The Dragon Ball Z Super
Dragon Ball Z Super Butouden Goku’s Spirit Bomb: 15 seconds
Games based on anime tend to favor fanservice and authenticity over super-technical gameplay, and perhaps that love for theatrics is seeping into today’s traditional fighters. Even back in the Super Nintendo days, Dragon Ball Z titles tried to mimic the extended energy gathering required to perform trademark techniques like the Spirit Bomb.
Dragon Ball Z Ultimate Battle 22: Master Roshi’s Mafuba:
9.1 seconds
This fighter is unique in that there was a secondary purpose to supers: Not only did they damage the in-game character, but they also made your real-life opponent nauseous through awkward animation and spinning backgrounds. Harnessing the mindblowing power of the original PlayStation, Master Roshi uses the demon-sealing Mafuba technique on his opponents, and it looks just like it did in the show!
DragonBall Z Budokai 3: Cell’s Spirit Bomb: 38. 4 seconds
The PlayStation 2’s graphical power finally freed creators from the constraints of toning down techniques to accommodate the hardware, and Budokai developer Dimps threw the stopwatch away when creating planet-shattering attacks. Considering that Dimps has later played a major role in creating Street Fighter IV and Street Fighter X Tekken — which have influenced today’s fighting games as a whole — we can probably thank this game for the current minimovies that are the modern fighting game supercombo.