The Top 10 GREATEST Fighting Games Of All Time
Maximilian Dood
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#top10 #fightinggames #tierlist
After years of rating and reviewing other large media sites’ official Top 10 lists for fighting games, Max has finally decided to make his own! He counts down the ten most influential and genre-defining fighting games of the past 30+ years and discusses why they deserve a place on this list!
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02.02.2023
I hope Breakers Revenge is on the list!
Max really needs to drop a fighting game OST tier list next
Maaaaannnn this list is super trash Max wtf? MvC2 at #8 ?!
I’m pretty happy that I called VF2 in the top 3. It was huge.
I know VF has fallen off in recent years as a franchise but that game was a massive step forward when it came out.
SF3 IIIrd Strike over MvC2 ? STOP THE CAP!
Great list. I think you've got the essentials in here, for sure. SF2 is definitely #1. That title STILL gets re-released on every device known to man since 1992. Only titles that I'd feel that could use a shout out would be X-Men vs Street Fighter or Marvel vs Capcom 1. Those were pretty substantial crossover fighters. But I can't really speak to how that impacted the fighting game community like these other games on the top 10 list.
Woooow, no Bloody Roar?!? Ha Sike, I just look for any opportunity to mention it. Still waiting on the resurgence.
Sadly this is lacking both KOF and Blazblue so it's immediately invalid.
I like how there was no explanation for SF2 haha. It doesn't need one
I think we need more benny in the intro. R.I.P
I'd put any KOF game on this list over SF3 3rd Strike because it was the first fighting game to introduce the concept of a crossover game between other IPS and introducing the concept of playing a team of characters. As well as having innovative mechanics that changed the way how fighting games can be played. And also being able to edit your team and choosing your characters in which order u want to play as them, who u want to play first, second or third.
It focuses more on proper execution of moves and combos and being able to cancel moves into each other or after the other and constantly relying on your meter to do that extra damage.
SNK as a whole introduced supers and meters in their respected franchises as well as other mechanics that we know in FGs today. Might as well throw in Samurai Shodown too cuz it introduced the concept of a weapons-based fighting.
SF3's greatest impact was that it convinced Capcom to stop making fighting games so it being on this list is kinda sus. Anyway, the list is clearly based on a US perspective since KOF is not in it.
People slept on Bloody Roar 3, in my personal opinion…
Max is way overhyping Street Fighter 4 here. Was it big? Yes. But it’s not the reason 2D fighting games came back. I mean first of all, all those other 2D fighting games that came out around the same time were also in development at the same time as Street Fighter 4; and developers like SNK and Arc System Works were still making 2D fighting games in the 2000s post Marvel vs Capcom 2 and Capcom vs SNK 2. But even within Capcom, they were developing Tatsunoko vs Capcom: Cross Generation of Heroes while also doing SF4, and Marvel (apparently the new head of Marvel’s video games at the time was a big MvC fan…he even accidentally leaked MvC3 at a Comic-Con, but when Capcom announced the Xbox Live release of MvC2 people assumed he was just talking about that an kind of forgot) had made a deal with Capcom to do Marvel vs Capcom 3 before Street Fighter 4 was out in arcades in Japan…so even if Capcom hadn’t released a SF4, they would’ve been back in the fighting game anyways. Technically they were already back in the fighting game anyways, since Sengoku Basara X was their first fighting game of 2008, and in 2007 they released a fighting game based on History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi. At most it’s maybe the reason Mortal Kombat 2011 (aka MK8, aka MK9) goes back to 2D after kind of doing 2D in Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe
Street Fighter 4 also isn’t the progenitor of 2.5D fighting games. The first time I ever remember hearing people talk about 2.5D fighting games, it was about The Rumble Fish game. Previews of Battle Fantasia by Arc System Works, which came out the year before Street Fighter 4, were also the influence for the Street Fighter team to make Street Fighter 4 a 2D game with fully 3D models. Although Power Stone started as a fully 3D 2D fighting game, (with a Fatal Fury lane system) and Smash Bros. has being a fully 3D game on a 2D plane since the first one on the N64 in ‘99.
Seriously no other choice for number 1, nothing will ever change that!
