what elements do i need code wise for a fighting game?
You will need something to detect keypresses, health, fighting ai? A good body collision to detect if a punch and dozens of animations like falling down standing up, jumping. And also camera wise how it follows the character.
ok where do i start? i already have a fighter with animations. where do i go from there?
i would say probably get the layout of how you want things to look, so as zine said camera angle and how you want it to follow the character/s
what code do i need for a health bar for the fighters?
I don’t think thats the most important part but you can look at other tutorials which teach about basic game and you can adapt from there.
Check out for a script that happens on collision with the opponent / object. If a certain key is pressed that triggers maybe a kick, then make it if the person presses maybe “space” for a kick it draws a certain amount of health. If you press maybe “CTRL” for a punch, make it draw less health maybe.
Health is variables that you can just define as integers, then you can do anything to make health appear, from showing these variables when you play in numbers, maybe 100 - 0, where 0 equals dead, KO, or something else. Or you can draw bars, common in beat 'em up games. There are some great GUI examples of drawing health on Google, along with scripts. Search and thy will find.
Good luck! 