The Top 5 Most Balanced Fighting Games? updated with results so far

[Narcowski]

Disclaimer: I’m not saying these character combinations are awful, but they’re not top tier at all.

Zenia+time-its not just her 46x attacks that lend itself to time. but thinking of her rushdown attacks coupled with the difficulty of her constantly getting behind you and using those rushdown attacks. makes her incredibly hard to manage.

6D -> wasted meter. Honestly, while Time Zenia isn’t bad (because she can chain anything into 236236E, and go into clone mixups from there), she’s better with several other Arcana. Specifically, Water, Flower, Plant, and Punishment.

maori+tone-hmmm. lets see. a zoning character+a zoning arcana. yeah, thats gonna be easy to get in on her for the win.
yunno what else is an easy win. facing a sentinel, doom, and ironman team in mvc2.

Tone isn’t a zoning arcana. In fact, tone is awful for keep-away. It’s usually used for chip and extra blockstun (with Eko, for example).

Kamui+ice-lets see. give a footsie driven attacker that has serious rushdown special moves an arcana that gives her even more more rushdown pressure. c’mon! try creating space from her with kamui having that set up.

This time you’re misrepresenting characters’ strengths. Kamui generates hard knockdown from every combo, meaning a fair portion of her offensive game consists of okizeme setups that Ice doesn’t help with. Play Dark or Luck Kamui.

fiona+earth-a character with hit stun prowess and clash cababilities having even more hit stun protection mounted on her.
lets be fair!

Fiona’s clash game is ass, you can raw 4D through Excalibur, and she’s too slow without Earth weighing her down. Besides, that, she doesn’t need the extra damage. She does best with Ice, Wind, or Time.

konoha+light-623x+623E=your ass getting knocked in the corner and having to turtle there…90% of every round!

Never even seen this played, so I’m not going to comment.

kira+magnetism-i shouldn’t even have to explain this one. its self-explanatory.

Protip for dealing with Kira: Techs are not throw invulnerable, and a good [edit: good one] will get a reset on you every time you tech with her nearby. Just don’t tech unless she throws out attacks. Also, Metal and Evil are better with Kira than Magnet.

petra+tone-even more unfair zoning ridiculousness.

Again, tone is not a zoning arcana.

elsa+lightning-214x>5E>623E=game over. a pointless match. or 4C>623E for that matter.

Elsa’s clash game is more ass than Fiona’s, and she already has a stronger reversal than Lightning’s clash DP. I’d hate to see you play a Luck Elsa though, because I get the feeling you’d complain about knockdown -> unblockable xN

catherine+fire-i believe this is only subject if catherine has you cornered, otherwise its ok.

Catherine is one of the few characters that are far and away best with specific arcana. In her case, Wind. Ice comes in second for any hit -> drill for days, but wind is pretty much the only arcana that improves her lacking neutral game.

While I admittedly don’t play AH, I count at least 10 possible character+arcana combinations which should be fine for tournament play when the generally consensus it seems is that 4 is the minimum number of top tiers for a tournament viable fighter.

There are many more than 10. 10/529 would be pretty awful balance

[Hecatomb]

Lol @ balance meaning shit in terms of whether a game is good or not.

Virtua Fighter 4 Whatever the last version was called was ridiculously good and balanced; so good and balanced that nobody wanted to play it.

cept for japan

[Hecatomb]

But wall hacks aren’t intentionally put in.

There’s a difference between everyone having an infinite and everyone having a useable one. The way XvSF played out (with it being the most pixie heavy of the VS series) meant that it was almost like everyone was running around with a ROM (except Mags who really is running around with his ROM).

P.S. VSav IMO it trumps most if not ALL other games in that list in terms of balance. Shizz shouldn’t even be disputed.

from what ive heard crouch canceling isnt hard. Only 2 games come close to Vamp Sav balance, VF4 and Marvel super heroes war of the gems

[shoultzula]

Lol @ balance meaning shit in terms of whether a game is good or not.

