Discord
Today, 05:15 AM
It's 2026 and we got too many games so I wanna start with going over my general rough feelings on all the big ones active right now, as well as some brief post-mortem on a few from last year. Lets make this nice and quick, I'll update as needed.
2026 FIGHTING GAME OVERVIEW PART 1 -
STREET FIGHTER 6 - THE GENRE LEADER
![[Image: INGRID.jpg]](http://homebrewdeviants.com/static/Masa/Forum%20Rambles/INGRID.jpg)
Image Description: Ingrid, a youthul looking alien magical girl in aesthetics invoking mediterianian and reinnisance imagery through its flowy patterns and materials, she wears a hat that has two large muff like elements. She holds a book in one hand, with magic wisps around her.
Three years in it's still by far the best entry point right now for a number of key reasons:
It does everything possible to teach you the game and break down most of the main barriers people have getting into it. Its onboarding its smooth, its learning process is intuitive, it is rich in content and strong in terms of presentation. It's not necissarily going to be everyone's game with it's slower grounded gameplay contrasted against high damage and a few oddities akin to the VS series leading to it being less "pure" by some oldhead standards but it does the job pretty damn well. Character is put on the forefront more than the series has since I'd argue Alpha which is great.
As far as DLC has gone, Year 3 feels like it wanted to cleanse the palette by having every new character bring something fresh and different in contrast to how homogonized Year 2 felt with Terry and Mai as two more all-rounders and Bison being a strike/throw machine in a game full of them. Sagat is a heavy brawler with big buttons made fresh and fun with hits new focus on Muay Thai strikes as if they took the comparisons to Fahkuram of Tekken personally. C.Viper is pure fun if you're someone who loves having plenty of options and room for personal expression. Alex... well, that I'll save for its own post. Ingrid is the main one I'm waiting for personally, I was praying she'd be something straight out of Darkstalkers and instead she's a full on anime fighter character.
Tournament entry numbers are massively skewed toward this game, and while I'm not too fond of the marketing side of this game handling Capcom Cup the way they did the core gameplay is still fun if needing a bit more tuning of the top cast.
DRAGON BALL FIGHTERZ - IT'S BACK AGAIN
![[Image: Daima%20goku.png]](http://homebrewdeviants.com/static/Masa/Forum%20Rambles/Daima%20goku.png)
[Image Description: Super Saiyan 4 Goku from Dragon Ball Daima, a large muscular man with ape-like body hair and big spikey anime hair all a distinctive wine red. He has sharp outlines around his scowlinng eyes and cartoonishly large hands.]
Bandai Namco seemingly has taken the wheel fully from Arc Sys, Daima Goku is fun but he looks and plays like a fan mod. I think the game still maintains the power of being a fun casual fighter and incredible presentation but it's clear the days of it being one of the big hitters are long gone after too many gameplay overhauls in the wrong direction. Still, it's a palette cleanser to come back to after a certain other Tag Fighter this year we'll talk about.
I have to note he's 8 USD unlike the other characters who at full price are 5 USD so you're paying more for less, emblematic of 2026 really.
GUILTY GEAR STRIVE 2.0 - BACK TO BASICS
![[Image: jam.png]](http://homebrewdeviants.com/static/Masa/Forum%20Rambles/jam.png)
[Image Description: Jam, a chinese chef and martial artist wearing a outfit reflecting both of those elements with the chef's coat on top and large arcing hair knots holding a bunny wearing a collar in one hand.]
Strive has always been a game I've had a massive love hate relationship. When it launched it was fun but matches took ten minutes to find due to a awful lobby system via the Tower and outside of a handful of characters everyone feeling very undertuned and unfinished. Still, this entire game runs off the power and presence of its cast and despite ultimately finding it hard to stomach as this weird mishmash of SFV-isms and a toned down streamlined air dasher loosely playing into the legacy of its old games I keep coming back every once in awhile.
