Favorite fighter - C-Nanaya. Teleports behind you, goes into a stance that terrifies you, moves around the whole screen like an insane man without a plan and it feels great every, single, fucking, time.

My favorite thing in fighting games, as you’ll notice in this list, is movement and gotta go fast. Melty Blood makes all the others here KNEEL to how the whole screen is your weapon, jumping and teleporting to the very top and slashing back down from above. Air to air game actually matters and is given such a large platform to stand on that I can validly jump towards, air dash back, jump again into a super safe slash move that crushes most anti airs. Simply the best fighting game of all time to me at the moment unless Type Lumina somehow supercedes it.

Favorite fighter - I’ve played so much that I love most of them??? Probably Ganondorf, captain falcon, Lucario, and snake. Just to name a few

I grew up on Brawl->PM->P+. Obviously I’m insanely biased to love this unconditionally to my dying breath just on hours spent. I simply love dashdancing neutral, I love how these characters still have new ways to express their weird specific movement and gameplans, I love how free forming the air time and combo game feels while also cutting but respecting melee’s jank. Will never be a popular or fighter I can share with others, but I will care for it

Favorite fighter - Jedah just by how he looks and sounds. Such an amazing design in a game full to the brim with them. Also love that flight.

What if we took samurai shodown’s dirty high damage footsies and pumped them full of so much steroids that it moved at a heavy mile a minute? What if we made every single character have such distinctly different and unique ways to just MOVE? This is the game for all of it. Fell in love at first sight

Favorite fighter - Seth,,, but I suck. Lol

Maybe a bit too “functional” and polished to lack some of the best anime fighter jank and depth in the airdashy side, as this plays strongly more grounded. But it’s so fine tuned to a lovely sheen, and the whole push and pull of the Grd system feels soooo good. Tug of war into vorpal back and forths really capture the spirit of anime engagement riding on the thread of your character’s special attack. Everyone has such lovely fundies options too and they’re all a blast to play. Wish this shit had rollback though :/

Ok I actually genuinely don’t play enough of this to have much of an opinion but movement is so crisp with hops and all that I just do not care. Feels so good to blow up hard in this game when you super hop so fucking fast in such ways they’re almost nothing personnel kid. Just feels great to schmoove too and that’s always one of the most important things to me.

Favorite fighter - Ken. They gave him a dodge roll it’s so sick.

Lacks the fundamental issue I have with stepdash footsies (controversial I know) of street fighters after, custom combo and metered parries/counters turns this into a delicious mesh of quick fast neutral game with strong distinct options. Input detection kind of bonkers though but that’s old fighters in general I suppose.

Favorite fighter - Haohmaru
Spamming big extremely minus move that takes out 2/3-full health like an ape. Everything about this game shouldn’t be something I enjoy with such slow footsies game and extreme deliberation on a somewhat limited moveset but the crunch of every individual hit and power of every successful mindgame is electrifying.

Favorite fighter - Fox. Yeah yeah how typical but like when I executed my first wave shine I didn’t want to do anything else lol. It’s such a wonderful feeling to realize you can very specifically pull off a non-required tech that has disgusting and amazing payoff. Play Luigi as a side whenever I’m rusty because I get to do that but with woohoo slides instead.

Played this with friends in high school and then into college. Crazy how this was THE college game in my area at my age but I’m not complaining at all. Had some of the best experiences of my life making friends and competing side by side with them. I have grown more distasteful over time with it, moving on but not leaving it fully behind persay but still getting more critical of specific elements like L cancelling, community shit (god what a rabbit hole), and a desire to not be like the people who only play this game (petty I know). I’m glad I can still shmove like it in P+ but it’s increasingly hard to go back to this.

Who knew frisbee could be so hard and so crazy???? I don’t have a main, I keep fucking around with every one of the six. Wish I had friends to play this more with because it’s so tight and well made

Favorite fighter - Ken, for the time being.

Legendary in its own right but never felt legendary for me. Dislike parry game that requires beyond a competency level to use effectively (because I’m a scrub) especially when it’s not metered so it’s almost but not quite maybe not even close but certainly feels like Smash L cancelling. I feel more inclined to critique this though simply for not being for me in ways, because it’s still an amazing incredible time with strong character footsies and toolsets. Lacks movement I super care about though, but I need to give Hugo and Yang a shake

Favorite fighter - Sol, Order Sol. Mostly the latter for charging up the POWERRRRRR. Feels great to cancel attacks to build that meter and then compound pressure back to back to make the enemy into a corner and/or paste.

