This was the year fighting games shed its skin, and grew into something one could proudly proclaim as part of the next generation of the genre.

Granted, 2008 wasn’t exactly lackluster with the amount of fighters, either. For purposes of this article, I’d like to think that 2009 started when Street Fighter IV was released. Before then, you saw the likes of Melty Blood Actress Again, King of Fighters Orochi Collection, Fatal Fury Battle Archives Vol. 2, Arcana Heart, and Samurai Shodown Anthology. Shortly following the release of Street Fighter IV, you saw that tradition of “updated games” like King of Fighters 98 Ultimate Match and Guilty Gear Accent Core Plus ship out.

So it seems 2008 captured the niche audience, but 2009 revitalized the mainstream audience. One year, we had a few great fighters like Virtua Fighter 5 ver. C and Soul Calibur IV. Those games simply set the stage for the awesome titles that were released in 2009.

When Street Fighter IV came out last Winter, it took the gaming community by storm. It took what was great about the old, and mixed it in with a lot of new stuff. There were tournaments, contests, and all sorts of attention given to this game. It was like 1992 all over again.

Any gamer worth his salt was playing Street Fighter IV. Many games have communities that were dead six months after release. Even with these next games, this title still managed to go strong for the rest of the year with an update “Super Street Fighter IV” on the way next year.

For years, Arc System Works had been releasing updates to Guilty Gear XX.  When they lost the rights to use their characters quite some time ago, they had to create a brand new game. BlazBlue was the result of of incident.

While BlazBlue brought gamers a feeling of familiarity in regards to their Guilty Gear series, this game was more than a simple upgrade. This title brought an excellent online system into the mix, high definition graphics, a fleshed-out storyline, and incredibly unique characters.

It was largely different from Street Fighter IV, but it brought together that niche crowd from last year that was waiting for something ‘real’ and not just another upgrade. They were waiting for this, and it delivered.

One could argue that those were the only two games this year demanding any attention. King of Fighters XII was released a month later than BlazBlue, but lacked many features and had nearly unplayable online functionality. While I personally enjoyed it, King of Fighters XII tarnished the winning streak.

Several months later, Tekken 6 was released. The fifth iteration of this series was held in high regard, but the sequel took what everyone loved about the former and made it better. A lot better.

With a versatile story mode, diverse customizations, and  solid gameplay, Tekken 6 is worthy to be standing in line with Street Fighter IV and BlazBlue as one of this year’s savior’s of the genre. Not to say that the genre was necessarily dying from a popularity standpoint, inasmuch as fighting games appeared to be in a creative rut. In a year dominated by two great fighters, Tekken 6 was like a greedy child topping off at an ice cream shop.

These games collectively brought the fighting community out from hiding and into the public. This year, fighting games were made cool again.