The cheapest characters in fighting games right now
Granblue's Belial probably would have been top of my list prior to the nerfs
Getting salty over 'cheap' characters in fighting games is a tale as old as time, and there always will be members of the cast who will catch the ire of players for one reason or another.
Since everyone likes to complain from time to time, let's take a closer look at the cheapest / most annoying characters to do battle with right now around the fighting game genre.
Characters are typically labeled as cheap if they contain one or more of the following perceived criteria (though the answers will vary a bit depending on who you ask): They have a strong high-low mixup game, fast normals or reversals that easily interrupt pressure, really good frame traps, better than average damage output, better than average combo conversions and / or ways to consistently negate or armor through their opponent's attacks.
Another important and common aspect of being cheap is if they are Noob / new player killers, who are forced to learn the match up and counters if they want to stand any chance against an actual person. Some may also place them in the ever-growing "gorilla" category.
We're not going to go into every single fighting game available right now, so we'll be focusing mostly on the likes of Street Fighter 5: Champion Edition, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Guilty Gear Strive, Dragon Ball FighterZ and Tekken 7.
Let's start with a brawler who's been sending everyone to the salt mines for longer than most others we'll be going over. Also I should point out that while this list could come off as too negative, it's all in lighthearted fun.
Abigail (Street Fighter 5)
Abigail is a legitimate monster who I presume has driven some people to quite playing SF5 after running into Mad Gear's giant bruiser.
The first few times you fight an Abigail player, you're almost assured to eat his sweep again and again because its animation looks more like an overhead than it does a multi-hitting low that also Crush Counters.
Even when you block the sweep, he can still just roll in and activate V-Trigger, which are way more cheap than just the kick.
V-Trigger 2 is sure to catch people shooting across the screen with nearly unbeatable armor that will catch you in the air trying to jump over when he changes the charge time on the move.
That's not even to mention Abby's guard break attacks, command grab and fact that he can cover his approach better with his V-Skill tire.
Honorable mentions - Cammy: Her approach hasn't really changed much over the past five years, but it might still be among the very best in the game with multiple lower risk options even after her nerfs.
Akuma: His combo conversions and options are easily still the best in SF5, and he'll probably have you saying 'why can't my character do stuff like that' on multiple occasions.
Sephiroth (Super Smash Bros. Ultimate)
As someone who's currently been maining Sephiroth since his release, I can confirm that Sephiroth is pretty cheap, especially in Smash Ultimate's online environment.
The Final Fantasy villain's seven-foot-long sword covers so much screen real estate and is difficult to punish unless they're using forward or up Smash attacks all the time.
Sephiroth's Shadow Flare special helps him set up one of the simplest touch of death combos in the game (even starting from 0%) due to the fact that when the opponent tries to block the fireballs, he can force a shield break almost immediately with down Smash.
From there, all he has to do is charge Gigaflare and then hit a forward Smash right after the explosion and bam, KO'd in seconds.
Sephiroth is the character I've felt who gets the easiest KOs out of everyone I've played.
Honorable mentions - Min Min: Her crazy, all-encompassing range along with the ability to use Smash attacks in the air makes her dang hard to approach against or try and grab the ledge.
Steve: If you fight a good player, have fun dealing with setups like this.
May, Leo and Chipp (Guilty Gear Strive)
This one is toss up because of how new the game is but also how much blazing BS there is spread out among the cast.
That being said, however, there's three character's I'd put on top of that list though I could go down to five or six right now.
May is the lightning rod of hate and memes in Guilty Gear Strive because her Mr. Dolphin charges can feel impossible to escape from once pushed into the corner thanks in large part to the heavy slash version being +5 on block.
Even if you do escape, her jumping heavy slash will cover the skies and put you back where you were. You'll be hearing Totsugeki in your dreams for a while afterwards.
Once Chipp lands a knockdown on you, prepare to guess though it won't help much if you don't know how to block or escape his attacks
His low-grab-reversal mix is one you're going to need to specifically lab against otherwise you're just dead.
Pretty much the same thing with Leo except up the gorilla meter to max once the back turns and run throughs start coming out. (Learn to throw him out of that second one I beg of you).
Honorable mentions - Potemkin: I don't know if I've ever been as fearful of a grappler, but I can't even really get mad because his grabs look so good.
Sol: See Akuma.
Akuma (Tekken 7)
Akuma is pretty much as busted in Tekken 7 as his is in pretty much all Street Fighter games, except at least in those titles the other characters have comparable attack options.
The vengeful demon's ability to do real jump in combos (that can allow him to do so again in the middle of a string) is more of a game changer than you'd think.
While his fireballs aren't as bad, the Tatsumaki and uppercut are pretty good, especially when combined with probably his wildest aspect of using Focus Attack Dash Cancels (FADC) off of them.
It's odd to know that Akuma privilege exists outside of Capcom games.
Gotenks (Dragon Ball FighterZ)
The fused Super Saiyan sure acts like he's two characters in one considering he can combo you from wall to wall without the need for assists while doing lengthy strings that build him a lot of meter.
Similarly, Gotenks can set up his own Oki with his kamikaze ghost super that locks you down and covers the screen in explosions that make it almost impossible to see for a second or two, which is all the time he needs to mix you the hell up.
It just feels like he can pretty much do anything from anywhere.
Honorable mentions - Ultra Instinct Goku: See the above paragraph.
Super Saiyan 4 Gogeta: He's not really a problem, but the ability to one-hit KO with his leveled-up super is the exact type of move that's going to cause a salt overflow when it hits.
That's all we have time for today, but let us know in the comments who you don't want to see pop up on the character select screen right now as well as the cheapest characters you can remember from the past.
One thing we can probably all agree on, however, is that most of the cheapest characters in today's fighting games don't really hold a candle to those from 20–25 years ago.
