Fighting Rams

The fighting game genre involves combat between characters, often (but not necessarily limited to) one-on-one battles. The mechanics of combat in fighting games often features blocking, grappling, counter-attacking, and the ability to chain attacks together into "combos". Characters generally engage in hand-to-hand combat, often incorporating martial arts, but some may include weaponry. Battles are usually set in a fixed-size arena along a two-dimensional plane, where characters navigate horizontally by walking or dashing, and vertically by jumping. Some games allow limited movement in 3D space, such as Tekken, Soul Edge and Dead or Alive, while some are set in fully three-dimensional environments without restricting characters' movement, such as Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi, Jump Force, Kill la Kill: If, My Hero: One's Justice, Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm, One Piece: Burning Blood and Power Stone; these are sometimes referred to as "3D arena" fighting games. The fighting game genre is distinctly related to the beat 'em up genre, which pits many computer-controlled enemies against one or more player characters. The first video game to feature fist fighting is Heavyweight Champ (1976), but Karate Champ (1984) actually features the one-on-one fighting game genre instead of a sports game in arcades. Yie Ar Kung-Fu was released later that year with various fighting styles and introduced health meters, and The Way of the Exploding Fist (1985) further popularized the genre on home systems. In 1987, Capcom's Street Fighter introduced special attacks, and in 1991, its highly successful sequel Street Fighter II refined and popularized many genre conventions, including combos. Fighting games subsequently became the preeminent genre for video gaming in the early to mid-1990s, particularly in arcades. This period spawned dozens of other popular fighting games, including franchises like Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Super Smash Bros., and Tekken.