Season 4 was a big push with a guest, a anime miniseries (a pretty bad one honestly), a normal quickplay ranked system, and the most taboo thing of all:
Adding a conventional shoto ala Ryu/Ken/Akuma through Unika. It did good for the game but ultimately if you weren't sold on the current massively powercrept and messy state of it.. it wasn't going to be for you.
2.0 is a massive overhaul of the game and systems, one that is genuinely great for the most part albeit with a few key points of pain to bring up.
Jam is finally here, she has a bunny, all is pretty good right now in the world. She's very fun to play with her big flashy moves and speed in a game where half the cast is weirdly heavy for a Arc Sys fighter and while she's undeniably overtuned right now she's a welcome addition. Her Arcade mode having multiple chapters ala Blazblue's acts is also nice, something introduced for Lucy that seems to now be the standard going forward.
There will be alt costumes, weapon skins, a progression system, and battle passes ala Granblue Versus which are not fully implemented but if they're similarly priced and they continue the model of bringing back items later, that'll be nice.
Across the board offense and damage have mostly been nerfed with a few outliers (Millia, Leo, Nagoryuki, May, Jam and Happy Chaos are a whole conversation) allowing a more back and forth and interactive game. Wild Assault, a mechanic meant to add a universal neutral skip (increasingly the standard with SF6's Drive Rush, Granblue's 66L, Tekken's Heat, etc) was removed and replaced with something low power after being dominant and contributing to Season 3/4 feeling absurdly aggressive and snowbally. Movesets are reworked, everyone got patched and..
It puts me at a odd spot. At a core its a mechanically more thought out, smarter game that asks more from the player. It also further homogonized the individual characters by removing unique stregnths and making a lot of them... boring. Many of the attempts to revamp kits (Happy Chaos, Testament, Asuka) feel like they don't really work, legacy attributes of characters were removed just for the sake of being different ranging from Millia no longer having a anti-air standing Slash like previous games to.. making Sol a proper fireball shoto and gutting his Heavy Volcanic Viper, a move that was the core of his plan since the 2D games.
It's healthy for the long run, it has a lot of promise and it's made me play the game a ton more but it went from a mechanically shit game with a incredibly fun cast to a mechanically solid game with a significantly less interesting cast. The quickplay play being weirdly slow compared to Granblue or FighterZ is also a factor that hurts (sometimes wiaitng ten minutes during heavily populated hours) but every issue I have feels like something that can be fixed.
TEKKEN 8 - BIGGER THAN EVER
You'll get to hear my thoughts on this proper when Bob comes out, I haven't bothered with this one. I already miss Harada not gonna lie.
![[Image: BOB.jpg]](http://homebrewdeviants.com/static/Masa/Forum%20Rambles/BOB.jpg)
[Image Description: Bob, a incredibly large blonde American man with light facial hair. He holds a onigiri and wears a red hoodie and a black baseball cap both marked by a sponsor. The had reads "BIGGER THAN EVER"]
I like Bob, he'll save Tekken
MULTIVERSUS - THEY COULD'VE HAD SINNERS DLC
[Image Description: Stack and Smoke side by side, two twins from the movie Sinners played by Michael B. Jordon. They are two black men in stylish 1930s suits, red and blue as their individual color highlights and differences meant to put emphasis on their individual tastes and preferences.]
It was a bad game but if they lasted a few more months Smoke and Stack could've gotten in. This deserves its own full conversation though.
![[Image: Lola%20Bunny.jpg]](http://homebrewdeviants.com/static/Masa/Forum%20Rambles/Lola%20Bunny.jpg)
Also why did this game have to be the one to have a rabbit spacie first.
2XKO - THE GAME THAT WILL SAVE THE FGC...?
