Video Gamers Podcast - The History of Fighting Games - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: July 25, 2025

Gaming host John sits down with his best friend CJ and punches through the pixelated past of fighting games, from arcade brawls to modern video games. Join us for a gaming-packed episode as we explore iconic titles like Street Fighter II, Mortal Kombat, Tekken, Darkstalkers, Marvel vs. Capcom, Super Smash Bros., Dragon Ball FighterZ, and more. We’ll cover major milestones, video game industry controversies, mechanical evolutions, and the legacy of this beloved genre. All the gaming history you need, each and every week from the Video Gamers Podcast!   Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Disratory, Ol’ Jake, Gaius, and Phelps   Thanks to our Legendary Supporters: HypnoticPyro, Patrick, Jigglepuf and PeopleWonder   Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/videogamerspod Join our Gaming Community: https://discord.com/invite/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/  Follow us on X: https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod  Subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@VideoGamersPod?sub_confirmation=1    Visit us on the web:https://videogamerspod.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello fellow gamers and welcome to the Video Gamers Podcast. You know, something that doesn't get talked about nearly often enough on this show is a segment of the video game world called fighting games. Fighting games are something that are near and dear to my heart and I wanted to invite somebody who's a very special guest and a very good friend of mine, Charles on the show who is a fellow fighting game enthusiast. I am your host, John, and we are gonna be going through

a history of fighting games in this episode. Charles, welcome to the show. Oh, thanks man, happy to be here. I'm super stoked to talk about fighting games especially this episode. Charles, welcome to the show. Oh, thanks, man. Happy to be here. I'm super stoked to talk about fighting games, especially one of my major passions. Yeah, for sure. And that's actually one of the things that we connected on

initially when you and I met, like whatever it was 20 years ago, we attended a Comic-Con up here in Seattle, Washington. And aside from our mutual love of comic books, we ended up clicking on fighting games. Yeah, for sure. And video games in general, but yeah, special fighting games. All the general nerd adjacent stuff.

For sure. So before we get into the content of the show, man, what was your first fighting game that you played? Oh gosh, you know, Karate Champ back in the day, I remember my dad taking me to the arcade and we would play Karate Champ. I don't know if you remember, we would play, you know, the characters, you had one in the white gi and one in the red gi and it was super simple. Basically like, Wurru and... Ken, yeah, probably a big influence I would imagine. But yeah, I think there was only one or two buttons too

or something and it was super simple. Like a punch kick. Yeah, something like that. But it was super fun. That was one of my fondest memories back in the day, especially playing with my dad. I was like, maybe that's where it all started. So did your dad end up continuing on?

Is your dad a gamer at all? No. No, I was probably just- I know the answer. Yeah. Dad is the coolest guy I've ever met and way too cool for video games. Yeah. Yeah. He's much more of a sports guy and it was probably like some sports bar or something he took me to. Right. You know, as a kid you gravitate towards the video games. He probably just played it with me. But yeah, it was a special memory for me, especially. Yeah, dude. So what I was doing the research for this show you know Karate Champ which we'll touch on here shortly is the first game is the first like honest to goodness fighting game that came out. I never played it man. Yeah I mean is it very similar to like old Street Fighter? Well it might be more similar like Street Fighter 1 which I never played in the arcades I played on

like a collection or something like an emulator or something yeah something like that um but yeah it's it's probably more so similar to to Street Fighter 1 Street Fighter 2 I think was the evolution after that of fighting games but Karate Champ and Street Fighter 1 I think have a lot of similarities so this is actually a great starting point for this episode then. I never played Karate Champ, but Karate Champ I think was the sort of initial fighting game. It came out in 1984. Yeah. 1984. That's crazy.

Wow. I'm actually surprised knowing that. I didn't know exactly when it came out, but I'm surprised because I was born in 85 and I probably played this in the early 90s. I guess it's not too far off. But yeah, that's that's early 90s I would imagine Wow. Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, I guess Arcade games still have a pretty long like life expectancy, you know, like when you go into most Most arcade games that aren't just all gotcha games at this point,

like you'll still see your old like Pac-Man cabs and your Street Fighter cabs and stuff like that. Why do you think Karate Champ didn't like stick around? I think it was just, I think in my opinion, it was probably too, it was simple. And then you get Street Fighter II, which implemented six buttons and special moves and whatnot, much more interesting characters. So I think it just kind of got the

ball rolling but then was quickly forgotten for more interesting mechanics and characters. So do you remember playing Street Fighter 1 in the arcades much? No I never played Street Fighter 1 in the arcades. Yeah I never I never played Street Fighter 1 in the arcades. Yeah, I never saw one in the arcades, I don't think. Yeah, see, for me, that was my experience too. So Karate Champ came out in 84, Street Fighter 1 came out in 87, and then it felt like there was this big, long gulf

between Street Fighter and street fighter 2 which street fighter 2 was my first experience with fighting yeah most people's yeah and so i never knew an era where it was before the six button sort of format whatever but i wonder if like for for somebody who like started back then if it really felt like a quantum leap going forward from probably a two button to a six button format. I don't think I really gave it much. I was so young. You know, I don't think I gave it that much thought. Street Fighter 2 was definitely my most influential like like first fighting game.

