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Wikipedia / List of fighting games

Fighting games are characterized by close combat between two fighters or groups of fighters of comparable strength, often broken into rounds or stocks. If multiple players are involved, players generally fight against each other.

General

2D

Fighting games that use 2D sprites. Games tend to emphasize the height of attacks (high, medium or low) and jumping.

Akatsuki EN-Eins series – Subtle Style

  • Akatsuki Shisei Ichigō

  • Akatsuki Blitzkampf

  • Akatsuki Blitzkampf Ausf. Achse

  • EN-Eins Perfektewelt

  • EN-Eins Perfektewelt Anastasis

    Aquapazza: Aquaplus Dream Match - Examu

Arcana Heart series – Examu

Art of Fighting series – SNK

Asura series – Fuuki

  • Asura Blade: Sword of Dynasty

  • Asura Buster: Eternal Warriors

Asuka 120% series

Axel City series - Project Atsuki

Barbarian series

BlazBlue series – Arc System Works

Body Blows series

Brutal: Paws of Fury series

Capoeira Fighter series – Spiritonin

  • Capoeira Fighter

  • Capoeira Fighter 2

  • Capoeira Fighter 3

  • Catfight – Atlantean Interactive Games

  • Chinese Hero – Taiyo System

Chaos Code series – FK Digital pty ltd.

ClayFighter series – Interplay

Crimson Alive – Keropyon

Daemon Bride series – Examu

  • Daemon Bride – Examu

  • Daemon Bride: Additional Gain – Examu

  • Dangerous Streets – Micromania (video game developer)

Darkstalkers series – Capcom

Draglade series – Dimps

Eternal Champions series – Sega

Fatal Fury/Garou Densetsu series – SNK

Fighter's History series – Data East

Flash Hiders series – Right Stuff

  • Flash Hiders

  • Battle Tycoon: Flash Hiders SFX

FOOTSIES series – HiFight

  • FOOTSIES

  • FOOTSIES: Rollback Edition

Fu'un series – SNK

International Karate series

Istanbul Beyleri series – AKEMRE

Jump Stars series – Ganbarion

Killer Instinct series

The King of Fighters series – SNK

Marvel Super Heroes series – Capcom

Marvel vs. Capcom series – Capcom

Melty Blood series – Type-Moon / French-Bread / Ecole Software

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers series

Mortal Kombat series – Midway

Persona 4 Arena – Arc System Works/Atlus

Phantom Breaker – Mages (company)

Power Instinct/Goketsuji Ichizoku series – Atlus

Ranma ½ series

Rise of the Robots series – Mirage Media

The Rumble Fish series – Dimps

Sango Fighter series – Panda Entertainment

Street Fighter series – Capcom

Super Chinese series

Under Night In-Birth series – Type-Moon / French-Bread / Ecole Software

Vanguard Princess – Sugeno

Violence Fight series

Virtua Fighter series

The Way of the Exploding Fist series

Yatagarasu (video game series) - Yatagarasu Dev Team

  • Yatagarasu Attack on Cataclysm

  • Yatagarasu Enter the Eastward

Yie Ar Kung-Fu series

2.5D

2.5D fighting games are displayed in full 3D graphics, but the movement and gameplay is based on traditional 2D style games.

Digimon Rumble Arena series – Namco Bandai Games

Fighter Uncaged Series

Ganryu – Visco

Guilty Gear series – Arc System Works

Injustice series – Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment / NetherRealm Studios

The King of Fighters series – SNK

Marvel vs. Capcom series – Capcom

Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds

Mortal Kombat series

Rise of the Robots series – Mirage Media

Street Fighter series – Capcom

Street Fighter IV (2008)

Street Fighter V

Super Smash Bros. series – Nintendo / HAL Laboratory / Sora / Bandai Namco Studios

Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Cross Generation of Heroes – Capcom

3D

3D fighting games add three-dimensional movement. These often emphasize sidestepping.

