Playing Fighting Games For The Story

I like Tekken. I like the fighting, i like the music, I like the plot and characters.

It's not the greatest story ever but hey it's enjoyable for me.

But just try to talk about the story with some of the more...enthusiastic (being polite here) fans who play it competitively or whatever. In fact just try to bring up the story of a lot of popular fighting games.

Odds are you're gonna get insulted or laughed at. An example that always sticks with me was when I was on another forum talking about how Asuka is an insult to Jun. Responses tended to be "big deal. They have the same moveset. Nothing else matters."

Have any of you encountered this kind of attitude? Do you play any fighting games because you also enjoy the narrative?

edited 21st Mar '12 7:18:20 PM by Nikkolas

I like the story on Blaz Blue. And probably Mortal Kombat, though I sort of lost interest after Deadly Alliance.

Not the narrative (although I usually like it, and more often than not, it's extratextual anyway), but the characters. I love fighting games because they include so many different characters for you to play as.

I'll just say that I do not play fighting games for the story, but the competitive and deep play.

With that in mind, I would not mind a fighting game with a good story, but if the story is lacking, I am not going to inherently knock it for that, unless that story is really forced into the play. If I wanted a deep or good story, I would play an RPG, or something else.

As a rule I like the gameplay first and the story second, but the degree to which that is varies from game to game. I'd say I care most about the story in Mortal Kombat, if only because characters can actually die there. Tekken is my second favorite because there's an action/spy movie quality to it that I think is really cool. Street Fighter is way, way at the bottom.

I think to enjoy the stories I have to acknowledge that they're going to be pretty goofy most of the time.

I should probably note that I'm not especially good at fighting games, and tend to enjoy single-player experiences more than multiplayer.

I wish there was more emphasis to the story, like with Mortal Kombat (2011), in more fighting games. They're usually so weird that it makes them interesting.

Same for me. I'm competent enough (barely) to beat a fair number of them but I'm far from an expert. Nor do I really want to be an expert. I like playing through just the single player story mode.

edited 21st Mar '12 7:31:18 PM by Nikkolas

For fighting games gameplay definitely comes first, but a good story can definitely enhance the experience. MK 9 and Blazblue come to mind.

You find that kind of attitude with any game that gets lots of competitive play. I remember back when I used to play Doom, Heretic, Warcraft II and Starcraft online. Any time I discussed the plots and narratives, people were like "who gives a shit."

It also annoys me about a lot of oldschool reviewers like AVGN who totally don't even care about a game's story. Maybe I'm the exception here, but I LOVE to know a game's story, even if it doesn't have much of one.

Yes, I do play fighters for their plot sometimes. In fact its the main reason I kept playing Art Of Fighting to the very end.

What Vertigo said. The fighting aspect comes first (and by that, I mean both in terms of gameplay mechanics and a bevy of options for both single and multiplayer experiences) but a deep story doesn't hurt; it can help enrich the quality of the products. That's one of the qualms about SCV; Project Soul might've well not bothered all the information detailed on the character bios on the main website and elsewhere because 85% percent of it ended as either an Aborted Arc or All There in the Manual. A shame, seeing how much potential the story had.

I like fighting games for the characters, not the story.

I'll be fine with a nonsensical excuse plot as long as the characters are interesting.

Great coincidence!

I've been wanting to play the AOF games. Did you play Art of Fighting Anthology? I have been wondering if it comes with manuals or booklets that explain the story and characters. or is all that said in the game? (I'm thinking of Tekken 1, 2 and 3 here where you only really learn anything about why this is all going down from the manuals)

One area SNK totally stomped Capcom in was with the stories of their games.

edited 21st Mar '12 9:30:39 PM by Nikkolas

That too. I would place the characters above the story as well, but if you have a good story, no need to squander it either.

I definitely play fighting games for the story. I have no interest in high-level competitive play at all, nor the obnoxious SHFG attitudes it tends to foster (fester?).

Except, obviously, for Mortal Kombat, which I play to kill people in physically impossible ways.

edited 21st Mar '12 9:30:53 PM by MasterInferno

This, this, a thousand times this. I don't even feel the need to expand on that, since it covers my opinion quite well as it is.

It's nice for a fighting game to have a story, but I view it as ultimately superfluous to what a makes a fighting game good.

I don't play fighting games for story. I usually play them to blow raspberries at my friends everytime i dominate, and or get dominated by them

Ah, Dissidia...

...I still want to play that one.

But yeah, interesting characters in a fighting game is win.

The only fighting games I play for the story are Blazblue and occasionally Mortal Kombat. Everything else doesn't really have a story worth giving two rips about.

Like others here, I play fighting games for the gameplay, but having awesome characters can also make or break the experience for me. I'll always love Blaz Blue, Guilty Gear, and a lot of SNK's output because of it.

A good story is always a nice touch in a fighting game. Plus, I've found that fighting games with a great stories have a greater change to be good games as well, as story is one of those secondary details that show that the designers cared about everything. Not that great stories necessarily equal good game.

I'd have to say my favorite fighting game story is Mortal Kombat. Soul Calibur used to be on that list, but even though I still like its story I've kind of realized how stagnant most of it is. Street Fighter would be on the list if they ever put the story (which is actually quite decent) in the games themselves.

I did kind of like Guilty Gear's story, it was quirky but the characters had their own fairly engaging plots, goals and characterizations. It might be the same for Blaz Blue, but I can't stand that game long enough to find out - from the little I've seen it seems a bit more archetypical than as nuanced as Guilty Gear is, but again I haven't seen that much.

There are people besides me who sit through the story cutscenes?

Personally I find myself playing more and more games for the story and characters lately, and that's true for fighting games. One thing that attracted me to Mortal Kombat, Guilty Gear and Blaz Blue was how each character had personality written all over them, even in their simplest animations in GG and BB's case, whilst Street Fighter... as much as I love the cast (most of them in a nostalgic way), they didn't have as much flair to me as other characters did.

That's my two cents.