Fighting Games Turning 10 In 2025

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home December 31, 2024 7 Views 9 Min Read
Fighting Games Turning 10 In 2025



Summary

  • Fighting games have evolved with improved graphics and larger character rosters, growing alongside the industry.
  • J-Stars Victory VS+ pits iconic anime characters in 3D battles, catering to fans’ desires for crossover match-ups.
  • Mortal Kombat X revitalized the series with brutal fights, a strong roster of characters, and excellent DLC options.

Fighting Games have come a long way since they broke into the mainstream during the early 90s. From graphics to the number of characters in any given roster, the genre has continued to grow with the rest of the industry by continuing to get bigger and better each generation.

A wide image of the Lost Cathedral stage from Soulcalibur 3.

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2015 was an interesting year for fighting games because it felt like interest in the genre was at an all-time low and if you wanted to get into them, you only had a few options to choose from. Fortunately, 2015 was also a turning point because of some essential titles that helped reinvigorate interest for former fans and new players alike.

5

J-Stars Victory VS+

Have you ever spent too much time wondering or talking to a friend about which anime has the strongest character? After decades of speculation, Spike Chunsoft finally developed a game that helps you answer the age-old question by pitting iconic heroes and villains from the Shōnen Jump universe against each other in this 3D brawler. It originally launched in Japan as J-Stars Victory VS in 2014 before receiving its extended title and an international release in 2015.

J-Stars Victory VS+ has a massive roster of 52 playable characters from series like Bleach, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, and more, but the cast is kind of the main selling point of the game. It would’ve been great to see a story mode that allowed these characters to interact with each other more, but it’s still fun to boot up just to watch Monkey D. Luffy face off against Vegeta. It might not hold up as well as other entries on this list, but it’s worth checking out if you’re a fan of the worlds of Shōnen Jump.

4

Dragon Ball Z: Extreme Butōden

There are a lot of Dragon Ball fighting games, each with their own unique ideas or gimmicks to help them stand apart from each other. Dragon Ball Z: Super Butōden launched in Japan in 1993 as the first official fighting game for the anime, but North America wouldn’t see an entry in this sub-series until 2015.

Glimpses of Saiyan Saga in a nutshell in Dragon Ball Z

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The Butōden games are very similar to Street Fighter (the first game was inspired by Street Fighter 2’s success) as they feature one-on-one fights where your goal is to empty your opponent’s health meter with basic and special attacks. Extreme Botōden was developed exclusively for the 3DS with over 100 characters to choose from, but its lackluster story mode and limited online modes prevented it from reaching the same success as Dragon Ball Fighterz or Sparking Zero.

3

Pokken Tournament

Crossover fighting games like Marvel vs. Capcom and Super Smash Bros. let you watch characters from different universes duke it out to see who’s the best, but Pokken Tournament takes the concept in a slightly different direction. Instead of featuring characters from both the worlds of Pokemon and Tekken (imagine Pikachu fighting Heihachi or Kuma), it features only characters from the former with the basic mechanics and ideas from the latter.

Pokken Tournament initially launched as an arcade game in Japan in 2015 before arriving on the Wii U a year later. Featuring a diverse cast of characters like Gengar, Suicune, and Gardevoir, the game shifts from being a 2D fighting game to 3D when certain conditions are met. Its visual style and aesthetic make it easy for new players to jump into Pokken Tournament, while a surprisingly complex combo system makes it compelling for fighting game veterans.

2

Tekken 7

Tekken is one of the most celebrated fighting series of all time with its intricate combat system, gorgeous visuals, and an iconic cast of characters that will do whatever it takes to throw each other into a volcano. Nearly a decade after Tekken 6 launched in arcades, the series finally returned in 2015 with a new entry that reminded audiences why Tekken is so unique from the other games in the genre.

Tekken's Heihachi, Azazel and True Devil Kazuya

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Tekken 7 is easily accessible and fun for newcomers while also containing more than enough depth to satisfy competitive players. With a large roster of characters to choose from and gorgeous stages to brawl on, Tekken 7 was one of the best-looking games of its generation and filled with so much content you could easily spend hours playing by yourself before ever hopping into a match with another person.

1

Mortal Kombat X

2011’s Mortal Kombat was an essential reboot for the series that helped bring it back to basics while also having some room to play with alternate-timeline shenanigans. Mortal Kombat X takes everything from its predecessor, like the roster and story mode, and finds new ways to make them bigger, better, and more brutal than ever before.

Mortal Kombat X received almost universal acclaim and became the fastest-selling game in the series’ history. The cinematic story mode is an excellent place for newcomers to get a feel for the game while learning more about the roster of characters, and fantastic multiplayer modes (especially the Faction system that lets you earn points for a chosen team) helped keep the game alive until Mortal Kombat 11 arrived in 2019. An amazing batch of DLC characters, like Alien and Leatherface, were just the cherry on top of an excellent fighting game that’s still fun to revisit today.

Ryu and Cyclops shake hands.

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