Ranking ALMOST ALL the Fighting Game Movies & Anime!
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#mattmcmuscles #tierlist #fightinggames
ok but to be totally fair the "it was just tuesday" line from street fighter is a COLD line i love it
"Who are you?"
"You killed my brother!"
"Do you have the slightest idea how little that narrows it down?"
Whenever Raul Julia's not on screen, all the other characters should be asking, "Where's Raul Julia?"
Even when Matt is making a tier list video, he just can't seem to get away from "I have seen the amateur and it is YOU!" 😅
One thing about Tekken Bloodline that i do adore, is that it gave Paul a lot of respect, which kind of blew my mind considering how much of a goofy character he's become.
Street Fighter, Darkstalkers... even Power Stone had animes. But not Rival Schools, though. The game's intro is all anime style, but that's just it. Even the "secret" endings received the anime style treatment.
Same with Bloody Roar: Primal Fury. That game got anime intro and endings but no actual animated series outside its game.
@@VOAN Oh yeah, I forgot about that one. Man, I miss Bloody Roar..
Same thing with Tech Romancer, I'd love to see an anime adaptation of that game, I mean it would be a mecha show in which each of the main characters homages a different kind of mecha series like Mazinger Z, Getter Robo, Gundam, Macross, Evangelion, etc
@@pablocasas5906 I haven't played that game for years. Capcom has lots of cool IPs, yet they remain locked inside their vault, collecting nothing but dust. It's sad, depressing.
Was there even a Guilty Gear anime? It seems like a no-brainer for one to exist, but...
I'm noticing a suspicious lack of Blazblue: Alter Memory on the tier list
I've got a real soft spot for that one. Condenses the plot super-hard, but it's what got me into Blazblue in the first place.
Dang you beat me to it
It's better off ignored, sadly
Didn't even know this existed, to be honest. Was it ever brought over officially?
@@flophouseplays yes funimation dubbed it
Even got the game cast
If only Legend of Chun Li kept some of the cast.... We could nickname it Street Fighter: Annihilation
Fun fact: Fei Long was voiced by Bryan Cranston in the street fighter animated movie.
Thank God you did terrible in that report card in 1997.
I love the fact there’s enough of these to fill up a tier list .
Street Fighter: The animated Movie had no right being as good as it ended up being. Brilliantly choreographed fight scenes and cheesy storyline intertwined to make it the definitive fighting game anime. Surprised it came under God Tier with it being the finest movie on the list
not enough people mention the fact that Bryan Cranston is in it
“Not bad or was it just luck?” 😏
Obari Cinematic Universe should be top tier all the time.
Seeing Studio G1 return for KOF XV was epic. I honestly wished it was a film. The opening animation is awesome
His entire filmography is nuts. The Obariverse deserves a litltle respect.
_Toshinden_ was literally my childhood. 😆
SF V is underrated that Guile bar fight with Ken and Ryu was 🔥
I would have liked an adaptation of Killer Instinct. I feel it's a fighting game series that could be fan to adapt to another medium. I could see it as the plot device of all the characters going through an Ultratech tower and the fighting happening organically as a sort of weapon test exercise. Even the marketing could play on showing assets for the movie like it were Ultratech showcasing their products to a buyer.
I would have LOVED that.
I am just glad you love the Fatal Fury trilogy so much. I feel too many haven't seen it and know how great they are, especially the motion picture, with that great ending theme.
Yeah, i even watched Netorare Fighter Yaricchingu! Fatal Fury's bootleg version lmao
I've only ever seen the motion picture, as it was the only one for rent at blockbuster, but I grew up loving it.
@@jmarx3943 Fatal Fury TMP was low key great for getting into Anime. I was lucky enough that my first experiences with it was Fatal Fury, Berserk, Basilisk, and oddly enough... Love Hina. Good mixture of stuff to get a feel for it.
"Is Mass Suicide Tasty?" Remains a running joke between me and my friends in our bloody 40's now.
