Fighting Games and I

 If my favorite genre is RPG, then my second favorite, though it was my favorite at a time, is fighting games. I don't play them at a competitive level, but I do get competitive about them.


 Special Mentions(Because 10 is too good a number):

 Street Fighter II: You can't just make a list like this without acknowledging the father of the genre. It may not have been the first, but it was the first one to get it just right. And the best thing about this beauty is that while dated, it's still fun to play today. Fun fact: My first foray into the fighting game realm was through a chinese bootleg SF II game for the 'family', a Chinese NES knock off.

 Gundam Extreme VS Full Boost: The only reason this one didn't make it to the top of the list is that it's not a traditional fighting game. Few games feel as tailor-made for me as much as this one, with almost a hundred unique mobile suits to play as, to its very easy pick-up-and-play nature... This is one of the best games ever made, as far as I'm concerned.

 JoJo Bizarre Adventure - All Star Battle: It's not the deepest of fighting games, nor the most technical of the bunch, but it's got more heart than any of them. The love that went into making every move, every pose as faithful to the franchise as possible is unbelievable. So many details that only the most hardcore of JoJo fans could catch.... this game is a work of love, from fans to fans, and it's pretty fun to boot.

 Soul Calibur II: Soul Calibur used to be so cool, but now it's little more than a fanservice fest, although ironically enough, they introduced a Caska-lookalike, one of my favorite fighters of any fighting game. But I digress, Soul Calibur 2 is fast, is deep and is immensely fun to play. The game was ported to the PS2, Gamecube and XBox, and each one had a different guest fighter, Heihachi, Link and Spawn respectively. If you ask me, I don't think any of them fit, but if I had to choose... I'd go with Spawn.

 Street Fighter Alpha 3: So it might not be as balanced as Street Fighter Alpha 2, but damn, there're so many characters. I was particularly fond of the different ISMs, you could play with stronger, but more limited characters with X-ism, or have fun creating combos with V-ism, or y'know, go classic Alpha with A-ism. And then there's the different modes.... Alpha 3 is an amazing game, with a lot of options and ways to play it. The best version out there would probably the PSP version, it has the most modes and characters, although the controls are a bit uncomfortable, and finding somebody else play with can be a bit of a chore.

 Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus: Would you believe me if I told you that I've played every Guilty Gear installment, sans Isuka, up til Accent Core Plus? I'm nuts like that. One of the fastest fighting game out there, one that demands excellent and consistent execution if you wish to play at a competitive level... it's surprising how easy it is to get into it! Just mash buttons, and stuff happens. Fighting games that can be fun for newcomers and experts alike are rare and far between. There was a sequel, Xrd, and I've got my sealed copy collecting dust on my closet, I just haven't had the time!

 Bushido Blade 2: As unconventional as fighting games go, there are no life bars, and every swing of your sword, or Naginata, could be your last. It's fan, addictive and original, and it's depressing to know that it has no successors! The Kengo series on the PS2 is the closest you can get to one, and even then, they don't hold a candle to Bushido Blade.

My Favorites:

 The King of Fighters 2006: Also known as The King of Fighters Maximum Impact 2, this is the series' second attempt at going 3D, and they finally got it right. The reason I love this game so much is that it's the perfect fusion of 2D and 3D elements. You've got your command specials, but you've also got your Tekken-like command strings. The character roster is very generous, and there's a ton of costumes to unlock, paying homage to other SNK properties. Plus, you can play as Rock Howard, my favorite fighting game character EVER, who is painfully underused by SNK.

 NeoGeo Battle Coliseum: I must've gone through the entire Neo Geo catalogue, dang, I love that machine. Well, Battle Coliseum is a love letter to anybody who has been following SNK's fighting games. You've got Marco, Mars People, Samurai Shodown, Art of Fighting, Garou, World Heroes and a few others.... if you love everything SNK, you just can't go wrong with this one. Plus, there's Rock Howard!

