Genre: 3D Fighting Games

You never forget your first 3D fighting game. If we’re talking arcades, it was obviously Sega’s Virtua Fighter for me. But on the home consoles, the first time I saw the original Battle Arena Toshinden running I knew the PlayStation was going to be something special. Since those first moments with the machine, the library blossomed into one of the most sought after in the world.

Entire legacies spanning multiple console generations started on PlayStation, including conversions of Tekken, Soul Blade (now Soul Caliber), Bloody Roar, and more. Developers Capcom and Namco kept raising the bar for home conversions by adding in new modes, new characters, and plenty of unlockable items. Even Square Soft got into the act with Bushido Blade, an open world, one-hit-kill that is still breathtaking in its originality and play style.

Folks might be surprised by some titles on here, like Beyblade, Monster Rancher, and Dragon Seeds. In sorting the genres, I looked at what a game’s core focus was. Despite their back end role-playing game elements, or even some of them using menus rather than controller motions to move a character, the core game play mechanic was still fighting one-on-one – even if it were just using spinning tops. They’re just coming at it from a different mechanic.