Fighting Games

[Ironklaw]

Which do you (still) play? What are your favourites? Who's your favourite character? Who is your favourite developer? Why? Are there any games you've played that others may not know about? I'm looking forward to hearing from other fighter fans out there.

I've been playing fighters since Street Fighter II was released on the Super Nintendo. I got into Street Fighter first and later I got into Mortal Kombat (because, even censored on the SNES, it was the most violent thing I'd ever seen). As time went on, I mainly played Mortal Kombat games until I got a little bored of them and then, when in an arcade one day, I discovered SNK's classic "Samurai Shodown" and it's been my favourite franchise since.

Samurai Shodown, for the uninitiated is a violent, one-on-one, weapon-based fighter. It has a strange cast of characters ranging from historical figures (Jubei Yagyu and Hanzo Hattori), weird little monsters, stereotypical swordsmen and a fistful of foreign characters. The translation was always atrocious (with great lines like "The Sword shines death. Without mercy, KILL!" and "Give you my knock for JUSTICE!"). You could really throw away the story because really, who gives a shit? It's the kind of game where a well-placed and well-timed fierce attack can halve an opponent's health and the right basic attack at the end of a match can cause one of several bloody death sequences. For an example from the most violent game in the series, click here.

The series has a bunch of great characters, but I tend to favour Haohmaru. He's a pretty straightforward and versatile character and he hits good and hard.

As for a favourite developer, that's a tough one. I play all sorts of fighting games. However, my favourite developer would have to be SNK. Their fighters are straightforward, hard-hitting and have an interesting variety of characters. The King of Fighters is a good example. In the height of the game's existence there would be dozens of characters spanning multiple series all in the same game at once and so few of them would play alike. Sure there were your Ken and Ryu-style guys, but they were few and far between. Capcom depended solely on Street Fighter for the longest time and in the mean time, SNK had something like 5 fighting franchises on the go (Art of Fighting, Fatal Fury, Samurai Shodown, World Heroes and King of Fighters). It took time for most of them to be refined, but in time they became really interesting fighting games.

If I might make a suggestion or two, might I recommend downloading MAME and having a look around your favourite ROM site to find "Martial Masters", "Ninja Master's" (yes that's how it's written) or "Waku Waku 7".

[GoldMatenes]

My problem with fighting games is no matter how used to them I get, I still end up button mashing sometimes without realizing it.

I like Darkstalkers and Soul Calibur... I know really good fighting game players consider them weak but they're not full of bizarre little exploits and glitches that you have to know to win.

[Ironklaw]

Darkstalkers is a fun and surprisingly technical game. Some characters have difficult moves and so many attacks can be tweaked here and there to keep things fresh. Could have benefited from actually having sequels though as opposed to rehashing the same game 3 or 4 times.

Soul Calibur is a lot of fun. Some characters are button mashers (like Talim and Kilik) and others require a lot of precision (Yoshimitsu and Xianghua as examples).

[Ramses]

there was a mediocre fighting game i was exceptionally fond of where you could sometimes transform into a big anthro and be stronger right in the middle of matches and kick some ass


does anyone remember this game? i think it was either PS1 or sega genesis

[Ironklaw]

Bloody Roar is the one you were thinking of. It was kinda mediocre, but it was painfully furry.

[Meer]

Bloody Roar is ok if only 'cause it's very simple to pick up and play xD

I've got a few of them somewhere I think... though I may be full of shit and only have the one for the Gamecube, I'd have to check.

[Drajiel]

Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike & BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger for me.

Both fast paced, and have a lot of depth in the combat, particularly in Blazblue with all the techs, rapids, cancels, variety of DD specials, guard break system, etc. Not sure how many hours I wasted on Blazblue, and I haven't even specialized on a character yet to get those high-chain combos going.

[Ironklaw]

I forgot to mention Killer Instinct. KI is the bomb. The most sophisticated combo system of its time, fast-paced action, 3D backgrounds (in the arcade version), great music, Street Fighter-esque button layout, blood, finishing moves and 20+ hit finishing combos. Awesome.

[cypher]

Favorite Fighters: (in no particular order)
Marvel vs capcom 2 - not very good though
Soul Calibur 2 - ivy/yoshimitsu
Guilty Gear XX - i-no
Brawl (not a traditional fighter of course) - snake and falco

I guess thats it really. Thinking of getting Dragon Ball Z burst limit for the 360.

[Ironklaw]

Favorite Fighters: (in no particular order)
Marvel vs capcom 2 - not very good though
Soul Calibur 2 - ivy/yoshimitsu
Guilty Gear XX - i-no
Brawl (not a traditional fighter of course) - snake and falco

I guess thats it really. Thinking of getting Dragon Ball Z burst limit for the 360.

Neat! I've never met a Yoshimitsu player before. Good stuff.

I like the format you did that in. Lemme try.

Favourite Fighters:

Samurai Shodown - Genjuro, Ukyo, Haohmaru
Killer Instinct - Fulgore, Saberwulf (only in KI2, though), Jago
Mortal Kombat - Sub-Zero, Kitana, Reptile
The Last Blade (1 or 2) - Kojiroh, Hibiki, Zantetsu

As for the new DBZ game, I'm going to give that one a miss. I tried the demo and it's exactly like every other DBZ fighting game ever made. Get yourself a copy of Budokai 2 for the PS2 and you're set.