The RC timing is ass grinds for me (at least personally, I get their functionality for it), the character specific bs is honestly just too insane, but having a match against a Robo Ky that just shoots missiles at you and then learning to deal with Dizzy neutral and nutty Zato shadow play just screams Video Games in large anime font. Unparalleled trash of the most wonderful variety.

Favorite fighter - Ori. Turning bash into an insanely high risk but crazy combo starter/extender/finisher is the best I could’ve ever asked for.

Furry smash is super fun and I enjoy its changes to the base formulas but ultimately it feels ~stagnant~ in a way I cannot distinctly put into words. For one it’s so hyper aggressive with strict defensive options and recovery is too formulaic for me and lacks the janky edge that inadvertently created a world of player expression to keep exploring. Still a great time though

Favorite fighters - Hit, UI Goku, Zamasu. Feeling cool as fuck and mindgamey, going ape and having it work every time, and pulling the slot machine mixups. Holy trinity.

Anti-T7 for me in that it just got insanely better. Turned me into more of a dragon ball fan over time by exposure and then more of a player by mechanical changes. It’s still crazy vortex pressure heavy but like being able to flight cancel zamasu behind the opponent, air dash as they block to the other side then do a small combo before intentionally dropping with a switch they didn’t expect to Hit before shooting his .38 revolver fist into their face is ecstasy man.

Favorite fighter - Filia/Big Band. Jojo + parry + ape duo.

Honestly loved it just for feeling good to spindash cancel at Filia initially. Fell off a bit after a friend beat the stuffing out of me (moderately joking) but also for finding other fighters with the same kind of movement attached to a less reset-heavy game. Still a good classic in my eyes, but ultimately I worry it’s a few MvC3 games away from dropping to “I don’t want to play with you anymore” town.

Favorite fighter - Revolver nun. Because of course
Surprisingly soooo fun. Never got the opportunity to play this with friends either, but the shield game is very interesting and lightly technical. Finding out the depth of what doujin games to get into with this one is a special kind of engagement in its own right too.

Favorite fighter - Kanji. Introduced me to the “where did all your health go” grappler and now I try to relive that high here every time I play.

Kusoge, but this is the trash I’ll happily put on like an awful addict. Sometimes you want to play something that tests the limits of your patience and your propensity for bullshit while also being stupidly fun in those extremes.

Favorite fighter - Millia. Makes me feel like skullgirls Filia but having to think a bit more than unga bunga.

Was super fun to play for such stark character specific matchups, win conditions, and gameplans. Realized later in to a harrowing realization that patches and editions have made everyone play so utterly safe, with strict pressure and oki game. Ultimately just fled to Plus R

Main - Kirby
I have no experience practicing combos but it’s great sometimes to play some chunky jank like this with a friend. Kirby especially has a hilarious meteor on their up special that I just spam off stage. I’m terrible

Favorite fighter - Terry. Bustawolf and special cancels feels good in this game, especially with the risk reward of the former.

Find myself coming back to this in a disturbingly addicting manner whenever I pull up my switch. Then I play a bit, realize mostly everyone is boring and eye rolling to fight as and swap to Terry to feel really good again. Somehow nintendo has manufactured the equivalent of a mobile game fighter in that I spend too much time on something I enjoy less than its peers.

Included for posterity and also because it is, absolutely, the quintessential abstracted fighting game tutorial. Sometimes will just throw it on to practice with.

Favorite fighter - Noctis. I love him, but also he has a 1,2 teleport sidestep like omg???

Wanted to love but ended up joining while the game was getting more stupid with its dlc characters changing the meta into crazy ways for my comfort. Honestly just needed seasonal changes to mechanics because I could REALLY do without rage drive which is just a dumb 50/50 with no other distinct counterplay to me but they had all the potential and opportunity to turn it into something actually special. An amazing game to just watch though? Maybe even my favorite, because it really is that mmmph street fight on a spiritual level

Honestly kind of a meme fighter than one I enjoy :( wish the soundtrack wasn’t so bad other than like the one song from the jet set composer. Really cute though

Kusoge