The FIGHTING GAME Thread

In this thread, we're going to talk about the greatest fighting games of all time, and what games are coming out today for this once-proud genre. Basically, I just feel like shooting the shit about one of my favorite styles of games.


IMHO, here are some of the best, ever:



Street Fighter II: Turbo: In terms of the original series and engine, this was the pinnacle. Never really got too deep into Super Street Fighter II Turbo, which some point to as the actual apex, but it never ever felt properly balanced to me in the slightest.

Who can forget marking out to being able to play the boss characters for the first time? The controls were fast, response was tight, and most of the characters had a fair shot at winning their battles.



Street Fighter Alpha 3: This is one of my top choices for best fighting games, period. Great graphics, ultra-smooth gameplay, a nice varied cast of characters including all the old favorites. Topping Alpha 2 was no small task, but this one blew it out of the water. I used to play Alpha 2 all the time on the Saturn, but since getting Alpha 3 for the DC I never looked back. One of those games that I will play, anytime, no matter what.



Dead or Alive: Ultimate: I really didn't expect much out of this one, picking it up used for cheap, but WOW did this become one of, if not THE, best fighting games I ever played. Great graphics, intricate gameplay, great use of environments lending a cinematic feel to the battles. Never has a fighting game felt quite so smooth and natural. When I used to dream about fighting games of the future, I'd always hope there'd be one where two fighters start inside a building before one smashes the other through a wall, where the fight continues in the snow as one fighter staggers to their feet, ready to counter the continued onslaught. This is exactly the sort of thing this game delivers.




Mortal Kombat II: Mortal Kombat Trilogy may have had more oomph, and the newer gmaes more flash, but MKII was lightning in a bottle that the now-defunct Midway was never truly able to capture again. The gameplay was simple with nearly identical movesets for everyone, but it was the use of special and secret moves that made it such a real battle of skill. And who can forget the fatalities, babalities, friendships, and all the other crazy shit going on at the end of every battle?

Funny story--when we played this on the SNES all the time, I was systematically banned from each character, until it was down to Reptile. I then practiced with Reptile so much and got skilled with him, that he became my favorite character to play in MKII. I could turn invisible and know exactly where to stand, exactly when to jump, exactly when to uppercut. PURE AWESOME.



Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution: This came out brand new for $20, and it was a steal. VF has always been a very, very technical fighter and few ever are able to plume its depths properly (myself included, there are reams of stuff I've never mastered, and I've been playing VF games for 13+ years.)

The AI system for fighters was great, as instead of generic computer AI you got multiple AIs that were based on exisiting players. Best part of all is that you could "train" an AI based on your fighting style and preferences, export it to a memory card, and send it to a buddy to see how he fared against "you."

Roaming the world, taking on all sorts of fighters, getting cool shit for your own...great, great game.



Soul Caliber: Yes, I've played Soul Caliber II and I know that most feel that it's way, way superior to I, but count me in the camp that felt the opposite. I bought a Dreamcast and Soul Calibur was one of my first purchases, and it was pure gameplay and eye candy heaven. Good balance, tight gameplay, and a hellaciously good adventure mode made for an awesome fighter, no questions asked.

SC II is still pretty damned good, but for whatever reason I still prefer the original.



Marvel Vs. Capcom 2: Never has there been a more spazz-tastic fighting game in the history of all time. Almost a seizure-inducing array of special moves, flashy finishers and supermove tag team chaos. Plus, tons of favorite characters (and some head scratchers, like that Cactus-dude) on both sides of the spectrum makes for a game you can easily play with your friends for hours...and it's just like this sugar high you won't be able to shake for awhile.




Just some of my favorites. Lots of these are older. What else y'all got? What are your favorites? What are some modern recommendations?

I was a big fan of the Darkstalkers series, those games were a lot of fun. Capcom made the best fighting games, period. It kind of boggles my mind to think about the bajillion fighting games in the '90s. Primal Rage, King of Fighters, Virtual Fighter, Tekken, etc. I think Tekken was probably my favorite non-Capcom fighter.

Personally I haven't played a fighter since Marvel vs. Capcom 2, but have I needed to? I just got so tired of playing the same thing over and over and over.

I don't play much video games these days, but back in the mid-to-late 90s some of my faves were Tekken I, X-Men vs. Street Fighter, MK III Trilogy on N64, and the Samurai Shodown series.

The only two fighting games I ever got any good at were Tekken 3 and Super Smash Bros. Melee.

I spent the night at a buddies house in high school and we spent the entire night (no sleeping) playing Tekken 3. I got really good with Jin, went home and slept, and then lost my mojo after sleeping. What folly!

I had two minors in college: Settlers of Catan and Super Smash Bros. Melee.

Holy shit, I didn't mean to forget Tekken 3 and Samurai Showdown 2. Oh, and King of Fighters '97, that was sweet. Man did there used to be a metric ass-load of killer fighting games.

I could never get into the SNK fighters, they just seemed like cheap knock-offs of the Capcom games.

I've heard BlazBlue is good, but I've never played it. Anybody played Street Fighter 4?

SF IV? No, but I want to.

They have a killer arcade-cabinet style set of sticks for Street Fighter at one of the used game stores for like $90. Feels pretty arcade true. Think I'll have to invest in one of those one day in the near future.