If it’s most important fighting games, Top 10 Most Important, I think I’d go:
1. Street Fighter 2 – This game was so big that for a time fighting games were this biggest genre of video game. It was so big in arcades that Street Fighter is still one of the biggest media franchise of all time on the back of the first three versions of Street Fighter 2.
2. Virtua Fighter – This game was so big in inspired Sony to focus on 3D for the PSX. Sega made a game so big it inadvertently killed Sega.
3. Street Fighter 2 Turbo: Hyper Fighting
4. Mortal Kombat 2 – The first Mortal Kombat was huge on release, but MK2 was even bigger.
5. Samurai Shodown 2
6. Super Smash Bros. Melee
7. Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes
8. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
9. Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike
10. X-Men: Children of the Atom
11. Fatal Fury
12. Power Stone
Tekken would exist with VF2; they both came out in ‘94, and I think Tekken even came out a few months before. However, it wouldn’t exist without Virtua Fighter…because the creator of Tekken (Seiichi Ishii) was a designer on Virtua Fighter.
The way Max quickly pointed out Street Fighter 2 as number one really states the fact of it all. If you all 1990s teens and kids know exactly why this is so, THEN YOU KNOW. For those others who were barely born or even after this “Golden Era of Arcade Fighting Games”, let me expeditiously explain to you why this is so: Street Fighter 2 arcades (whether it is World Warrior through Super Turbo) was SO popular, they had it in laundromats, grocery stores, malls, pizza joints (back when Pizza Hut had the best quality pizzas and indoor restaurants), children’s entertainment centers, convenience store (yes, your local 711s), as well as ANY place that could be available. When any SF2 arcade was planted, imagine a half-stage of 7-15 privy kids surrounded in that screen, looking at who is gonna beat who, looking to be the next one up. In ever so occasion, you could get one kid (COUGH Tomo Ohira COUGH) who tore apart against so many hungry opponents that he only had to waste only one game’s worth that lasted 2-4 hours in that fight game. To this day, Street Fighter 2 [Hyper Fighting and Super Turbo] still stands the test of time… without question!
The one big issue is not having Gundam Versus series in there. The biggest arcade game ever and longest reign of arcade. Nothing even come close. It's weird to dismiss that franchise like that just because Western players don't play it. I don't think people realize the sheer number of fans for those games.
"Only popular overseas" so most of the world? American-centralism can be so weird sometimes.
No KoF?!?!?!? SHENANIGANS!
Soul Calibur 2 was the only fighting I actually bothered to hunker down and practice with a character(Voldo) for the arcades at a comic book shop in The Bronx on the Nintendo GC.
Reading these comments, I feel like I'm the only one who doesn't like MVC2.
What is the name of mic he is using?
While fighting games existed before Street Fighter II, the fighting game genre as a whole would not exist as it is today.
no KOF?Maybe for american but kof is so big for asian /latin so gonna skip then
This video deserves to be longer
Killer Instinct
Amazing list, however there’s one game I’d switch out. And that’s 3S, SF3 was way too niche compared to the others. I’d put CvS2 in it’s place as it was the first massive roster game between two RIVAL companies and proved it could be done. This clearly influenced Smash bringing over Sonic, Pacman, Megaman, etc… to face off against Nintendo characters.
My boy didn't even mention Shaq-Fu Hahahaha This list is incomplete, I want a re-do
There was a game I got in the mail way back in the day when they used to send demos but there were these tiny fighter and you could knock tiny diamonds out of them? I don't know what the game was called but it was fun af, my friends and I played that like every day
I heavily disagree with one single game. Tekken II was by a very wide margin a more influential game than Tekken III. Replacing Tekken III with II and I believe it would be perfect. Tekken II was huge on the arcades and a perfect home console port, refined the first, making it look like a glorified tech-demo, and set the framework for what would become Tekken III.
I can't believe how under the radar this game is. Namco struck gold with this series.
10 Sould Calibur 2
9 Smash Ultimate
8 Marvel vs Capcom 2
7 Smash Melee
6 Street Fighter 3
5 Street Fighter 4
4 Tekken 3
3 Mortal Kombat 2
2 Virtua Fighter
1 Street Fighter 2
Tekken 3 was massive! There was no arcade or playstation in the late 90s that didn't have it.