I LOVED the latest live action Mortal Kombat movie. It came out during the pandemic and it's what made me subscribe to HBO Max because I had been wanting a new MK movie for years. Going back and rewatching, it definitely doesn't have that magic it had when I first viewed it, but it came out during the perfect time and was still a super fun movie.
Street Fighter: Assassin’s Fist has a remake of Alpha Generations squeezed in its middle except they actually made it good.
"It's Cheesy, it's Schlocky" IT'S DEAD OR ALIVE, the one with the BOOBIES!!
Missing the Variable Geo and Psychic Force OAVs.
Maybe for next time. There are so many rare and tough to find titles. They are not on everyone's radar
Yeah Psychic Force is mad overlooked and im shocked it even got an adaptation. Pretty underrated game especially the sequel 2012 on Sega Dreamcast
I haven't looked super deeply, but I've listened to quite a lot of Triple KO podcast episodes and done a little bit of searching on this channel; and I'm starting to be convinced that he just doesn't know that Psychic Force exists
Omg Variable Geoooo that was pretty decent
This is by far the best tier list video I've ever seen
You missed one rather obscure part of Samurai Shodown animation, the Nakoruru OAV. It was pretty weird as kind of a post-game story with Nakoruru having PTSD, and it was never even finished.
Obviously the Street Fighter and Fatal Fury animated movies reign supreme and the rest basically don't even matter. Not a whole lot of quality in this genre.
@@ColeVecsion it's an adaptation of her Visual Novel nakoruru ano hito kara no okurimono
@@ColeVecsion Yeah, it is a tie-in to that game if I'm not mistaken.
One obscure "fighting game" (i say that in air quotes because it has really odd mechanics) that really should be adapted into an anime is Evil Zone.
When I was four years old, Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins was the hypest video ever. It's cool 3D animation just like Beast Wars! It's like a movie of your cool snes game! All the stars are here!
Obviously it's just as awesome when I go back and check it out for nostalgia now, definitely, for sure.
Thw darkstalkers animated series needs to be godlike bad, its so funny, it has dumn recurring jokes like "attractive fishman" victor has a butler and THE harnold appears to threaten lord raptor.
The animations errors are so frequent too, the animators put Felicia's tail inside her ass like 3 times for no reason
Have a big soft spot for the Alpha movie, it has a bunch of flaws, but the style is so great, it has the DBZ Broly and Saint Seiya director, which has a very unique feel to his works.
MK Legacy... Matt Mullins was so good as Johnny Cage. I was sad he got replaced in season 2, and didn't bring him back for the upcoming MK2 film
Loved that dude in Kamen Rider Dragon Knight and thought he was perfect as a younger Cage! So sad to hear he got replaced.
Love seeing you doing a tier list of this. Thanks Matt!
I always enjoyed the first MK flim (special place in my heart), followed by SF 2, MK (2021), MK Legends: Scorpion, Battle of the Relams, Snowblind, Tekken Bloodlines, SF IV & Super SF IV OVA, SF assassin fist, Fatal Fury motion picture, Blazblue, MK Legacy and KOF Destiny.
I also agree with your list Matt some of them are very impressive.
OOOh a very fresh Matt-video!
There are so many of those that I have not seen or haven't knew they existed. I agree with most of this tier list though.
I like to see you do a tier list of non-fighting game film and TV adaptations of video games.
Surprised you didn't review the sfv live action short. Had the same team that worked on SF legends & assassin's fist
Chun Li vs Vega is the best fight scene in any film, ever. TSF2V the series was wonderful. The original Mortal Kombat film is the soundtrack to my life!
Lui kang vs reptile clears it because it’s real
I always thought DoA movie was pretty good. I mean hot chicks, tongue in cheek, good action and Eric Roberts - everything I want
I always believed that the animators may have thought that Andy and terry looked too much alike?
Or moreso Andy and Geese
@@Island_Ninja blue was an interesting choice
I remember the MK webshow pre-Lui Kang stuff was solid and there were retcons from that point forward; the Scorpion Subzero backstory is one of the best live action adaption of them yet.
