Playing Fighting Games For The Story

The only reasons I particularly like Street Fighter are because of the animated movies and the animated series

edited 21st Mar '12 11:21:04 PM by NULLcHiLD27

A lot of MK story fans here which is very surprising.

I mean, I always followed it but in the same way I follow Resident Evil's story. "Don't really think about it, just play it."

MK 9's story was good for the most part except it horribly clashed with everything established in the old continuity. (even stuff it shouldn't since the time travel didn't change everything) That bugged me since I had followed the Mk canon so closely.

This, pretty much. That's also one of the reasons why I always preferred SNK over Capcom fighters (although I liked to play them more in general).

People aren't as awful as the internet makes them out to be.

@Nikkolas

Art Of Fighting is one of the few fighters where the majority of the story is in-game, though the Ahtology manual does explain it (and can actually be quite spoiler-y, might I add).

Yeah, one thing (out of many) I hate about Tekken is how all the endings are just FM Vs that don't really explain shit. The manuals are more fun to read than the games are to play (Kazuya collects sneakers? WTF?)

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Well starting with Tekken 4 there were Prologues to every character's story mode so you really got everything you needed to know about the game's plot and their place in it from that.

But thanks for the info on AOF. I'll pick it up.

Touhou fighting games. that is all.

(the second one even makes ALL the storylines canon! And there's a storyline for each character in the game.)

If only the same thing could be said of Hisoutensoku. Five new characters, but three stories? That's just wrong. At least Okuu should have one too.

People aren't as awful as the internet makes them out to be.

Is it okay to appreciate both? I'm not gonna keep playing a good game with a mediocre story and vice versa. The two can be great for complimenting each other.

For instance, Emilie De Rochefort from Tekken first caught her blood-lust for fighting after being kidnapped as a child. She defeated one of her captors and basically fought like hell until she was rescued. Normally this wouldn't have any value from a gameplay stand-point, but just watching how she jams her heel into the opponent's neck juxtaposed with her attempts to make her "street-fighting gymnastics" look graceful shows both how deeply haughty and yet sadistic she is. Her story has a level of importance to her gameplay.

The story is the main reason I played Guilty Gear Accent Core Plus. In the end, it wasn't as good as the previous games, but at least it had Crow. I quite enjoyed Guilty Gear XX's story, or more accurately, its story mode. The interactions between the characters are a joy, and the various effects it has on the battles, as well as the different things you can do in the battles to change the story path are fun.

Helpful Scripts and Stylesheets here.

Mishima, Mishima, Phoenix Mishima, Mishima, Mishima. Deal with Devil, Rampaging Devil, Ogre vs Devil, New Devil, Newer Devil, Fallen Angel(and two devils). I think that's the real reason people are dismissive when someone is enthusiastic about Tekken's plot.

Sure, do your thing. I suppose King and Eddy's developments are somewhat interesting, just don't expect them to move along quickly or be treated with much significance. I suppose the whole evil family fighting for control of the world is somewhat unique, but they've done the same tournament six times now. Bad Guy Wins is a little different but why is it always the same bad guys? When are the Williams or Bryan Fury gonna win a tournament(never)? Unknown was different, but then there wasn't there, just a frustrating boss who is definitely not Jun.

Modified Ura-nage, Torture Rack

I think that's a really bad simplification of each gme's plot.

The plot of Tekken 1: Heihachi's son returns and avenges himself upon his father.

Tekken 2: The Hero Kazuya is in fact far more evil than his father. While Heihachi returns and defeats his son, the story is more about Kazuya's last shred of humanity being spent on the wholly pure Jun Kazama. She sensed something within him and this peculiar sensation drew them together for a fated night.

Tekken 3: Jin Kazama is born, the hybrid of light and dark. When his mother goes missing he seeks out his grandfather who decides to use him as a means to lure out the evil deity Ogre. Jin defeats Ogre but is betrayed by Heihachi. He survives anyway by his Devil powers activating and flees.