![[Image: 2xko%20leverless.jpg]](http://homebrewdeviants.com/static/Masa/Forum%20Rambles/2xko%20leverless.jpg)
[Image Description: A 320 USD Razor Kitsune with a stock render of Ahri from League of Legends slapped on, she is a kitsune inspired by the Korean interpretation with a red dress and disconnected sleeves, dark black/blue hair, facial markings resembling whiskers, and a long massive braid]
Look I respect that the dev team is full of super notable FGC pioneers and all but man this game really does embody that the whole "Fighting Game Characters are Functions" doesn't actually work? I'm gonna have to admit here deep down I really wanted this one to be good but it had all the red flags from early on that screamed "Yeah this one's fucked." and.. yeah this one's fucked. I won't say I hate it, I just think every decision was a mistake?
The big wave of people coming in through Dragon Ball Fighterz, through Strive, through SF6 is not going to be down to play a old school tag fighter where you die if you fuck up and you learn 30 second long TODs. The League fans aren't down to jump in on a game that turns their favorite characters into generic action figures that prioritize being a homage Yuzuhira from Under-Night in Birth over the characters they're invested in. It launched barebones, broken, only marketed to the hardcore FGC, and only appeals to people with a tolerance for bullshit developed by eating decades of Iron Man infinites.
The worst part is.. it's probably the most fun game mechanically here in a lot of ways, it is the most rewarding of a variety of skillsets. Too bad everything else about it feels like it barely made it out of Alpha. 30 USD skins aren't helping, Valorant rotating store and prices are probably a bigger reason launch flopped than just being too hard and unpolished.
Gato is good at it though so that's fun.
GRANBLUE FANTASY VERSUS RISING - SLEEPER HIT STILL KICKING
![[Image: fox.png]](http://homebrewdeviants.com/static/Masa/Forum%20Rambles/fox.png)
[Image Description: Two anime fox girls in incredibly decorative outfits, Societte and Yuel, in a very intimate winscreen were the former looms over the latter looking relaxed whild holding the ribbons of her outfit.]
This game still continues to be the best entry point if you're looking outside of DBFZ. It's very vibrant and lively with the same love and attention Arc Sys puts into games like Guilty Gear and DBFZ and even though I'm not the most familiar with the IP it's based on I'm always excited to see new characters. It is loaded with content and plenty of unlocks, a lobby with a lovely vibe, and a large cast that caters to every playstyle possible. It's my favorite being both a grounded weapons fighter and having some of that Blazblue sauce despite how drastically different the gameplay is and if you're looking at Marvel Tokon this is the closest game to it in a lot of ways. I'm hoping we get a Season 3 but for now a major update coming ith a new character is plenty.
This is also the gayest game in the genre outside of niche super indie stuff.
I'll get to the pile of Tokon, Avatar Legends, Them's Fightin Herds, Invincible vs, Hunter x Hunter, etc at some point.
Comments and questions welcome.
2026 FIGHTING GAME OVERVIEW PART 1 -
STREET FIGHTER 6 - THE GENRE LEADER
Image Description: Ingrid, a youthul looking alien magical girl in aesthetics invoking mediterianian and reinnisance imagery through its flowy patterns and materials, she wears a hat that has two large muff like elements. She holds a book in one hand, with magic wisps around her.
Three years in it's still by far the best entry point right now for a number of key reasons:
It does everything possible to teach you the game and break down most of the main barriers people have getting into it. Its onboarding its smooth, its learning process is intuitive, it is rich in content and strong in terms of presentation. It's not necissarily going to be everyone's game with it's slower grounded gameplay contrasted against high damage and a few oddities akin to the VS series leading to it being less "pure" by some oldhead standards but it does the job pretty damn well. Character is put on the forefront more than the series has since I'd argue Alpha which is great.
As far as DLC has gone, Year 3 feels like it wanted to cleanse the palette by having every new character bring something fresh and different in contrast to how homogonized Year 2 felt with Terry and Mai as two more all-rounders and Bison being a strike/throw machine in a game full of them. Sagat is a heavy brawler with big buttons made fresh and fun with hits new focus on Muay Thai strikes as if they took the comparisons to Fahkuram of Tekken personally. C.Viper is pure fun if you're someone who loves having plenty of options and room for personal expression. Alex... well, that I'll save for its own post. Ingrid is the main one I'm waiting for personally, I was praying she'd be something straight out of Darkstalkers and instead she's a full on anime fighter character.
