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 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

One of the most in-depth fighters with many things to take in mind while playing in a competitive level. It seems easy at first glance but in actuality it's very technical and difficult just to even learn how to play properly. It's execution and combo heavy along with being confusing and taxing on the mind. Along with other 3D fighting games, how many games do you know have this steep of a learning curve? Hell... I wouldn't mind giving the number 1 position to Virtua Fighter.

This game has two steep learning curves... One just to learn how to ACTUALLY play and game and another to learn how to play at a high level and intelligently applying great spacing, movement, proper punishes, whiff, sides steps, blocking, doing the right combos or follow ups on any given situation etc. Etc. Even the best players in the world drop combos often and make mistakes and input errors due to movement precision. Forward, forward+2? Damn I meant to do forward+2!

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.

Instead of controlling your character in eight directions, you have 352. Moreover, you can change your character's movement in the air. On its own, this makes spacing, anti-airing, and follow-ups so much deeper than if jumps were linear and predictable, especially when double (or sextuple) jumps and recovery moves are considered as well. Then you play Melee specifically and you have to factor in the movement tricks, ability to escape combos with fast enough reactions, damage-variant combo game, and so on, and you have a more improvisational form of technicality. If most fighting games are classical music, then Melee is jazz.

Professional Smash Bros. Melee players have talked to the top Tekken players at major gaming tournaments like EVO.Top Tekken player talked to, I believe westballz or HuGs not exactly sure, but the overall summary of what was said was the melee player said Tekken looks really hard. Tekken player responded by laughing and said, not nearly as hard as melee, you guys are insane.
The inputs per second, technical skill, DI, movement abilities, offense and defensive strategy, overall decision making speed, versatility with combos is unmatched in any fighting game I've ever seen or played. Aside from the amount of correct calculations that must be made to win at a professional level, melee is such a brutal mind game. It's like every 1-5 seconds you have to decide how to approach, if to approach, how to get out of a combo, how to keep your combo rolling, how to survive and how to capitalize in any given scenario. Speed kills.

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.

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

Timing and predictions

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)

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.

You don't like the series because the DM inputs alone are too much for you, but damned if you'll vote for it.

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.

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.

No way childish Mortal Kombat is or street fighter are harder than this, it's incredible the ignorance... Even blazblue us harder... Tekken? Wow, just add dead or alive and and put after Tekken and just kill yourselves, guys

Jump Installs, Instant Air Dashes, Blitz Shield, block and pushblock, the gatling system and Danger Time, this has it all. You will never be able to play this as well as you think you can.

Actually requires skill and simple modes 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, 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 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

Blazblue most execution reliant fighting game I've had the pleasure to ever play.

Wow what a game

Nightmare for beginners