I will die on the hill that "MK: Annihilation" is not as bad as everyone seems to think it is. It took some liberties (Shao/Raiden/Shinnok family + hamster balls)....but it stuck as close to MK3's story as they could, which was a terrible story to begin with, and added as many MK3 things as they could shove in (animalities, Sheeva/cyber ninjas, etc.) I've rewatched it more times than MK original since I find it to be extremely cheesy "turn off your brain" fun. MK took itself quite seriously so the change to Annihilation is stark, but if you look at differently, it's almost as funny as the SF2 American cartoon series.
Seriously, Sonya/Mileena have a mud wrestling match for no reason other than fan service (weren't they just in the desert?)...only for Sonya to shower/change into the exact same outfit in the very next scene. And Raiden went to talk to the Elder Gods and they wouldn't help (of course) but they did give him a haircut for free, that's hilarious. Also...no one ever mentions it but it did the MK 2011 reboot game ending (Elder Gods finally step in because Shao broke the rules) WAY before Ed Boon thought of it.
I'm 100% not saying it's a "good movie" by any stretch....but I find it way more watchable than a few things above it. My bottom tier adaptation is "SF Legend of Chun Li", no idea what they were going for with that one and it's not even fun to watch if you take out the SF references. Take out the MK references and Annihilation is prime MST3K material when it comes to silly action movies.
The game explicitly tells how Shao Kahn was able to circumvent the MK rules to merge Earthrealm into Outworld (it was literally a backup plan in case they lost the winning streak, by having his queen reincarnated in Earthrealm he can step in and reclaim her). Annihilation never bothers explaining anything, the invasion starts just because, deal with it, and this after the first movie explicitly telling that he cannot merge the realms without the win streak in the tournament.
@@MagmaMKII Tbf, the movie did have Raiden have a line where he explains to them early on that Shao Khan was able to merge the realms by resurrecting Sindel. The reason Elder Gods stepped in wasn't because Shao broke the rules. It's because Shinnok did (by interfering as an Elder God).
Two things regarding the sf2 animated movie and its live action counterpart:
1) Fei Long was voiced by good ol Heisenberg (Bryan Cranston). And speaking of soundtracks...
2) the soundtrack to the live action movie was dope as well. They had songs from Ice Cube, Nas, Hammer, Ahmad ("Back in the Day"), Rass Kass, and more. Highly overlooked.
Street Fighter II the Animated Movie is the greatest video game movie of all time 👊🏾
So much 90's nostalgia.👍🏾
Sweet Sunday list. Love these man!
We're missing Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer, an OVA adaptation of one of SNK's lesser known fighters and animated by Masami Ohbari.
Hey, Matt McMuscles. You should definitely rank all of the Sonic the Hedgehog games, movies, and TV shows (and a anime, because Sonic X). Would you mind doing that, pretty please?
Man, you clipped that bit in the Fatal Fury movie where the guy gets the bullet in the forehead. That part traumatized me as a kid back in the 90s!
I'm GRATEFUL you bought up SF V!! I haven't seen the whole series in years but it use to near impossible to finding back when DVDs were a thing. I'm going to watch the whole series right now!
At around 12:20 in is the best stage music in any street fighter game!
Let’s also not forget Johnny Cage’s recycled backward-walk cycle they reused like a dozen times in the boat fight in the MK Journey Begins .
Matt, how could you forget the classic Neo-Geo fighting game turned into an Obari OVA, "Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer"! This is pure Godlike Material (the lower one)! The localization has the "amazing" features the voice talent of Apollo Smile, the live-action anime girl in all her glorious talent! The character designs are pure Obari for not only the women, but the men too (seriously, check out the glorious man-bra on Hellstinger)! Full of high-energy fight scenes and plot that will make you say "what the hell is going on?"! And don't forget the squicky twincest subplot!
