A.B.I.torial: Why Do Fighting Game Stories Suck?
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- Опубликовано: 20 июн 2024
- Fighting games are a beloved piece of video game history and culture. But why are their stories so awful?
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#fightinggames #storymode 
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Ahh yes. Superman holding Lantern over a war between normie soldier dudes and sea creatures was my favorite part of Last of Us 2.
I just can't believe he stuck that joke in there! 😂👌
@@13Kr4zYAzN13 What joke?
@@Harvey_Mod it's a meme from Last of Us 2. It had a sex scene with Abbey being fucked from behind making a meme face. The part where Supes holding GL resembles the meme including GL's pained expression.
@@windwind3170 Thanks so much
😂
@@windwind3170 OH DEAR GOD.
Meanwhile in Mortal Kombat:
Jacquie: Let's train dad
Dad proceeds to rip her leg off and use it to play baseball with her head.
The Charm of MK 👌
you guys are still trying to pretend to be upset about this shit
@@TheDarioushurt Yeah you go man, deflect and try to delegitimize everyone's argument as them just pretending since it makes you feel better. I've seen bad ways to handle criticism, but this is just pathetic. You do realize that whether they're pretending or not won't actually change the fact that they're right, don't you? If I say 1 + 1 is 2 in a joking manner, I'm still right, you moron.
But please, tell me how it makes so much sense when Ryu has a "friendly" match with his best bud Ken, and then casually uses the same move that mutilated and almost killed Sagat.
@@BestWayKilla Ken is Not almost dead so you can just assume that Ryu is limiting himself...
Meanwhile, i can't just assume that a friendly match in MK between father and daughter Is Just a friendly match
Because i can see them cutting each others Heads out and etc
It's important to note that Jin "Lost" his fighting style for a gameplay reason. Since Kazuya returned, he had to have his original style (which Jin had in Tekken 3 because Kazuya was dead/missing). So when Kazuya came back, they had to change Jin's move-set. The story explanation was just an excuse to keep Jin on the roster without them both playing the same.
Tell em! Kazuya was back so why Jin players cry over a copy moveset?
@@christhechilled but he had a unique moveset, Devil Jin proves it.
Thank you!
@@darthsalad8204 Devil Jin's fighting style was a more aggressive, feral version of Mishima style martial arts. That's what set it apart. The violent nature. Like having Ryu and evil Ryu in the same roster. Evil Ryu is the more violent version of how Ryu fights.
@Kai Forrest no one cares
Speaking of character interactions in fighting games, in KoF 98, Daimon's earthquake move can "hit" the characters on the opposing team who are in the background. They'll all fall on their backs when Daimon does the move, except for Kyo, who jumps to avoid the quake instead.
I think Benimaru also jumps over it, incredible detail by SNK
God-tier attention to detail
Of course his teammates know and are ready to jump when they see it coming!
Me Yes indeed
I felt like 98 had the most detail into it.
I like how KOF used to do dream matches, where all canonical characters can just duke it out.
Same with Tekken Tag Tournament or even Street Fighter Alpha's console ports
For some reason idk why the kof villains hates humans (except Rugal)
@@donjohnlopez1801 Orochi because he's "Gaia's will" but for Zero, Ash and Verse I dunno...
@@donjohnlopez1801 The orochi saga villains can be explained by Orochi. NESTS Saga was about an evil megacorp using Kyo clones to take over the world. The Ash Saga villains where a rival group to Orochi, apparently. Got a bit fuzzy at the end. And Verse is an Amalgamation of Dead villains gone mad... I think. It wasn't really clear xD
Not only that, the story changed how some characters played between game, like Kensou and Iori.
Interaction between characters gives life to a fighting game. Personalized intros, outros and things like taunts or other animations. For example, if Ryu knocks down Ken, would be cool if he helps his friend to get back on his feet for the next round while he hears a snarky "you got lucky" by the defeated. Or if Miguel, who is hellbent on having his revenge against Jin for ordering an army to bomb his sisters wedding, beats him senseless in the winning animation but shows hesitation before the killing blow. Or if Jin wins, he just moves along because he doesn't even know who Miguel is, leaving him more enraged. Now imagine things like this between all the cast. Sounds like a lot of money in animations, but it can be done.
Now the fight is telling a story. And now you are using a character instead of a bag of functions.
Agree so much man.
Character interactions are the soul of these game for me and I wish the budget that goes into your typical story mode could instead go into fleshing out this aspect.