Plus it was fun and had the first 3d capoeirista in Eddy Gordo 😏😎
I feel the lost could’ve been better left out a lot of great fighting games like kof97, samurai shown down 2, ultimate marvel vs capcom 3, street fighter vs snk. Smash bros shouldn’t be in there, since it’s a 4 player fighting game and was just a cash grab for Nintendo.
It's a shame how USA-centric is that list 🙁
Kof 2002 must be in a Top10. His impact in Latin America was and still is huge. That game, regarding how broken it is (and tbw not that broken as MVC2) was a real thing in latin america (+600M people). The game is deeeeep, and still is played now a days in Mexico and Brazil. Is still captivating new kids that approach the game and it just marked an era. The combo system, infinites, glitches, OMG.
KOF 98 really belongs on the list over any Street Fighter game that isn't 2. It is basically the perfect fighting game, and its' influence in the Americas south of America is unprecedented. That game changed everything. 3 really had no impact until post-release, and even then KOF 98 is more popular now with also some really bad and boring characters. 4 really isn't a good game. 5's greatest contribution was to get Capcom only fighting games (which are still the competitive majority in America and America only) to play other fighting games (or quit and play Final Fantasy XIV).
Also Smash Bros. doesn't exist because of Virtua Fighter, it exists because of The King of Fighters, the first crossover fighting game franchise.
I thought mvc2 would've been top 5 easy
SNK very sad 😂😂😂
Awesome pick for number 2. Only those who lived the era know how huge VF2 was, it's definitely one of the most important fighting games ever, it's crazy how widespread its influency is in the industry.
Bro come on and killer instinct on snes the first game ever with high combos and fatality…i'm shocked
Great list, specially because it represents all revolutions in FGs.
I can't believe that you put Marvel vs Capcom 2 instead of KOF 98… That's great to see MK2 and VF2 in the top 3.
Virtua Fighter 1/2 is more influential than Mario 64 which gets credit for all sorts of things it didn't actually do first and came years after the 3D concept had been well proven. What Virtual Fighter did at the time was VASTLY more impressive from a technical standpoint and absolutely captivated a huge portion of the Japanese game development community. It was one of a handful of games that truly proved the 3D concept was here and was the future and almost immediately caused an industry shift.
How big was it? It's what inspired the Playstation 1. This isn't speculation. This is directly from the PS1 developers. They were enamored with Virtual Fighter and knew that Sony had to create something that could play something like that. They literally shifted the design focus on the PS1 to being 3D hardware centric SPECIFICALLY because of Virtua Fighter. Because of this fact alone you could argue that Virtua Fighter is the most important game of the last 30 years.
There is a saying about ice hockey that Canada invented it and Russia taught the world how to play it. I think this goess for Street Fighter and Tekken. Street Fighter created the genre but imho it was Tekken that brought to a large audience on consoles. Here in Northern Germany Arcades never were a thing, so no arcades no such thing as a FGC here. But couple of years later everyone who owned a PS1 or PS2 owned at least one Tekken title.
good list but KOF has to be on the list
You got #1 right for sure!
Street Fighter II is the greatest fighting game of all time.
Personally I can’t stand the Smash Bros games, but most of the others I can agree with.
SFIII: 3rd Strike, MvsC2 and MKII are some of my other favourites, but I’d also add in MK9, VF4:Evolution, Soul Calibur (instead of SCII) and Street Fighter Alpha 3.
VF2 was THEE game that made me fall in love with 3-D games. It was hard to believe that VF1 and VF2 were only a year apart. VF2 on the arcade was FLUID and beautiful at a 60 frame rate that never wavered. I however must admit I was disappointed in the Saturn version as the graphics had to take a hit being on Saturn. I must admit though I still had fun playing it. I was just so astonished at how visually STUNNING VF2 was on the arcade for a 1994 release. I was 10 in 1994, and I just drooled at the sight of the attract mode on that game, because I’ve never seen anything like it. Very unprecedented at that time.
KOF Fans looking around
Wow 98 over Alpha 3, these two were neck im neck where I'm from dur8ng their release
Was never a fan of Virtua Fighter or Tekken because of the art style and the fighting set up style but I'm OK with them being on the list. I am not OK with Killer Instinct not being on the list. I love that franchise! I think it deserves a spot on a top 10 fighting game list like this.