Tournament entry numbers are massively skewed toward this game, and while I'm not too fond of the marketing side of this game handling Capcom Cup the way they did the core gameplay is still fun if needing a bit more tuning of the top cast.
DRAGON BALL FIGHTERZ - IT'S BACK AGAIN
[Image Description: Super Saiyan 4 Goku from Dragon Ball Daima, a large muscular man with ape-like body hair and big spikey anime hair all a distinctive wine red. He has sharp outlines around his scowlinng eyes and cartoonishly large hands.]
Bandai Namco seemingly has taken the wheel fully from Arc Sys, Daima Goku is fun but he looks and plays like a fan mod. I think the game still maintains the power of being a fun casual fighter and incredible presentation but it's clear the days of it being one of the big hitters are long gone after too many gameplay overhauls in the wrong direction. Still, it's a palette cleanser to come back to after a certain other Tag Fighter this year we'll talk about.
I have to note he's 8 USD unlike the other characters who at full price are 5 USD so you're paying more for less, emblematic of 2026 really.
GUILTY GEAR STRIVE 2.0 - BACK TO BASICS
[Image Description: Jam, a chinese chef and martial artist wearing a outfit reflecting both of those elements with the chef's coat on top and large arcing hair knots holding a bunny wearing a collar in one hand.]
Strive has always been a game I've had a massive love hate relationship. When it launched it was fun but matches took ten minutes to find due to a awful lobby system via the Tower and outside of a handful of characters everyone feeling very undertuned and unfinished. Still, this entire game runs off the power and presence of its cast and despite ultimately finding it hard to stomach as this weird mishmash of SFV-isms and a toned down streamlined air dasher loosely playing into the legacy of its old games I keep coming back every once in awhile.
Season 4 was a big push with a guest, a anime miniseries (a pretty bad one honestly), a normal quickplay ranked system, and the most taboo thing of all:
Adding a conventional shoto ala Ryu/Ken/Akuma through Unika. It did good for the game but ultimately if you weren't sold on the current massively powercrept and messy state of it.. it wasn't going to be for you.
2.0 is a massive overhaul of the game and systems, one that is genuinely great for the most part albeit with a few key points of pain to bring up.
Jam is finally here, she has a bunny, all is pretty good right now in the world. She's very fun to play with her big flashy moves and speed in a game where half the cast is weirdly heavy for a Arc Sys fighter and while she's undeniably overtuned right now she's a welcome addition. Her Arcade mode having multiple chapters ala Blazblue's acts is also nice, something introduced for Lucy that seems to now be the standard going forward.
There will be alt costumes, weapon skins, a progression system, and battle passes ala Granblue Versus which are not fully implemented but if they're similarly priced and they continue the model of bringing back items later, that'll be nice.
Across the board offense and damage have mostly been nerfed with a few outliers (Millia, Leo, Nagoryuki, May, Jam and Happy Chaos are a whole conversation) allowing a more back and forth and interactive game. Wild Assault, a mechanic meant to add a universal neutral skip (increasingly the standard with SF6's Drive Rush, Granblue's 66L, Tekken's Heat, etc) was removed and replaced with something low power after being dominant and contributing to Season 3/4 feeling absurdly aggressive and snowbally. Movesets are reworked, everyone got patched and..
It puts me at a odd spot. At a core its a mechanically more thought out, smarter game that asks more from the player. It also further homogonized the individual characters by removing unique stregnths and making a lot of them... boring. Many of the attempts to revamp kits (Happy Chaos, Testament, Asuka) feel like they don't really work, legacy attributes of characters were removed just for the sake of being different ranging from Millia no longer having a anti-air standing Slash like previous games to.. making Sol a proper fireball shoto and gutting his Heavy Volcanic Viper, a move that was the core of his plan since the 2D games.
