Since the early days of the video game arcade, fighting games have become a staple in nearly every gamer’s diet at one time or another. There have been a ton of them from the earliest Street Fighter games to Smash Bros. With the upcoming release of Mortal Kombat X , I thought it only fitting to count down ten of the greatest fighting games of all time. There are various reasons I chose these titles. Innovation, graphics, and gameplay are all factors, but sometimes the game just being plain old badass was the only reason. And honestly, what other reason should you need?
The Way of The Exploding Fist
This game was released in 1985 on the Commodore 64 and borrowed heavily from Karate Champ by Data East. Both Karate Champ and Exploding Fist have been touted as being the genesis of one-on-one fighting games as we know it, but Exploding Fist was the first to bring it home. Karate Champ was an arcade title that later came to home-based platforms after the success of Exploding Fist. So really, you could argue that either was the first. But we are calling it Exploding Fist.
Virtua Fighter
By the time Virtua Fighter came out, I was already eyeballs deep in the fighting game genre. I had played everything that had come out to that point and gotten really, really good at them. Until I played this game, all the fighting games I had played were either strict side-scrollers or general movement games like King of the Monsters . So when Virtua Fighter hit in 1993, I was blown away at its 3D styling. Sadly, over the years the franchise hasn’t really gained any speed, but it has sure affected the development of the genre. The inclusion of 3D movement quickly became a very important part of fighting games.
Battle Arena Toshinden
Another innovator in the genre, Toshinden is widely considered to be the first true 3D fighting experience. It was the first franchise to use completely rendered, polygonal characters as well as introducing a little technique called the side-step. Those two innovations alone have secured Toshinden a spot on this list. Without these things, most of the fighting games we play now would either not have happened at all or would have been seriously lame. So truth be told, we owe a lot more than a slot on our countdown to Battle Arena Toshinden .
Samurai Showdown
This was the very first one-on-one fighting game to include weapons within its combat structure. Up until this point, gamers were treated only to bare-knuckle brawling. For the very first time, you could hack and slash your opponent into a corner and drain every last ounce of blood out of them in this Eighteenth Century samurai duel. It was one of the first titles since Art of Fighting to use a camera zoom to increase the intensity of the fight as it came to a climax. Unfortunately this franchise would only last a few more years and spawn only marginally successful sequels. But because of its innovation, it is still one of my favorites.
Soul Edge
Back in 1995, the second game to incorporate weapons in a one-on-one fighting game came along from a then-fledgling developer named Project Soul. Soul Edge was also the first 3D fighter to incorporate all of the technologies, innovations and controls up to that time. The game included weapons, side-stepping, true 3D modeling of characters, fully rendered backgrounds, and intense controls with a high learning curve if you wanted to be the best. It was also one of the first (but not THE first) to use an active blocking system where you actually had to push a button to block an oncoming attack.
King of The Monsters
What fighting game list would be complete without at least one monster title? We figured that this game had to be added to the list in order for us to be true to ourselves. Even though Rampage was technically the first of this kind, KotM took everything that made the Godzilla movies awesome and then mixed it with a healthy dose of Ultraman and a nod to the World Wrestling Federation. Then thy mixed all those awesome things together and suddenly, there was KotM . This game took you and a competitor on a smash and crash brawl all across Japan. The idea was to not only pin your opponent for a three-count, but to wreak as much havoc as possible while you were doing it.
Soulcalibur
Taking a nod from its predecessor, Soul Edge , Soul Caliber literally came out swinging and was met with a great response form gamers. Project Soul and Namco took all of the great things from Soul Edge and then took it one step further with eight-way run techniques. Never before had gamers been able to not only run in eight different directions from their standing point, they were also able to launch into combos and dodges from these running points as well. Then you add into that some of the more memorable characters in fighting games as well as a cool, albeit brief, story and you have the makings of a great franchise.
Tekken
There aren’t many other fighting titles that have enjoyed the amount of success that the Tekken franchise has had worldwide. It had been a staple at gaming tournaments the world over and has spawned more sequels and franchises than most other video games ever do. Originally released in 1995, Tekken was met with rave reviews. Ed Boon, of Mortal Kombat fame, has even cited Tekken as his favorite game series among MK ’s competitors. There have been six entries into the canon of Tekken games, but there have also been two animated feature films, one live action film, and five print adaptations of the Tekken franchise as well as a few spin-off titles. It’s safe to say that this is one of our all-time favorites.
Street Fighter
I still remember the first time I saw this game. It was kind of like Double Dragon , except it was just the two fighters battling to the death. I remembered thinking that a game like that just couldn’t be fun enough to warrant the line that was amassing for that arcade cabinet, but I was wrong. Since that day I have logged in countless hours on every title in the franchise and it has become one of my personal favorites ever. Though it’s not my favorite fighting game of all time, it is definitely one that needs to be mentioned. Its stylized bloody-knuckled goodness has fueled gaming tournaments for over two decades now.
Mortal Kombat
This game series is the one that really pushed one-on-one fighters to the next level. Mortal Kombat brought a level of brutality and blood-and-guts gore that had not really ever been seen before in video gaming, and for Midway Games the gamble paid off big time. It was also one of the first video games in the fighting genre to include Easter Eggs and secret characters that only added to the amount of replay to the titles. They have also had a truckload of spin-off games as well as films, comics and have even crossed over with the heroes and villains of DC comics. With their most recent offering, MK continues to prove that they are indeed the best of the best. Mortal Kombat X is poised to take us into new realms of brutality that will ensure the MK franchise sits at the top of this list for a very long time.