I had said Cry Champ is technically my first fighting game, but Street Fighter 2 made all the difference, you know. An interesting interesting thing about Street Fighter I is it had pressure sensitive buttons. I don't know if you knew that. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, so like the harder you press on, like a punch for instance, it would either be a light punch,

or if you press it harder, it'd be like a heavy punch. I had no idea. That's so interesting that they had that technology back in like literally the early 80s, and we didn't see it in consoles basically until much much more recently yeah that's interesting and I guess it was hell on like arcade operators I bet we just mash on it you know yeah instantly which it was intended for I guess but I don't know if they had the

foresight it's it really think about it at that point yeah and I don't remember seeing those very often. I mean, as far as I know, most arcade cabinets, even to this day, don't have pressure sensitive buttons. So the juice must not have been working. Yeah, I think the idea was there, because I mean, eventually they split it up between six buttons, which is your light to heavy

instead of a pressure sensitive button, which makes more sense. Maybe they thought it might be too complicated for kids at the time, or who knows, but. Well, so did do to your recollection, did Street Fighter one have like special moves? Like, did you have your like, you know, your ravens and. I think so. Yeah, there was. I'm pretty sure there was Hadouken's and.

Other special. I'm pretty sure there was Hadoukens and other special moves. I can imagine as the emphasis in gameplay sort of moved towards combos and those sorts of things that being able to be precise about your input probably factored in quite a bit more and I imagine that's a lot harder to do with a pressure set. I would imagine, yeah. factored in quite a bit more and I imagine that's a lot harder to do with like a pressure set. I would imagine. Yeah. I never actually played the like the pressure button version, but yeah, I would imagine it'd be tough to time out.

So 1991 Street Fighter, Street Fighter 2 comes onto the scene and I think that is where you really saw the sort of like the blueprint for what fighting games would become. You had this great dynamic cast of characters that all had their own personality, their own design aesthetic. Their own origin. Yeah, their own origin and a multinational origin too.

So you got to experience different fighting styles, different supers, different gameplay types. And, um, I think that street fighter one, you know, probably, probably arguably set the tone for all fighting games that came after that. One or two. Uh, two, two, two, two. Um, so here was an interesting thing for me though. When I was a kid, I remember seeing Street Fighter II cabinets basically everywhere.

Oh, for sure. I feel like I remember Street Fighter II sort of reigning supreme for a really long time. But when I was doing this study here, when I was doing the research, Mortal Kombat came out in 1992. So I thought it's just, it doesn't compute to me that Street Fighter II only existed for a year in a world without Mortal Kombat. Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. I didn't really realize that either. I would have

assumed that Street Fighter was a much bigger influence. You would assume it's not such a big influence because of the span of time, right? Yeah. It came out so fast, but I thought it was like, hugely influenced by Street Fighter II. Maybe that's not the case. Yeah, and they do feel pretty distinct from one another.

And I don't know, so you grew up in Seattle area. I grew up in Los Angeles area. For me, although certainly there was a very strong street fighter presence, Mortal Kombat very quickly became like the game to play. For sure. What was your experience? I still preferred, I've always preferred street fighter,

but Mortal Kombat, everybody loved, because of the blood was definitely a defining factor. Uh, the, the sort of, I don't know how you would like, like the word to the, the, the word like throughout school, you would, you would pass down like fatalities. Yeah. Like, you know, what's the fatality or how to do it. This is before internet, you know, you couldn't just look up how to do a fatality.

So I think there was a certain community based off of like kids passing secret information. Dude. Oh my God, man. You're like giving me chills right now. Yeah. Cause like there was no, there was no instruction as far as like how you got these fatalities other than like somebody give you a scrap of paper. Right. Yeah. Right. And if you didn't know and it was pulled on you for the first time,

you're like, what the heck? Yeah that honestly like thinking about it from from today's lens and sort of the rear-view mirror It was such a brilliant marketing strategy on their point part to keep people engaged You know like Street Fighter had flourishes and players in the special moves and stuff But there was something about like this in the special moves and stuff. But there was something about like this, this unique experience that you wanted to sit around and watch everyone play all the different characters so that you might be able to see this fatality.

Yeah, you would stand around, not even play sometimes. You just stand around and watch people go head to head. Oh dude, yeah, all the time. You literally just sit there. Right, like, oh, I didn't know that. You would find techniques and whatnot. Pretty cool. I literally just sit there. Right. I didn't know that you would find techniques and whatnot. Pretty cool. I miss that so much. Yeah. And so from Mortal Kombat, after Street Fighter, you ended up seeing a real kind of boom in popularity with fighters.

You had your Virtua Fighter come out, 93, which was the first 3D fighter. Did you play much Virtua Fighter? I love it. Yeah, I was always a Sega guy So a virtual fighter was right there. Yeah, that one felt a little stiff for me I could I could see that and that's how I feel about Mortal Kombat as well a little clunky in the mechanics But yeah, virtual fighter definitely Definitely different beasts than say Street Fighter or even Mortal Kombat. I feel like from a combat perspective. It's one of the more different like styles, but you had your

what I would call more you're like Capcom slash Street Fighter clone Like mechanics you had like your samurai showdown came out in 93. You had dark stalkers in 94 And then on the opposite side you had, you know, the other games that were following in the Mortal Kombat blueprint, which were like your killer instincts and primal rage. Clay Fighter.