Blue Breaker series - HuneX

Dead or Alive series – Team Ninja/Tecmo/Koei Tecmo

Fighter's Impact series – Taito

Fighting Bujutsu – Konami

Fighting Vipers – Sega-AM2

FX Fighter series – Argonaut Games

Genei Tougi series – Racdym

Hiryu no Ken series – Culture Brain

Mortal Kombat series – Midway / Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment / NetherRealm Studios

Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm (series) – CyberConnect2 / Bandai Namco

Power Stone series – Capcom

Poy Poy series – Konami

Psychic Force series – Taito

Rival Schools series – Capcom

Samurai Shodown / Samurai Spirits series – SNK

Street Fighter EX series – Arika/Capcom

Tekken series – Namco

Virtua Fighter series – Sega-AM2 / Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio

Virtual On series – Sega AM3

X-Men fighting games – Paradox Development / Activision

Zero Divide series – ZOOM Inc.

Weapon-based

Adding melee weapons to a fighting game often makes attack range more of a factor, as opponents may wield a sword, knife, katana or other kind of weapon of drastically different sizes.

2D

Fighting games that use 2D sprites. Games tend to emphasize the height of attacks (high, medium or low) and jumping.

BlazBlue series – Arc System Works

Fu'un series – SNK

Guilty Gear series – Arc System Works

The Last Blade series – SNK

Melty Blood – Type-Moon/French Bread

Persona 4 Arena – Atlus/Arc System Works

Samurai Shodown/Samurai Spirits series – SNK

Suiko Embu series

Shadow Fight series

  • Shadow Fight – Nekki

  • Sword Slayer / Spartacus the Swordslayer – Players

  • Time Killers – Strata

Touhou Project series

Under Night In-Birth series – Arc System Works / French-Bread / Ecole Software

  • Under Night In-Birth

  • Under Night In-Birth II [Sys:Celes]

  • WeaponLord – Namco

2.5D

2.5D fighting games are displayed in full 3D graphics, but the movement and gameplay is based on traditional 2D style games.

Guilty Gear series – Arc System Works

Mortal Kombat series

Shadow Fight series

  • Shadow Fight 3 – Banzai.Games

  • Shadow Fight Arena – Banzai.Games

3D

3D fighting games add three-dimensional movement. These often emphasize sidestepping.

Bushido Blade series – Square-Enix / Lightweight

Mortal Kombat series

Samurai Shodown series

Soulcalibur series – Namco/Bandai Namco

Star Gladiator series

Tag team-based

Fighting games that feature tag teams as the core gameplay element. Teams of players may each control a different character, or a single player may control multiple characters, but play one at a time. Other fighters feature tag-teaming as an alternate game mode.

2D

Fighting games that use 2D sprites. Games tend to emphasize the height of attacks (high, medium or low) and jumping.

The King of Fighters series – SNK/SNK Playmore

Power Instinct series – Atlus

2.5D

2.5D fighting games are displayed in full 3D graphics, but the movement and gameplay is based on traditional 2D style games.

Capcom Versus series

3D

3D fighting games add three-dimensional movement. These often emphasize sidestepping.

Platform fighters

While traditional 2D/3D fighting game mechanics are more or less descendants of Street Fighter II, platform fighters tend to blend fighting with elements taken from platform games. A typical match is arranged as a battle royal. Compared to traditional fighting games, attack inputs are simpler and emphasis is put on dynamic maneuvering in the arena, using the level design to gain an advantage. Another major gameplay element involves using items, which may randomly spawn anywhere in the arena. Other terms which were used to refer to this sub-genre included "Smash Clones", "Party Brawler", "Party Fighter", and "Arena Fighter" (that is also being used to define another style of 3D fighting game).

2D

Fighting games that use 2D sprites. Games tend to emphasize the height of attacks (high, medium or low) and jumping.

Jump Stars series – Ganbarion

2.5D

2.5D fighting games are displayed in full 3D graphics, but the movement and gameplay is based on traditional 2D style games.

Digimon Rumble Arena series - Bandai

Super Smash Bros. series – Nintendo / HAL Laboratory / Sora / Bandai Namco Studios

3D

3D fighting games add three-dimensional movement. These often emphasize sidestepping.

