Console Fighting Games of 1996 - Guardian Heroes

Guardian Heroes while not fully a fighting game, with the majority of your time spent in a side scrolling RPG beat em up, it does however have a 1v1 fighting mode.

Guardian Heroes was released exclusively on the Sega Saturn in Japan, US, Canada and UK in 1996, ports of the game would be re-released in 2011 and 2016 on the Xbox 360 and Xbox One respectively.