M.U.G.E.N. The Forever 2D Fighter

Last week I've talked about my love for 2D fighters and this week I've re-discovered the ultimate 2D fighter M.U.G.E.N.

My first exposure to M.U.G.E.N. was during my software engineering college years. I was sitting next to genius of a programmer who had created a game engine for top down shooters (A.K.A Bullet Hell). A lot of his free time was spent tweaking his game and what he ended up creating was quite impressive. Unsurprisingly, this man was also looking into other people's game engines and he's the one that introduced me to M.U.G.E.N.

M.U.G.E.N. is a easy to modify game engine for 2D fighters which many people have used to create their own fighting games. Looking online, you can find hundred of different games running on the engine some with a crazy amount of characters from across all fighting game franchises. My biggest problem with this engine is obviously the inconsistency in terms of ... well everything. The fighting isn't balance, the animation quality varies from character to character, the sound... mechanics... etc... it's just a mess but there's still fun to be had here just don't expect any fighters from the engine to be part of a tournament anytime soon.

WatchMojo has created a pretty good list of the best M.U.G.E.N. based fighters. Check it out here!