Power Stone series – Capcom

Poy Poy series – Konami

Arena fighters

Arena Fighters usually focus on more free-controlling 3D movement and camera which follows the character, unlike other traditional 3D fighting games such as the Tekken series that still maintain the sideview and side-scrolling orientation to the attacks, and normally put emphasis on offense over defense. Games are often based on popular anime series or other IPs.

3D

3D fighting games add three-dimensional movement. These often emphasize sidestepping.

4-way simultaneous fighting

Games in which four players face off at once. Other games may feature 4-way fighting as alternate game modes, but here it is more central to the way the game is usually played.

2D

Fighting games that use 2D sprites. Games tend to emphasize the height of attacks (high, medium or low) and jumping.

Bleach Nintendo DS games

Guilty Gear series – Arc System Works

Jump Stars series – Ganbarion

2.5D

2.5D fighting games are displayed in full 3D graphics, but the movement and gameplay is based on traditional 2D style games.

Super Smash Bros. series – Nintendo / HAL Laboratory / Sora / Bandai Namco Studios

3D

3D fighting games add three-dimensional movement. These often emphasize sidestepping.

Naruto: Clash of Ninja series – Eighting / Takara Tomy

Sports (combat) subgenres

Sports-based combat (also known as sport-fighters or combat sports games) are games that fall firmly within both the Combat and Sports game genres. Such games are usually based on boxing, mixed martial arts, and wrestling, and each sport is seen as their own separate subgenres. The combat is often far more realistic than combat in fighting games (though the amount of realism can vary greatly), and many feature real-world athletes and franchises.

Boxing

Boxing games go back further than any other kind of fighting game, starting with Sega's Heavyweight Champ in 1976, the game often called the first video game to feature hand-to-hand fighting. Fighters wear boxing gloves and fight in rings, and fighters can range from actual professional boxers to aliens to Michael Jackson.

Fight Night series

Heavyweight Champ series

Knockout Kings series – EA Sports

Online Boxing series

Punch-Out!! series – Nintendo

Ready 2 Rumble series

Rocky series

Victorious Boxers series

Boxing management

Boxing games where combat is not directly human-controlled in the ring. Instead, a boxer is trained via a resource management game scheme, and bouts are directed via instructions given prior to each round.

Mixed martial arts

While most versus fighting games could be considered mixed martial arts games, listed here are games that are based on actual MMA franchises or tournaments.

Kickboxing

Wrestling

Wrestling games are either based on or have elements of wrestling, such as professional wrestling, grappling, or the wrestling ring itself.

Backyard Wrestling series – Paradox Development

Body Slam / Dump Matsumoto – Sega / Firebird

Fire Pro Wrestling series

Saturday Night Slam Masters series

Shin Nihon Pro Wrestling Tokon Hono series – Yuke's

Wrestling video games based on WWE/WWF properties.

Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) series

SmackDown! series – THQ / Yuke's

World Championship Wrestling (WCW) series

WrestleMania series

WWF/WWE series

Ball/Disc sports

Games involving flying objects that can include balls and discs, where the players can only interact with each other through the object, and may or may not feature goalposts.

  • 1on1 (1998) - Jorudan CO.LTD/I.T.Planning.INC

Lethal League series – Team Reptile

Windjammers series – Data East / Dotemu

By theme

Anime-based fighting games

Games based on popular anime series and 3D variants often feature cell shading. "Anime fighters" also usually have very fast-paced action and put emphasis on offense over defense. Another common feature is that they typically have fighting systems built around doing long combos of dozens of attacks. Overall they appear in a variety of fighting game sub-genres.

