated as LP, MP, HP
• Light, Medium, Heavy Kicks — notated as LK, MK, HK

Such a pattern is called a 6-button layout, and many other 2D fighting games also use it (Street Fighter, for example).

When you see PP or KK in notations, that means any two Punch or Kick buttons. Just P or K stands for a Punch or Kick of any strength.

Movements in Skullgirls are pretty straightforward:

• Left/Right — to walk
• Double Left / Double Right | PP or Back + PP — Dash Forward or Backward 
• Up / Forward Up / Backward Up — jumps

In Skullgirls, you can perform a Double Jump (press up twice) and Super Jump (down and then quickly up).

Some characters have Command Normals in their movelists. They are combinations of a simple directional input and a basic attack — for example, 6HP, Titan Knuckle for Cerebella.

To block in Skullgirls, you should press Backward (against high and mid hits) or Down Backward (crouch black against low and mid hits). Pressing backward while jumping activates block in the air.

Another defense option is Pushblock. Press PP while your character is in blockstun to push an opponent away.

If your character is knocked out, you can hold the directional buttons forward or backward (4 or 6) and any basic attack button to wake up towards a chosen direction (Ground Tech).

Button layouts on different gamepads are standard, so you actually take a controller and press the same buttons, regardless of how they are named.

Skullgirls Controls PlayStation

Skullgirls Controls Xbox

Skullgirls Controls Nintendo Switch

Skullgirls Keyboard Controls

Skullgirls Special Moves

Every Skullgirls character can perform Special Moves. They sure are different, but the inputs for them are universal, mostly combining directional motions and basic attack buttons.

Directional Motions for Special Moves

• Quarter-circle forward — notated as 236
• Quarter-circle backward — 214
• Tap forward (Dragon Punch motion) — 623
• Tap backward (Dragon Punch motion) — 421
• Holding Back and then Pressing Forward (with variations) — [4]6
• Holding Up and then Pressing Down (with variations) — [2]8

For exact Specials, you should check out the Skullgirls move list for each individual character. Learning this aspect of the game requires attention to details and practice — you need to understand what a Special Move actually does, and you need to perform it automatically, with as few error inputs as possible.

Skullgirls Super Moves

To perform these Skullgirls moves, you need to accumulate and spend Dramatic Tension:

• You build the meter by landing attacks
• You spend Dramatic Tension levels for performing Blockbuster attacks

Inputs for Super Moves in Skullgirls are similar to Specials but:

• Supers more often use combinations of 214 / 236 + two basic attack buttons
• The directional input may include Full Circle — 632147896, notated also as 360

And again, even if Supers use universal inputs, they should be learned individually for each character. Skullgirls movelists are very unique, and players have lots of various tools to express themselves in the fights.

Tag Team Buttons

Unlike DBFZ, this game gives you more options for team composition. You can choose to play one, two, or three characters. The more you have, the less powerful they become.

After selecting to fight with more than one character, you can use these buttons:

• Tag. MP + MK — to tag 2nd character; HP + HK — to tag 3rd character
• Assists. LP + MK / MP + LK — to call an assist from character 2; MP + HK / HP + MK — to call an assist from character 3.
• Snapback. 236 MP + MK — to kick out the current opponent and “summon” character 2 from their team. 236 HP + HK — to “summon” character 3.
• Alpha Counter. 6 MP + MK — to switch to character 2 (during burst or while in blockstun). 6 HP + HK — to switch to character 3

Another interesting Skullgirls tag team mechanic is Delayed Hyper Combo — while performing a Super move with the current character, you can activate a Super from your next character.

Universal Mechanics 

Every Skullgirls character can:

• Throw — LP + LK (also in the air)

Press the same combination when an opponent throws your character to perform Throw Tech.

Taunts

Taunt inputs differ from character to character:

Choosing Colors

To choose a color in Skullgirls, you should press a basic attack button or their combination while selecting a character. The number of color variants depends on who you want to play, but the inputs are universal:

1. LP
2. MP
3. HP
4. LK
5. MK
6. HK
7. LP MP HP
8. LK MK HK
9. LP LK
10. LK MP
11. LP MP LK
12. LK HP
13. LP HP LK
14. MP HP LK
15. LP MP HP LK
16. LP MP
17. LP MK
18. MP MK
19. LP MP MK
20. MK HP
21. LP HP MK
22. MP HP MK
23. LP MP HP MK
24. LK MK
25. LP LK MK
26. MP LK MK
27. LP MP LK MK
28. HP LK MK
29. LP HP LK MK
30. MP HP LK MK
31. LP MP HP LK MK
32. LP HP

Intro Poses

There are three possible intro poses for Skullgirls characters. To activate them, hold specific combinations during the loading screen before a match.

• LP or LK
• MP or MK
• HP or HK

Fukua and Big Band have one more intro pose, 4th:

• PP or KK

Basic Combos in Skullgirls

Basic attacks can be connected into each other and form the simplest combos — chains. They are essential to master before delving deeper and learning proper combos, which are unique for every character.

Skullgirls chains have apparent universal patterns, but still, there are some slight differences. In some cases, you can press the whole sequence, and in some cases, you can press only one button of one strength (for example, Light Punch or Light Kick).

It is also possible to mix crouching and standing attacks.

This guide gives a lot of info, so it’s your turn now — to train hard and develop strong basic skills.

If you feel ready to take a step further, check out our Skullgirls Beginner's Guide.