It's healthy for the long run, it has a lot of promise and it's made me play the game a ton more but it went from a mechanically shit game with a incredibly fun cast to a mechanically solid game with a significantly less interesting cast. The quickplay play being weirdly slow compared to Granblue or FighterZ is also a factor that hurts (sometimes wiaitng ten minutes during heavily populated hours) but every issue I have feels like something that can be fixed.
TEKKEN 8 - BIGGER THAN EVER
You'll get to hear my thoughts on this proper when Bob comes out, I haven't bothered with this one. I already miss Harada not gonna lie.
I like Bob, he'll save Tekken
MULTIVERSUS - THEY COULD'VE HAD SINNERS DLC
[b][u]![[Image: Smoke%20and%20Stack.jpg]](http://homebrewdeviants.com/static/Masa/Forum%20Rambles/Smoke%20and%20Stack.jpg)
[/u][/b]
[/u][/b][Image Description: Stack and Smoke side by side, two twins from the movie Sinners played by Michael B. Jordon. They are two black men in stylish 1930s suits, red and blue as their individual color highlights and differences meant to put emphasis on their individual tastes and preferences.]
It was a bad game but if they lasted a few more months Smoke and Stack could've gotten in. This deserves its own full conversation though.
Also why did this game have to be the one to have a rabbit spacie first.
2XKO - THE GAME THAT WILL SAVE THE FGC...?
[Image Description: A 320 USD Razor Kitsune with a stock render of Ahri from League of Legends slapped on, she is a kitsune inspired by the Korean interpretation with a red dress and disconnected sleeves, dark black/blue hair, facial markings resembling whiskers, and a long massive braid]
Look I respect that the dev team is full of super notable FGC pioneers and all but man this game really does embody that the whole "Fighting Game Characters are Functions" doesn't actually work? I'm gonna have to admit here deep down I really wanted this one to be good but it had all the red flags from early on that screamed "Yeah this one's fucked." and.. yeah this one's fucked. I won't say I hate it, I just think every decision was a mistake?
The big wave of people coming in through Dragon Ball Fighterz, through Strive, through SF6 is not going to be down to play a old school tag fighter where you die if you fuck up and you learn 30 second long TODs. The League fans aren't down to jump in on a game that turns their favorite characters into generic action figures that prioritize being a homage Yuzuhira from Under-Night in Birth over the characters they're invested in. It launched barebones, broken, only marketed to the hardcore FGC, and only appeals to people with a tolerance for bullshit developed by eating decades of Iron Man infinites.
The worst part is.. it's probably the most fun game mechanically here in a lot of ways, it is the most rewarding of a variety of skillsets. Too bad everything else about it feels like it barely made it out of Alpha. 30 USD skins aren't helping, Valorant rotating store and prices are probably a bigger reason launch flopped than just being too hard and unpolished.
Gato is good at it though so that's fun.
GRANBLUE FANTASY VERSUS RISING - SLEEPER HIT STILL KICKING
[Image Description: Two anime fox girls in incredibly decorative outfits, Societte and Yuel, in a very intimate winscreen were the former looms over the latter looking relaxed whild holding the ribbons of her outfit.]
This game still continues to be the best entry point if you're looking outside of DBFZ. It's very vibrant and lively with the same love and attention Arc Sys puts into games like Guilty Gear and DBFZ and even though I'm not the most familiar with the IP it's based on I'm always excited to see new characters. It is loaded with content and plenty of unlocks, a lobby with a lovely vibe, and a large cast that caters to every playstyle possible. It's my favorite being both a grounded weapons fighter and having some of that Blazblue sauce despite how drastically different the gameplay is and if you're looking at Marvel Tokon this is the closest game to it in a lot of ways. I'm hoping we get a Season 3 but for now a major update coming ith a new character is plenty.
This is also the gayest game in the genre outside of niche super indie stuff.
I'll get to the pile of Tokon, Avatar Legends, Them's Fightin Herds, Invincible vs, Hunter x Hunter, etc at some point.
Comments and questions welcome.