(in all seriousness, it's not good, but it's so 90's anime, so Obari, and so dumb it's almost charming and I kinda love it despite its many MANY faults))
I literally cosplayed as Terry bogard a couple days ago at a convention, so I love your thumbnail. Fatal Fury: The Motion Picture was one of my first exposures to anime and how I discovered my love of fighting games. I think this list is VERY accurate, except I think the KOF Destiny should be moved up at least one click, as I will never see it again, but it did not burn my mouth like its Garbage neighbors.
Yeah same on Fatal Fury being one of my introductions to anime and fighting games. Its weird to think how uncommon it was to have anime outside of Japan back in the day
Absolutely adore seeing these lists from ya Matt, to hell with how greasy it is!
Potential list topic ideas for you
-Capcom Beat-Em-Ups
-Every Silent Hill game (Ya did RE, why not give the OTHER huge name in survival horror some love?)
-Mega Man games. All of them. There's a LOT. I'm a Mega Man guy, you're a Mega Man guy, c'moooooon Matt give us starving Mega Man fans some content in celebration of the Exoprimal and Street Fighter 6 Mega Man content
-Mortal Kombat Karacters (LOVE seeing peoples takes on these guys, and you already did the Tekken roster, LET'S DO MK BABYYYYY!)
-Soul Calibur Roster (The OTHER fighting game I obsess over, which I'd love to see get a list)
Thank you for recognizing how interesting a MK universe would be if Kano was ever given too much power.
I haven’t watched the list yet, but the Street Fighter II movie was so amazing to me. I haven’t watched it in years but I used to love it so much.
Scorpion's Revenge - 10/10 - Fantastic animation. Had a smile on my face the whole time while watching it. Yeah, Scorpion's design could be better but I don't have a problem with the story. I just see it as the MK1 story, but from's Scorpion's perspective.
Battle of the Realms - 9.6/10 - Almost as good as the first one. In some regards, it's "Scorpion's Revenge", but on steroids.
Snow Blind - 8.2/10 - A little weird and I wish it was more about Sub-Zero, but still fairly entertaining.
Cage Match - 8.2/10 - it has its charm, especially if you like '80s stuff
There was one thing about Street Fighter the Animated Movie that always bugged me. There are no scenes, unless I somehow missed it, of M. BIson doing a Psycho Crusher. Which was odd, because Street Fighter II V had him doing it. Sure it took a bit of spinning in place for like half a minute to do it, but he did it.
The first Fatal Fury OVA gave us Bye Bye My Love, one of the greatest insert songs in a fighting game anime, ever.
To the first live action Street Fighter movie's credit it at least
TRIED to feel like the games. Legend of Chun Li did not!
Not enough fights
As someone that also loves the Fatal Fury movies I really think you need to rewatch SF II V again. I consider that up there at least Master level. The quirky ness, the music, the eastern philosophy, the bromance with Ryu and Ken. The redemption from getting their ass kicked from Guile. I mean they came up with chakra before Naruto was even out even Avatar. Highly underrated imo and should be revisited.
16:19 I bought the Street Fighter cartoon, I'm watching through it again, and it's definitely in that "so bad it's good territory." People look like they should (though finding the errors is really fun) and I actually like the voice acting. The Ocean Group (the same who did Mega Man and the first Dragon Ball Z) didn't do a bad job. The first Piccolo does Blanka for corn sake, I love it! I remember liking when they did the Final Fight crossover when I saw it on TV, so I'm looking forward to seeing if there are truly good bits in it.
Holy cow, I own the Fatal Fury blu-rays and I never even thought to check if they had a commentary, let alone guess that Matt McMuscles was on it. I'll definitely have to check that out when I have the time.
39:26 Did Hasbro copyright some Gi Joe cartoon footage? Or did someone forget to put the Street Fighter movie clip here?
My child brain had mandela effect'ed the hotel fight in the SF movie with the one in the Tekken movie, and when I rewatched SF as an adult I was so confused why Stabbing Westward didn't play during Chun Li's big fight. Like, to the point of disappointment. It wasn't until a few years ago that I remembered the Tekken movie existed and finally laid that ghost in my head to rest.
If someone wants a good and funny review of the Mortal Kombat series, the youtuber Phelan Porteous has a great review of all the episodes.
