Guilty Gear Strive is setting a new gold standard for online play and has reinvigorated my love for fighting games.

Hey I’m as surprised as you are! Not just because Dragon Ball FighterZ is still going strong, but also because the next character being added to its roster isn’t another variant of the worst dad ever, Goku. Instead, it’s a villain from the mostly-forgettable follow-up to Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball GT’s Baby. Or to be more precise according to the recent V-Jump magazine scan that leaked early, it’s Super Baby 2.

EA’s UFC series has done alright for itself over the years, pioneering the digital pugilism of the Ultimate Fighting Championship across multiple games. It’s nowhere near as good as wrasslin’ mind you, due to it having a distinct lack of Five-Star shooting presses, story angles about undead wild west morticians looking to keep their winning streak alive at an annual showdown and a complete disregard for abandoning the rules so that people can see three stages of hell Armageddon matches. Nice gloves, wimp.

Fly Punch Boom is the fighting game love letter to epic anime showdowns that you want to love, but its flawed execution and hyper-active QTE combat derails all the charm that this brawler brings to the table.

Fisticuffs! Glorious competition, settled on a stage between two individuals who are ready to put everything on the line to see who’s the best. In many ways, fighting games are the essence of competition boiled to its purest form and unleashed with all manner of face-melting techniques that favour the skilled. 2019 may not have been bursting at the seams with fighting games, but what entries there were in this cult favourite genre were some of the best excuses ever to throw down a gauntlet and pick a fight online.

Over in the world of Samurai Shodown, things are a little bit different. Sure the game has a broad selection of characters who all pack a universal wallop in their weapons, but at the highest level possible there’s a small number of favourite characters who stand out. And that’s just the way that Samurai Shodown director Nobuyuki Kuroki likes it.

After Dragon Ball FighterZ and a production hand in the rather spiffy Kill La Kill IF, Arc System Works deserves to slather a few tubs of butter all over itself because this company is clearly on a roll. HAW. The future look bright, their games are the cream of the crop within digital fisticuffs circles and the sky is the limit. So what’s their next project then? A return to their roots, with a brand new Guilty Gear.

Dynamic and dangerous, there’s no other fighting game like Samurai Shodown on the market. After a decade away, this latest chapter proves that idea once again with the sharpest swordsmanship combat around that manages to unleash a barrage of modern cuts while still retaining the magic of the original game.