Hardest Fighting Game Series

Fighting game series that can be challenging because of things such as gameplay and/or annoying characters.
The Top Ten
1 Tekken

The interesting part about the Tekken series is that you have to have good knowledge of the game to understand the many nuances going on in a competetive match on a high level. Thus, while not being the most popular on the big screen, it's certainly one of the games you can get 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 capatilize 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 more simpler fighting games.

Tekken in my opinion, is by far the hardest fighting game. This is coming from someone who's played everything beneath. This game will literally has simple move sets that take at least a month to master and this goes for every character. Many fighting games have the buttons represent something like using fist or kicks (like ), maybe throws but Tekken on the other hand takes it further by having each button (like A, B, X, Y or triangle, circle, square, and cross) literally mean a certain body part. Most people don't realise this but there are ever special moves that the players have to stumble upon and is not in the move list. Something like the Hadouken is and Icon is highly know by more if not most of the community. However, something like Kazuya's laser beam is still well known but It will take a decade to learn and master. Importing the move into your move set, will take skill. Oh, and timing of each hit plays a very, Very important role in this as well

2 Super Smash Bros.

This game seems deceptively basic, 'there aren't even any specials to learn'. Exactly there aren't any specials, or magic combos that are going to require a certain button sequence to take half off your opponents damage. The game play, when fighting against other experienced players, is based on knowledge, match ups and mind games (or at least it would have been with out meta knight). There are no specials to build, no "special" moves to learn (just lots of manipulations to your regular moves), 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.

Melee is sick

Nah but seriously just the skill cap for melee is too high. The amount of tech skill is asinine, to the point that some players had to get surgery, or retire due to the arthritis inducing tech. The movement is nuts to the point that it doesn't even make sense, and the theoretical cap is way too damn high.

Oh and one last thing, in melee there was a thing called the 5 gods, basically they were 5 people who wouldn't lose to anyone but each other, only they would won super majors, and it literally took like 4 years for someone to beat all of them once. Even now, the very top players in melee have such a huge gap from even people in the top 15. If a top 5 player can play 50 sets with a top 12 player and lose less than 3-5 sets, that level of dominance just shows how hard melee is to get to the very top. Comparing it to another smash game, smash 4, the very best 5 players in the world still lose sets to unranked players.

3 Mortal Kombat

The earlier games in the franchise are reliant on planning and memorization of different combos and movesets. Not to mention the A.I players could range from reasonable to completely BS (Mortal Kombat Trilogy being the worst offender).

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

4 Street Fighter

Lets 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 of a 3 hit combo. Think I'm overreacting? Try it. I've never played a game so strict with timing. This is the definition on a none-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 is always in the main event of evo because pro players know what is a true pro skill fighting game!

One of the most technical fighting games (Smash Bros Melee is the most technical) and with the cheapest final bosses, this game is VERY hard

5 Virtua Fighter

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

People who say "3 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 the more creative.

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

6 The King of Fighters

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 imput to a combo for even a small milisecond, you drop the whole combo. The difficulty plus it's recent entries who 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 populariy, but the arcade games and dream matches are still same 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.

Angel isn't that easy to use. And from what I've heard, Duck King and Momoko seem to be difficult too. Other than that, King of Fighters is great series and you can enjoy it if you learn to play it, but that goes for every other fighting game too.

Take a shot at any early entrance in the series. You'll see the complexity of the controls and the toughness of your opponent, even more when you're facing the bosses. You name it, each single boss is overpowered like there's no tomorrow. Wanna taste how can you get your ass pummeled? Take Rugal or Geese on.

7 Fight Night

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

8 Guilty Gear

The question was, "What is the hardest fighting game SERIES?" And 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 and 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, when to use/threaten to use an insta-kill attack that destroys your meter bar if you miss, 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), extremely specific timing for input etc:

The only reason this is rated lower is because it is less well known than the series above it. Timing is ridiculously strict and many combos and techniques are extremely situational requiring them to be executed in just the right set of circumstances.

9 Marvel vs Capcom

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

10 Dead or Alive

This game isn't impossible on most settings, but sometimes the opponent just seems to already know every move you could possibly make AND have a way to counter them all...fifty moves on advance (LOOKING AT YOU, BAYMAN, GEN FU, HAYABUSA, CHRISTIE, ALPHA-152 AND GENRA). If there's any game out there that'll teach you the importance of countering, it's this game.

People think this game is simple, but at high level against people who know what they're doing, the game is a massive mind game

I think the hold technique and tag character combo make it hard

The Contenders
11 Soul Calibur

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, 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.

12 Blazblue

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

Diversity in character fight styles in this with different combo/attack systems for each fighter means you have to become competent in all of them to stand a chance. Not like MK or SF with pallet swap fighters. EVERY fighter is VERY different from the others. Could play this for years and still not master it.

Yeah, this is by far harder than tekken, anyone who would pick tekken over this has never played it. It took me 5 hrs to complete the whole tutorial without even doing anything else, if that tells you anything. That was coming from basically no fighter XP except button mashing in stuff and smash and old school MK

13 Samurai Shodown
14 Dragon Ball Z
15 For Honor
16 Persona 4 Arena
17 Naruto
18 Killer Instinct
19 Skullgirls
20 Injustice 2
21 Brawlhalla
22 Pokkén Tournament
23 Clayfighter
24 Dragon Ball FighterZ
25 JoJo’s Bizarre Adventures
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