Personal list 1) Soul Calibur 2) Marvel vs. Capcom 3) Killer Instinct 4) Street Fighter 5) Mortal Kombat I'd give honorable mention to Super Smash Bros, Bushido Blade, and now Hellish Quart but those games are kind of in their own category.
Very good take. I definitely agree with you on the fatalities, just wild seeing that when it first released in arcades. And agree with you on memories, I still remember the first time playing MK in arcade. I have a lot of fond memories playing SF2 but I can't recall playing/seeing it the first time like I can with MK. I'll probably still take SF between the two, but I am a fan of both.
Definitely agree, Soul Calibur is/was amazing! I haven't played it in forever but it was badass, especially on Dreamcast back in the day. I actually still have my Dreamcast and Soul Calibur packed up... hopefully it still works haha.
I remember that TMNT : Turtles in Time had a VS mode. You could only use one of the four turtles, but is was still fun. I'd use Donatello and bash people from far away with my bo staff. One of the first games I remember with a mini-game option.
You actually reminded me about a lot of memories playing it with friends/tournaments we'd have, and that I still had one packed away! The TV we played on back then wasn't as big as what everyone has now but it was a decent size for the time (32" Sony), sometimes we'd play on a projection like setup elsewhere. Regardless I miss the simpler times back then. Good times for sure! Thanks for sparking that memory again. I am pretty sure it was discussed on here at some point about how great SC was but it's great to be reminded about it, definitely one of my favorites.
You can get an emulator that connects to your TV with 20k games and controllers for under $50 on Amazon to relive your gaming youth (and see just how much your fast-twitch reflexes suck now )
Growing up there was a rich kid in our neighborhood who had a literal full-wall-projector TV in his living room. We hooked up Soul Calibur and had tournaments that ran practically 30 deep. I'd never seen anything like it. The Dreamcast was amazing for its time.
My housemate bought the dreamcast strictly because he could buy blank DVDs in bulk, write them off as a business expense, and download & burn every game there was. We had some seriously obscure weird stuff that was only available in like Turkmenistan and Malaysia. We also had free directv for about 5 years. All in all, he was a pretty solid dude to live with.
I bought my dreamcast on ebay from a dude who cleverly included like 100 illegally burned games without tripping over the ebay terms of service. Felt like a drug deal. Lol. My dorm roommate and I played the balls off of nba and nfl2k as well as virtua tennis.
Damn...memories. I so wish I still had all that stuff, there were like 3 CD binders full of games. The sports and fighting games were pretty much all I dabbled in. Virtua tennis was a blast
Bushido Blade! I had the demo for that and loved it. Never played the full game. Personally liked Street Fighter 2 over MK. I also liked Virtua Fighter but that was less popular at the arcade I went to. My hands also started hurting after a few rounds of playing that one.