Editing Fighting game (section)

===Mainstream success (early 1990s)===
The release of ''[[Street Fighter II]]'' in 1991 is considered a revolutionary moment in the fighting game genre. [[Yoshiki Okamoto]]'s team developed the most accurate joystick and button scanning [[Subroutine|routine]] in the genre thus far.{{Citation needed|date=August 2023}} This allowed players to reliably execute multi-button special moves, which had previously required an element of luck. The graphics took advantage of Capcom's [[CP System|CPS arcade chipset]], with highly detailed characters and [[level (video games)|stages]]. Whereas previous games allowed players to combat a variety of computer-controlled fighters, ''Street Fighter II'' allowed players to play against each other. The popularity of ''Street Fighter II'' surprised the gaming industry, as arcade owners bought more machines to keep up with demand.<ref name="sfhistory" /> ''Street Fighter II'' was also responsible for popularizing the [[combo (video gaming)|combo]] mechanic, which came about when skilled players learned that they could combine several attacks that left no time for the opponent to recover if they timed them correctly.<ref name="1up_1">{{cite web|url=http://www.1up.com/features/essential-50-street-fighter-ii |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120720141819/http://www.1up.com/features/essential-50-street-fighter-ii |url-status=dead |archive-date=July 20, 2012 |title=The Essential 50 Part 32: Street Fighter II |work=1Up.com }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://top100.ign.com/2007/ign_top_game_24.html |title=The Top 100 Games of All Time! |author=IGN staff |year=2007 |work=IGN.com |access-date=June 16, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110830043153/http://top100.ign.com/2007/ign_top_game_24.html |archive-date=August 30, 2011 |url-status=dead  }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.1up.com/features/street-fighter-ii-things-you-did-not-know |archive-url=https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20110401182730/http://www.1up.com/features/street-fighter-ii-things-you-did-not-know |url-status=dead |archive-date=April 1, 2011 |title=20 Things You Didn't Know About Street Fighter II |date=March 30, 2011 |work=1UP.com |access-date=June 16, 2011 }}</ref> Its success led to fighting games becoming the dominant genre in the arcade game industry of the early 1990s,<ref>{{citation|title=Insert Coin Here: Getting a Fighting Chance|author=Jay Carter|magazine=[[Electronic Games]]|date=July 1993|issue=10|url=https://archive.org/stream/Electronic-Games-1993-07/Electronic%20Games%201993-07#page/n15/mode/2up|access-date=December 16, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160402180521/https://archive.org/stream/Electronic-Games-1993-07/Electronic%20Games%201993-07#page/n15/mode/2up|archive-date=April 2, 2016|url-status=live}}</ref> which led to a resurgence of the arcade game industry.<ref name="usgamer">{{cite web|title=Top 10 Biggest Grossing Arcade Games|website=[[US Gamer]]|url=http://www.usgamer.net/articles/top-10-biggest-grossing-arcade-games-of-all-time|access-date=January 25, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131231034753/http://www.usgamer.net/articles/top-10-biggest-grossing-arcade-games-of-all-time|archive-date=December 31, 2013|url-status=live}}</ref> The popularity of ''Street Fighter II'' led it to be released for home game consoles and becoming the defining template for fighting games.<ref name="sfhistory" /><ref name = "segahistory" />

SNK released ''[[Fatal Fury: King of Fighters|Fatal Fury]]'' shortly after ''Street Fighter II'' in 1991. It was designed by Takashi Nishiyama, the creator of the original ''Street Fighter'', which it was envisioned as a spiritual successor to.<ref name="1up_leone">{{cite web|title=The Man Who Created Street Fighter|url=http://www.1up.com/features/the-man-who-created-street-fighter|last=Leone|first=Matt|website=[[1UP.com]]|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://archive.today/20120718180754/http://www.1up.com/features/the-man-who-created-street-fighter|archive-date=July 18, 2012|access-date=December 19, 2011}}</ref> ''Fatal Fury'' placed more emphasis on storytelling and the timing of special moves,<ref name="1up_leone"/> and added a two-plane system where characters could step into the foreground or background. Meanwhile, Sega experimented with ''[[Dark Edge (arcade game)|Dark Edge]]'', an early attempt at a 3D fighting game where characters could move in all directions. However, Sega never released the game outside Japan because it felt that "unrestrained" 3D fighting games were unenjoyable.<ref name = "segahistory" /> Sega also attempted to introduce [[Holography|holographic]] [[Stereoscopy|3D]] technology to the genre with ''[[Holosseum]]'' in 1992, though it was unsuccessful.<ref>{{cite web|last=Blagdon|first=Jeff|title=Sega's 'Time Traveler' might have changed arcade games, if it wasn't for Street Fighter II|url=https://www.theverge.com/2012/5/2/2993327/time-traveler-sega-holographic-game|work=[[The Verge (website)|The Verge]]|access-date=May 24, 2012|date=May 2, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120604084413/http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/2/2993327/time-traveler-sega-holographic-game|archive-date=June 4, 2012|url-status=live}}</ref> Several fighting games achieved commercial success, including SNK's ''[[Art of Fighting]]'' and ''[[Samurai Shodown]]'' as well as Sega's ''[[Eternal Champions]]''. Nevertheless, ''Street Fighter II'' remained the most popular,<ref name = "segahistory" /> spawning a ''Champion Edition'' that improved game balance and allowed players to use boss characters that were unselectable in the previous version.<ref name="sfhistory" />

