For me that goes to Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. I like the “combo” system In it.
Other than the obvious of Street Fighter 2, between the other 16-bit fighters. Namely the home version of Killer Instinct Mortal Kombat, anf Eternal champions, the one I like best is eternal champions.
It had a lot of innovative things that I haven’t seen done since. Like an anti special spamming system. that’s a deeper game than Street Fighter to where if you’re a hundred percent perfect in executing specials, like I can with my right hand fight stick you’re way ahead of the game.
Also taunts are just that for teabagging but actually do something practical deplete your opponent’s special meter. And know this special meter is not a super meter but it’s a basic special meter meeting if you’re out you could only do basic attacks.
Finally it has the character variety of Street Fighter, with different body sizes, speeds, strengths, endurance levels , jump arcs, etc. No carbon copy clones except for two special moves each like MK, yet it has more powerful and varied special moves than Street Fighter which are just projectiles and super attacks, kind of like Mortal Kombat’s specials.
I would have liked to like Killer Instinct and the multiple combos, and I do like the third one on the Xbox one because the combos are so easy, yet, easy to intercept an opponent’s combo with a breaker. the problem with the first game is that if you were given no instructions on how to do combos pretty much all of your hits would be isolated hits. And if you don’t know the combos you’re dead meat. Not as much so in Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, or at all so Eternal Champions.
And speaking of combos Eternal champions has a combo system which pretty much makes it different than every other fighting game. it almost goes out of its way to make sure every second Hit & beyond you can recover in block and maybe even counter. There are barrages when you mis-predict your opponent’s next move, so it’s about mixing it up, not memorizing chains of buttons.
if you want the best version of it play the Sega CD version because the Genesis version has too quick of a timer for this type of game. Too many people get time out victories in this game. Quite a few times against the computer you could win by the time out and you can lose by the time out.
I know most Street Fighter purists would say this sucks because it’s not like Street Fighter. But then again if we are all mirror images of each other this would that be a good place to live in so maybe fighting games should be a mirror image of each other either. Celebrate the fact that Street Fighter is different from Mortal Kombat, both of which is different from Killer Instinct, and all are different from Eternal Champions. If every game was exactly the same, no one except one person would find the game that their number one at. If chess were the only game in existence and you suck at it then what point is there being a gamer. be glad you live in a time where there’s lots of bomb games because you could be the champ of something. That way everyone has a chance to stay in the spotlight for 15 minutes.