Virtua Fighter 4 Whatever the last version was called was ridiculously good and balanced; so good and balanced that nobody wanted to play it.

North America is too trendy for fighting games. Very few people in this country won’t play a fighting game hard if there is no scene for it. Its how it is here and it will always be like that. Quite different in Japan, they have a scene for almost every competitive game to an extent.

I played vampire savior on and off for 3 years pretty hard and there is no scene for that game in the states. Some people may play a random fighter but its rarely longer than a month if that.

[BeaTs]

axlmaster: be quiet, please.
shoult: naw, I’m on that arcana heart 3 kick. it’s pretty addictive. plus I wanna try and keep up or get better placings than I did at FR (I got 3rd place with 0 matchup experience against 2nd place’s character [at the time]). I play mvc2 rarely now and then. but the scene is like pretty dead

[Milk_Stone]

My vote’s for MOTW. Although there is a huge disparity between Kevin and Freeman (best and worst respectively), it’s still quite possible for Freeman to be competitive. There are a handful of elite characters, but Japan’s best player, Yoshimizu, used Dong - who is mid-tier and he just about stomped on everyone with him.

The current best player in Japan uses Rock primarily, and he’s considered to be in the bottom three.

[thats_mind_games]

There are many more than 10. 10/529 would be pretty awful balance

actually, it would be perfectly fine

[ihateM.O.D.O.K]

Yeh, that’s still pretty good objectively, decent relatively since most people look at the parts rather than all the combinations.

My vote’s for MOTW. Although there is a huge disparity between Kevin and Freeman (best and worst respectively), it’s still quite possible for Freeman to be competitive. There are a handful of elite characters, but Japan’s best player, Yoshimizu, used Dong - who is mid-tier and he just about stomped on everyone with him.

The current best player in Japan uses Rock primarily, and he’s considered to be in the bottom three.

I always thought they put Tizoc below Freeman because of the throw bug.

[Axl_m4ster]

@BeaTs*
@Saotome
@Narcowski

some quick replies to your comments…

-perhaps i misworded what i was referring to when i used the word "zoning"
my bad. what i am referring to is tone as a controlling Space arcana with characters that control the space of the screen.
which is why i referred to mvc2 characters that are infamous for controlling the negative or inert-spatial space of the screen.
i meant tone+maori/petra not as a keep-away but more of a entrapment/domineering space type of strategy.

-time 6D is wasting meter? perhaps you are all not using this arcana’s greatest asset correctly?

-perhaps you need to explore or test ice’s dash attributes with kamui before you instantly debunk it.

-the same goes for all of the character+arcana i listed.

-elsa+luck or flower may or may not be a better character+arcana match than elsa+lightning.
but i’d also say that elsa+earth/lightning wouldn’t be an unwise mesh in the same breath.
right now in japan, elsa+flower is very popular among elsa players…me, personally, i don’t see it. i don’t see how that mesh would benefit elsa more than lightning or earth…but thats just me, to each his own.

