Best fighting games of all time
Fighting games have sparked heated debates in arcades and living rooms for decades, with fierce loyalty to franchises like Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, and Tekken shaping competitive gaming culture. From frame-perfect combos to legendary rivalries, these titles have defined esports and pop culture alike. Now it's your turn to settle the score—cast your vote for the best fighting game of all time!
What counts: Seeded with approximate figures where shown — the crowd's votes decide the order.
Street Fighter II▲ Rising
The cabinet that turned arcades into colosseums, introducing the world to combos, punishable whiffs, and the eternal Ryu-vs-Ken bedroom argument. It didn't just popularize the genre, it basically invented the vocabulary everyone still speaks: fireballs, dragon punches, and the sacred art of rage-quitting to a Blanka electricity loop. Every tier list, every fighting game engine, every 'this move should NOT have that much priority' argument traces back to this cartridge.
Year: 1991Critic score: 9.3/10
added by IJRin 5 rankings
130
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate▲ Rising
Sakurai's 'everyone is here' promise turned into the biggest crossover roster in gaming history, with Byleth's DLC reveal actually causing genuine online despair and Kazuya showing up like he wandered in from a different genre entirely. It redefined what a fighting game roster could even mean, mixing Fox McCloud with Cloud Strife with the freaking Mii Swordfighter, and made hitting people off-stage with a home-run bat feel just as legitimate as frame-perfect footsies. Competitively divisive, commercially unstoppable, this is the one your non-fighting-game friends will actually play with you.
Year: 2018Critic score: 9.3/10
added by IJRin 5 rankings
62
Tekken 3▲ Rising
Ogre's boss fight aside, this is the game that made 3D fighting feel less like a gimmick and more like the future, with Eddy Gordo's capoeira sweeps humiliating an entire generation of button mashers. The sidestep, the juggle combos, the sheer roster depth of Jin, Paul, Nina, and King turning every match into a highlight reel, it set the template Tekken still runs on decades later. Ask anyone who grew up on PS1 what the greatest fighting game ever made was, and this name comes up before they even finish the question.
Year: 1997Critic score: 9.2/10
added by IJRin 2 rankings
38
Street Fighter 6▼ Falling
Capcom brought swagger back with Luke's smug grin, a Drive Gauge system that rewards aggression without punishing footsies into oblivion, and World Tour mode letting you punch NPCs in a virtual Metro City just because you can. Modern controls sparked the usual 'is this cheating' discourse, but the real story is a fighting game that welcomed newcomers without insulting veterans, something the genre has struggled with for years. It reignited the FGC hype machine and proved Capcom actually remembered how to make people care about a roster again.
Year: 2023Critic score: 9/10
added by IJRin 4 rankings
-13
Mortal Kombat II▼ Falling
The fatalities got weirder, the gore got gorier, and somehow Kintaro turning into a four-armed nightmare boss became a rite of passage instead of a deterrent. This is the sequel that silenced the 'one-hit wonder' doubters, adding Baraka, Kitana, and Jax while perfecting the shock-value spectacle that made parents nervous and kids obsessed. It proved MK wasn't just a controversy magnet, it was a genuinely deep, brutal alternative to Street Fighter's more restrained combat philosophy.
Year: 1993Critic score: 8.7/10
added by IJR
-71
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Comments (7)
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Voted — and the gap between #1 and #2 should be bigger.
The crowd is sleeping on the bottom half of this list.
- HHugo HaddadJul 28, 2026
Exactly the kind of argument the internet was built for.
This order is closer to right than any editor would've gotten.