Fighting game

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The fighting game genre of video game involves combat between multiple characters. Fighting game combat often features mechanics such as blocking, grappling, counter-attacking, and chaining attacks together into "combos". Characters generally engage hand-to-hand combat, often with martial arts. The fighting game genre is distinctly related to the beat 'em up genre, which pits many computer-controlled enemies against one or more player characters.

Battles are usually set in a fixed-size arena along a two-dimensional plane, restricting the characters' movement. Characters can navigate this plane horizontally by walking or dashing, and vertically by jumping. Some games allow limited movement in 3D space, such as Tekken.

The first video game to feature fist fighting is Heavyweight Champ (1976),^[1] but Karate Champ (1984) actually features the one-on-one fighting game genre instead of a sports game in arcades. Yie Ar Kung-Fu was released later that year with various fighting styles and introduced health meters, and The Way of the Exploding Fist (1985) further popularized the genre on home systems. In 1987, Capcom's Street Fighter introduced special attacks, and in 1991, its highly successful sequel Street Fighter II refined and popularized many genre conventions, including combos. Fighting games subsequently became the preeminent genre for video gaming in the early to mid-1990s, particularly in arcades. This period spawned dozens of other popular fighting games, including franchises like Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Super Smash Bros., and Tekken.