Yes, yeah. So cool. You know, it's funny, we talk smack about this game that came out recently called the Midnight Walk, which is, it's like a kind of like a cozy horror game a little bit. But one of their things that they market quite a bit is that they built all these assets, these clay assets in person, and then digitized them into the game. And for me, when I'm playing that game,

I'm like, it doesn't actually feel like they accomplished what they were trying. You could have digitized all of this. But back when Clay Fighter was made, Clay Fighter wasn't a great fighter. But for me, I'm like, you can clearly tell these assets were digitized and that made it special if nothing else.

Sure, unique. Yeah, well, it's similar to Mortal Kombat, I think, as far as technique. But yeah, definitely a very unique fighting game. So did you play much Darkstalker, Samurai Shodown? Yeah, King of Fighters, which I think of fighters. Yeah, I love King of Fighters, SNK. I guess SNK play more nowadays, but I love those games as well. Yeah, I've played quite a bit of those.

Yeah. And you you tend to favor the Street Fighter sort of. Archetype over the Mortal Kombat Archetype. Mortal Kombat has always felt clunky to me. It's just not my style. And aesthetics counts to me a lot in fighting games. I've always loved the Street Fighter art style and the pixel, the hand-drawn like pixels. Versus the digitized assets.

Yeah. And the blood as cool as it is, especially in that era, it never really was a selling point for me. You know, not enough to switch up. And because at the time you have to think, you know, if you didn't have the home port, which is highly likely that you didn't have it, you'd have to play in the arcade. So you have to spend your own money. So you're picking pretty carefully which game you're going to try to get good at. Yeah, that's very true.

Yeah. Finite resources. Yeah, I's very true. Yeah finite resources Yeah, I don't know as we're talking about this. It's becoming very clear that you and I like I think you were a fundamentalist and a traditionalist in a lot of ways because not only with fighting games like you stuck to sort of the Street Fighter 2 Archetype right but with comic books you stuck very firmly to Marvel. And I grew up on Marvel and street fighters too, was certainly my first arcade fighting experience. But I, for sure, when mortal combat came out, my tastes went to that.

And like the same thing with comic books, like I could see that, you know, like, I was like, exactly like the same person who's like reading all the the the spawn comics and the Rob Liefeld more pouches Yeah, it's probably the same type of person who was playing Mortal Kombat No, like I really like killer instinct when it came out like for sure thousand hit combos and stuff and no shade I could totally get it. There's a niche for it as well. And people play high level Mortal Kombat and all those games as well. But it's just never my personal preference, you know? Yeah. Yeah, and same thing.

Like I like both. And I certainly like Street Fighter format games more now by a landslide than, and we're actually gonna both talk about a mutual game that is like both of our, one of our favorite games of all time that really re cemented that But yeah at the time for sure. I was I was chasing it was the new shiny thing and for sure So in the 90s though in the mid 90s There was sort of a we talked about like sort of the Street Fighter archetype and the Mortal Kombat

archetype in 94 what I would consider to be a third archetype came out, which is Tekken. Sure. Were you ever a Tekken guy? I played a lot of Tekken 3. I did like Tekken. It's in the same vein as Virtua Fighter for me. It's a bit clunky, very input heavy. Very input. Yeah, clunky, but intentionally clunky. It's very tactical. Yeah. Yeah. And I love Tekken as well. I like the aesthetic. The story is insane. It's bonkers like all over the place, which is kind of fun. But I've never been like a diehard Tekken guy.

Yeah. There's a lot about it that I admire. I like that they tried to do something different and the character variety I was thought was kind of cool. Yeah, you could play as a bear and dinosaur. Yeah, or a robot. But it never just had it felt like it was kind of in this odd mid ground somewhere between Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter for me that just never really did it. Right. I have mad respect for people who play high-level Tekken.

Yeah. Insane to watch, yeah. So Tekken's introduced in 1994, and then you saw this sort of proliferation of all kinds of fighting games. In the 90s though, we started experiencing like the mid-90s, somewhere 96 to 2002, we really started to see this like kind of like crossover phenomenon. We started seeing Marvel versus Capcom. We saw Marvel, well, I guess it's X-Men versus Street Fighter initially then Marvel versus Capcom We saw the first Smash Brothers in 99 Which was kind of a you know again an altogether different fighter format That is still real big in the tournament scene. Were you a Smash Brothers guy?

No for fun sleepovers parties, whatever, you know, but never never tournament or high level play. Yeah. But I love it. It's fun, you know. It's fun, but it wasn't something that you're gonna like drill down into and try and master. No, again, I highly respect those guys, but never never a high level player. Right. And then in the year 2000, we saw one of gaming's finest accomplishments to this day, which is Marvel versus Capcom 2. Yeah, my all-time favorite games period.

Yeah. Full stop, one of my all-time favorite games, man. That came out when I was in the military, when I was in the Navy, and I got it on my Dreamcast. And it is still the game that if they have it in a arcade, that will be what I play first. Yeah, for sure. Just like a magnet, just straight to it, yeah. What do you think made that game special for you?