There are things like this in Blazblue where the main antagonist is seen stomping on other characters head to show how much of a sadist he is
I like all these ideas, especially the custom interaction between Ken and Ryu between rounds
It was in Street Fighters Alpha series, sometimes when Ryu defeat Ken then Ryu come and help Ken to get up, it was has unique interaction like Sagat and Adon, Sagat and Dan
You do have stuff like in MK11 where Jacqui has specific midgame voice lines against Jax and Cassie, Sonya has specific lines against Johnny and Cassie, I believe Jade has specific lines against Kitana, who has specific lines against Liu Kang, etc.
Edit (these are all on occasion, not every time): Cassie says "I'm all grown up now" after winning a round against Sonya; Noob will say "this is my vengeance" during fights against Scorpion; when Frost lands her ice burst or ice trap against Noob, she'll say "even ghosts can freeze"
And of course there's the dialogue intros but the customizable outros sort of preclude postmatch specifics like you're suggesting (although that would be cool too)
"Frieza should have blocked Videl's mix ups" had me laughing lmao
God I wish capcom would bring back that little touch of related characters having a special intro. Even it's as simple as ken & ryu fist bumping was simple touch that sourly missed
Sourly missed?
You mean the fight your rival
@@lolbitandftfoxysayhello6262 It didn't always have to be rivals
@@KaitouKaiju i now but that’s what the narrator said
KoF still does that. That's one of the reasons SNK is superior to Capcom
Arcsys does shit like this a lot more than I think they get credit for:
In BBTAG, Teddie's mysterious food X item drop is a status debuff that takes off the health of whoever eats it...except Mai, which RESTORES her health and meter, because canonically she loves terrible food.
French Bread does it too; in Under Night, Vatista has a power limiter that slightly nerfs the casts powers, hence why she can't be counter hit by any means. The only one able to do so being Enkidu, who's martial arts allow him to bypass that limitation since he's not using any powers.
Enkidu's Havoc is still an In-birth power, but because it's so weak, you could say that Vatista getting "countered" does indeed have to do with her defenses being bypassed by sheer physical strength, allow Enkidu's Havoc to set in.
Never actually though of it that way.
Then there is Terumi and Hazama's health constantly reducing when fighting Celica in Chronophantasma, because her body negates the power of the black beast, which was used to make Hazama's body
Does the same also applies to Akatsuki? Cause if not then I call bull since Akatsuki power came from an engine not In-Birth related.
For that Mai thing... it's not that she inherently loves bad food, it's just that, due to her "super taste" ability (which allows her to taste the feelings put into making the food), she will quite literally overload her taste buds if she eats actually _good_ food. Both Noel and Yukiko put their heart and soul into their inevitably crappy food, which is why Mai actually _likes_ it.
But still, the point remains that ArcSys are absolute geniuses.
"Dad can you tell me a bed time story?"
"Sure thing son, I'll tell you one of my favorite stories ever. It's called Evo Moment 37! I hope you love it as much as I did when I was a kid!"
that would be an awful bedtime story lmao
@@mhead1117 agreed lol
@@mhead1117 If narrated correctly, it's one hell of a story
Yes, dad, I love it!
Meanwhile Virtua Fighters be like "Story? Just read the manual"
The 'Syndicate'.
And thats it.
Probably why it never got that popular after the 90’s 😂😂(at least out of Japan)
Based
@@ugochib guess what is about to be popular again.
@@SeanHiruki Not Virtua Fighter, LMAO.
Lol it looks like a bunch of players just unlocked Frost and then called it a day XD
most likely though it's not worth it unlocking her since sub zero is already in the game
@@mrb4783 lol it looks like someone didnt even learn shit about frost XD
@@necro-esque666 Yes imagine laughing at someone for a comment that was made months ago about not playing a character that does not interest people because of how bad she is written making her less applying as a character who also uses some of cyber sub zeros moves.
@@mrb4783 everyone needs a hobby ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@@necro-esque666 frost is not bad written...lol
I think a big issue with fighting game stories is that due to their being a fixed roster with only so many characters, the heroes often outnumber the villains, meaning you either end up fighting the same guy over and over or you keep having really contrived conflicts between the heroes. A lot of games have found ways around this. Dragon Ball Fighterz had the clones and Injustice had the alternate universe evil versions of the heroes.
I will admit Street Fighter 5's solution was pretty decent and must have taken some effort, adding in a bunch of NPC fighters and all... But that just made me annoyed because it felt like we were being denied several more playable characters most of whom have semi complete movesets. Yeah, I'm fine not getting a chance to play as random Shadaloo goon number 4. But what about the Dolls? They have unique animations and moves. Several of them have been playable before. Why not just add them to the roster at that point? Then of course, there's Police Officer Peter, but let's face it, if he were playable, we'd never play as anyone else.
