Street Fighter 6/Gameplay

Controls
One player may compete against the computer, or two players may simultaneously compete against each other. Each player has an 8-way joystick and 6 buttons.

Buttons
The buttons on the arcade are typically laid out in the following fashion: The L, M, and H stand for light, medium, and hard respectively. In general, light attacks are less powerful and faster, and hard attacks are more powerful but slower, with medium attacks in between.

Joystick
The joystick works intuitively in that pressing left will generally move your character left, and pressing right will generally move your character right. But it is more important to think in terms of relative direction. For this reason, all instructions are given with respect to forward and backward since the left and right directions change purpose when your character switches directions.
 * If your character is facing to the right, then pressing left on the joystick means backward, and pressing right on the joystick means forward.
 * If your character is facing to the left, then pressing left on the joystick means forward, and pressing right on the joystick means backward.

The following directions assume that your character is facing right, the starting direction of every fight for player one, who begins on the left side:

Rules
Each battle consists of a best-of-three-round match between you and your opponent. At the start of each round, both player's life or health bars are full. The first player to drive the other player's health bar to zero wins the round. The first player to win two total rounds wins the match and moves on to the next opponent. If a single player loses to the computer, the game is over and the player must continue to rematch the recent opponent.

Attacking
To win a round, the player must use his or her character's attack moves to damage the opponent, and block or dodge the opponent's attacks. Each player may attack from a standing or crouching position, or they may jump and attack in the air. To attack from a standing position, press any single attack button. To attack from a crouching position, pull the joystick in a downward direction (including both diagonals) and press any single attack button. To attack from the air, direct your character to jump straight up, or jump in a diagonal position, and press any single attack button in mid-air.

Blocking
To block an attack, a player must push backward on the joystick when the opponent attacks (otherwise, pressing back on the joystick moves the player away from the opponent). Blocking can be done standing which blocks middle and high attacks, as well as attacks in the air, but does not block attacks that are low to the ground. Blocking can also be done down crouching by pressing the joystick diagonally down and back. A Crouching block will successfully block low and middle attacks. High attacks will usually go over your character's head if they are crouching, but a crouching block does not defend against air attacks.

Special Attacks
In addition to normal attacks, there are attacks known as unique moves and special moves. Unique moves are special combinations of a joystick direction and a particular attack button that produce a different attack than when the button is pressed alone. A special move is a move that requires a more complicated joystick motion and an attack button to perform. For example, Ken and Ryu's fireball attack, called Hadouken, is performed by sliding the joystick in a circular sweeping motion from down to forward and finishing off with any punch button. In this example, the strength of the punch button used happens to dictate the speed at which Ken and Ryu's fireball attack travels across the screen. Special attacks can be blocked like any other attack, but they do what's known as "chip damage." That is, even when blocked, they remove a single hit point from your health bar. Most special moves have a pause associated with them that leaves you vulnerable to attack if you miss the opponent, or "whiff".

Overdrive Specials
In Street Fighter 6, EX moves are known as overdrive moves (abbreviated as "OD"), these attacks are much more powerful versions of normal special moves and to execute, you must press 2 punch or kick buttons, for example, if Ryu makes the Hadouken with 2 punch buttons, it will do 2 hits instead of 1. For characters who have special moves and use 2 punches, for example, Zangief's Double Lariat, the overdrive version requires you to press all 3 punches for overdrive. Overdrive moves can require 1 or 2 gauges of the overdrive gauge, which is the gauge below the life bar.

Super and Critical Arts
Super Arts are character-specific powerful special moves that use up the entirety of the Super Art Gauge when performed. This gauge is filled by damaging the opponent and by performing special moves. The Super Arts can consume 1, 2, or 3 gauges, Super Arts that consume 2 or 3 gauges are cinematic moves that hit the opponent several times.

The Critical Arts are desperate versions of the 3 gauge-consuming Super Arts, to do this, your character life bar must be at yellow (25% or less) and consume 3 gauges, the Critical Arts does more damage than the 3 gauge-consuming Super Arts and includes different cinematics.

Throwing
The last way to attack the opponent at SF6 is by throwing. Throws are executed by standing immediately next to your opponent, pressing the joystick either towards or away, and pressing. If performed correctly, your character will grab the opponent and toss them to the ground in a manner specific to your character's fighting style, and some characters can throw the opponent in the air. Different characters might have a different array of throws with more complicated commands associated with them. Throws are unblockable.