Well, I guess to start, X-Men versus Street Fighter was huge for me. I was a big Street Fighter fan and I was a big Marvel fan. At the time I had no idea that the two had crossed. Again, funny enough, my dad took, I think it was another sports bar, took me there and I saw that. Sensing a theme area. Right, exactly. Your dad was covering up a drinking problem with fighting fans. Maybe. Talked about that. But yeah, so I walk in and see this X-Men vs. Street Fighter cabinet and it's two of my favorite things in the world put into one thing and it's this big flashy, it's loud, it's flashy, like things that I've never seen something like that before in my life.

And it was just like, you know, that old trope where heaven opens opens up. It's like, I could not believe what I was seeing. And ever since then, you know, I've played that. Yeah. And not only that, not only just in nostalgia, but the mechanics are great. It's similar to Smash and it's like a just a fun time. You know, it's more of a party game. It's broken as all hell. And that goes with all of the versus series.

They never really balanced them quite right, which is, I think, part of the fun. But yeah. And then Marvel versus Capcom 2 comes out in high school. I had the dream cast. I think I imported it from Japan at that point. Yeah. And that's cool. Definitely cool. Right. Yeah. And I actually found a buddy in high school Who was big into fighting games as well and and he was big into that game also when we played hours and hours and hours

and hours and hours game And then you know, I was heavy in the arcade scene at that point as well It just for me it was the hit at the perfect time where my social life You know the the arcades were popping at the time It was, you know, the arcades were popping at the time. It was just, you know, everything lined up for me. Two of my favorite properties put into one. It's just such a good fun time. Yeah. And it had so much going for it, too.

Like the the balance was totally broken. It was so broken. Yeah. But the fact that it was broken made it fun. Right. You know, and so many I think still one of the biggest one casts like right the biggest us It's not one of the yeah in fighting games. I know Dragon Balls fighters has a big roster Smash Bros as well Yeah, yeah, especially yeah, the the current Smash Brothers has a really big roster, but I mean 50 to 56 56 Yeah Smash Brothers has a really big roster, but I mean 52 56 56 If not still it's one of the biggest rosters yeah, yeah and and from such a wide variety of

Properties to you know what I mean it literally took Capcom's finest and Marvel's finest and smashed them all into a game and it gave whether you're a fighting game player or not it gave you a you know it gave you plenty to play with and that was and still remains like my quintessential fighting game experience you know like I you know we're talking 20 plus years that this game has been out and to me it still plays like it did day one it still plays like the perfect fighting games pretty timeless. I think yeah, it's so fun and the fact that it's still I mean You mentioned there's sort of like a core Trinity of people that characters that people play who are those right? Yeah I think it's Sentinel Sentinel Magneto and storm. I think are considered like the Trinity of

Top tier characters. Yeah. There's other mixed in there but yeah. But the fact that this game is still in the tournament scene is I mean that says something. Yeah. Yeah. Oh you know we glazed over something that is a notable a notable footnote in this fighting game evolution. We had Samurai Shodown, which was a weapons-based fighter, but we also had Soul Calibur come out in 1992. I loved Soul Calibur 2 in particular. That was a really cool fighting game for me and it also I think started to breed the more 3d based fighter sure yeah I could see that right look right well yeah you had dead or alive as well I guess that's true

virtual fighter Tekken but yeah it was amongst those 3d 3d fighting yeah Tekken yeah true Tekken was a was probably the first 3d fighter but I don't remember seeing a lot of it before Soul Calibur that felt like the the first multiplayer game that I really got into anyways outside of sort of the you know Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat kind of format games yeah um do you remember Bushido Blade by any chance? No. It was similar sort of to Soul Calibur except it was they tried to make it like a realistic weapons based fighting game so like if you struck a fatal blow with your sword it could be the first blow if it was like to the neck or the head you would die like one hit kind of. Oh, remember that? Is that Bushido? No, that's time.

Time killers was like that. So it's I didn't actually include it in this because it's such a niche game. But yeah, like you there was like a character that had like a chainsaw, for instance. And it would be it was just a really not well put together fighting system. But I remember one of the key mechanics was is that if you like hit somebody in the neck at a Certain point or whatever even if they had a full health bar, they would die right away. Yeah, so Bushido blade I think I think it was it's been forever since I played it. Yeah, interesting interesting thought I can't think of another like I don't think that idea is continued much going forward, but it's kind of a cool idea a

Little off topic here slight segue but do you favor do you favor 2d or 3d fighting games i'm such an old head 2d is my preference hand-drawn 2d yeah you know it just writes it holds it holds a special place in my heart like street fighter three is still not only again one of my favorite games right up there with Marvel's Scoutcom 2 but one of my favorite games to look at as well it's just a beautiful game. Oh yeah the the the sprite the sprite based character animation in Street Fighter 3 is gorgeous it's still some of the best. Same with like the Guilty Gear series. Yeah. Still I think

still moving forward they're doing I'm not sure if the newer ones are but yeah for a long time They were beautifully, you know drawn games They they were and that's up So I mean like a little bit of an offshoot and more recent are these like really heavily anime based games like blast blue for instance where the It comes with a lot of anime tropes that I'm not fond of. I love the anime art style just in general,