Tekken 4: Jin, now riddled with hatred for his treacherous and evil bloodline, seeks to stamp them all out once and for all. Kazauya is resurrected through technology (sure why not) and he tries to fully unleash the evil within his son. Jin resists through his mother's lasting pure influence and spares both his father and grandfather.

And after that the story sucks and no one cares.

Those are indeed the main plots of each game but each game also has some nice subplots. I particularly loved the intertwining storylines in Tekken 4 between Nina, Steve and Lei. You get to see the full ending only by unlocking all of them and piecing them together. Nina's character gets a lot more fleshed out when she discovers Steve is her son and cannot bring herself to kill him.

As for why Bryan Fury or whatever doesn't win the tournament, presumably because he's just not a very interesting characters. he's cool, don't get me wrong, but psycho cyborgs can't really run a plot like Tekken's.

edited 22nd Mar '12 2:04:10 PM by Nikkolas

I think Tekken 6's plot was a pretty cool idea. The story mode is apparently not very good, but the idea of Jin gaining control of the Zaibatsu, and being just as bad as his father and grandfather, for different reasons, is an interesting one.

I agree. It was interesting and I wish it had been done better.

The King of Fighters always offered a more complex story than its direct rival at the time, Street Fighter.

Sadly, SNK went bankrupt, Playmore took over and the games lost its plot driven touch ever since, XIII is trying to bring the heat back, but only XIV can settle in stone if the story is moving again.

edited 22nd Mar '12 4:18:24 PM by Goukenimaru

Ugh the NEST Saga. Granted, it gave us some real badasses and of some of the series' most memorable designs, but it also had the worst story of the 3 main arcs.

edited 22nd Mar '12 4:06:28 PM by VertigoHigh

Mmm. The only fighting games I've ever played were Blazblue CT, Tekken 6, Soul Calibur II and Smash Brothers Brawl (if that counts). Blazblue was the only game that had any plot appeal for me, and I had to look up half of it outside of gameplay.

Quite honestly, it takes a of effort to justify a bunch of people repeatedly beating the crap out of each other for next to no reason. To me, fighting games are just one of those things where you just throw away any attempt to justify the plot and enjoy the intended appeals.

Granted, I like games that give their characters well-developed backgrounds, because it's usually very boring to play a video game made entirely of flat characters. Some fighting games can get past this obstacle by using already established characters from other continuities, but I like it more when the characters exist within their own universe, as it feels more authentic that way. Also, with developed characters, you can kind of fill in the gaps as to why in the world these people are fighting, even in the absence of a plot. In some respect, I consider that approach more fun.

edited 22nd Mar '12 4:50:27 PM by Vellup

They never travel alone.

I also love when characters in fighting games have their cute little quirks, especially in their animations and the like. Case in point, a majority of Arc Systems Works' output, Vampire Savior, and again, SNK's stuff.

edited 22nd Mar '12 5:09:56 PM by Schitzo

ALL CREATURE WILL DIE AND ALL THE THINGS WILL BE BROKEN. THAT'S THE LAW OF SAMURAI.

My point about Tekken is Spotlight-Stealing Squad. If you want major development or focus for well, anyone else, cross your fingers. Nina got some, true. Others were lucky to go crazy for no reason like Paul. Would a cyborg, or shirt wearing bear really be that much worse a plot driver than say, a guy with the blood of the devil? Really, the devil isn't even tempting people, causing disasters, attacking the church, spreading lies or doing any other devil type stuff, he's just forcing Heihachi's family to be assholes until they like it or something and kill Ogre.

Modified Ura-nage, Torture Rack

Here's the thing. By definition, the Spotlight-Stealing Squad can't be the main characters. The series is about the Mishimas, ergo, the stories revolve around the Mishimas.

Also, the Devil Gene, and Devil, are not the Devil, so I'm not sure where you're getting that from.

edited 22nd Mar '12 7:11:40 PM by BadWolf21

@ Goukenimaru: I have a hunch that XIV will be a Dream Match Game, seeing as XII... wasn't.

