What are the best fighting game franchises in your personal opinion? (As of October 17th, 2022)

Dear fighting game fans in the Giant Bomb forums

In my personal opinion, the best fighting game franchises of all time are Guilty Gear and BlazBlue because of featuring their gameplay style, the roster of playable characters, stages, and soundtracks I prefer the most, I have been fanboying these two for a long time, however, there are some villain characters that I dislike such as Azrael, Yuki Terumi, etc. Because they're appearing to be way too awful in terms of personality.

So from my experience with other fighting game IPs like Super Smash Bros, PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, Tekken, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat and many others, I personally don't like them anymore because their gameplay style doesn't suit me, but Melty Blood and Under Night In-Birth are both okay in my personal opinion.

Edit: Sorry for my fanboyism on the Guilty Gear and BlazBlue series.

My personal favorite is Tekken, due to the slow and weighty movement of most of the roster.

Also, Street Fighter, because I am old, I enjoy the classics, and I bathe in nostalgia.

My preference is Street Fighter and KOF in general, but I like a lot of fighting games. Soul Calibur and Virtua Fighter are my favorite 3D franchises, but I've learned to love Tekken as it's our last hope for the sub-genre. I'm not really a fan of Tekken's movement yet tbh. I don't like that you NEED korean backdashes to counter the relatively slow movement. But I'm pretty new to the franchise, so I'll just adjust to it and move on.

My most anticipated games right now are SF6 and the League fighter.

Sounds like you'd enjoy more Anime fighters.

Hey everyone it's me extolling the virtues of Tekken again :P, but i'll sum it up quickly as the prime example of "easy to play difficult to master" in the genre, and it has the best soundtracks, maybe not 7, i hope they pick it up in 8.

However! I do like Dead or Alive, it technically controls easier than Tekken only having two attack buttons a guard and a throw (+combinations), with a universal counter system that allows any player to break almost any combo at any time making fights more active for both players, but it's so ripping fast it can be brutal.

Bonus answer is the fighting game i've played the most though it's not a franchise yet, For Honor, man i loved For Honor, i can't play it anymore because they added a bunch of characters with powerful abilities that get abused by most people, but for a while it was fantastic, i think it did really well but i don't think they'll make a new one any time soon.

I was always partial to the Soulcalibur series, but they have no made a new one for nearly a decade. I liked it because ist was FUN, Tekken after Tennen 3 was not really fun...ist was just there. I think Soulcalibur and Dead or Alive understood that games are supposed to be fun. If the whole point of you game is to be useful in competition you have already lost in my book.

A good fighting game should be satisfying in competition but not "made" to be only interesting to the competitive scene.

My favorites are King of Fighters, The Last Blade, and Soul Calibur, but I love lots of these kinds of games.

Soulcalibur for when I want to play a fighting game as an OC. And either Dead or Alive of Tekken for when I might want to play a fighting game seriously. ...but not online, because, no.

@judaspete: You have very good taste in fighting games, I haven't tried King of Fighters so I cannot judge it, the only SNK's IP that I've played was Metal Slug (A run & gun series) which is pretty fun, also I heard Fio (Metal Slug character) appeared in some of King of Fighters installments.

@hermes: I can admit that Tekken is a pretty good franchise for 3D fighting game standards and I used to like it in the past.

@cikame: Very interesting choices.

@bogard: I heard Street Fighter and King Of Fighters both have pretty good gameplay for their type, yeah cel-shaded anime fighting games are more of my cup of tea despite that I didn't enjoy Dragon Ball FighterZ because I'm not into Jump series in general.

@monkeyking1969: I see and I do understand what you mean but I don't wish to judge what others play.

@facelessvixen: I understood, I can also see that everybody has their own preference for video games in general, and I refuse to play online too.

My favorite franchise of all time is probably Marvel Vs Capcom

SF, Tekken, Guilty Gear.

DoA1 and 5 are great party games, and I love the sprite-work of the older SNK games like KoF, but nothing really beats those three.

I think in terms of total fun had, Street Fighter is close, particularly IV since I had a regular group that’d get together and play. Tekken 3 is up there too.

But Mortal Kombat stands head and shoulders above them. MK2, 3, Ultimate and 4 (for whatever reason) were constants in grade school, we imitated the characters on the playground all the time. Then as I lost touch with my in-person friends, MK came along and made a fighting game that’s just as compelling to play solo and offline as taking it seriously and getting good.

I really wish SF or some other fighter would take a swing at their style of storytelling rather than character profile screens or brief cutscenes at the end of a standard ladder climb.

as a button masher who has no patience to learn combos n animation frames i have to go with whats pretty friendly to play depending on who your playing with of course.

anyway based on that i'm gonna go with MK, tekken and DoA. they're the only series in modern times that let me be horrible n still have fun . i loved sf2 ( genesis) growing up , but trying 4 back when it was new it just wasn't for me anymore. i've felt pretty much the same with all those 2d games with similar combat too. the little bit i've tried of soul calibur seems good but i haven't much experience to weigh in on how i feel about that other than ring-out useful. as for things like smash , they don't appeal to me i've played a couple rounds of brawl i think but ehh no thanks.

Best? Street Fighter

Personal favorite? Soul Calibur

@monkeyking1969: Newest Soulcalibur came out in 2018. It was my first and I thought it felt real good even though I mostly didn't know what I was doing.

I'd also recommend giving the newest Tekken a shot. I thought the previous couple felt stiff, but this one for, for whatever reason, really connected with me.

Jackie Chan Fists of Fire

Best fighting game franchises are still the same ones that existed for years, mainly Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat.

My personal favorites, however, are individual games, not whole series. For example, the SF Alpha games, mainly 2 and 3. SF II Turbo for the SNES. Mortal Kombat 3 Ultimate. A lot of the KOF games. Samurai Showdown 1-3. Soul Edge/Blade, the game that came out before Soul Calibur. Tekken 3 and Tekken Tag 1. Fatal Fury Special. Many Verses games like Capcom Vs SNK 2. Dead Or Alive 2. Darkstalkers... you get the idea.