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You’d think pressing L2+X (on a PS4) and then L1+Square just to throw a basic jab-hook combo is insane, and you’d be sort of right - but you get used to it, and it’s also crucial to the best bit of the system: you can now duck, sway or throw basically any shot while you’re on the move, as well as using ‘signature’ lunges like Cruz’s ‘bump’ to change ranges at an instant. Uppercuts involve pressing two face-buttons and signature moves require even more finger-mangling combinations. With footwork becoming ever more important in UFC fights - watch Cruz-Dillashaw for a classic of the dance-punch genre - the button-map’s been re-configured, with the right stick dedicated entirely to head movement and the L buttons handling hooks, high kicks and body shots. Slightly more tricky, at least to start with, is the retooled input system. It’s trickier to score an outright knockout than in previous games, but also vastly more fair: it’s based partly on visible stats (health, stamina), partly on invisible ones (the new ‘chin’ metric), and partly on which direction your opponent’s moving while your strike lands. Previous iterations’ damage indicators have been changed into three separate energy bars, each with different characteristics: head shots hurt but you regenerate from them quickly, body damage takes a while to mount up but is slower to recover, and your legs don’t recover from damage at all. Here, kicks are slower and more easily countered - especially thrown without a setup - and the frame advantage from straight punches makes them crucial to smart fighting. First, there’s a fresh emphasis on realism: in UFC 2, spamming spinning and jumping kicks was one of the more regular routes to online success, leaving fundamentals like the jab under-used and ineffective. This is what’s had the most radical overhaul, and a lot of it is excellent. Let’s start, like all fights do, with the standup.