Super Combos are fun. Ever since Art of Fighting and Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo, they’ve provided players with a handy risk & reward system. If they hit, they give players a flashy way to rack up the damage on their opponent. But if they whiff, they’ll leave themselves open to a pummeling.
However, they’re not all equal. Some super moves are terrible for one reason or another. Maybe they require too much setup to use, do pitiful amounts of damage, or are just fundamentally broken. No joke supers like Dan’s Super Taunt either. These are the worst super combos in fighting games that developers thought would be useful.
10 Death Bed
Traditionally, super combos had slightly trickier commands than the standard fireballs, spin kicks and the like. The Injustice games eased up on this by making their supers available with a single button press a la Super Smash Bros. Except for some characters, they weren’t worth the meter they cost.
Scarecrow’s Death Bed in Injustice 2 has the fear-obsessed maniac rip open reality and pull the opponent into his realm of despair for some nasty damage. Shame it was so slow that players couldn't really combo into it, and opponents could easily jump out of its range. Dr. Crane's meter was better off being spent on Meter Burn moves.
9 Konga Beat
Speaking of Super Smash Bros. after initially planning them for the game’s debut outing, Nintendo managed to make Final Smashes a reality in Super Smash Bros Brawl. Still, for every flashy, effective, or even overpowered example, there were some that were too situational. For example, Jigglypuff slowly turning into a kaiju wasn’t too effective on giant stages. But at least it had some places where it was good.
Donkey Kong’s Konga Beat had players hit buttons to make the Banana Slammer’s bongo beats deadly. The problem is that he had to be in point-blank range to hurt his foes, making it easy to avoid on all stages. It also had no visual clue for when to hit the buttons until Super Smash Bros for Wii U/3DS, and without proper timing its beats were even more useless. Without a keen ear or a tight space, it was a waste of a Smash Ball.
8 Hadō Kakusei
Not every super move is a canned autocombo or boosted-up fireball attack. Some are “install supers”, where they power up the character with one perk or another. These can be broken in the positive sense, like Yun’s Genei Jin in Street Fighter 3, or broken in the literal piece of junk sense, like Ryu’s Hadō Kakusei.
In Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3, this move boosted Ryu's offense. It made his Shinku Hadōken reflect off the stage walls and turn his kick super into a tornado. The move also drained Ryu's health and lasted for 6 seconds at best. Players were better off comboing into his regular supers than fitting this power "boost" into their play.
7 Dragon Install
Still, it could be worse. Dragon Install used to be a risky install super for Sol Badguy players that boosted his offense at the cost of a long cooldown. For lore reasons, Guilty Gear Strive took this super away from him and gave it to his goody-goody rival Ky Kiske instead, where it got worse.
Ky can only do it when he’s at 30% health or less, where it can mess up his standard combos, and reduces his meter gain by nearly 90%! Millia’s Winger, Axl’s Timestop, and Faust’s Bone Crushing Excitement have problems of their own like lackluster damage and combo opportunity. But at least they didn't nerf their characters afterward like Ky's move.
6 Fatal Mutation
Out of all the Tyrant variants, Resident Evil 3’s Nemesis is perhaps the most famous one. Or at least that was Capcom thought when they added him to Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3. He’s the traditional slow, lumbering fighter that hits hard up close. But he has a few long-range moves to threaten opponents playing keep-away. This doesn’t include his Level 3 super Fatal Mutation.
Its mid-range tentacles look like something players could combo into. But nope. It’s a grab super that requires them to be up close and personal with the opponent. Except it’s so slow that they can jump away from it as soon as it activates. It's a high cost super with more negatives than positives.
5 Unmei no Ya
The King of Fighters series has seen its share of gimmicky supers, or “Desperation Moves” in its near-30 year run. Some are intentional jokes, like Kensou’s EX Meat Bun super healing less than the regular version because he chokes on a bun too big for his gullet. Others are unintentional, like Orochi Shermie’s Unmei no Ya from King of Fighters 2002.
It looks cool when it connects, as she summons a lightning bolt to strike her foe. But it’s a Hidden Super Desperation Move (HSDM), which requires players to have 30% or less health and 3 super meter levels. Its hit spark is as easy to whiff as it is for opponents to dodge. Then there’s a good chance it’ll hurt Shermie as well as (or instead of) her opponent.
4 X.C.O.P.Y
The problem with Twelve, one of Street Fighter 3: Third Strike’s new characters, is that his moves do as much damage as an insult from a 5-yr old. He’s so low tier that people joke that his third Super Art, X.C.O.P.Y, is actually his best move because it lets him turn into much better characters. It's still a joke though as it's actually terrible.
Twelve’s Copy Form can’t do supers or EX moves because it replaces his bar with a timer. He still takes more damage in Copy form than the real deals. Even worse, it has a long cooldown once it runs out, where Twelve takes even more damage than usual. Characters like Akuma can one-shot him with their most powerful supers in this form.
3 Sardine Beach Special
Rainbow Mika was no more subtle in her debut than she was in Street Fighter 5. She was still shoving her butt into people’s faces in Street Fighter Alpha 3. Only she was doing it from the bottom of the tier list as she was one of the worst characters in the game.
For example, her Sardine Beach Special saw her run towards her foe, then do whatever follow-up the player could choose. Moonsaults, spinning headscissors, etc. While creative, it wasn't effective at all. Even if players knew exactly which button did what, they all did much less damage overall than her other supers. Supers she didn’t have access to if players picked X-ISM.
2 Giant Swing
Final Fight has had its fate tied up with Street Fighter since the original game, where it was almost called Street Fighter ’89. Still, Capcom did try to keep the series as its own thing in the 1990s. Final Fight Revenge was an attempt to put the Final Fighters into their own 3D brawler that combined Street Fighter-style gameplay with beat ‘em up-style weapons and pickups. It wasn’t very good, and had some lame supers.
For example, Mike Haggar’s Giant Swing would see the Mayor of Metro City piledrive his foe through the earth in an animation that makes that much less cool than it sounds. But it was a counter super that only worked against jumping kicks. It was too specific to be useful to any degree beyond fighting someone with broken punch buttons and a d-pad/stick that could only move up.
1 Blue Nocturne
Twelve may arguably be Third Strike’s worst character, but he doesn’t have its worst Super Art. That would be Remy’s Blue Nocturne. Capcom’s French Iori clone with Guile’s moves and Sagat’s functions would beat his foes up with an autocombo before flip-kicking them away. Sounds simple enough. The issue is that it’s a counter super, meaning he has to be hit first for it to activate.
It has a super flash beforehand, basically telling opponents when to stop to leave Remy one super level down. The move didn’t lock the opponent in place like other counter supers either. So, even if they set it off, they could block, parry, or get around Remy's attacks anyway. Dan may be Capcom’s premier SNK mock character, but Remy and his Blue Nocturne are the true punchline.