2D

BlazBlue series – Arc System Works

Daemon Bride series – Examu

Dragon Ball Z: Super Butōden – TOSE/Bandai

Guilty Gear series – Arc System Works

Jump Stars series – Ganbarion

Melty Blood series – Type-Moon/French Bread

Mobile Suit Gundam (1993) - Sunrise/Banpresto

Persona 4 Arena – Atlus/Arc System Works

Under Night In-Birth series – Type-Moon/French-Bread /Ecole Software

Yatagarasu (video game series) - Yatagarasu Dev Team

  • Yatagarasu Attack on Cataclysm

  • Yatagarasu Enter the Eastward

  • Your Only Move is Hustle

2.5D

Guilty Gear series – Arc System Works

Psychic Force series - Taito

3D

Naruto: Clash of Ninja series – Eighting / Takara Tomy

  • Naruto: Clash of Ninja 2

  • Naruto: Clash of Ninja Revolution

  • Naruto: Clash of Ninja Revolution 2

  • Naruto: Gekitō Ninja Taisen! 3

  • Naruto: Gekitō Ninja Taisen! 4

  • Naruto Shippuden: Clash of Ninja Revolution 3

  • Naruto Shippuden: Clash of Ninja for Wii U

  • Naruto Shippūden: Gekitō Ninja Taisen! EX

  • Naruto Shippūden: Gekitō Ninja Taisen! EX 2

  • Naruto Shippūden: Gekitō Ninja Taisen! EX 3

  • Naruto Shippūden: Gekitō Ninja Taisen! Special

Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm

Crossover

Fighting games featuring characters from more than one franchise. Typically, these consist of characters across multiple game and/or comic franchises. Others are initially singular franchises featuring guest characters, often via DLC.

Capcom VS. series – Capcom

Dead or Alive series – Tecmo

Injustice series – NetherRealm Studios

Jump Stars series – Ganbarion

Marvel vs. Capcom series

Mortal Kombat series – Midway Games / Avalanche Software / Eurocom / Just Games Interactive / Midway Studios Los Angeles / Other Ocean Interactive / Point of View, Inc. / NetherRealm Studios

SNK vs. Capcom series – Capcom / SNK

Soulcalibur series – Project Soul / Bandai Namco Studios

Street Fighter series – Capcom

Super Smash Bros. series – Nintendo / HAL Laboratory / Sora / Bandai Namco Studios

Tekken series - Namco/Bandai Namco Studios

The King of Fighters series – SNK / Eolith / BrezzaSoft / Noise Factory

Under Night In-Birth series – Type-Moon / French-Bread / Ecole Software

  • Under Night In-Birth

  • Under Night In-Birth II [Sys:Celes]

Eroge

Fighting eroge (erotic games). Fighting games with pornographic elements.

Battle Raper series – Illusion

Strip Fighter series – Studio S

  • Strip Fighter II – Games Express

  • Strip Fighter IV – Studio S

  • Super Strip Fighter IV – Studio S

  • Ultra Strip Fighter IV Omeco Edition – Studio S

  • Strip Fighter 5 – Studio S

  • Strip Fighter 5 Abnormal Edition – Studio S

  • Strip Fighter IV Rainbow – Studio S

  • Strip Fighter 3 Naked Street King – Studio S

  • Strip Fighter 5 Chimpocon Edition – Studio S

  • Variable Geo – TGL / Giga

Mech

Fighters with a mecha or robot theme.

Armored Warriors series – Capcom

Bandai

Rise of the Robots – Mirage Media / Time Warner Interactive

Monster/Kaiju

These games feature monsters as playable characters, usually set in destructible city environments.

RPG

Fighting games with RPG elements, like character building or variable storylines.

Dissidia Series

Persona Arena series

Legaia series

Tobal series

Super deformed

Super deformed refers to a popular type of Japanese caricature where the subject is made to have exaggerated toddler-like features, such as an oversized head and short chubby limbs. Their movements and expressions while super deformed also tend to be exaggerated.

Battle Arena Toshinden series – Tamsoft

Flying Dragon series – Culture Brain

Guilty Gear series – Arc System Works

King of Fighters series – SNK

Virtua Fighter series – Sega-AM2

Music

Fighting Games with Music elements.

Bust a Groove series - Metro

Flyting

Fighting Games with resembling traditional fighting game genre or subgenre but combatants take place exclusively in the air with or without any vehicles.

Psychic Force series - Taito

See also

References