The 10 Best Fighting Games Of All Time

Highlights

• Guilty Gear Xrd REV 2 is a classic fighting game with absurd characters and setplay shenanigans.
• Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 is an unbalanced, action-packed game with explosions, beam attacks, and a massive roster.
• Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection is a balanced iteration of the franchise with offensive and defensive play, and no compromised elements.

Street Fighter 2 broke onto the arcade scene in 1991 and introduced the gaming world to a new type of game. A genre where players would go toe-to-toe with a foe and settle their differences with a friendly row. More than thirty years later, the genre is still thriving. And with each new game franchise that has emerged within the genre, new ideas and innovations have emerged.

This list was, quite frankly, painful to write. As there are quite simply too many excellent fighting games, so we can’t possibly give them all their roses. However, what that means is that this list is all killer and no filler. There isn’t a game listed here that isn’t absolutely brilliant. These are all gems!

Before we get into it, we want to address a few things. This list is ranked, but there is obviously no consensus pick for the best fighting game. We all understand that, right? What a typical Street Fighter game brings to the table is going to be very different from what a Tekken brings to the table. Your mileage is going to vary!

Now, for the Mario-sized elephant in the room… What about Smash Bros? This will always be a contentious topic. While we do think Smash Bros can count as a fighting game, it is definitely a non-traditional form of fighting game. Melee is legendary, and it is probably the best platform fighter, but we feel like that genre feels distinct enough to not necessarily fit this list.

10 Guilty Gear Xrd REV 2

A best fighting games list wouldn’t be complete without a Guilty Gear entry. While Strive has been a rip-roaring success, and we think it is an interesting take on the series, it feels like the least Guilty Gear a Guilty Gear game has ever been. Revelator 2, however, is the pure distillation of the type of absurd nonsense that Guilty Gear fans love so much about their eccentric fighter.

Not only does the roster include some truly inspired odd-ball characters (both in terms of how they look and how they play), but it fully embraces the setplay shenanigans that Guilty Gear games have become known for. Wrap that up in a gorgeous package with a wholly unique sense of style, and you have an all-time classic fighting game.

There are two trains of thought when it comes to fighting game balance. On one hand, you have those who want a fighting game to strive to be as balanced as humanly possible. Then, there are those who don’t want to think about balance and would, instead, prefer the game to just be packed with cool stuff. Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 is firmly in the latter group.

Explosions everywhere, beam attacks that fill the screen, characters who can fly, invincible assists that come out in an instant. A massive roster. Nonsense! Shenanigans!! Fun!!! That is the MVC2 way. Is it balanced? Not even a little. But its everything and the kitchen sink approach to gameplay design is infectiously entertaining.

Ratio Mode And Marvel Vs. Capcom 2
For those not in the know, we thought we would add a note about Ratio Mode which has revolutionized the way MVC2 is being played in the modern era. Invented by Justin Wong, Ratio Mode gives players a select amount of points to work with (7) and then forces them to assemble teams within that point range. This completely fixes the issue of players choosing the same top-tier teams and creates an incentive for players to explore the weaker characters. Sure, Roll is a terrible character, but she is also the only zero-point character in the game, which means that if you want to use Sentinel, Magneto, Storm, or Cable (who are all five-point characters), a pocket Roll allows you to use a two-pointer – who aren’t powerful, but often have a lot more going for them than the one pointers. Ratio Mode is a perfect example of how games can change in thrilling new ways even decades after they release! Fighting games are COOL!

8 Soulcalibur

The Soulcalibur series is unquestionably an odd-duck. The first game in the franchise, Soul Edge (also known as Soul Blade) was remarkably refined. To this day, Soul Edge has a great balance between weight and speed. Three years after Soul Edge’s debut, Soulcalibur would release. This new iteration sped the gameplay up, while adding a host of new characters.

Soulcalibur leveraged the power of the Dreamcast and played at a silky smooth 60fps. No fighting game has managed to match Soulcalibur’s intuitive, pick-up-and-play approach to the genre. Soulcalibur is an engaging battler when played by any player at any skill level, and has endured with good reason. The later games in the series are still plenty of fun, but none of them get the balance right like Soulcalibur does.

The 2000s were a golden era for crossover content in fighting games, while the modern approach is to add a character as a guest, the old way merged franchises together in an incredibly satisfying manner. Capcom Vs. SNK 2 did this with its incredible groove system. You could select between six grooves, and each one would change the universal mechanics you would have access to. As an example, P-Groove gives you access to the Third Strike Parry, while S-Groove gives you KOF 94 style meter charging.

Street Fighter Alpha 3 is a game that didn’t make this list largely because there were already too many Street Fighter titles, but it is similarly excellent and, like Capcom Vs. SNK 2, features an -ism mechanic, which operates similarly to CVS2’s Grooves, allowing you to swap the in-game mechanics for your fighter.

The ratio system also allows you to weigh your team differently.Your foe may have a team of three, where two of their characters will be ratio 1 and one of their characters will be ratio 2, and you can choose to fight them with a single ratio 4 character (who will hit considerably harder and have quite a bit more health). Fun is the name of the game and, paired with the game’s flexibility, it is what makes Capcom Vs. SNK 2 an all-timer.

