Fighting Game Video Games Bucket List

Robot fighting with a pilot who levels up between bouts; the shareware Street Fighter of the DOS years.

One button per limb, eight fighters and eight sub-bosses; Namco answer Virtua Fighter in 1994.

Walls and uneven ground in the arenas, which the players disliked enough that Tekken 5 flattened them again.

Heihachi comes back and drops Kazuya into a volcano; the first Tekken people kept playing at home.

A Superman who runs the world after losing Metropolis, fought over in the engine NetherRealm built for Mortal Kombat.

Three selectable fighting styles per character over a roster in the thirties; the last of the 2D Alphas.

A beat-em-up Scenario Campaign bolted on the side, and the Bloodline Rebellion update rebalancing forty fighters.

Ryu tours ten fighters in 1987, on a cabinet whose two pressure pads read how hard you hit them.

Gear drops that change how a fighter looks and hits, with Brainiac arriving over an Earth already broken.

A run button, dial-a-combo chains and no ninjas, which Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 put back the same year.

NetherRealm restart the story at the first tournament, back on a 2D plane, with an X-ray camera inside the ribs.

Shang Tsung and Quan Chi work together, every fighter carries three stances, and the Krypt sells secrets for coins.

Konquest becomes a full adventure mode, with chess and puzzle variants between the fights.

The series turns to polygons in 1997, with a weapon each fighter can draw, drop and lose.

Liu Kang rebuilds the timeline from scratch, and a second fighter waits at the edge of the screen to tag in.

The arcade-perfect one, and the last before the series went online.

Variations, X-rays and the next generation of Kombatants.

Shao Kahn, better fatalities and the arcade cabinet everyone crowded.

V-Triggers and a rough launch that a decade of updates repaired.

Eddy Gordo, Jin Kazama and the arcade fighter of the PlayStation era.

Parries, hand-drawn animation and the greatest comeback in fighting-game history.

The first 3D fighting game, all polygons and precise timing.

Fatalities in 4K and a time-travel story; NetherRealm's best.

The Heat system and Jin versus Kazuya; the 3D fighter's latest.

Fencing tug-of-war in pixels; one hit, one death, run for the worm.

Drive Impact, modern controls and World Tour; the fighting game of the 2020s.