but I've never personally been able to get into anime because of there's just some, there's just some like typical things that come along with that experience that haven't worked out well for me. But the fact that they're still a hand drawn, oh, it's some of the prettiest like animation I've seen in gaming. And,

and I miss that man. I need to, I, yeah, I mean you've played most of the Marvel versus Cap animation I've seen in gaming and I miss that man. I do too. I mean you've played most of the Marvel vs Capcom games right? My own all of them. So have any of them like resonated with you like Marvel vs Capcom 2 did? Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 I liked a lot. That's probably the one that I've played well I don I don't know. Ultimate three is, is up there for me as well. But not, not as, not as much as more with Marvel too. That's just my game. I just can't. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I've played some of the other ones mostly at your place, but, uh, man,

it's like 2d fighter or nothing for me basically. Yeah. Like I really, really, really loved those games and there was just something about that shift from hand drawn sprites to CG or whatever the appropriate name is for that style that just didn't work well for me and I wish they would bring

it back man they might I'd be interested to see it I wonder if I don't know too much about the new what's it called Marvel token yeah that looks beautiful but I don't know if it's hand-drawn sprites you know I think it's meant to emulate that look it does look great there's certain character we've talked about this offline. There's certain characters that Iron Man straight up looks like a Gundam to me and is, but there's certain characters where I think that that heavy anime style lends itself to the experience. We talked about the stylization in Marvel Rivals, for instance, where it's definitely a couple steps away from like Canon comic book characters, but for me it still works. Yeah. Yeah, and I'll play it for sure

I'm not a big fan of the anime aesthetics and fighting games, but I'll still play the hell out of it probably Yeah, and I think that the way it plays is gonna make a big difference to obviously. Yeah, plus I a big difference too obviously. Plus we're jumping ahead here but I think that since this is going to be a Marvel only roster what I'm hoping to see is a large Marvel roster. It'd be really cool to see you've got your Spider-Mans and your Storms and your Wolverines and all your super popular characters but it'd be like really cool to see them niche down a bit. I agree and that's you know going back to Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 I thought that was one of my favorite things they included characters like Modok and like Phoenix like

just crazy crazy characters and I want to see similar things I know it's not the same company obviously but I want to see the similar. I know it's not the same company, obviously, but I want to see similar things with this new Marvel game. What's one character that you would love to see in a Marvel game? Get to Toronto's main venues like Budweiser Stage and the new Rogers Stadium with Go Transit. Thanks to Go Transit's special online e-ticket fares, a $10 one-day weekend pass offers unlimited travel on any weekend day or holiday, anywhere along the Go network. And the weekday group passes offer the same weekday travel flexibility across the network, starting at $30 for two people and up to $60 for a group of five.

Buy your online Go pass ahead of the show at Gotransit.com slash tickets. No Frills delivers. Get groceries delivered to your door from No Frills with PC Express. Shop online and get $15 in PC Optimum Points on your first five orders. Shop now at NoFrails.ca. Nightcrawler. How has there never been Nightcrawler in a fighting game? I don't know. His teleportation, like his wall crawling stuff. Oh man. It blends itself so perfectly. He's a story fighter. I don't know his teleportation like his wall crawling stuff

So perfect oh story fighter Do so much with it, dude You'd be just a real pokey character like a big or a cameo or something. Yeah. Ah, yeah Yeah, see that Colossus would be cool to see like a tank character. Yeah. Well, yeah, I guess classes he's been Fun to see new ones. Yeah, I do take on him. Yeah. Oh Daredevil would be daredevil would be awesome. What's he not in any of the Marvel versus Capcom? Alton that's crazy to me. Yeah, huh ghostwriter was which is cool. Yeah ghost writers awesome Yeah, let's talk about a property that's left dying on the and vine right now. Yeah, we'll have to do another comic book Okay, so getting back to sort of the timeline here now We're going into kind of like the modern mechanics and global expansion of fighting games in the mid

2000s to the 2018s basically so 2000s to the 2018s basically so We talked about Street Fighter 3 a bit and then Street Fighter 4 was the first non-sprite Street Fighter title and a lot of people were considering this title to be sort of the revival of traditional fighting games. Yep. I Remember you and I played that game quite a bit.

But how do you view that game now kind of overall? Do you think it saved or had some huge positive impact on fighting games? I think so. There was a huge lull between Street Fighter 3 and 4. And not only that, but a lot of casual players didn't even know Street Fighter III existed. Yeah, exactly. It was not nearly as popular, at least in the arcades, as II was. Exactly.

Yeah, amongst the general population, most people didn't play III. So even bigger gap between II and IV. And yeah, it did. I think it revived the fighting game scene quite a bit, especially Street Fighter. Yeah. Yeah. And it was a great game for its time.

I'm like I said in old head, I'm generally Street Fighter three and below, but I'll pick up and play like a newer Street Fighter once in a while. Yeah. Yeah. That was that was one of the unfortunately like

the the aesthetic matters a lot to me in the games and it really turned me off in that game. The remodeling. It's not, it's not. And it's just interesting to me the games get so far into the, I mean, like clearly somebody signed off on it, you know? And it was a, it was a very popular game and very well rated, very... The balance, I think, was notably good. But yeah, just I can't get over looking at these real chunky, weird-looking characters. I would go so far as to say it's an ugly game.