6 Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection

While the Tekken series has done a great job maintaining its relevance throughout each era, Tekken 5 Dark Resurrection feels like it is the most balanced iteration of the franchise in terms of offensive and defensive play. While the series’ trademark juggles are present, they haven’t reached the absurd lengths that they would in the Tekken games that would follow it, and the bound system had not yet been introduced, so you couldn’t bounce your opponent off of the ground multiple times either.

Tekken 5 DR also predates the hamfisted use of guest characters. You will fight Tekken characters using Tekken characters; you don’t have to worry about running into Negan from The Walking Dead, or Noctis from Final Fantasy 15. Tekken 5 DR feels like one of Namco’s most confident Tekken games. There were no compromised elements, just some good-ass Tekken.

5 Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown

The Virtua Fighter series has always been fantastic for being immediately accessible, while also having an absurd amount of depth to be mined from the depths of its systems. It is hard to imagine a game that only has three buttons—punch, kick, and grab—being seen as a game that has depth, but most fighting game aficionados will agree that the Virtua Fighter games have some of the most depth of all fighters in the genre.

The depth comes from how a character’s attacks change depending on the character’s relative position. What complicates this is that different attacks will change a character’s positioning and there is a wide range of positions your character can take. This causes every encounter to be a dance of sorts, as you need to be keenly aware of your character’s orientation and react accordingly. Virtua Fighter 4 and Virtua Fighter 5 are both fantastic titles, but we are going with Final Showdown here as it is the version that is available on a modern console.

4 Street Fighter 6

Look, this is, on the face of it, an absurd choice. This list is filled with games that are decades old. Games that have gone through multiple iterations. We know what these games are at this point. Street Fighter 6, on the other hand, isn’t even a year old yet. We have no idea what the game will look like in two years, let alone five or ten. Be that as it may, there are some undeniable facts about Street Fighter 6. It is among the most content-complete fighting games to ever launch.

Its first iteration is packed with content. It features the most successful cast of new characters in a Street Fighter game since Street Fighter 2, and, pound for pound, we think the Street Fighter 6 newcomers are better. Moreover, the game features a number of fantastic, elastic gameplay systems that play off each other brilliantly and allow for a fighting game that feels fresh and dynamic. So is it a little early to add Street Fighter 6 to the mix? Maybe. But we suspect this choice will be vindicated down the line. Street Fighter 6 is just a special game.

3 Persona 4 Arena Ultimax

Persona 4 Arena Ultimax brilliantly melds elements of the nonsense-riddled (in the best possible way) anime style of fighter, mixed with a more grounded, footsies-based pace of play. Here the grounded gameplay feels measured and deliberate, but once you connect with an attack, the shenanigans kick in. Each character has a Persona. Each Persona has its own unique set of attacks, and, to a limited extent, can be used for puppet character-esque setups and ambushes.

Ultimax also incorporates status elements, effectively fusing this fighting game with that RPG flavor. Add to all of that an appealing aesthetic, top-tier soundtrack, as well as a killer roster of characters, and you will start to see the appeal of the Persona fighting games. There is quite simply nothing else like them.

While it launched in a bit of a sorry state, we are pleased to say that the recent re-release of Persona 4 Ultimax is now in a great place. So, if you are looking to play this classic on modern consoles, don’t hesitate to pick up that version.

2 King Of Fighters XIII

The King of Fighters XIII is a game that has haunted the King of Fighters franchise in recent years. How so? Well, it quite simply looks better than every modern iteration of the series, despite being well over a decade old. Graphically, it is quite possible that we will never see a better-looking fighting game. It represents the height of sprite-based graphics.

As for how it plays, it features Third Strike-esque EX moves, and has that classic KOF style of neutral-based gameplay that can, at any moment, explode into a monstrous life-ending MAX cancel combo. KOF XIII is a gorgeous game that plays brilliantly. While it doesn’t have a ton of single-player content, it does feature some of the best combo trials ever present in a fighting game. These are a great time, especially if you have a masochistic streak (and if you like fighting games, you probably do).

King of Fighters XIII: Global Match was recently released on all modern platforms, and it added rollback netcode. We would encourage you to give it a download.

1 Street Fighter 3: Third Strike

Love it or hate it, Street Fighter 3: Third Strike is the gold standard for 2D Fighters. For starters, the parry mechanic is, fundamentally, extremely satisfying. Not only does it allow players to take big risks and reap giant rewards, but it also acts as an answer to the dreaded chip kill. As for the cast of fighters, the Street Fighter 3 games deserve all the respect in the world for boldly shaking their roster up and introducing a largely original cast of characters. While not all of them were winners, with new additions like Hugo, Ibuki, Makoto, and Dudley, Third Strike’s roster has become deservedly beloved.

Garou: Mark of the Wolves is another fantastic game that brings a lot of the same appeal as Third Strike, with its similarly beautiful spritework, and emphasis on scrambly neutral, it has a lot of the same appeal as Third Strike. However, it also features those classic SNK pursuit options.

Ultimately, Third Strike is an attractive, energetic, and well-paced fighting game that focuses heavily on footsies and a fantastic push-and-pull style of pacing to each battle. It may not be the best-balanced fighting game to ever exist, but it does everything else so well that we are happy to look past that element.