racketboy.com

I don't know why I keep going over to cheapassgamers.com but I must get my fix at least three times a day. Upon my morning fix I came across NewEggs' sale of Battle Fantasy. Never even heard of this game but looking at some of the videos it really reminds me of some other great 2D recommendations given here for the Saturn like; Asuka 120%, Groove on Fight, and Waku Waku 7.

While reading that same thread I also came across another game, Arcana Hearts for the PS2. Another game I am now adding to my list.

So what other 2D fighters do you think we might have missed?

Bible Fight

I had to play it

I think there are a few that may have been missed by younger players that haven't grown up with the genre.

Karate Champ started it all. You use two joysticks and no buttons. The different combinations of joystick movements controlled your fighter. I think it would be cool if someone tried to make a dual joystick fighter again. We haven't seen one in decades now, as far as I know.

Also, there were a lot of Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat clones in the 90s that have simply been forgotten. My favorite of which is Time Killers. It came out the same year as Mortal Kombat and was every bit as violent, but it didn't get the same media coverage, probably because the graphics were more cartoony. Still it was a great game, I loved Rancid's spinning chainsaw maneuvre that if landed just right could decapitate your opponent and instantly end the round.

h8b1llg8ts wrote:While reading that same thread I also came across another game, Arcana Hearts for the PS2. Another game I am now adding to my list.

I LOVE Arcana Heart.

One game I think was just overlooked was King of Fighters 2006. This was the second 3D one after Maximum Impact; which was a relatively mediocre title that most people skipped. 2006 on the other hand, is actually really good and succeeds at the mixing of 2D and 3D gameplay that Maximum Impact attempted. Basically they combined the special/super attacks from the 2D games and mixed them with the "Dial-a-Combo" concept that games like Tekken and Soul Calibur use. The roster is bigger and nearly all the problems of the first game have been fixed...though balance is a slight problem at times. Still, I'd recommend it to any fighting game fans that like 2D fighters and are a little iffy on the 3D ones.

Also, both Guilty Gear games for the PSP are extremely fun. Judgement also has a 2D beat 'em up mode with 2 Player Co-op; it's awesome.

Fate Unlimited Codes for PSP is also really good; there's decent balancing and a lot of the characters are really fun.

Sengoku Basara Cross and the Fist of the North Star fighting games certainly come to mind(imports, after all). Also, some of the anthologies of fighters in recent years you may have missed, particularly Samurai Shodown Anthology, or character compilations like NeoGeo Battle Coliseum, though some of the game problems with slowdown may annoy you too much on that one.

As for older suggestions, I've had a turn-around of thought on WeaponLord in the 16-bit era. It's the most complex 2D fighter of its generation, and I used to hate the game, though now I respect it for its depth. Just don't expect it to be kind.

Also, I really enjoy the World Heroes series. It doesn't go into the complex combos or counter systems of more modern games, instead going for a blow-for-blow approach I've always enjoyed. There's very limited combos, more relying on single taps at opportune times. Dragon is my favorite character.

I just played Garou : Mark of the Wolves for the first time a few months ago. Grabbed it for my MVS arcade. The graphics are so sweet and the game system is sick. Kinda like SF3 but better maybe? Wish I could get more people to play it with me.

Dark Legend Saturn seems like a under appreciated fighters. Chinese mytholgy I think.

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. I feel like a fool for overlooking this game after 10 years. It's nice to know this game is still strong in japanese arcade tournaments, as well as the small scene on GGPO.

I think I may have mentioned it before on this site but Joy Mech(a) Fight is a great fighting game, as well as one of the few licensed 8-bit fighting games available (the only other one I can think of is TMNT: Tournament Fighters on NES). It's an import but since it's a fighting game the language barrier is hardly present.

First thing that you'll notice is the amazing graphics. The backgrounds are colorful and have a lot of detail. Fighting on a castle wall with the desert in the background and a huge tower is simply amazing. The fighters are depicted as limb-less robots (think Rayman) therefore the animations are smoother than if the characters were fully drawn.

On the topic of characters, holy shit is there a lot. Of course like many fighting games you only start out with a few, eight for this game. Once you play through the story mode on hard you unlock all the characters you fought during you run through. With four levels and eight characters per level that's a whopping forty characters. On top of that is you play through the hardest difficulty you can unlock the four boss characters. With so many characters it really adds a lot of replay value to the game.

Sound is amazing. The music was some of the best I had heard in an 8-bit game back when I first played this four years ago (of course then I played some Sunsoft games an well...).

Here are some pictures/videos:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC5TBT8pTcE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKoJXwdgM5w&feature=related