2D fighting games have been around for years. These videos were posted on OzHadou to help train the noobs in the basics of 2D fighting games.
A 2D fighting game is like Street Fighter where you can only go across or up/down. It's not the graphics, but the plane on where the fighters are. A 3D fighting game would be Tekken/VirtuaFighter/Soul Calibur.
I'd suggest gamers to have a view of them even if you're remotely interested in 2D fighting games. It's geared for Street Fighter 4, but the basics apply to pretty much every 2D game out there.