One thing I can’t help but admire about fighting games is how well the genre uses moves and kinetics for characterisation: sure, not every game has a fantastic story attached to it, but that doesn’t mean a fighting game can’t have well-defined, unique characters, you know?
You don’t need hours of exposition to understand characters in fighting games. You just need to play as them, explore their moveset and the action itself becomes the way that you get to know a character. It’s way different than, say, getting to know Uncharted’s Nathan Drake — you spend the entire time shooting and climbing in that franchise, but his actual character isn’t really communicated through those actions. Meanwhile you can have a fighting game that’s light on the story and it doesn’t matter, you’ll still get to know a character — just not in the same way.
If a character is communicated through their moves, it should follow that a character’s supers or ultras — or the special ‘finishing moves’ one can perform, typically after filling up a meter of some sort — can sometimes perfectly encapsulate a character, even if they’re clones of each other. They might both be shotos, for example, but Ryu does a Hadoken, and Ken focuses on Shoryuken. They’re different!
I’m a big fan of one of Juri’s (from Street Fighter) ultras, which you can catch a snippet of in the GIF above — the way she’ll monstrously caress the enemy before smashing them into the ground. It’s evocative and kind of terrifying, and you don’t have to play through a story mode to understand that about her character. You might not be surprised to hear that she has another ultra where she gets an unnerving look in her eye and licks her lips before ripping into you — sounds like it might be in-tune with her character, right?
Granted, not every ultra is awesome…Street Fighter in particular can get kind of racist here:
Of course, Street Fighter isn’t the only game with finishing moves (it’s just the franchise I’m the most well-acquainted with) — they’re pretty common in fighting games! Who can forget the fatalities in Mortal Kombat, or the more recently introduced X-Ray moves?
God, that’s gruesome — but that’s also exactly why they’re awesome to do, yeah? Sure, ultras and supers do tons of damage and a good player will strategically unleash these moves to exploit that…but finishing moves/supers are also a so bombastic, so showy that they can also feel intimidating to your enemy, or like a taunt. That’s true even if the move doesn’t kill you. All this stuff put together make ultras and supers fascinating to me.
Anyway, I’d like to invite you to share your favourite supers/ultras/whatever they’re called in your fighting game of choice — let us know why you think they’re rad or special, and if you can, make sure to include video/GIFs so we can see them in action. I’ll leave you with the always-silly Mortal Kombat’s friendship and babality finishing moves, because I’d be remiss not to mention them:
Videos: AndriaSang, ZeroX03 Gaming – Fighting at its World’s Finest, oInFlamezo, RMPKenpachi, RajmanGamingHD
The Multiplayer is a weekly column that looks at how people crash into each other while playing games.
Comments
10 responses to “Show Us Your Favourite Fighting Game Ultras And Supers”
Man, Skullomania was my fav character in the ex games!
Yeah, Skullo was awesome, my main problem was I would always try and use that move at all costs, it was just too damned funny at the time.
^This.
Also Phoenix Wright: http://youtu.be/fCm8h0M4umM
Iron Man: http://youtu.be/wfljN-4vGYQ
Doom: http://youtu.be/e-BFxEmqAko
Magneto: http://youtu.be/xyZNIZo14a4
Spidey: http://youtu.be/y3-StC_EuPc
Even though Maximum Spider is as old as hell, I like the webbing version in UMvC3.
Rachel Alucard – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0-izwQTkL4
Valkenhayn (this is PSP footage. The console version is much better quality) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y50Y0Z8cpOE
I really like these finishers because these two characters are really posh and cultured but their finishers are so bad ass. I really like the contrast.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HApBsFMY7rE
Not enough Killer Instinct
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RshrT9qoaow enough said
Does anyone remember these on PS1?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZmiu5SOGEo
probably NSFW by the way.
I loved the ridiculous team attacks in Rival Schools on the PSX: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SoN9G_Iz54
It was an awesome game with an amusing and interesting storyline, it’s such a shame it never had much wide appeal.
PS. Wait for the last one in the video! 😉