i’ll give you an example, at a recent meet up, i actually played a few rounds with someone who considers BeaTs, one of his maestros. BeaTs, you probably know him either personally or online…but he said he learned a lot from you.
anyway, when we were about to face each other, he said in reference to my elsa+lightning…“elsa and lightning…i don’t think thats a good match up at all. i don’t think lightning fits elsa.” and i was like "well, i like her with lightning."
and thats all that really matters.
now, did i lose?
yes.
did i lose badly?
hell yes.
was it because of my elsa having lightning as her arcana of choice?
fuck no.
was it because i played like ass?
unfortunately yes, yes, and finally, yes.
~i played ah3 like ass because the only thing i have to play with is ah2…i don’t have ah3, and as you know, to try to play the super fast ah3 after only playing ah2…your timing is totally wrong for every action/reaction and the timing for your inputs and commands are absolutely deranged.
it takes me 2-4 hours of playing ah3 for my brain to adapt to the different speed of ah3…which means i get beasted fiercly in the meantime till i get accustomed to the difference in speed between the two games.
when you only have ah2 to practice on, which has 24/7 100% of the time horrid slowdown and incredible levels of lag, you force yourself to have to play slowly, and commit input delay to compensate for the lag…but when you then try to switch over to ah3 without any warming up to the game before facing another player…your brain is still compensating for ah2’s lag which is non-existent in ah3, which in short, means that your inputs/reactions/commands will always be 2 seconds slower than they should be.
its like trying to play SF2 hyper on max turbo after only playing vanilla sf2.
anyway, thats why i always get beasted in ah3
in the ah3 ranbat i went to months ago, the same thing happened, i got beasted like crazy in the beginning…but as time went on(2-4 hours) i got accustomed to ah3’s speed, and i played much better as time progressed…i was able to contend with others, win a few matches and some rounds.
had to explain that
thats my excuse for getting beasted every time i play ah3~
point is,
lightning, imo, is a good match for elsa. even if i currently can’t prove it personally in ah3 port. just in ah2 can i prove it.
also, lightning benefits enough elsa players to have lightning listed on elsa’s wiki. its not just me.

AAaaand also, since that pupil of BeaTs that played against my elsa+lightning, and had a supremely easy victory against me, will probably assume due to that easy win for him, that elsa+lightning doesn’t work, confirming his prejudices towards that mesh of character+arcana.
which leads me to…
i’ve seen someone win win win with heart+ice.
now, heart+ice makes no sense to me,…but that’s just me.
a player can have a ,imo, a funky and weird character and arcana mesh, but still body everyone regardless. but that’s skill level…but it may lead to prejudice from onlookers that that exceptional player’s mesh of arc+char, is the way to go. when that might not be the case at all.

-kira a grappler, with the power to pull in the opponent into her special moves…personally scares the shit out of me, but if no exceptional kira player tries to max out that potential, then the experiment of kira+magnetism, may never take flight.
maybe a great kira player tested it out, didn’t like that mesh, and moved on…which might have thingds related to “personal comfort issues” rather than functionalities.

lastly, perhaps bannable is too strong a word. perhaps i should have used the terms “god tier” or “boss tier” as better descriptions. these are just opinions ,mind you, since i don’t really think you can have , at least for right now, a consensus by ah players worldwide, on which character+arcana would fall into which rank.
since as someone mentioned before there are 529 possible character to arcana combinations, and with that high range of experimental match ups…it may take 5 years to a decade to explore the hidden potential of character plus arcana meshes.
it took a really long time for mvc2 and cvs2 players to rank with consensus the best team meshes that could be called s-rank…and i believe it’ll take a long time for ah3 to gather enough consensus to get the 529 character+arcana ranked…since ah3, like mvc2 and cvs2, is a customizable fighter, and can only be compared to those 2 games as such.
well, there is also, mbaa, i guess.

which leads me to…
instead of immediately pre-judging a mesh that i list, why not try these meshes i listed out in your casual playtime. exercise your imagination with these char+arc combos,…experiment with them…before immediately ranking them.
in the end, i believe these char+arc meshes i listed, will in time be considered boss/god-tier in ranking.
could i be wrong?
yes.
can you all be sure for now that i am?
no.
let a decade pass, let a consensus be taken by players worldwide, then we can start dictating on character+arcana ranking.

what i wrote was just my personal opinion, its not to be taken as the word of god.

[Varamathras]

off-topic post

So once again I’d like to state that Soul Calibur 2 is one of the most balanced fighters ever. Particular glitches, like step G, balanced everyone across the game.

