There are a lot of violent video games, but fighting games put martial arts in the spotlight. Fighting games are a lot more strategic than they might seem on the surface, since they focus so much on hand-to-hand combat. When fans get into a new game, they try to learn the moves and figure out how it works so they can get their opponents to make a mistake and let their guard down. Then it’s time to beat them down.
Here are the 10 best fighting games of all time, according to critics. As for how we did it, we looked at all of the fighting games on Metacritic that got high marks from critics and users alike and made a score that was a combination of the two (e.g. a game with a 95 critic score and 9.3 user score would receive a 94 composite score). This should give us the best idea of how well the games were liked in general from the time they came out until now.
10. Street Fighter IV for PC
In 1991, Street Fighter II was the game that really got people interested in fighting games. Once that game was in arcades, it spread like wildfire. People lined up to put quarters in the machine and play against whoever happened to be standing next to them.
Street Fighter IV came out in 2008, long after most arcades had closed because home consoles were getting more powerful and better at letting people play together. But because the game could be played online, you could still fight strangers using the easy-to-learn-but-hard-to-master fighting system of the series. Street Fighter is probably the most popular fighting game series, and this fourth installment shows why.
9. Street Fighter Alpha 3 for PlayStation
At No. 9 on the list is a different kind of Street Fighter game. In a few ways, the Alpha games are different from the main Street Fighter games. First, they use a style of art that is more exaggerated and based on anime. This style still works today. Second, the game is all about combos and counterattacks, and there are meters that, when full, let you unleash long, powerful attacks.
In 1998, Super Street Fighter Alpha 3 came out. It added nine new fighters and gave each of them three different ways to fight. After its debut in arcades, the game came out on a number of different consoles, from the Dreamcast to the PlayStation Portable, but the best version is for the PlayStation One.
8. Marvel vs. Capcom 2 for Dreamcast
Have you ever thought about who would win if Spider-Man and Mega Man fought? If you have, you’re in luck, because questions like that are the basis of a whole game. In Marvel vs. Capcom 2, you can fight as Mega Man, Ryu, Captain America, Wolverine, and many other video game characters and superheroes. What do you know? It’s fun just like it sounds.
Crossovers between characters from different worlds in fighting games are nothing new, but Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is the best of the bunch. Not only does it have a great cast, but each character also has a set of easy-to-learn moves. This makes it a lot easier to play than many of the other games on this list. It’s a great way to carry out a cool idea. What could you want more of?
7. Super Smash Bros. Brawl for Wii
The first Super Smash Bros. game came out on the Nintendo 64 in 1999. The basic idea of the game is that it puts a bunch of Nintendo characters on the screen and lets them beat each other up in a fun and silly way. The Wii version of the series, Brawl, came out in 2008, and it does a great job of carrying the series’ torch for that generation of Nintendo hardware.
Brawl added a lot of new things to the series. One is online play, which means you didn’t have to wait until all of your friends could come over to fight them. It also added a stage builder that let you put a level together in any way you wanted. It even added characters from outside of Nintendo, like Solid Snake and Sonic the Hedgehog, to its roster of fighters.
6. Super Smash Bros. for Wii U
But when it comes down to it, it’s the tried-and-true gameplay and the many ways to customize it that make this one of the best fighting games. Oh, and the matches with eight players on screen at once are a lot of fun. This game has everything a fighting game fan could want, from multiple fun game modes to hundreds of collectibles and hours of content. The best fighting game you can get is Super Smash Bros. for Wii U.
5. Super Smash Bros. Melee for GameCube
Fun fact: Super Smash Bros. Melee came out seven years before Super Smash Bros. Brawl, but most Smash Bros. tournament players prefer Melee to Brawl. Why? For one thing, Brawl added a feature called “tripping,” which made it so that sometimes when you tried to dash or do a quick attack, your character would fall over. The other reason is that Brawl moves a little slower than the other games in the series. Tournament players know everything there is to know about these games. Casual players probably wouldn’t even notice or care about these things.
But this GameCube game from 2001 is a winner even if you don’t compare it to its sequel. It has everything that makes a Smash Bros. game fun, plus a lot of extra stuff that wasn’t in the original Nintendo 64 game. Fans bought a lot of copies of this game, making it the best-selling GameCube game of all time with 7 million copies sold. Not bad for a fight game with cute characters.
4. Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution for PlayStation 2
When this game came out in 2003, the series had already come a long way. In 1993, Sega made the first fighting game with polygons and put it in arcades. The fighters were blocky and the environments were boring, but the core game mechanics were good.
But after a few sequels, the graphics had gotten a lot better and the way fighting worked had gotten even better. By the time Virtua Fighter 4: Evolved came out in 2003, fighting games had reached their peak. The depth and length of the single-player mode stood out, which came in handy before there was online multiplayer. Even though it is No. 4 on this list, it is tied with the game that comes after it.
3. SoulCalibur II for GameCube
SoulCalibur II came out in 2002, and many of the best video game critics said it was the best three-dimensional fighter ever made. It had a large number of well-balanced fighters, each of whom had a weapon they could use to hurt their opponents. The graphics and sound were top-notch, and there was plenty to do whether you were playing alone or with a friend.
With a 92 out of 100, the GameCube version got the best score, but the Xbox and PlayStation 2 versions were also well received and would have made this list on their own with scores of 90 and 89.5, respectively. We put the game here, at its highest score, so it would be easy to find.
2. Tekken 3 for PlayStation
When the Tekken series first came out, and for many years after, it was known as one of the toughest fighting game series out there. Each character had more than 100 different moves and combos, which made the games hard to pick up and play for people who had never played them before. But if you took the time to learn some of the most useful moves and practiced them, you found a great set of games.
When Tekken 3 came out in arcades in 1997, it put more focus on the third dimension. This made sidestepping just as important for defense as blocking. This and other changes were kept when the game was moved to the PlayStation, and they were also kept in later Tekken games. Even though it’s number two on this list, it’s tied for first with the next game.
1. SoulCalibur for Dreamcast
Dreamcast was the first console of its generation to come out, so by the time SoulCalibur came out for it in 1999, there wasn’t much else that looked as good. SoulCalibur blew away its competitors with its detailed character models and smooth, flowing animations. Even the story of the game is better than those of its competitors because it brings together fighters from different times and places who are all looking for the same special sword.
But no matter how it looks or how it’s put together, a fighting game is only as good as its gameplay, and SoulCalibur does it again. This was a game for the ages because the controls were so easy to use and there were so many fighters and fighting styles to learn. Happy Wheels is still one of the best physics games of all time, even though time has passed.
