Summary
In the past, fighting games didn’t need much.Karate ChampandThe Way of the Exploding Fistjust needed two karate guys throwing fists at each other.International Karate+got really daring and had three karate guys fighting at the same time! Then as the genre grew, identical gi-wearing guys doing flying kicks wasn’t enough.
They needed people from every background with more colorful designs. More fancy mechanics to use to one’s advantage. Then, they needed different martial arts to mix up their characters. Usually, they end up embellished a little for dramatic effect, with fireballs and gravity-defying combos. But others, while looking unusual, are as real as it gets.
7Savate
When people think of “martial arts,” they usually think of Asian fighting styles like karate, kung fu, etc. Since Bruce Lee popularized them in the 1970s, they’ve had an allure that’s made them more cinematic and flashier than their Western counterparts. But at least the latter doesn’t suffer from woo peddlers claiming that secretSavatemasters from the hills of Lyon know a pressure point that can kill a man instantly if it’s touched with the toes.
Dating back to the early 1800s, savate is a French martial art that’s close to kickboxing, except it doesn’t allow shin or knee strikes. Any contact kicks have to be done with the feet to count, which are donned with special boots (hence “savate”, meaning “shoe”). Remy fromStreet Fighter 3: Third Strikewas meant to be a practitioner, butTekken 7’sKatarina Alves’ movesare much closer to the real deal.
6Eskrima
Even with the leaning towards East Asia, the more famous styles tend to be from China and Japan, with Korea’s Tae Kwon Do and Thailand’s Muay Thai popping up sporadically. The Philippines technically has been represented byEskrima, aka Kali or Arnis. However, it seems to be less an individual art and more a term for multiple styles as its digital practitioners are very different from each other.
Eskrima is more famous for its weapons, as seen with twin-stick (rattan baston) users Eagle inStreet Fighterand Nightwing inInjustice.SoulCalibur’sTalim, an actual Filipina, skipped them in favor of bladed tonfas. While fellow pinay Josie Rizal fromT7used its unarmed techniques alongside Muay Thai.Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliancesomehowincluded it twice, calling Sonya’s armed variant “Kali” and Quan Chi’s unarmed one “Escrima.”
5Capoeira
First mentioned in 1789, but likely much older,Capoeirais one of the more interesting and athletic fighting styles around. It looks more like a dance battle, complete with handstands and its swaying ginga stance. Some say this was for slaves brought over from Angola to disguise its more self-defensive purposes. However, practitioners also use it for cultural and spiritual reasons.
It was a way of bringing people together and improving oneself physically and mentally, rather than just being a funky way to beat someone up. Ironically, it might makeSF3’s Elena a slightly more accurate depiction of the art than the more famous Eddy Gordo fromTekken 3as she canuse capoeira to heal herselfas well as do flip kicks.
4Zuiquan
With styles based on monkeys, snakes, and mantises,Zuiquan, or drunken boxing, doesn’t seem particularly unusual. Nearly every fighting game has hadone character or anotherpracticing it either as a stance (Tekken’sLei) or as a full fighting style (Virtua Fighter’sShun Di). Yet it almost feels unreal, like something made for movies or the Shaolin live shows. It doesn’t help that there are scant historical records of its development.
What’s available establishes it as a set practice in the 19th century, with the oldest ones dating back to the 1500s. Folklore says it was developed by separate Taoist and Buddhist communities from antiquity, the former based on the Eight Immortals as mentioned in theDrunken Mastermovie,and the latter practiced by Shaolin monks. The idea from both is that its drunken sways can trick opponents into its strikes, grapples, and locks.
3Yoga
DespiteSF2’sDhalsim using it in combat,Yogaisn’t a martial art. India does have a bunch, like gatka and the particularly old kallaripayattu. But yoga itself is more a form of physical and mental exercise for clearing one’s mind and training one’s body. It’s rather like the less aggressive parts of capoeira, right down to its spiritual roots as it began as part of Hindu, Jainist, and Buddhist practices before reaching gyms worldwide.
Nonetheless, yoga has played a part in the development of martial arts. The breathing exercises in karate and its precursors (e.g. Jin’s throaty exhales in hisTekkenwinposes) were said to descend from yoga exercises. Fighters today, be it in karate, MMA, or otherwise, still use it to aid their training and flexibility. Even if they can’tstretch like Dhalsim, it can help them move faster and withstand more punishment in the ring.
2Pankration
Like drunken boxing,Pankrationis technically ancient, dating back to the boxing/grappling style the Greeks used at the original Olympics. But there’s not much relation between the old sport and its modern equivalent. Ancient Pankration only had two rules: no biting or eye-gouging. Unless it was in Sparta, where nothing was barred.
Neo-Pankration disallows grounded strikes, slams, leg, and spine locks. Even punches and kicks to the head can be verboten depending on whether they’re using Elite rules (allowed) or Traditional (not allowed). With Marisa’s moves inSF6, it’s fair to say she’s an Elite fighter. WhileVF’s Jeffry keeps the ancient spirit alive by doing everything Neo-Pankration forbids but sticks to the Athenian rules barring eye pokes and bites.
1Bartitsu
The topic comes full circle withBartitsu, a martial art derived from Savate as well as boxing, judo, and various schools of jujitsu. It was developed by English engineer E.W. Barton-Wright in 1898 after he spent three years in Japan and thought he could produce “a complete form of self-defense.” However, the style all but disappeared by the 1910s, living on as a typo (“baritsu”) ina Sherlock Holmes story.
It got a revival a century later when the internetrediscovered its old guides showing how to defend oneself with a cane. It’s since lived on as an ironic style for people who truly want to fight like Victorian gentlemen.Mortal Kombat’s own drunken master Bo Rai Cho used it inMKX,whileSF6’s JP supplemented it with M.Bison’s Psycho Power.