Chicago's [[Midway Games]] achieved unprecedented notoriety when they released ''[[Mortal Kombat (1992 video game)|Mortal Kombat]]'' in 1992. The game featured digital characters drawn from real actors, numerous secrets,<ref name = "segahistory" /><ref name="mortalmonday">{{cite web|title=Monday Bloody Monday|url=http://www.1up.com/features/monday-bloody-monday|publisher=1up|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160612034315/http://www.1up.com/features/monday-bloody-monday|archive-date=June 12, 2016|access-date=April 29, 2009}}</ref> and "[[Fatality (Mortal Kombat)|Fatality]]" finishing maneuvers in which the player's character kills their opponent. The game earned a reputation for its gratuitous violence,<ref name = "mortalmonday" /> and was adapted for home game consoles.<ref name = "segahistory" /> The home version of ''Mortal Kombat'' was released on September 13, 1993, a day promoted as "Mortal Monday". The advertising resulted in line-ups to purchase the game and a subsequent backlash from politicians concerned about the game's violence.<ref name = "mortalmonday" /> The ''Mortal Kombat'' franchise would achieve iconic status similar to that of ''Street Fighter'' with several sequels as well as movies, television series, and extensive merchandising.<ref name="MK3" /><ref>{{cite web |author1=O'Neill, Cliff |author2=Greeson, Jeff |url=http://uk.gamespot.com/gamespot/features/video/hist_mortalk/index.html |title=History of Mortal Kombat |website=GameSpot |date=November 1, 1999 |access-date=January 12, 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070322180222/http://uk.gamespot.com/gamespot/features/video/hist_mortalk/index.html |archive-date=March 22, 2007 }}</ref> Numerous other game developers tried to imitate ''Street Fighter II'' and ''Mortal Kombat''{{'s}} financial success with similar games, including [[Rare (company)|Rare]] Software with ''[[Killer Instinct (1994 video game)|Killer Instinct]]'', a game that featured unprecedentedly detailed pre-rendered 3D graphics and vastly improved on the core concept of combos, presenting a way faster gameplay than most other games of that era, specific combo-breaker maneuvers, and the "Ultra", a series of combined finishing moves surpassing the number of 20 hits. Many of the games of that period were low budget clones of the more popular games, and in some cases this led to controversy; in 1994, Capcom USA took unsuccessful legal action against Data East over the 1993 arcade game ''[[Fighter's History]]'', which supposedly plagiarized ''Street Fighter 2''.<ref name="essential50" /> Data East's largest objection in court was that their 1984 arcade game ''Karate Champ'' was the true originator of the competitive fighting game genre, which predated the original ''Street Fighter'' by three years,<ref>{{cite book|date=December 30, 1994|title=[[Gamest]]|volume=134}}</ref> but the reason the case was decided against Capcom was that the copied elements were [[scènes à faire]] and thus excluded from copyright.<ref>''Capcom U.S.A. Inc. v. Data East Corp.'' 1994 WL 1751482 (N.D. Cal. 1994). [http://www.patentarcade.com/2005/08/case-capcom-v-data-east-nd-cal-1994-c.html Analysis at Patent Arcade] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100713140945/http://www.patentarcade.com/2005/08/case-capcom-v-data-east-nd-cal-1994-c.html |date=July 13, 2010 }} accessed June 18, 2009.</ref>