I never got too much into the Street Fighter kind of fighter game, I was into the fighting sidescrollers like double dragon. I think it had to do with the fact that the scenario was given more importance and it wasn't all justb about the two guys hitting eachother.

But when I first played Smash Brothers on the N64 it became an instant hit for me. Then it got even better on the GC and Wii, and it is my favorite fighting game by far. Scenary takes on an important role and variety is almost endless. It also includes sidescrolling levels mixed in and other interesting stuff.

Side-scrolling fighters always seemed like Pong with better graphics. I skipped them all.

We all know River City Ransom was the most groundbreaking game ever.

Space Ghost wrote:

We all know River City Ransom was the most groundbreaking game ever.

Oh yeah, that's the best side-scrolling fighter, bar none.

It's hard to argue with any edition of STREET FIGHTER II being dubbed the best fighting game ever. They're still the gold standard. I really want IV for the 360, but I don't want to buy a big expensive fight stick.

Capcom's fighters are almost always the best. DARKSTALKERS is one of my favorite games ever, VAMPIRE SAVIOR was pretty great too. MARVEL VS. CAPCOM 2 is still a classic.

TOBAL 2 is probably my favorite outside of Capcom. It was a pretty obscure, never released in the US Square game for PSX. I had a, um, backup of it. It had this really awesome combo and grappling system, it felt really fluid and easy to get into but it also had a lot of depth. I think it was the first game that really did counters effectively. It also had this CRAZY dungeon mode where you wandered around and fought WEIRD ass monsters. Then you could fight with them in the standard mode. Some of them sucked, but were fun to play with. They may have only one or two attacks, but sometimes you'd figure out these bullshit ways to beat the full-featured fighters. It did have a pretty weak assortment of characters, but all told I think there were something like 200 or more different creatures and fighters in the game.

I did like SOUL CALIBER a lot. And TEKKEN 3, god I loved TEKKEN 3. Loved SSB BRAWL too, but I actually liked the story mode better than the fighting mode.

GUILTY GEAR is pretty awesome, I like how all rock n' roll'ed up it is. "Let's Rock! Heaven or Hell!" I think they're WAY too technical though, it kind of gets in the way of the fun.

Everybody that says there's no face to face element in video games obviously hasn't played a lot of fighting games. That was more fun than most board games, 9-10 people in somebody's living room in an ad hoc TEKKEN tournament.

I have one of the Guilty Gear games for the XBox. Fluid, sweet graphics but I never could get into the series that much. I had a, uh, backup of one of them for the Dreamcast I think.

Darkstalkers always felt like a poor-man's Street Fighter. There are worse things to be, but it never seemed to do anything to differentiate itself outside of some 'monster-specific' moves. Later iterations of the series are probably much better, I should catch up on that. I think there's one for the DS, right? Probably a perfect system for it.

Dammit, lost my thoughtful post with a stupid google check.

SUPER STREET FIGHTER II TURBO: HD REMIX--Everything you love prettied up and balanced to a hair's breadth.

STREET FIGHTER II: CHAMPIONSHIP EDITION--This is the one Ken meant--SF2 with the bosses. Only SUPER SF2 ever had TURBO.

KARATE CHAMP--Fuck yeah, I said that. Two joystick round house to your dome. Watch me kick a bull!

MARVEL VS. CAPCOM 2: A NEW AGE OF HEROES--56 playable characters. On teams of three. That's more than 27 billion possible matchups. Yeah, there's some balance issues, but who gives a shit, this game is awesome.

TEKKEN TAG TOURNAMENT--I was debating this one or TEKKEN 2, but this one is more balanced and has better graphics.

I've just started BLAZBLUE: CALAMITY TRIGGER and this may make the list someday. That game is nice.

I never cared for VIRTUA FIGHTER--too much pressure to be perfect. MORTAL KOMBAT has shitty control and no balance whatsoever. SNK fighters also have control problems for me--I could never time things right on their funky back-to-diagonal-downright stuff. I played a lot of SAMURAI SHODOWN [sic] if that can be interpreted as a statement of quality, but just can't put it up there. Great character design, though. I'm not actually a huge fan of the gameplay in the SMASH BROS. games.

I've played but am also ruling out entries from: KILLER INSTINCT, DARKSTALKERS, YIE-AR KUNG FU, TONGUE OF THE FATMAN, BATTLE ARENA TOSHINDEN, SOUL EDGE/CALIBUR, PIT FIGHTER, PRIMAL RAGE, CLAYFIGHTER, KARATEKA, DRAGONBALL Z.

Haven't played: GUILTY GEAR, DEAD OR ALIVE, BLEACH, but they might be great.

Gotta agree that SFII is the best fighting game of all time. A few friends of mine were drinking one night and passing around the controller on SFIV, but after about 45 minutes, we realized realized we really just wanted to play II and so switched back. Still want to give the game another chance though.

Any of you tried the SFII Anniversary edition (or whatever it's called) for the PS2? It allows you to play any character from any version, so you could pit Guile from the original against Ken from SFII turbo. Pretty cool from a "history" perspective, even though there are some fairly unbalanced characters in it.

Speaking of slightly unbalanced games, I always loved the heck outa Capcom Vs SNK 2. Something like 50 bazillion characters from like every awesome oldschool 2D fighter and 6 different "grooves" (think the different special meters and whatnot from different series). Some unbalanced stuff, but overall fairly solid.