V-System

V-Skill

Hot Mic Performance Hold

Hot Mic Release

Heated Mic Performance: R. Mika busts out a mic to give a pep talk to everyone out there who isn’t adequately psyched by Muscle Spirit. During her pep talk, she has armor that’ll absorb one incoming hit. The longer you hold the buttons, the longer she’ll psych herself up on the mic, and the more her very next throw attempt will be powered up. This includes all her normal and command throws and her Critical Art, but you only get one shot. Miss any grab, and the buff is gone. The buff isn’t cumulative: three lv.1 V-Skills in a row would just result in a single lv.1 buffed throw attempt whenever you get around to it. Just tapping the buttons gets you a lv.1 power-up, but getting higher levels is dependent on holding the mic and revving up for prohibitive amounts of time. Thus, it’s virtually impossible to get more than a lv.1 or lv.2 buff in a real match. (After the initial activation, a sonic wave visible around R. Mika’s mouth indicates each step up in damage.) Still, you owe it to yourself to load up training mode and run the full Heated Mic Performance speech at least once, with your chest out and your speaker volume way up. If you manage to complete the full speech, R. Mika simply tosses away the mic harmlessly, and her power buff is so absurd that her next throw will basically K.O. With a full buff, even her normal throws deal 1170 damage! But realistically, the only way you’ll ever score the full buff in a match is if your online opponent had to answer their door or something.

Release the buttons at any point before her speech is done, and R. Mika will cut it short, tossing the mic away directly in front of her. This mic toss counts as a weak projectile bouncing just in front of her. R. Mika keeps her armor potential throughout the speech until she absorbs any single hit, but the armor also wears off once the mic bounces during her forward mic throw. R. Mika builds up a little V-Gauge for starting her speech and slightly more if the mic toss hits her opponent.

Aggressive players will basically never give you a chance to use this V-Skill. But passive players or zoners might, and you can also set it up on purpose. From full screen, if you just tap for the shortest possible V-Skill duration, your foe might not be able to close in and cleanly hit R. Mika while simultaneously breaking through one hit of armor and avoiding a mic projectile. Opponents who don’t quick-rise will give you ample lv.1 V-Skill chances or even chances to drop a meaty mic on their wakeup, like after throwing someone behind R. Mika into a corner. Midscreen, you can start a V-Skill most safely immediately after throwing an adversary with Passion Rope Throw. You can also do this after Rainbow Typhoon, though savvy enemies will quick-rise, dash forward, then jump in over the mic and on top of R. Mika. Depending on timing, armor potential may save R. Mika here, or it may not. Against single-hit projectile throwers (provided that they’re predictable with their tosses and you get a feel for the timing), you can actually start up her V-Skill speech and use the armor to absorb one incoming projectile, then release the buttons so that her tossed mic soaks up the next incoming projectile.

Heated Mic Performance Buff Breakdown

V-Reversal

Peach Gator while guarding

Peach Gator: R. Mika’s V-Reversal is unique in that it’s a kick hit-throw that causes a knockdown. Her Nadeshiko V-Trigger is versatile and unpredictable, so you should generally save V-Gauge for that. R. Mika’s lack of real reversals sometimes dwindles her defensive options all the way down to “just block,” so you might occasionally feel compelled to V-Reversal while blocking just for a chance to take tempo back. Since (like other V-Reversals) Peach Gator immediately removes 200 stun from R. Mika’s accumulated total, this is especially true if you’re in danger of being dizzied. If R. Mika dashes forward immediately after Peach Gator while her opponent quick-rises, she is left at +1 and in position to threaten their wakeup with a meaty attack or a throw.

V-Trigger

Nadeshiko (Above) Tap

Delayed Nadeshiko (Above) Hold

Nadeshiko (Behind) Tap

Delayed Nadeshiko (Behind) Hold

Nadeshiko (Front) Tap

Delayed Nadeshiko (Front) Hold

Nadeshiko (Front, Behind, and Above): On activation, R. Mika points to the sky, imploring her tag partner, Yamato Nadeshiko, to join in the fight. Then, R. Mika is free to act again almost immediately. Depending on the command that you input, Nadeshiko will fall from above the enemy with a belly flop that causes hitstun () or fly in with a dropkick that causes a jugglable spinning knockdown from either behind () or in front of your foe (). Tap the inputs for Nadeshiko to attack instantly, or hold the inputs briefly to delay Nadeshiko’s entrance by about a second and a half (which is actually a really long time in a Street Fighter game; see the V-Trigger data and Combo notes). When you delay Nadeshiko, R. Mika will hold both her arms aloft for slightly longer after the V-Trigger is activated. This limits the kind of links you can do after V-Trigger-canceling into Nadeshiko, and attentive challengers will keep an eye out for this visual signal so they have some idea of when she’ll fly in. Still, a delayed Nadeshiko call gives you novel chances to rush at the enemy while they wait for her to appear.

Like with assist calls in the “Vs.” crossover games, the opponent must block away from R. Mika no matter where Nadeshiko pops out. Nadeshiko herself does relatively unimpressive damage but is quite powerful in the opportunities she opens up. You can V-Trigger cancel any normal on hit for big frame advantage, leading to seriously painful link combos enabled by Nadeshiko. (See the Combos section for more details.) Once summoned, Nadeshiko will still fly out and attack even if the opponent hits R. Mika. Nadeshiko can sometimes inadvertently act as kind of a combo breaker this way. Calling delayed Nadeshiko in the neutral game will cause most enemies to just clam up and block until she comes out. You can exploit this tendency by dashing in and going for a command grab before Nadeshiko actually hits. If your foe gets scared of that and takes their chances jumping anyway, you can dash all the way in after the next delayed Nadeshiko call you make, and then perform a last-second Wingless Airplane over them. That move might either snag their escape jump or cross over them if they stay grounded, turning Nadeshiko’s hit into a cross-up.

With her variable timing and position, and the chances she affords for both link combos and command grabs, Nadeshiko is a very powerful V-Trigger, but she’s not without weaknesses. Characters with teleports may simply get used to her possible entry timings and opt out altogether, teleporting just before her hit. Nadeshiko’s attack is also only one hit, so armored moves (or absorption moves like Ryu’s parry and M. Bison’s Psycho Reflect) will simply negate her. For example, R. Mika herself can absorb the Nadeshiko hit with Heated Mic Performance, and Zangief can absorb both Nadeshiko and an incoming hit from R. Mika at once with his Iron Muscle V-Skill.