Same with Street Fighter V. Yeah. I wasn't a big fan. The huge feet and the huge hands. Yeah. I don't, yeah. I get that what they're trying to do, emulate the old big hand, feet of the the 2d era

But it just didn't translate that's good in my I would have to agree with you And on the other side of the coin mortal Mortal Kombat 9 came out a couple of years later. So 2011 and the thing that that game did really well is it introduced a one of the first and most substantial Story modes in a in a fighting game I don't know if you played much nine, but it was sort of known as being like the first fighting game that had like a more substantial Storyline to play through or it wasn't just like a couple lines of

dialogue, like you actually got to kind of like get into the characterization of it, which is very novel for fighting games. Like most, most storylines in fighting games, like every single fighting game I can think of, even ones with like a lot of lore, like street, uh, soul caliber two has like deep lore, but like what you actually get in the games is like

nothing, you know, you get a couple lines of dialogue or whatever Mortal Kombat did a really good job of fleshing that out and then Mortal Kombat actually Mortal Kombat 9 ended up leading to another sort of crossover type game called injustice gods the Mondas right which came out in 2013. And that was like the Mortal Kombat version of a it wasn't like Marvel versus Capcom because Injustice was all DC characters, but it did the same thing where you took

comic book properties and put them into a fighter, but using sort of Mortal Kombat as the template with like finishing moves and that kind of thing. Did you play much of that? My Mortal Kombat in general stops at Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Yeah. So I didn't play anything after that. It looked fun.

It looked cool, but I didn't. Yeah. What do you think stopped you from getting into those, like you've said this a few times during the show here, but you're an old head and you like stop it, like Street Fighter III. Well, kids have a lot to do with that. I mean, sort of.

For the more modern games, like my daughter is 12 and when you become a parent, you just sometimes don't have a lot of time to game. So you have to, again, pick your games wisely. You pick pick your time wisely and I've always been a Street Fighter fan and a versus series fan and not only that but like I prefer SNK over like uh uh or King of Fighters specifically over Mortal Kombat. There's just a ton of other fighting games that rather play Mortal Kombat. Yeah right and a finite amount of time. Exactly.

Yeah, that totally makes sense to me. Yeah. No shade again. I'm sure they're great games. It sounds like you're shading it. Yeah. Act them all out. That's it. You talked about Dragon Ball FighterZ.

That came out in 2018. So you and your friend, our friend Demetrius, are both big Dragon Ball fighters. This is one of those games that's held in... Sorry, you're both big Dragon Ball fans. Yeah. This is one of those games that has this amazing reputation that I just... I've never even touched that game, man. For probably the same reason that you ended up kind of abstaining from the Mortal Kombat series where I'm like I've got a finite amount of time this just isn't resonating with me but I wanted to give this game its due. It's got a you know notably large cast of characters in it and you know it for fans of the property and of fighting games they've had a lot of joy with it

what do you think dragon dragon ball fighters did well aesthetically it's beautiful it's a great looking game i don't know if you've ever like taken some time to just look at how the game that's then my problem is is that all the characters look the same to me i think regardless the the how they did the game i think it looks great even if the characters look the same to you because you're not an anime fan in general Not only just not a street. They're not a Dragon Ball fan. Yeah, so that might be your got a lot working again So yeah, your first barrier that is the characters like you have to care about what you're playing I think But it's a beautiful game. The mechanics are very But it's a beautiful game the mechanics are very

Versus series esque very sort of more so I think along the lines of like ultimate Marvel versus Capcom or Marvel's Capcom 3 in general similar idea like a three on three. I think it's around three With the button layout similar as well. I think I think they gave the fans what they wanted I don't I don't know that there's been a really highly regarded Dragon Ball Z fighting game Like they there's like Budokai and other other games, but they're not head on head it's hard to explain they're more like a 3d plane sort of fighting. Yeah, this one is like a straight up true Yeah, I had to had fire which is in say I know there have been others but it's crazy that Dragon Ball Z Has never had a really good high regard. Yeah with this popular as the title is again. It's it's a

generation generation defining property popular in many many different cultures and Fighting focused, you know, it is a fighting focused game. Yeah. And I think they gave the fans exactly what they wanted.

Huge roster, every representation of whatever character you want is in there, pretty much, you know. I think it's just, if you're a fan of that already, it's like such a great idea for that specific person. I could see it being a big barrier to get into though, for not into anime, not necessarily into fighting games. You don't wanna put the time into learning a new mechanic

and especially when you don't care about it. Yeah, and I think that's one of the beautiful things about gaming is that you can think of it like a restaurant menu. There's gonna be things in this menu that you like and things that you don't and that's fine that's good and just eat what you like right but I think they did a great job that I think they did right by the fans I think most fans would agree yeah so that's gonna kind of take us into this modern area which is like 2018

to present where we started seeing cross platform games get real popular. We started seeing eSports get real popular and there's a couple notable titles in here. So Smash Brothers Ultimate, right, is one of the few Nintendo properties that I can think of that is like really sweaty right like on the on the tournament scene on the competitive scene and it's a game with a big roster lots of chaos what do you think about this game lends itself to competitive play. Have you spent a lot of time playing Smash Brothers Ultimate? Yes, with my son, especially, who's he's eight.