Always wondered how that Kitana - Liu Kang fight ended. It just cuts. I'd think they're being made to fight to the death like everyone else on that island.
Good choice to do tier list
These tier lists are perfect for dish washing. Thank you so much Mr. Skeleton Man
I agree 100% with Matt on MK Cage Match. It tires to hard to be shocking, but everything around that is pretty good. Kind of weird that the best stuff in a Johnny Cage movie is all of the Johnny-less stuff. I hope that WB keeps doing these animated movies as well.
Street Fighter 2 V was sick. Deserved to be up one higher in the ranking.
tbh I totally forgot Akuma was even in the Alpha movie
I'd also put it at the tier you did just bc I like all the new characters they made for it
Fighting Game Adaptations these Days are always going to mostly have a lot of Misses,
But for me personally, my few Favorites will always be a few of the MK Adaptations like the 1st Live Action and Scorpions Revenge, also the SF2 and Alpha Generations Animes,
All the Fatal Fury Animes like the 2 OVAs and the Motion Picture I like them Equally, even the 2 Tekken Animes are still worth Watching as well.
The fact that we never got a rival schools anime is criminal
Oh hey i never hear criticisms of the sf2 animated movie, im glad i share your opinion on it
Wha- Huh?! I was a *massive* MK fan in the mid-90s, and I have never even HEARD of MK: Conquest. That was a thing?!
Overall quite a solid ranking. There's a good few of these on the list I haven't seen before, like Power Stone, most of the SNK OVAs or Assassin's Fist.
For my money, MK '95 and Street Fighter II are the undisputed kings. The third Fatal Fury movie was stellar, and DOA was much better than I had expected. I also really liked the 2021 MK movie and the Legends cartoons, even with Battle for the Realms being three movies crammed into one. Tekken Blood Vengeance was my first foray into into that series, and I still have a soft spot for it. It was funny as hell seeing the OC thinking he could fight Heihachi and immediately getting stomped for it.
On the other hand, MK Annihilation was the movie that taught me at an early age that sequels can suck. KOF was irredeemably painful, and the live-action Tekken butchered Kazuya something fierce. Street Fighter The Movie... I can't say it's good, but by God is it entertaining. Truly, it defies conventional rating.
Fml. That amateur section. We deserve better fellow anime/fighting game lovers.
Hidden gems in those episodes? Guile versus Young Ryu
18:23 Okay that is stupid, but in this movie's defense, that's apparently really a japanese proverbs if not a actual (mistakenly) commonly held adage. because i hear characters saying that in Japanese medias ALL THE TIME.
Finally someone puts some respekt on the Fatal Fury animation trilogy's name
Surprisingly, I really enjoy the Alpha movie, but mostly for the absolutely awesome Akuma scene in Japanese. He's barely even in the movie, but he's so much more badass because of that scene. The framing choices for Chun-Li are... uh... very of the time, let me just put it that way. Very fanservicey in a bizarre way. 😆
A bit of trivia: The guy who played Sagat in VanDamme's _Street Fighter_ is Wes Studi. He's done films like that and _Mystery Men,_ but has also done absolutely legendary roles like his villain role as Magua in _Last of the Mohicans,_ which was fucking awesome, and a ton of other movies and TV. It's just so wild to see someone with such character in these weird ass movies I grew up with as a kid. 😆
Daaamn. Daniel Bernhardt is a legend, too! That guy's done a ton of martial arts films (the Bloodsport sequels, The Matrix sequels, the John Wick films, Logan, Fast & Furious, Cap: Civil War) - he really gets around and is very well-known if you're familiar with martial arts in cinema.
This has become my new big "autism brain demands watching this on repeat" video, thank you!
A missed opportunity not having a Bio F.R.E.A.K.S movie adaptation with Kevin Nash as Mutilator
You covered stuff like SF Assassin's Fist, but not the one where RYU IS A POWER RANGER?
????
