1.
Persona 4 Arena Ultimax
Persona 4 Arena Ultimax and its predecessor are the fighting games, heck, probably even the video games in general, I've spent the most time with. Clocked probably 1500-2000 hours between the two. And I had a jolly good time all the way through.
A licensed fighter like this could have easily ended up being pretty bad and a half hearted effort, but Arc System Works did a tremendous job here.
The game understands that a not so insignificant part of its playerbase will come from an RPG background and not a fighting one and does a lot to accomodate that. I was familiar with fighters before I admit, but never played a flashy anime fighter before but it was still really easy for me to get into P4A.
I also really like the game on a mechanical level, how the characters have been brought over from the RPG into a more active flashy fighting game environment, how the Personas work in a fighting game context, and something I really enjoy and never thought of before in the context of fighting games is the different status ailments. They work really well and shake things up, forcing you to switch your strategy on the fly. Really neat little system. P4A(U) also probably has my favorite implementation of a comeback mechanic with the awakening system. It gives the attacking player the chance to completely deny the defending players comback mechanic if they play their cards smartly.
All in all I just had a lot of fun with these games even if I never got really great at them. A Persona 5 Arena would probably hype me up just as much as Persona 5 proper currently does. Really hope that happens. Cmon Atlus/ArcSys.
MUSIC RECS:
Blood Red Moon - Minazuki's Theme
Battle Hymn of the Soul (Ultimax version) - Margaret's theme
The Wandering Wolf - Akihiko's Theme
2.
Super Smash Bros. for Wii U
I guess this can count as a vote for the Wii U version even though I only played the 3DS one,since the Wii U version is the prettier more content complete one, but I gotta really commend their effort for what they pulled off on 3DS. Game is one of the looking games on the system imo and it runs at a solid 60fps. Controls well too (though unfortunately it ruined my 3DS shoulder buttons, preventing me from playing the game more :/).
Anyway, onto the game itself, with a giant roster of a whopping 58 characters with many amazing (and some even mindblowing, my goodness felt like my brain turned off for a good minute as soon as I saw that Smash Bros x FF7 thing, I just couldn't process what my eyes where showing me) additions and finally a working and somewhat* competent online mode Smash 4 is definitely my favorite iteration of Smash Bros. to date. Quite a few of the additions to the cast became some of my favorite fighting game characters ever (glances at avatar) and this game also finally gave me the opportunity to put my Smash Skills (or lack thereof lol) to test with the addition of For Glory as I don't have anyone locally to play with. I just love how easily accessible the 3DS version is for a quick round of For Glory or two or five, matchmaking is really fast and snappy and the connections are mostly good, at least for me.
My main gripe with the game, and that's where the * comes into play, is the lack of online options. As someone whose preferred way of playing Smash is stock battles, my only option for that is For Glory if I just want to hop in for a quick round with strangers. That's definitely an area this series could improve upon and I hope the next game will give us some lobbies or something with variable rules.
That aside though Smash 4 is a really fun game and I always have a great time with it, whether I play it myself or watch Kamemushi almost win Evo with my beloved SUPER FIGHTING ROBOT.
MUSIC RECS:
Main Theme
Mega Man II Medley
Ryu's Theme
3.
Street Fighter x Tekken
Typing this up makes me notice a trend here with myself, guess I am a sucker for crossovers lol (P4AU is also a crossover of the cast of P3 and P4, the actual RPGs are fairly standalone, it's the fighting games where these casts come together and meet).
SFxT was a fighting game I also spend a lot of time with and a game I greatly enjoyed, moreso than the mainline Street Fighter games. There is a lot of negative buzz surrounding this title and a lot of it was also warranted, but I still really enjoyed and appreciated the game on a mechanical level, especially its v2013 iteration.
I loved the emphasis on footsies, the implementation of some Tekken-esque juggle mechanics with the groundbounces/wallbounces, the easy to grasp and quickly flowing tag system and last but not least the charge special system. The charge system was something I thought was a stupid casual thing I'd never use at first, akin to P4A(U)'s autocombos, but much like those, it was something easy and flashy for casuals on a surface level that still had a lot of merit on a more competitive level. The fact that you could dash cancel your Charge special and that a certain charge level would give you automatic counter hit on your next attack gave that little mechanic I deemed unimportant at first a lot of uses and, more importantly, made it a lot of fun to play around with.
Another thing I want to mention is a more obvious one, and that is its huge roster of characters, special mention obviously goes to the Tekken cast who have been brought into 2D with a lot of care and they were really fun to play in this.
It'd be a real shame if all these awesome movesets would go to waste if this never gets a sequel, which is unfortunately likely, given the game's performance, reception and Capcom's current state. Oh well, I got my money's worth out of it at least. Oh and before I forget, the Vita version of SFxT is really great, basically on par with the console version aside from obvious visual differences. Has crossplay with the PS3 version too.
MUSIC RECS:
Ogre's theme (that's all you need from SFxT, music wasn't really this game's forte)
4.
Blazblue Chronophantasma Extend
During my time playing P4A(U), people constantly recommended the Blazblue series to me, "dude, you need to play this", "If you like P4A you'll like this too" and the sort. I was always like "yea, maybe,I'll probably get to that one day" but to be honest, I was perfectly content with P4A as my anime fighter of choice. That is until, on one fateful day, Sony/ArcSys decided to make BBCSEX one of the PS plus titles for that particular month, and thus I finally had an excuse to give the series a spin. And well, what can i say, all those people recommending Blazblue to me were right. It really was a series that greatly appealed to me.
Blazblue's strength definitely lies in its cast of crazy and (mechanically at least, YMMV on the aesthetic, I for my part really like it) well designed characters. almost every character has some cool unique mechanic going on that helps them to stand out from the rest of the cast. I really love that.
Another thing I gotta mention is the, albeit crazy and convoluted, maybe even crazy convoluted, story. It's ANIMAY to the max basically but that's what makes the like 40+ hours that there are now of it really enjoyable and entertaining to me. It gives all these over the top characters a little bit of spotlight and context which is something that I greatly appreciate in general. Speaking of story, I also really like how that carries over into the actual battles with unique intros and battle lines between some characters based on their story relationship. I love that.
Shoutouts also to the great lobby system that they also implemented in P4AU, as that is what kept me coming back as that is such a comfy way to hop into some online matches.
Another thing I gotta specifically mention is the music. BB was the first fighting game outside of Smash Brothers (but that doesn't really count since a lot of it is lifted/remixed from other video games) where I really noticed the music and thought to myself "damn these tunes are awesome". Usually I accept FG music as basically cool background noise but BB made me really listen.
MUSIC RECS:
Awakening the Chaos - Nu's theme
Queen of Rose - Rachel's Theme
X-Matic - Theme of Carl vs. Relius (yea the game even has matchup specific songs, another really cool thing)
5.
Tekken Tag Tournament 2
TTT2 is the fighting game on this list I've spent the least amount of time with, not because I didn't like it, quite he opposite in fact, but because for some reason the online didn't work for me (got constantly booted out of PSN while trying to play online, never happened with any other game, couldn't figure out why/how to fix that) and thus I kinda lost interest since I don't have anyone to play with locally.
Nevertheless gotta have TTT2 here as it is definitely one amazing package filled to the brim with content. My good, albeit limited time with TTT2 has me amped for some Tekken 7 action.
(No music rec here as I spent too little time with the game)
Honorable mentions
Pokkén Tournament for being surprisingly a lot of fun to watch and including THE PEOPLE'S LAMP (O+I+O) one of my all time fave Pokémon
Street Fighter V for the glory that is Birdie
Phew, this took a while to type/edit/formulate.