I think it's better when you think of fighting game characters as having their own agendas rather than being villains or heroes. If you try to weave every character into one canonical narrative, it becomes contrived and grating. If you give each character their own canon in which they "win" the tournament, you can each character with more integrity, and create a genuinely good mini story.
I'd totally play weak characters in versus maches even if they were HILARIOUSLY inferior to the main lineup. "Oh, my incomplete character has 1/3rd the moves and crippling flaws? Well guess what? I'm going to try and BEAT YOU with that character!"
Some people have managed to make them playable. You can check it out on YT.
only one of the dolls has been playable , you know cammy's look-a-like. the other dolls have been made in some form or other in MUGEN at least
I personally despised the black and white palette evil clone since most of the time they literally have no character except for the sake of having a fight and it just feels like work. DBFZ's story mode didn't do well for me in many ways but that was personally the worst.
Injustice did it better with alternate universes and I think Persona Arena as well with the shadows because it actually calls reference to the source material.
SFV was weak in storytelling but I really like the idea of their "half characters". I was surprised when I actually had to fight Peter the Cop or the Dolls since I thought I was gonna just be watching a cutscene.
MK10 did do that as well but it also ran into the problem you mentioned of heroes to villains ratio. I feel like everyone has fought Reptile/Erron/Ferra/Ermac at some point because they're the jobbers. And MK9 had Reptile or Baraka as the punching bag.
KOF XIII really nails the self-contained narrative thing by having every character in the roster interact with each other before a fight. This sells the idea that all the characters know each other personally. They actually do it better than Injustice 2 and MKX.
SvC Chaos also did it too
In previous KOF(maybe 98) char also have releations to each other in team. If someone friend falls defeated - next char get buff like he was raged
@@Jackrost01 There's nothing like that in kof 98, I can say that for sure. At best you get extra meter if one of your characters gets KOd.
@@voltekka47 Ok, but the point is still there
@@Jackrost01 That thing was actually dependant on the date, if I recall correctly. But it had nothing to do with character relationships. You can put Shingo on the same team as Kyo and have them be pissed, while in canon Shingo would be creaming himself making a team with him: Here is a screenshot as example ibb.co/w70fNQG
I’m surprised you didn’t SFIV’s “Fight your Rival” mechanic, because many (including me) have pointed out how it’s a good way to integrate both story and gameplay. After 6 matches, the player gets a unique cutscene with their special opponent, and even during the fight, you get to hear certain sound bites among the characters. This means that not only does the player get to fight, but the characters are allowed to naturally interact.
Yes, and unique music, beating Bison while juri's theme plays is great.
Unless you’re Yun or Yang.
I can't remember what that was, but it sounds like a simple arcade mode
I've thought about this video the whole time while experiencing the Tekken 8 story because they sure took that one end fight of 7 and expended over the whole duration of 8.
I'm surprised some of the animations and stages in Darkstalkers didn't make an appearance in this. I always loved the stage on the side of the skyscraper while they defy gravity; It really gives an awesome context to a duel between the supernatural. Great video nonetheless!
How is your comment 4 days old when the video released today? Time travel?
Jokes aside, I think I know why.
The reel question
@@TurokRevolution Early access for patreons I guess.
Still doesn't explain how Bulleta can stick to the side of a building. Or Victor. Felicia and Galon can be using their claws, I guess.
@@strippinheat maybe she uses some special assassin wall climbing tools or something
The old DBZ fighters had a really interesting bit of story integration you didnt mention.
In the Budomai and Tenkaichi games the story mode follows the plot of the anime. However, there's a lot of unbalanced fights in the anime where the heroes are outclassed. Over the course of the series, this was handled two different ways.
In some games they would give the winning fighter massive buffs to their strength, defense, maybe make them immune to flinching and set them to the most vicious AI. In these kinds of fights you're expected to lose and the plot progresses but if you win, you get a small vignette about how the plot would break or the character celebrating how unlikely their win was followed by an extra like a new skill or a side story or even a new character, which is a nice touch.
In other games however, the game would just cast you AS the winning party. So if say Recoome was slated to take Krillin to pound town and then break Gohan's neck, you would play as Recoome with a severely nerfed Krillin and Gohan as your opponents. Then Goku shows up to turn the tide and suddenly you're Goku and Recoome is the one who gets nerfed because this match in the anime was to show just how far beyond everyone Goku had gotten.
Either way is pretty cool and surprisingly underused in fighting game story modes.