[BeaTs]

and it’s another godlike game that we need on psn/xbl. unlike that SC4 POS

[PozerWolf]

Why are you people responding to Axl_m4ster?
Isn’t very, very obvious that he is trolling?! =/

[Siefer]

I’m not even sure “I” know what I’m saying

I’m not even sure we’re playing the same game sometimes…

…oh wait, we’re not, you’re playing AH 2 and basing everything else off of theory fighter and playing AH 3 once.

[Axl_m4ster]

and it’s another godlike game that we need on psn/xbl. unlike that SC4 POS

if you are referring to AH3…
then yes, i totally agree.
i hope when AH3 becomes dl available to Westerners in a few days, people who never played it or were turned off by the notion of importing ports, give it a chance and it achieves max success;)
if you are referring to SC2…
then yes, i agree as well.
SC2 demands a rebirth.

@Siefer,
i’ve played AH3 twice, not once.
@PozerWolf i have no clue what you are implying

my final post on this thread

[Slayerslice]

Tekken 6 is really balanced, I really like Streetfighter 4 balance also
People think Kuma is a joke character, IMO hes really solid

[Milk_Stone]

Yeh, that’s still pretty good objectively, decent relatively since most people look at the parts rather than all the combinations.

I always thought they put Tizoc below Freeman because of the throw bug.

Yeah, it’s arguable to say the least, but Freeman has no useful AA, a terrible command throw and lacks any sort of viable offense - he’s very poke-oriented and isn’t mobile so he has trouble mounting an offense. He has great normals, but his specials (besides the rekka) leave a lot to be desired…for example, specials like his 236+A/C (lots of recovery frames) or 214+B/D (predictable and slow overhead)…basically, he requires too much guesswork and gambling, his counter supers aren’t seen very often in high-level play because of how easily they fail (long start-up and sketchy effectiveness in certain scenarios).

As for Tizoc’s throw bug (which applies to other characters, too), it requires at least one meter or TOP mode, so it isn’t something that can be done all the time.

Bottom line: I’ve seen one or two REALLY good Freemans in my time, that’s all. One of them is also the best Kain player, so that doesn’t say much at all.

[Jigen_BKD]

werd to Odin. wwe allstars lol.

[Bad_Fish]

TVC UAS edition. Absolutely every character can win in the game and no one is overly broken cept for zero. t blade and imo saki and megaman are strong but not so strong that they imbalance. Also giants fit well andarent imbalanced one bit theyre just different. The learning curve is high to get good i guess, no random fucking mvc3 scrub loser is going to win in TVC, lots of people who are “good” in mvc3 won’t be actually good in a game that requires u to use ur brain. Each matchup is pretty winnable and only like the giants have some bad matchups. Even then if you watch me or GCYoshi play against our bad matchups we make it damn hard for them to win and mostly they don’t. So i’m all for TVC being there. TVC UAS is the most balanced fighter made by capcom, imo.

There should be no fn contest as to the most balanced fg which is VF…im assuming 5? regardless vf is the most balanced, def not guilty gear. or ah3 or any other fighter period.

otherwise for me i’d say Naruto Shippuden Gekitou Ninja Taisen EX3, Castlevania Judgement…aaaaaaanddd KOF 2002 UM. so those 5. in order 1.VF whatever, 2. TVC UAS, 3. KOF 2002 UM, 4. NSGNT EX3, and 5. Castlevania Judgement.

[Fulaani]

vSAv is balanced, but it is hard as hell. To get around your matchups, mastery of the game is required. I play Jedah, so I got some obstacles. It’s hard, but not impossible. For reasons stated above, I don’t think that Vsav is one of the top 5. It is possible to get around bad match-ups, but the amount of mastery you have to have over the game tactics is a huge curve, only then will you be overcoming bad matchups.

Sorry shoultz, that is how I see it.

dosn’t mean shit. you look at potential, not at how easy it is to reach that potential.

[Running_Wild]

I think Real Bout Fatal Fury 2 is pretty well balanced. I’ve seen nearly every character perform quite well.