Everyone loves a good fighting game, from the days of the arcades in the '80s spent pumping quarters into machines attempting to look cool by pulling off the perfect Sub-Zero spine-rip fatality, to Smash Bros. tournaments in our modern-day (it's a brawler, not a fighter, note received). But one question remains, a question actually somehow slightly newer than Sub Zero or Scorpion, and that's... Which is better?

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2D fighters or the more recent 3D style? They both have their strengths and weaknesses for players both new and old, so let's attempt to put this question to rest. Just kidding, argue on. That is in the spirit of the genre we're discussing, isn't it?

10 2D: Restriction Breeds Creativity

One thing you'll see a lot of in modern fighting games is a really confusing amount of controls. You have rushes and chases and counters and breakers and 4 different bars underneath your player's name, so much is on screen at a time that it's easy to end up button-mashing.

When you can't just hit a different button on your controller to deal with anything your opponent might throw at you, you really have to look for a way to exploit the game's mechanics to take down your adversary, such as Killer Instinct's crazy 80-hit combos.

9 3D: More Versatility

Despite the parameters in 2D fighting games being stricter, this doesn't mean that 3D games are a cakewalk where everything is handed to you either. In the Dragonball games, there are tons of options available to you that you didn't have in the days of older 2D fighters.

You can hit enemies from afar with Kai blasts, chase after enemies after you knock them across the destructible, multi-stage environment. You can also do blitz combos that'll string together 30 hits at a time to make it impossible for your opponent to avoid your stun-lock.

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8 2D: Jump Spamming

Now, this entry probably won't make fighting game purists too happy, because of course, here, at The Gamer, we know that everyone hates a spammer. That being said, almost everyone got their start in fighting games with bunny-hopping, sweeps, uppercuts, and high punch stun-locks.

We aren't claiming so much that this is a legitimate way to play a fighting game so much as we're saying that sometimes, fighting games aren't always about having a fair fight.

7 3D: Flying

Now while we have the classic jump-spam in 2D fighting games, it's time to talk about its modern equivalent in 3D fighting games. You can fly now! You aren't just locked into jumping backward towards the far edge of the screen away from your opponents. You can instead fly to the furthest reaches of the map until your opponent decides they know what you're doing and is tired of you launching repeated ranged attacks at them, or you can hit them with a chase and destroy their health bar.

Oh, and sure, it does indeed add a new degree of verticality that breaks up the monotony of fighting on a single plane.

6 2D: Retro Graphics

One of the biggest things that 2D fighting games have going for them is the beautiful, nostalgic graphics, and the nostalgia factor, in general, it could be supposed. The nostalgia isn't purely rose-tinted glasses though. Some older fighting games like Street Fighter are actually quite timeless looking.

Then there's the always weird look of games that used actual videos of physical martial artists like Mortal Kombat which is umm. uh... Quite charming? There's not really a ton else that could be said for that. It's just kind of a weird decision and is a good example of video games from that era trying to do too much with too little.

5 3D: Envelope-pushing Graphics

Luckily when it comes to 3D fighting games, we don't have to worry about the Mortal Kombat problem. The art is pretty and gets much further from the Uncanny Valley territory previously mentioned.

Now, we have motion-capture technology and don't have to rely on sprites. There was a weird phase in the '90s and early 2000s though where the polygon count in pretty much every game was entirely too high, but let's leave that in the past. It's not their fault, it's just where tech was at the time.

4 2D: Smooth Mechanics

The mechanics in 2D fighting games aren't always smooth, especially when we consider the technology that was inside the consoles they were developed for, but also when we look at what was going on in the mechanics of the games, we see that the designers were working on something pretty intuitive.

The classic high punch/low punch high kick/low kick system served us well for years, and even after all of the modifications, we see that this system works today.

3 3D: Range Of Motion

The range of motion in 3D games must also be considered. While things did get more complicated in the jump from 2D to 3D, they also got more complicated, which in the case of fighting games can be a good thing.

There's more to do with more commands. We've gone from four buttons and directional controls to expansive levels in fighting games that cover multiple stages, combo-breakers that were realistically much needed at the start of the style, and plenty of other fun gimmicky stuff we've learned to love.

2 2D: Accessibility

2D fighting games provide a level of accessibility that 3D fighting games rarely have.

You can throw a 6-year-old and a 40-year-old who hasn't played in ages into a match of Street Fighter, the button mashing 6-year-old will give them a pretty good run for their money.

1 3D: A New Challenge

3D fighting games are a brand new open vista for people who feel they've mastered the 2D formula.

That doesn't mean that there's any specific thing to say that 3D requires more skill or finesse over 2D, but it does mean that when someone has hit a wall in their fighting game career, they can always pop in Ultimate Ninja Storm and feel like a beginner all over again.

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