Mugen
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 Get ready for the biggest fighting experience yet, even with those who have never been actual fighters.
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Mugen (stylized as M.U.G.E.N, also written as MUGEN) is a fighting game engine developed and published by Elecbyte. It was initially released on July 27, 1999 for MS-DOS until May 2, 2001, before being ported to Linux on November 4, 2001 and then for Microsoft Windows on April 21, 2002. Its first and so far the latest stable release was released on January 18, 2011 as version 1.0, with its latest release being version 1.1 Beta 1 released on August 7, 2013.
Why It Perfoms Very High Combos
- About anybody can create any type of content for the engine, being either characters, stages, edits, patches and much more. Thanks to the massive amount of content being made for Mugen, you can find a good character, stage, edit or patch easily and have fun with them, or even go as far as to main them.
- The controls are very simple and easy to understand, and they can be configured in the settings. You have three punches, three kicks, a taunt option (which can be also used for something else, such as a power charge), and the basic keys to move around the stage.
- Mugen is not just a game engine, as if you put random content you like for it, it can become your own version exclusively for yourself, allowing you to have fun easily.
- Many great modes to spend time with, notably the survival mode, where you have to survive as much rounds as possible before being K.O.'d, although you do recover some Life when you win a match. The "Arcade" mode is basically a great single player, with some characters even having their own stories.
- Edits and patches are among one of the most well known and great content created for the engine.
- Edits are types of characters that were edited by different people. Some edits are made to fix some issues with characters, or just make them strong.
- Patches contain three well-known types - A.I. patches, balance patches and palette patches. Balance patches are good for making a character balanced (if they're unbalanced), A.I. patches can be used for characters that use Mugen's default A.I. that is easy to fight against, while palette patches are mainly made to fix issues with palettes, especially if they do not work properly in Mugen 1.0.
- Thanks to the content for Mugen being made by literally many people, it spawned various sites and forums that focus on mugen, such as the Mugen Fighters Guild or Mugen Free For All.
- While making characters for it can take a while to understand, coding various modes for Mugen characters, such as projectiles, basic attacks, and other stuff is easy. Additionally, you can also look up online for help if you don't understand something.
- If you modify the amount of character slots, you can have a massive amount of characters, either yours or someone else's. The amount of stages is also unlimited, so you can add as much as you want.
- Fighter Factory provides a great method of creating your own content for Mugen, and if you are skilled at it and know how to use it, you can make a character that can be so good, most people would use them for various stuff, either for fun battles or making Mugen battles and then sharing them on YouTube.
- The default A.I. for Mugen is very simple but easy to understand. Mugen's default A.I. randomly attacks and mostly moves around the stage and jumps, which makes the characters with the default A.I. easy to defeat. However, you can also code your own A.I. to make them easier, or just make them stronger by giving them a tougher A.I..
- Thanks to the massive amount of Mugen content being shared online, notably on YouTube and some various Mugen-related sites such as the MUGEN Database, Mugen Free For All or Mugen Fighters Guild, we wouldn't have amazing versions of characters like ShinRyoga & NeOaNkH's Mario, PotS/Phantom of the Server's Ryu, or Dragon Claw, an original creation by Reuben Kee. Not to mention, not a single copyright claim has been thrown at these versions, even if their download links were taken down, though they were reuploaded on other Mugen-related sites.
Qualities That Have Malware
- Not all types of characters made for the engine are great, as there are some bad of them.
- Spriteswaps are basically characters that are the same thing as their "bases", just with changed sprites and other stuff. However, some spriteswaps are actually very decent and play differently than their bases, such as some of the spriteswaps created in late 2000s by Warner and Shazzo.
- Paletteswaps are nothing but lazy edits that just change palettes and nothing else.
- Cheap characters are types of characters usually made due to poor programming that was unintentional. While some cheap characters are alright, some are not and are overpowered to the point it can make a player ragequit very easily. Fortunately, some cheap characters were intentionally made as joke characters and they are not meant to be taken seriously.
- Cheapies are arguably the worst, as they normally use a method to very effortlessly K.O. an opponent before the match could even start. Not to mention, some characters use the null overflow glitch, being Secretary-tier cheapies or even much more dangerous than that. The worst examples of cheapies are dragon-tier cheapies, which are actually malware and they can destroy your PC. Fortunately, a massive amount of cheapies have been banned at various Mugen-related sites and they are kept private. Additionally, most cheapies only work on WinMUGEN (also known as Mugen Beta), so you won't have to worry about that if you use either Mugen 1.0 and up.
- When you have a lot of characters and stages, loading times can take a long time.
- Due to Elecbyte's whereabouts being unknown as of 2016 and their website being offline as of 2013, you cannot access various tutorials they made for making Mugen content. Fortunately, there are a lot of fanmade tutorials online.
Reception
Mugen has received massively positive reviews from many reviewers and players. GamesRadar named Mugen as one of the "12 weirdest fighting games ever". In April 2017, Geek.com selected Mugen as the "Game of the Year for 2017". In December 2021, an article from Collider namely "Top 5 Greatest Crossover Fighting Games of All Time" briefly mentioned Mugen at Super Smash Bros. Ultimate section to compare the number of the characters that are on the roster.
Legacy
Mugen's popularity allowed many people to create their own characters for the engine, either from video games, TV series, or either their own original characters. The heavy amount of content for Mugen eventually allowed various Mugen-related sites such as the MUGEN Database, Mugen Free For All or Mugen Fighters Guild to be created, where pretty much any information involving Mugen content is present there. Thanks to Mugen's popularity, many YouTube videos involving Mugen are present, either being battles or even some stories.
Mugen's popularity and massive amount of content resulted in various Mugen icebergs being made, with plenty of them being discussed on YouTube.
Videos
Trivia
- "Mugen" (無限) means "infinite" in Japanese, although it is unknown what the Mugen engine's styllization ("M.U.G.E.N") means.
- Mugen originally was going to be a shooter game, before being changed to a fighting one when Elecbyte noticed that "there weren't any good commercial fighting games on the PC at the time". Additionally, Mugen was inspired by several games, such as SFIBM, an unlicensed PC port of Street Fighter II.