Hardest Fighting Game Series

The interesting part about the Tekken series is that you have to have good knowledge of the game to understand the many nuances in a competitive match at a high level. Thus, while not being the most popular on the big screen, it's certainly one of the games you can get the most excitement out of if you actually understand it.

Tekken is probably the most movement- and execution-heavy fighting game out there, and there is so much room to do things incorrectly that a good opponent will capitalize on and win. High-level Tekken players are probably the most versatile fighting game players since Tekken teaches you fundamentals useful in every other fighting game to a point where you can easily apply those to simpler fighting games.

This game seems deceptively basic. "There aren't even any specials to learn." Exactly. There aren't any specials or magic combos that require a certain button sequence to take half off your opponent's damage. The gameplay, when fighting against other experienced players, is based on knowledge, matchups, and mind games (or at least it would have been without Meta Knight).

There are no specials to build, no "special" moves to learn (just lots of manipulations to your regular moves), and not really any guaranteed combos (just configurations that work most of the time). What I'm saying is people can't become dominant by only learning a few tricks.

The earlier games in the franchise rely on planning and memorization of different combos and movesets. Not to mention, the AI players could range from reasonable to completely unfair (Mortal Kombat Trilogy being the worst offender).

The second one has to be one of the hardest out of all.

Let's be real. Street Fighter is by far the hardest game to play, let alone master. Even at the pro level, you'd be surprised to see someone who can pull off a 3-hit combo. Think I'm overreacting? Try it. I've never played a game so strict with timing.

This is the definition of a non-new-player-friendly game. If you're new, try something else. The learning curve doesn't exist. If you hate yourself and/or can't find a decent reason to jump off a bridge, I highly recommend Street Fighter. Good luck, boys.

Street Fighter is by far the hardest fighting game. That's why it is always in the main event of EVO because pro players know what a true pro skill fighting game is!

I can't believe this is not first. Look at the first page of the first control explanation.

People who say "three-button fighters are easy" will be quickly proven wrong with this game.

The deepest and most technical fighting game ever with the simplest commands for more freedom. THIS is the game in which you can be more creative.

Too bad SEGA sucked at marketing this game because even now, no fighting game has reached such a level of excellence. Fighting games are my life. I know what I'm talking about... (Sorry for the English translation.)

If possible, please don't use the most recent entries to the franchise like XIV, or even XIII at some level. All games from '95 to 2002 UM have insane DM inputs, and if you dare miss an input to a combo for even a small millisecond, you drop the whole combo.

The difficulty, plus its recent entries that ended up as failures due to bad decisions from a game company that already went bankrupt multiple times and had to sell out to China, has caused this gem to drop from popularity. However, the arcade games and dream matches are still some of the hardest fighting games to master to this date. If you want an easy game to start with, buy KOF 2002 UM from Steam.

The energy bar can make it hard to spam. Even though it can make it hard for your opponent to spam as well, no spamming means that you may have to practice a bit to really get good at the game.

The question was, "What is the hardest fighting game series?" If we analyze a series, then we must analyze each game in that series, not just the most difficult game in that series (AHEM, Super Smash Bros. Melee is not the norm, people). To be "good" at Guilty Gear will cost you about 1,000 hours in training mode with your character of choice. Then, and only then, will you be able to truly understand why you are still losing.

You'll need to master jump installs, air dash footsies, red/yellow/purple Roman cancels, burst + burst baits/steals, and when to use/threaten to use an insta-kill attack that destroys your meter bar if you miss. Additionally, you must learn dead angles, blitz shields/attacks, faultless defense, instant block, dust aerial/ground/corner combos, guard bar system (the more you block, the more damage you take on the next attack/combo you don't block), and extremely specific timing for input, etc.

Actually requires skill, and simple modes or auto combos won't help you at all.

Think of Tekken, but without the "juggling," and give each fighter their own unique weapons. Like Tekken, Soul Calibur also takes a lot of skill to master. There are roughly the same amount of complicated move executions and lots of characters to master with their own unique move sets.

Try button-mashing against a veteran of Soul Calibur, and you'll lose. Try button-mashing against CPU-controlled Nightmare, and you'll get annihilated. This game takes skill.

You are forgetting things such as tech/ukemi traps, which have been in most if not all Soulcalibur titles. Getting caught in those resets the diminishing return on combo damage for long combos.

These tech/ukemi traps can lead to full health combos if a player doesn't know about them. There definitely is juggling in Soul Calibur as well, by the way.

Super fun and extremely fast-paced gameplay with a large learning curve. Great for casuals as well with its 'Stylish' control mode. I personally find the gameplay more interesting and difficult than Tekken, which isn't really that hard. To summarize, it's a super fun and difficult game but very rewarding to learn. An unexplored franchise.

Diversity in character fight styles with different combo and attack systems for each fighter means you have to become competent with all of them to stand a chance. It's not like MK or SF with palette swap fighters. Every fighter is very different from the others. You could play this for years and still not master it.