What's Your Favourite 2D Fighting Series?

[onthinice]

I played lots of Yie Ar Kung-Fu. Then Virtual Fighter.

[Bobinator]

...Uh, Virtua Fighter isn't 2D. OK, well, SOME of them are, but that's not what I meant.

To get more on topic, I'd have to say that my favorite 2D fighter franchies are either the Marvel VS series, at least, before MVC3, which... was really not worth it, and the Darkstalkers series. Lots of interesting, freaky character concepts, some really fast gameplay, and fantastic animation. Sadly, since Capcom sucks REALLY hard these days, we're not likely to get another one.

It used to be that I would have put Mortal Kombat up here, but honestly, the 2D games haven't really aged all that well. To be honest, the newest one plays so much better than all the other 2D games that anything before it is better for the nostalgia value. There's just so much more depth in the new Mortal Kombat that it feels more like a Capcom game with a lot more blood.

[Greyfox]

I went for Street fighter series, but this to me doesn't include Street fighter EX series or Street Fighter 4 etc.. as they are no 2D,  I think Street Fighter rules the roost purely on the facts that it's controls where absolutely spot on, the character design was brilliant and varied balanced game-play makes Street Fighter the rest of them learn from..

now I'm off to the Dojo for a baiting

[Mire Mare]

I voted for SF2.  I have to say I'm not a fan of the series before or after '2', but all the '2s' were epic!

Out of the games on the list it's the one that impressed me most - I haven't played all of them.  I loved 2d fighting games on the c64, WOTEF, IK, IK+ etc, and also being a Zzp64! and then Mean Machines/ONM/CVG reader, SF2 was the next logical step.  It was lauded by Mean Machines Magazine et al back when it was released, ONM even released a VHS video with SNES SF2 content if I remember correctly.  Amazingly SF2 exceeded all the hype surrounding it.  A gilded game during a golden era.

I don't think I've enjoyed any fighting game quite so much ever since SF2.  I still play the old 2d games whereas modern ones seem to me to be utterly bromidic.  I know, I know.. I've lost the love.

[dcultrapro]

originally years ago I would've said Street Fighter straight away but I actually voted KOF as I love the KOF characters and more realistic combat, I do love Street Fighter and Alpha especially but find the KOF characters, moves, graphics etc just beats SF for me

[Bobinator]

I never really good get into King of Fighters as much as Street Fighter. It's not that I think it's a bad series, and I really enjoyed '98 for the sheer number of characters and '03 for the more Marvel-esque tag system. But for me, I never really could gel with how they'd tend to change around the moves every sequel, so you couldn't really get good with anybody unless you picked one game and stuck with it.

Garou, though...

[dot.fyre]

Way of the Exploding Fist or IK+ for me.

No reliance on learning stupid combos.

[dcultrapro]

yeah garou was the bollox

[Bobinator]

Way of the Exploding Fist or IK+ for me.

No reliance on learning stupid combos.

I agree with you, to a certain extent.

It's not the combos I have a problem with, it's when a game introduces a lot of subsystems is when I have a problem understanding it. This mostly applies to the Guilty Gear and BlazBlue games, for me. Can somebody explain what exactly a False Roman Cancel is supposed to be, again?

[TL]

Garou, though...

Technically speaking Garou is part of the Fatal Fury series