I think its safe to say that 2009 is shaping up to be a very good year to be a gamer. We’ve already heard of some great triple-A titles headed this way. For gamers like me who are fighting game fanatics, this year is even more exciting. First was Street Fighter IV. SNK Playmore recently announced King of Fighters XII for the States, and Arc System Works announced a summer release of the drop dead gorgeous BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger. These titles represent what I hope will be the re-birth of the fighting game genre.

In celebration of this, I thought that it might be a cool idea–over the next months–to periodically highlight on the blog and review sections some of the great games in the fighting genre that some of you may not have ever heard of, or played before. Some of the titles are niche, and most require a Japanese (or modded system) in order to play them. You’ll probably wonder why you should even care about some of these games. To that, all I can say is, you never know what might strike your fancy, and you never know what might be coming stateside–i.e. Arcana Heart. Besides, in this Halo/L4D/Killzone/COD4 gaming world, what could a little variety hurt, right?

In the next couple of days, I’ll post a blog on how I was introduced to some of these great Japanese games from my past, and the systems that got me going. I hope you enjoy.