@ Vertigo: Then again, '99 and 2000 weren't actually bad at all. The problem was that, obviously, SNK went bankrupt. 2001, from what I've heard, was actually supposed to end a lot differently, but unfortunately, a lack of resources at the time put the kibosh on things. The NESTS Chronicles just happened to be ill-timed. Granted, it still probably would've had the weakest plot of the three sagas as a whole, put that's what happens when you go from mythology to sci-fi. And hey, I'd still take it over Maximum Impact any day.

@ Cider: And? Tekken isn't the only offender (and Bad Wolf makes a good point), so I don't know why you'd single them out with a terribly misleading over-simplification of the plot.

"Oh no, Sanji's Chronic Simprosis!" - Kou The Mad

I find that Fighting games, or maybe just Namco's fighting games, really fail to have a good plot whenever the plot gets any kind of focus.

Fighting games' biggest advantage over other games is their incredibly diverse and crazy cast of characters and how each of them gets some development after each game. Seeing an ensemble cast all go about their own personal quests, tied together by some MacGuffin or Tournament can be really neat. The problem often happens when they try to add a "story mode"

I just beat Soul Calibur V's story mode and... It was horrible. Just absolutely dreadful. It was even worse than Tekken 6's story mode. And Tekken 6's story mode was so bad it killed a dolphin. Each hit every goddamn cliche in the book right out of the gate and absolutely failed on every level to actually utilize the massive caste of interesting characters in any meaningful way. Well, Tekken 6's characters had different things to say to Alisa at the start of every level. But all that's non-canon anyways.

The problem pretty much stems from the fact that they try and make a protagonist and then fumble them horribly. Patroklos and Lars are bland and boring. The tropes they bring to the field? The Chosen One and Easy Amnesia. Both share Luke, I Am Your Father. Ugh. You'll notice that Mortal Kombat and Blaz Blue get lots of praise for their story, and one of the big reasons for that is that all or at least most of the characters get their time in the limelight. Ragna might be Blaz Blue's main character, but everyone else has their own chapters to work through. Plus Ragna's actually, y'now, an interesting character. The fact that Blaz Blue's not a Cliché Storm and Mortal Kombat's one huge fandom nod to people that payed attention during the 2D days doesn't hurt.

Bleye knows Sabers.

On the contrary, the Soul series did, at least at a time, have one of the more engaging plots of all the fighters out there. In SCV's defense, the game was rushed (and woefully so), so I'm not surprised that the story was so subpar when the plot points of 20+ other characters (a good number of them being new characters who get barely—if any—character development) get dropped to mainly focus on Pat and Pyr so that the game could make date. Like I said, squandered potential.

And where does Pat come across as bland? He's many things—jerkish (at first), zealous to the point of being easily manipulated, fiercely protective of his family—but boring he is not. The Chosen One I've give you since Soul Calibur chooses its wielder, but Easy Amnesia and Luke, I Am Your Father? I think we played different games.

edited 22nd Mar '12 10:12:50 PM by X2X

"Oh no, Sanji's Chronic Simprosis!" - Kou The Mad

Blazblue actually is a giant Cliché Storm.

But yes, it is still better in terms of story, mainly because the execution was handled much better than in most other fighting games. Same goes for Mortal Kombat.

edited 22nd Mar '12 10:09:36 PM by LDragon2

Wow, no one mentions Bloody Roar? Sure, the franchise suffered from Sequelitis and Franchise Killer, but look at the good days, Bloody Roar II had a Visual Novel story mode before Guilty Gear and Blaz Blue made it popular.

edited 22nd Mar '12 10:15:37 PM by Goukenimaru

That just makes me weep over the terribleness of both of BR4 and the great hoax that was BR5...

"Oh no, Sanji's Chronic Simprosis!" - Kou The Mad