(ThyBlackMan.com) I’ve always been a fan of the fighting game genre since playing my very first fighting game in Street Fighter 2: Special Champion Edition for The Sega Genesis during my childhood.
Fighting games have some of the most amazing and intriguing characters like Balrog from Street Fighter and TJ Combo from Killer Instinct whose character designs were heavily based on legendary heavy boxing legend Mike Tyson.
Fighting games have some of the most sickest super moves that I’ve ever seen from The Raging Demon with Akuma and Evil Ryu in The Street Fighter series to Wolverine’s “Weapon X” from the Marvel vs Capcom series.
Here now are my top 5 favorite all-time fighting games.
1. Dragon Ball Fighterz – When I heard that there was gonna be a 2D Dragon Ball fighting game coming out last year, I was very excited because I had not been this excited for a Dragon Ball fighting game since my days of dominating DBZ Budokai 3 back in the day. The 
gameplay of this game is very similar to the old Marvel vs Capcom games where you can not only do double team super attacks, but also triple team super attacks as well as having other characters assist you in battle.
Then there’s the assist mechanic that’s very useful in many situations during the fight. Many of the super and ultimate attacks in this game pay homage to famous DBZ and DBS moments like Super Saiyan Blue Vegeta’s Ultimate Attack pays homage to him using The Final Flash against Magetta and knocking him out of the ring with a ferocious punch in The Universe 6 Arc Of Dragon Ball Super and this game is my favorite Dragon Ball fighting game.
2. Marvel vs Capcom – I remember when I first played this game back during my middle school days, I was absolutely terrible in it, but as I got a bit more older, I got more better in learning the basic fundamentals of any fighting game: super attacks, air combos, assists, etc. One of the tricks that most gamers didn’t know about this fighting game was that Wolverine is the only character from Marvel vs Capcom that was able to do three hyper combos at one time because you had to make sure to do all three of them correctly that takes about half of the vitality off of your opponent. And doing the trifecta hyper combo with Wolverine was absolutely sick back in the day.
3. DBZ Budokai 3 – This game is my second favorite Dragon Ball fighting game because of the amazing mechanics and gameplay that were better than the two previous iterations of the series. One of the things I remember enjoying about Budokai 3 the most was the great fighting mechanic that was a much better upgrade from the two previous Budokai games that was well received by fans and gamers alike and one example is when you go into what’s called a “Dragon Rush” where you hit your opponent and then hit a sequence of buttons and if done correctly, you will do a super attack against your opponent. My favorite super attack from this game was Super Saiyan 4 Gogeta’s Big Bang Kamehameha x100 where he would charge and immediately teleport behind his opponent and then the opponent would then land several punches that don’t phase him and then SS4 Gogeta knocks his opponent back and immediately fires the Big Bang Kamehameha x100 destroying his opponent with it.
4. Mortal Kombat II – I remember during my childhood when this game came out, it was completely different from any other fighting game that I’ve ever seen and I actually enjoyed seeing the sick gameplay in the form of not only the extreme blood and gore and blood but also when you hear the term “Finish Him” or “Finish Her” at the end of the fight, you can do either a friendship or a brutal fatality by either uppercutting them into spiked needles or in a pool of acid. The game also had a solid roster of characters to choose from Sub-Zero and Reptile to Liu Kang whose fighting style was based on Bruce Lee to Jax whose character design was based on Mike Tyson. This game was so controversial for its use of extreme violence and blood that it led to the creation of The ESRB aka Entertainment Software Relations Board.
5. Street Fighter Alpha 3 – I remember often going to one of my old personal friend’s house and playing Street Fighter Alpha 3 for The Sony PlayStation and I absolutely enjoyed playing this game because it had very amazing gameplay and even certain features that were not seen in previous Street Fighter games in the form of -isms. The first -ism is X-ism is actually a simple style based on Super Street Fighter II Turbo, in which the player has a single-level Super Combo gauge and access to a single but powerful Super Combo move.
The second -ism is A-ism The standard playing style, A-ism (or Z-ism in Japan) is based on the previous Alpha games, in which the player has a three-level Super Combo gauge with access to several Super Combo moves. And the last -ism is third style, V-ism (or “variable” style), is a unique style that allows the player to perform custom combos similar to the ones in Street Fighter Alpha 2, but cannot use Super Combos. Choosing either one of these -isms would determine what fighting style would give you the best chance to defeat your opponents in either Arcade Mode or Survival Mode. This is my favorite all-time Street Fighter game.
The Conclusion – It’s nice to see the fighting game genre regain its momentum nowadays after going through a down period in the last decade.
Staff Writer; Corey Shaw
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