Fighting games are a long and storied genre and some of the oldest and longest-running games in the industry. Many of the original mainstays are still running and beloved, and have evolved to become the❀ face of esports tournaments the world over.
For many people, fighting games are just as well known for their characte꧙rs - people that have evolved over the decades with their series. But even further, fighting games have become the face of collaborations in gaming, with guest characters all but guaranteed with every fighting game.
10 🐟 Samurai Shodown - Baiken
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Samurai Shodown is a series that has been running since 1993 in arcades, getting a big return with 2019's entry after a ten-year absence. That said, this entry is a great return to form, favoring the simplicity of reading your opponent and good positioning versus deep combo strings and special moves.
And with DLC, its roster of characters grew further. And though the Warden from For Honor is, by all means, interesting, Baiken from Guilty Gear is truly something. It's always fascinating to see the moveset of a character from a drastically different fighting game get translated over, but even more is seeing Baiken rendered in a style so different from 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Guilty Gear's own, and so successfully at that.
9 🎀 Killer Instinct - Arbiter
Beginning in 1994 in arcades, Killer Instinct took a major hiatus after Killer Instinct Gold until the reboot in 2013, published by Microsoft for Xbox as a free-to-play title. It was praised as being a great recreation of the original games' combo-based style, though was severely lacking in content at launch. That said, it was 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:still quite popular.
But even still, the game was supported with years of new content. And the most captivating of those characters was the Arbiter from the Halo series. He was a fast and sturdy character with a unique gun in his carbine rifle that had a single-use 18 round magazine. He could hold his own🍰 and had good range,♋ but needed some conscious thinking to not overspend ammo.
8 Power Rangers Battl𒐪e For the gr🔯id - Chun Li and Ryu
The announcement of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Power Rangers: Battle For The Grid was met with anything but love. It was criticized for outdated graphics, an odd premise, and🐻 all-around confusion for its existence. And yet despite all that, its gameplay was surprisingly solid, mixing a simple combo system with a more in-depth tag team system.
What really caught people's attention, however, was the addition of the Crimson Hawk ranger and the Blue Phoenix ranger. These characters, oddly enough, were Street Fighter's Ryu and Chun-Li redesigned as power rangers. They retained plenty of their own movesets too, and against all odds fit into this oddity of a game.
7 🅠 Soul Calibur 4 - Star Wars Characters
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Soul Calibur 4 is a notable entry in the series. It was the first not to be released in arcades and the first with online multiplayer. It continued with its use of weapon-based gameplay and character creation, as well a🐷s adding the Soul Gauge for further pu⛄nishment.
Soul Calibur has frequently featur🌱ed guest characters that stand out. Featuring the apprentice from Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, as well as console exclusives in the form🌳 of Darth Vader (PS3) and Yoda (Xbox 360). Each character featured a unique force meter for their special moves, and Yoda especially was well-known for being incredibly hard to fight due to his size.
6 Super Smash Bros. Brawl ♈- Snake 🧸
Even by the time of Brawl, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Super Smash Bros. was beloved series🎃 of party fighting games. Brawl itself took on a grittier look than previous entries and featured a well-known story mode in Subspace Emissary. With a gauntlet of Nintendo characters, it felt like the definitive IP in collaborative fighting games.
But Brawl was also the first entry to feature 3rd-party characters. And Sonic was a massive addition of course, and the most fitting. But more surprising was Snake, from the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Metal Gear Solid franchise. A game all about the ethics of murder and war suddenly being featured felt like it couldn't work. But as Smash has constantly proven, it just does.
5 Street Fighter x Tekken ❀- The Whole Thing
The history between Tekken and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Street Fighter is long, both series' frequently being seen as rivals to each other. This connection finally came to a head with the announcements of Tekken x Street Fighter, and Street Fighter x Tekken, games that would star characters from one game in the style and gameplay of the other. The latter is the only one that saw the light of day however and was at least well-received.
And though the game itself stands as a great example of collab characters, Tekken x Street Fighter saw some success with the release of Akuma in Tekken 7. So even if the full game never comes to be, at least something remains to💝 show for it all.
4 Mortal Combat - Fredꦿdy Kreuger
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Mortal Kombat is a long-running series with consistently changing gameplay, though special moves and fatalities have always remained at the core of it. But that said, Mortal Kombat is also a series known well for its collaboration characters, becoming one of the most enticing parts of the games' DLC offerings.
It can be hard to choose the best character from the vast roster, but perhaps the one that fits best would be that of 80's horror icon (not that that narrows it down much) Freddy Kreuger. Though he may not stand the test of time when compared to the polish of newer characters, he represented one of the first major 3rd party collabs for Mortal Kombat, laying the foundation for characters like the Xenomorph, Jason Vorhees, and more.
3 Injustice 2 - ℱTMNT 💯
Developed by Netherrealm, developers of Mortal Kombat, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Injustice has its roots in an earlier collab game, Mortal Kombat Vs DC Universe, which eventually lead to the dedicated DC combat games in Injustice. Injustice 2 interestingly adꦅded level-based gear to the gameplay, a decision met with mixed reactions. But otherwise, the game was well-received.
But being Netherrealm, it also carried over the guest character strategy. This resulted in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:many interesting characters being added, but by far the m♔ost eye-catching was the TMNT. The big green turtles. Yeah. They worked in a tag-team style, swapping seamlessly between each turtle, each with their own unique move set. But the TMNT have previously had a crossover with Batman, so maybe we should have seen this coming.
2 🌸 Tekken 7 - Negan
Tekken 7 is a massively celebrated entry in the Tekken franchise, having started in arcades to being continually updated with new content on consoles as of writing. It features many of the combat mechanics of previous games' mechanics, as well as new mechanics in Rage Arts and Power Crushes, and at this point a 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:surprisingly large roster.
The real shock for new additions was the reveal of the DLC character Negan from 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Walking Dead. There's no real way to explain the reasoning other than they wanted something that featured shock value beyond imagination. There's not much more to say other than people felt he would fit better in Mortal Kombat. But then, where's the fun in that?
1 Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - Sora 💮
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Smash Bros. Ultimate is a game with an undeniable reputation. A roster that features every previous fighter as well as new ones, and every stage and music track to boot make it a game fit to bursting with content. But almost every new DLC added a whole new franchise. There have been notable reactions, that's the nature of the internet after all, but it's been a great experience seeing it become a massive celebration of gaming.
So then, how could the best character be anyone but Sora? Excusing the reveal that he's been the most requested character for years, he represents something big. Sora is himself a collaboration character by nature, a fusion of Disney and Final Fantasy. That makes him the perfect symbol to end a game that's meant to represent quite possibly the biggest media collaboration there is.