In any fighting game — whether it be competitive, arena, party, or whatever — that has different selectable characters with unique abilities, there will always be an inevitable best in the game. If each fighter on the roster isn’t exactly the same, then it’s natural that there will be at least one character at the end of the day who is better than everyone else, even if by the slightest margin.
We have talked a lot about top tiers in the competitive fighting games we know and love a ton over the years, but how about those that exist in some of the less competitive titles? A new video from content creator Bumbles McFumbles takes a deep dive into the “silliest” top tiers to ever exist, and based on some of the games they appear in, there’s a good chance you never knew about most of them.
McFumbles starts by fully acknowledging the top tiers in mainstay competitive fighting game franchises like Street Fighter, Tekken, King of Fighters, and the like. But the video quickly veers off into discussing the games that aren’t as competitive, but still have very clear (and in some cases extremely broken) top tiers in them.
There are some absolute deep cuts in this video, and a handful of games that I’ve never even heard of, but this deep dive ends up being a very interesting watch.
Before there was Sparking Zero, there was its predecessor Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3, and as McFumbles explains this title had and still has a surprisingly large scene that does actually play it as competitively as it can be played. We learn about the top tiers in this game, which includes usual suspects such as Perfect Cell, Broly, Gogeta, and more, but there’s one in particular that is actually so wild when you really put them into context.
Apparently, Super Trunks in Tenkaichi 3 is almost a useless character in nearly every regard on the competitive front. However, he has a single saving grace that actually leads to him being used quite a bit at high levels.
Because Super Trunks is a super transformation, he begins each battle with an extra bar of energy meter (3 instead of 2), and it is for this reason that he ends up being top tier. The strategy basically sees Super Trunks selected to start with the extra bar, then he transforms down into regular Trunks — who is actually one of the best characters in the game — and now you have this version of Trunks with a whole extra bar of meter to start making him even better.
There are some other really interesting characters and games discussed here, such as Shrek Super Slam, which is an arena style fighter that has mechanics reminiscent of the Super Smash Bros. series and some surprisingly intricate and complex maneuvers and abilities in it.
You can check out the full video of the silliest top tiers in fighting games below.