For me the fighters got to have realistic play mechanics, and MUST have a decent storyline.The above two things are what made games like Art Of Fighting 1, Fatal Fury 1,2 and Special so great.
As soon as Fatal Fury abandoned its storylines or just rehashed teh same crap about Geese, in my book the whole franchise went down the toilet.
As for games like ADK and Fatal Fury 3, women picking up 7 foot men, thats not realistic, and as for 20 hit combos, and you still cant knock out the foe, that simply sucks.
Thats what I liked about Art of fighting, the world heroes series,, Samurai Shodown 1-2, Kizuna Encounter, in those games every blow counted