We play it quite a bit. He loves it. And I think I think why people love Smash Brothers, the big roster. I think that helps in a lot of games in general, when you can pick a character that you identify with in some way or just love to play as but I think I think with anything like that, it's fun to get into the The nitty-gritty of the Finding what works best which character expects you know

You can go into the lab and work on this game forever and find different things I think I'm not a high-level player or even really a good smash player, but it's selling yourself short Charles for the record Charles is quite good at fighting games anyway I think it's I think there's a couple of things. It's a fun party game You can just pick it up and play you can mash the buttons or whatever have fun with it Or you can pick it up and play. You can mash the buttons or whatever, have fun with it. Or you can pick it up and play high level with it. I think the flexibility there is what a lot of people love. And it's the Nintendo, like most people

love Nintendo characters. There's, you know, everybody has- They have some of the most fondly appreciated characters in video games for sure. Yeah, and it's just a bonkers time. It's similar to Marvel 2 is just so in your face hard to tell what's going a bonkers time. It's similar to Marvel 2. It's just so in your face and hard to tell what's going on sometimes. Yeah.

I just, I think it's fun to, it's just a fun game to play. I think is what it boils down to. I love the roster. You know, that style of game, the Smash Brothers style of game has never been something that was like particularly appealing to me, but I love the roster.

I love that people have fun with it. There's no denying its popularity and it's, you know, it's one of the most popular, it might be the most popular fighting game in the eSports circuit. You've got other games like, you know, there's a competitive scene for Street Fighter 6, obviously. There's still like older games like Marvel versus Capcom 2 that are in the fighting game circuit. But Smash Brothers, I think, has like a real popular kind of like e-sports community around it. For sure. What do you think about e-sports in general, by the way? I think it's cool. I think it's great. I don't know much about it,

to be honest. I mean, I like watching high level matches. There's something super special. Even if I don't play this, whatever specific game that I'm watching, it's always fun to watch high level play. You know? Just seeing what people come up with. Like, I didn't even know certain things were possible

in certain games. You're like, wow, that's pretty cool. I think it's cool. I think it's healthy competition as well. Yeah. We recently did an interview with this company called EVAL. They are a Princeton-based or Princeton University-backed eSports recruiting platform, which I thought was a novel concept. They're literally their whole purpose is to connect players with e-sports, with e-sports scholarships in universities and stuff. And like the idea that people could get paid to pursue e-sports like a true sport

is crazy to me. But I had this conversation with them where it's like, you know, one of the things about traditional sports like football, baseball, soccer, boxing, whatever you want to call it, is that there is a real like, there's a event based kind of like value to it where you like you're going to view this thing with other people and kind of like be around the vibe and the energy and stuff. And I was asking them if they felt that e-sports would ever get there. Because like a lot of viewership for e-sports happens online because it's real convenient.

But will it ever supplement or replace that in-person thing? And they were saying that there are games like League of Legends, for instance, where they just did a world championship and sold out some big arena for it. But you and I have been to a couple of fighting game tournaments. And for me, when I think about like what could really replace that sort of like electricity in the air from like a video game standpoint, dude, that that fricking vibe for fighting game tournaments is electric. It feels tense.

You know, you feel like there's going to be a very clear winner and a very clear loser here and it's head to head and stuff, man. For sure. Tell me about your own personal experience seeing some of these seeing some of these fighting game tournaments happen in person. It's great. I mean it's funny because I'm not naturally a competitive person which is odd that I like fighting games so much. The most directly competitive game you can find. Exactly. But there is there's like you, so like going back to that old arcade feel, you just can't beat it.

There's just like you said, an electric, an electric feeling in the air. Having like, having people watch you pull off a combo and then the whole like people behind you. Oh, I'm sure that you know I don't play actual sports I'm sure like if you dunk and people do it's the same kind of feeling yeah I don't know that that can be replaced digitally I think it's going to have to because that's how things are these days but yeah I love watching high level play whether it's online or in person. Yeah, it's just it's again unbridled fun for me anyway just to see what people can work and all people can do. Yeah.

I've been asking this question a lot of guests recently but I'd love to get your personal spin on it. So AI obviously is advancing quite a bit and we've had conversations about AI is not only becoming more ubiquitous, we see it everywhere, but it's also becoming more human-like in the way that people go head to head in a game, in a fighting game is going to go away because you can replicate it so well with AI. I never thought about that. That's an interesting thought. For me, yes. I don't know. Like, I don't I don't want to see two AI opponents do high level play. That's not interesting. Yeah. Like, it's it's like a painting, right? Like an AI

painting is not nearly as impressive as watching a person do it. Well, right. But it's because you know the AI did it. Right. You know what I mean? Like if you didn't like assuming assuming I think this is where I have a hard time with this, right? Like so, you know, you can't see this offset, anybody who might be watching the video, but Charles got me this awesome moon night art that was hand created by somebody in 2014 when I was going through a really rough personal time. And it's amazing. And it's mostly amazing because I know that somebody literally put hand to paper on that and created that from their brain. And then on the opposite side of me, I've got this awesome tank girl poster that our community member Lupo hand created.