@flophouseplays it was a short film as an official collab for the Power Rangers mobile game, Legacy Wars. Tommy hands Ryu a morpher, they morph and fight Bison and (I think) Rita
I'm still waiting for my Mortal kombat the Movie the game.
So many adaptations, so little time
No Psychic Force OVAs ??
The was an original dub of the SF OVA on VHS that didn’t have Korn or AIC. IMO, it was the superior dub.
That sounds made up.
That sounds like the *inferior version* 🙄
after watching love,death and robots i gained more appreciation for Ikof another day especially the rock and terry story where less is said but action convey emotion.
If you're willing, I would definitely enjoy a combined Fighting Game Theater review on Street Fighter IV's The Ties That Bind and Juri OVAs. For what it's worth, as someone who is more engrossed in SF lore than is probably warranted, I actually appreciated how the former felt more introspective and character-focused, rather than putting all of its emphasis on the action (which in turn helped lend more weight to its two main fight scenes, underwhelming as they may have been compared to those of the SFII animated movie and latter OVA).
Not that I didn't have issues with its actual storytelling, mind you. Particularly how cruel and flat-out evil C. Viper comes across as compared to her portrayal in SFIV proper (to which TTTB is intended as a canonical prequel), which in turn makes the OVA’s attempt to portray her sympathetically through her relationship with Lauren fall flat in my opinion. By contrast, Juri's OVA generally plays her nature as a villain for all it’s worth and doesn’t expect her to be viewed as anything else, the closest to an exception being Chun-Li’s exposition on what turned her into one.
I still can't believe the Rain actor in Mortal Kombat Annhilation was a black guy in white face
Tyrone Wiggins.
In my opinion, missed opportunity to call "God-Like Bad"... Devil-Like... as the opposite of God-Like S-Tier GOOD
Loved me some early fatal fury anime’s. Some very quotable lines in em…. Remember, fighting only leaves you with emptiness!
nice was wondering where you were gonna put assassin's fist, caught it randomly somewhere and was super surprised
I personally have nostalgia for both the tekken ova and tekken bloodvengence.
I say you give Conquest another go. A friend and I watched it all (which probably helped, because we just had a laugh), and objectively speaking, there is some really good choreography in the some of the later fights that I remember to this day. You'll just have to ignore some questionable design choices like Gimp Saibot...
If nothing else, remind yourself of the Cobalt Mines and the intro/ending theme. Top notch 90's techno!
Was Darkstalkers great no, but i developed a huge crush on Felicia from the show. Remember watching this before school in the mid-90s.
A fun sequel to this video would be to take this list and then rank fighting game story modes into it.
I mean, not like the Hyper Fighting "story" but rather things like the NRS story modes and other games that really try for that sort of cinematic presentation.
We all dunk on these bad adaptations. But how do the games actually compare? Where would the MKX or Tekken 7 story modes rank compared to some of these adaptations?
I was hoping to see memories of stray wolves there since Matt is a big Fatal Fury fan, but at the same time i dont know if that even can be considerate a short film😅
Am i the only one who remembers the Street fighter V2 and it having maybe the best depiction of Guile in any medium yet?
I remember liking some parts of the street fighter v series. Mostly some of the later fights (vega/ken, chun/guile).
It had its moments.
Kristiana Loken played as Taija= Ta-sh-sha i believe its pronounced Matt. i liked her character n i think it be interesting if she made a comeback if done right w/ Loken reprising her role with both her voice n likeness idk coulda be sometin
I never understood when Bison chokes out Chun-li in SF2 why he suddenly regains his sanity and freaks out like he is distraught that he hurt her. I never understood why he would have given a sh*t. I remember him looking like he was about to scream NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! or something. Also 'THIS BOY NOT TOO BLIGHT TO BE SLEEPING ON BEACH! WHAT IF BIG WAVE COME AND MAKE HIM BE WET?!'
I own a VHS copy of Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins, and of all the straight-to-VHS animated promotional tie-ins featuring early poor 3D animation, this is the one.
All they had to do with Cole Young in MK2021 was have Scorpion possess his body on some YuGiOh shit and that would've elevated his character alot.