 Bleach - The Blade of Fate: This is the only fighting game I ever played competitively. I learned the ins and outs, I would try making the longest combos I could, I even took my Hitsugaya online. Deceptively simple, highly addictive, The Blade of Fate is a great, balanced fighting game that sadly only saw release on the DS, which is probably why it never really caught on. I could tell stories about this game, about why I picked Hitsugaya as my main, about the online etiquette, about my Soi Fon combos.... But those are stories for another day.

 The King of FIghters XIII: Full disclosure, I am terrible at this game, but man, do I love it. It has one of the best uses of 2D sprites I've ever seen, characters look gorgeously badass, the stages are beautiful and the animation is silky smooth. It's funny how people would make fun of how old KoF's sprites were, and then XII came out and it was praised for its beauty, and then XIII blew everyone away. But this game's beauty is more than skin dip, characters are varied, and the mechanics are fun. Plus, every year that this game made it into Evo's main lineup, it provided some of the hypest moments. It bears mentioning that I'm very disappointed that The King of Fighters 14 is going full 3D.

 Capcom VS SNK 2: While I would take Capcom's characters over SNK's, I always thought that Capcom had the better games. This is a dream come true, SNK characters on a Capcom game. Making up teams was always so hard, I wanted to have EVERYONE. And the roster is huge, and the different 'grooves' let you play like some of the various SNK and Capcom's fighters, so there's no excuses! Plus, Rock Howard's in it! And I'm still waiting for a third iteration.

 Street Fighter III - Third Strike: Most casuals hate it, due to it's moderately high entry barrier and the fact that it did away with most of the well known characters. But me? I adore it. Parrying changed my life, well, maybe it didn't, but it's one of my favorite mechanics ever introduced in a fighting game, and I loved the way this game applied it. By tapping forward just before getting hit, you could parry and attack, you have to risk taking the hit by tapping the opposite direction of blocking. It's exciting, it's risky and makes for more exhilarating matches. And did I mention that these were some of the best 2D sprites ever made? They might not match KoF XIII's beauty, but I'd say that the animation is a bit better on some fronts.

 Garou - Mark of the Wolves: I hate SNK. There's no possible way for a westerner to own a legit copy of Garou without importing either the Japanese Dreamcast port or the Japanese PS2 port, which sucks so badly, because this game is so amazing. This is the best looking Neo Geo game bar none, and the most original and fun fighter on it. There's a lot of parallelisms that can be drawn with Street Fighter III, a mostly new cast with a few successors, new mechanics and some of the best 2D graphics out there at the time. Plus, this was Rock Howard's first playable appearance ever. What's not to like? The new characters are great and the mechanics while simple were something new and original, I still want to see the T.O.P. system make a comeback!

 Tatsunoko VS Capcom: The game Marvel VS Capcom 3 wished it was, seriously, it borrows so much from this game it ain't even funny, except that MvC 3 is incredibly unbalanced, while TvC is actually, well, properly balanced. Easily my favorite 2-D fighting game on the market, what's not to like about it? It's simple, easy to pick up and play, the character roster, while featuring a few familiar faces, it has a ton of characters I had never seen before(Mostly from the Tatsunoko side, heh! But I knew Gatchaman! And Karas!) that is a breath of fresh air among most fighters nowadays. Then there's Baroque, the end all to infinite combos, which for whatever reason Capcom opted to abandon for MvC 3. Every now and then I will pop this one in for a couple of rounds, even if against the CPU.

 Virtua Fighter 4 - Evolution: So maybe Virtua Fighter 5 is a better game(Even if Vanessa looks oddly disproportionate when compared with the others), but Virtua Fighter 4 is the one I hold the most memories of. I vividly remember one time reaching over 100 rounds of Akira VS Akira against my best friend. The beauty of VF 4 is that it's very easy to just pick up and play, but it's very hard to master, some moves requiring some consistently excellent execution. Sure, the characters are lame and generic, the voice acting is terrible, and the character roster is small... but the gameplay is finely tuned into excellence.

 Tekken Tag Tournament 2: Huge character roster, excellent customization options, coupled with the tried and true Tekken formula makes for one helluva game. If I had one complaint about the game... is that every single one of my friends HATES Tekken, which means I'm always flying solo!