It's amazing. Yes, gorgeous. It's gorgeous. And it is hand created and I have a lot of value for it. But now, like, let's assume I didn't know who made these things, right? And I was just looking at them based on their face value I would still go man. These are awesome. And then if somebody was like, yeah, well, they're AI There's something about that that I go like, oh

Well, I don't I don't know that I like it as much anymore. But why yeah exactly. Yeah, I get it I get the conundrum. I don't know. I mean, I guess if I don't know the difference then what does matter? Yeah, what does it matter? Yeah But if I do know the difference, I'd much rather watch people who put Time and sweat and effort into learning these combos and to learning what character does this and you know The tier list and all this stuff. I think there's a certain I and all this stuff. I think there's a certain, I don't know, it's impressive to me that somebody takes the time to do all that. And AI can just do it like, you know. Yeah, it's a strange world we live in, man. It's very odd.

Yeah, but they mentioned this on EVAL, the last episode as well, where, you know, chess has been going through this for a long time. Sure. You know, like, people still watch chess. People still watch high level chess even though robots can do it better. There's something that is kind of like inescapably valuable about seeing things through the human experience and and will continue to see even if the medium happens to be electronic fighting. Right. That, that's true. We're getting a little light on time, man, but I wanted to ask you a couple questions here.

So what is your favorite fighting game of all time? Marvel 2 or Street Fighter 3, those two stick out to me. By far, yeah. If it's the versus, because in my mind, sure they're both fighting games, but they're both drastically different fighting games Marvel 2 is my favorite of that style fighting game and then Street Fighter 3 is my favorite of that style I don't know that makes sense to you. Totally somebody. Yeah, totally and

If you had to pick like your top three characters fighting game characters ever who would they be? I love Sagat He's he's one of my favorite boy tie baby and fighting styles. I love just a top three gosh That's a tough one Ryu as boring as he is. I think he deserves to be in the conversation He's only boring boring is the same way that Captain America's boring sure it's like or Superman or Superman Yeah, he's the archetype of every fight almost every fighting game character that's come after that and I think that's a nightly about that Yeah

And then Akuma's always been up there, you know, he's sort of a Ryu clone I still I love his design. I think he's super dope I still I love his design. I think he's super dope Like when we went to Japan, yep, you'd see all those statues that look that's all that old statues that look like thanks for catching Yeah, it's just something about that that design I just love and the evil sort of overly traumatic evil Yeah, yeah, but exactly the melodramatic evil of it. What is one property that you would love to see a fighting game made after that they haven't made yet? I'd love to see Capcom do a DC fighting game, which is I've never been a DC guy,

but I think there's a lot of potential there. And I love what Capcom in general does with fighting games. For sure. Dude, I'm coming, like, the last maybe three years, I've come around to DC so much, dude. It may be, honestly, because Marvel, MCU has left itself in such a vulnerable state that it made so many unlikable movies, and DC's made at least one really good one now. But I've come to appreciate the DC characters quite a bit more than I had growing up. I would love to see that too, man. How about a Star Wars fighter? That would be cool. There have been some. I think Activision

made one back in the day. I don't really remember. It was like a 3Ds, sort of Soul Calibur-esque with like you could play as characters. I think had weapons while I like savers and whatnot. I can't for the life of me remember the name See, I remember like being able to play Yoda or Vader in maybe it was like soul caliber 3 or something Yeah from not mistaken. Yeah Yeah, one of them, but I don't I don't actually remember. Yeah link spawn, you know, the little little characters. Yeah. Yeah. But I don't ever remember there being a really honest to goodness like Star Wars fighter. I think that would be cool, man.

There was one for like PlayStation one or something. I don't know. Oh, yeah, that is ringing a bell. Yeah. Well, I mean, clearly it wasn't like that big of a success. Right. Yeah, that would be great bell. Yeah, well, I mean clearly it wasn't like that big of a success, right? Yeah, that would be great though to see Yeah, I think Like seeing a Marvel versus DC would be Made by Capcom that would be really fun Yeah

What a time to be alive and now seeing all of our nerdy stuff from childhood, like, give a new life and. It's cool. So many different mediums, man. Yeah, it's great. Love it. CJ, dude, this is awesome that you're finally able to do this. We've been literally talking about doing this for years, man. It's awesome to have you on the show. Yeah, thanks for having me. It was a real pleasure.

Yeah. Yeah. For anybody out there watching, thank you so much for taking the time We know you've got a lot of different options out there for a video game podcast And it just means so much that you take the time to spend your commute or wherever you're listening to us with us If you've enjoyed the show, please take a moment to read the store Whatever this is the show five stars on your podcast player of choice and hit that follow button it goes a really long way towards keeping a independent show like us going if you really want to take your support to the next level please consider joining our patreon

there's lots of awesome perks including being able to listen to sort of the preamble and the post ample of these shows being able to vote on content and really inform content and be part of the show is a big part of that too. You can find Patreon information in our show description. And finally, if you haven't yet, please join our Discord. We've got over 1100 people in that Discord now with basically no moderation. It is the nicest, most friendly, communal group of gamers you're ever likely to find. I've met some honest friends through this channel now, and I have no doubt that you will too.

It's very welcoming, everybody loves it, and again, you get to sort of learn all the inside baseball about the show. That is gonna do it for this episode, everyone. Thank you again for joining us, and until next time, happy gaming. Peace!