Each genre has its greats and its flops. The greatness of games is measured in part by the failures of others. The fighting genre is one of those that may have a more disproportionate number of hits and flops than any other. This has 🅰made it so that we ✅need to more critically evaluate whatever pops up in the genre.
Innovation is something that is the life blood of a game or series. Not every fighting game has been in 3D, nor has every game featured great detail in texturing or sound. Those that have survived the test of time mastered at least one of those. Games like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat have stood the test of time by their abilities to adapt to an ever changing market. They have continued to command our attention with not only innovation, but with their abiꦇlity to conjure nostalgia among fans, even those who have never touched a cওonsole before. The unfortunate reality is that for every title that is a hit, several will be complete and utter garbage.
Since thꩲere is such a large pool to choo🎃se from, here are some of the best and worst games the fighting genre has to offer.
20 Greatest: Darkstalkers
Some know it as Darkstalkers and others as Vampire, no matter which title you’re familiar with, this Gothic 2D fighter is a time honored classic. The original game did something that we all hope developers would always do, taking something that is already great and making it better. So what did Darkstalkers make better? The developers took the mechanics for Street Fighter II and added air blocks, crouching movements, and chain combos. The sheer scope of what was done early on with the series is seen in just about every fighting game on this list. It added a level of cartoonish joy that was absent from many games before ꦬhand. Character models were also highly influential, particularly the succubus Morrigan Aensland. The original game still looks great for its age today.
19 Worst: Tao Feng: Fist Of The Lotus
Tao Feng: Fist of the Lotus is not a miserable bore, it’s actually sort of fun for a couple fights on a lazy day. The unfortunate thing is that fun does not equal good. Some of the traits that made Tao Feng kind of fun are the blemishing of characters and tearing of clothing as those characters get smacked around. This added a level of realism that many other games today lack. The soundtrack of the game is fairly repetitive and the characters are either extremely slow and cumbersome or decently fast and nimble. The number of characters is highly limiting as there are only 12 featured. The game’s story is a knock off of Tekken’s and plays heavily on cheap kung fu movie tropes, so things just did🅠n’t really seem to fit properly. If you play this game, I recommend Iron Monk.
18 Greatest: Dead Or Alive
A lot of people will make quips about the less than realistic physics regarding the female anatomy, but that’s beside the point of this blurb. Dead or Alive can and should be credited for setting a standard for in-game physics which, along with Virtua Fighter, would go on to influence more games than we can count. Dead or Alive is one of those games which has been able to ride the waves of sex appeal, but that is both a gift and a curse. The curse of it is that it has overshadowed the quality gameplay within the franchise’s fighting games. In their attempts to draw some of the focus away from the mainstay sexiness of the series, they have added a few more male characters. Unlike a lot of games which rely on sex appeal, Dead or Alive is actually fun.
17 Worst: Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Battle 22
This is one of the most disappointing games ever made, as far as Dragon Ball fans are concerned. Almost every arena is basically just a low resolution lazy retexture of one another, vaguely resembling the more easily recognizable areas of Dragon Ball Z. Honestly, the only one that is definitely recognizable is the World Martial Arts Tournament arena. What hurts the most for this game is that its budget should have allowed for better graphics, sounds, and presentation. In fact, the weakest point of this the fact that its presentation is so lazy that the models weren’t even made specifically made for the game; they just ripped them from previous publications for the Super Nintendo. For fans of this series, any fan of the Dragon Ball franchise ꩵthis game likely fills y🐠ou with rage and contempt.
16 Greatest: Aggressors Of Dark Kombat
No, this is not a cheap knock off of Street Fighter, this is actually one of the most influential but forgotten games in history. The game directed influenced the development of 3D games because it allowed for players to move across different lanes of the battlefield. Aggressors of Dark Kombat would also feature weapon-based combat, but what it did that was so unusual is that it focused heavily on grappling and throwing your opponents. ☂At the time, this made the game feel more like a beat ‘em up than a standard fighting game. The multilayered health bars were also a pretty unique addition. One other feature that was fairly unique to the game was that you had to “power up” your crazy meter to perform special attacks. This meant that you had to get good and quick.
15 Worst: Rumble Roses
Bad audio, terrible plot, great graphics; that pretty much sums up the all-girl slug-fest that is Rumble Roses. Like another addition to this article, this game is one that sounds fantastic on paper, but in reality falls fairly flat in the execution. The gameplay itself is not particularly bad and the corny humor is rather enjoyable, but the detracting elements of just make it too difficult to suspend belief and have fun. This is not an easy game to review thanks to the exact combination of positives and negatives. Rumble Roses could be a great game, but the audio just ruins the whole thing. Being honest, this game could make a pleasurable experience for those who can tolerate its⛎ failings, but not for more than an afternoon.
14 Greatest: Virtua Fighter
First and foremost, Virtua Fighter was one of the earliest games to feature a 3D arena and wireframe digital models. For years to come, this would be highly unusual for fighting games with its appearance being featured most prominently in the Bushido Blade series. Virtua Fighter as a game is generally considered an enigma to players; it is treated as if they are some sort of esoteric rite available only to a select few. Few games feature as smooth combat control and great frame rates as the Virtua Fighter series and the boundaries were pushed for whichever platform it was released✤ on. The game and series as a whole, really, is one of ෴the most consuming specimens to ever be brought to market. Can’t speak for you, but I am hoping that we get to see another release sometime soon.
13 Worst: Kabuki Warriors
What is perhaps one of the blandest games to ever come to market, Kabuki Warriors hit some of the biggest sins one could commit. To say that the graphics are sub-par would be quite generous. The bad graphics would not be so hindering if the different stages featured more variety or the characters were more easily distinguished from one another. Seriously, there is virtually no difference between the sta🅷ges in Osaka and Edo. The lazy character design and constant yelling whenever you are selecting a character just makes you want to put it down. The highly limited move sets and less-than adequate AI make this the virtual embodiment of a mid-day nap. The game is so boring that the theaters you perform in totally lack an෴ audience.
12 Greatest: Tekken
The Tekken franchise has been a staple of arcade fighting for over two decades. Each game has featured an entertaining storyline and given us characters which we adore. The series has remained strong since game one in 1994, so it is hard to narrow it down to a single entry for the single best game. The Tekken series is so entrenched in the fighting genre that it will be rather difficult to overtake it. A particular fan favorite is Tekken 3, especially with Ogre and True Ogre. Tekken has been a series which has carved its own niche in the fighting universe. This niche is exemplified by the competent use of early 3D arenas. Tekken won’t be goin༒g anywh♌ere soon and we’re just fine with that.
11 Worst: Iron And Blood: Warriors of Ravenloft
Many people are fans of the Dungeons & Dragons games, be they table-tops or video games, the franchise has been quite successful. However, this is one failure by Wizards of the Coast that is best lost to the sands of time. Iron & Blood: Warriors of Ravenloft is a fighting game based on the Ravenloft campaigns and features an assortment of characters which seem rather out of place, to say the least. Being able to fight as halflings, werebeasts, Amazonians, and what not sounds like it might work, but sadly it just doesn’t. The game does not feature that complex of a fighting system. It isn’t entirely the fault of Take-Two Interactive or Wizards of the Coast that this is a bad game, the limitations on technology in the 🍷mid-199ꦡ0s made it impossible to run at maximum capacity.