I agreed with the entire video, except the reason he didn't like dragon ball. Power levels were a thing in the Saiyan and Freeza sagas in order to shoe that the earth fighters are more spiritual than the aliens. After that, it's true that only saiyans matter, but not in classic dragon ball and in those sagas, so I think it's unfair to day he doesn't like the entirety of dragon ball for a problem that only the latter part of the series has
Reenacting Goku vs Turles was always a blast
@@guilhermefranco2930 not even that but his reason for not liking dragon ball just doesn’t make any sense because fighting games also follow the same idea structure.
Not everyone in tekken can beat jin, devil jin, kazuya,heihachi, Lars, and the ancient demon.
Not everyone in street fighter can beat oni akuma, juri, m bison, ryu, Akuma, evil ryu, gouken, gen and Seth.
Not everyone in mortal kombat can defeat raiden, kahn( who got heavily nerfed in mk11)
Shinock, lie kang( nerfed in when he became a revenant) and sindell.
This whole argument doesn’t even make sense because fighting games have the same power scaling structure.
@@eem2wavy133 Not as extreme as what Dragon Ball has, with characters on either planetary, galactic, universal, or multiversal tiers.
@@MrAuthor3DS true but even still Akuma is island lvl while most sf characters aren’t even scratching building lvl
1:52 - *When you thought the reference was a mistake*
but then after a few seconds you finally realize the joke
I lost my shit after realizing that lol
Even without the reference, the devs that made that scene HAD to know just how suggestive that looked lmao
@Reydriel it like accidently make by pure coincidence.
It's an absolute myth to say that character and story doesn't matter in a fighting game. Any good fighting game worth its weight tries to tell you what makes this character an actual character through in-game bios, design, and most importantly the way they fight during gameplay as well as pre and post-fight dialogue. Why do you think we like MK's pre-fight dialogue so much? Why do we get hype for Cell's intro in FighterZ? It's because we all understand that these pixels on the screen aren't just stick figures. They're characters that we have a history with in some way. Who the character is is literally being told to you in a match. Or at least it should be.
Possibly my favorite example of this is R.Mika's V-move in Street Fighter V. It's an absolutely ridiculous move in the context of the actual game: a long-winded microphone performance that leaves you completely venerable to your opponent. At best you'll probably only see Mika yell into the mic briefly before immediately tossing it away if you use it in an actual match. So, is the max utility of it practical? Not really, but dammit if that move doesn't tell me everything I need to know about this over-the-top Japanese wrestler, I don't know what else does. And just like in real "real" wrestling, what self-respecting opponent is actually going to let you finish your speech anyway? XD
Fighting games have fewer options to tell a story to it's audience for all of the reasons you explained in this video, and even some you didn't like the issue of the player having to play characters they don't know how to play with during the story mode, thus creating artificial difficulty. But that's exactly why we get attached to its characters so much. They've been telling stories to us, practically on their gameplay alone for what, like, around 40 years now? Maybe more.
O DEFINITELY AGREE WITH THAT STATEMENT. It's really dumb to say that fighting games doesn't have to tell a story, that makes the game superficial. Good developers create good stories for they're games, fighting games or not. Games are art and that includes fighting games, why don't treat them as such right?
Well put!!
KOF is an exception. The roster is changed or altered because of the last game or current game due to the current story. Not always though.
a thing that comes to mind is iori losing his flames, which made people who mained him incredibly pissed, they remedied it by adding a dlc variant, which i think was cool in both fronts.
I remembered the first time it happened in KOF96. Both roster changes and, even more noticeable, overhaul of movesets. The AOF team, for instance, starting off as SNK's version of the shoto characters to, how you say, the inspiration for Dan Hibiki. :P Then there was the point in time where Robert turned into a Guile clone.
@@meatboom And what's cool is that in his latest version when he canonically gets his flames back, he actually utilizes both his flame moves and his more "scratch" and "claw" style of combat. I dunno, feel like that shows character growth in a way
@@AegisKHAOS Guile clone? What game?
@@sladejosephwilson2300 At least '99 and 2k. He became a charge character and attacks like Ryuugekiken and Ryuuga changed to look more like Guile's (Ryuugekiken -> Ryuugekisen, a ring / Ryuuga -> Ryuuzanshou, a flash kick).
As a kid I would create my own stories using fighting games, and would redo the same fight over and over just to get a version that I was satisfied with.
This video made me understand why I loved doing that, and is one of the best breakdowns of narrative in gaming I have seen. Seriously, great work!
You forgot to mention that Tekken "fixed" Jin having a new martial art style by introduction Devil Jin, who uses the Mishima/Kazama hybrid style.
Boom, everyone happy. lol
Kinos141 Well many peoples don't pick him because of his edgy design
@@MaxMax-qg7gw Even though he's a really good character in T7 until he fell out of the meta later on.
@@tjhunter9787 What a weird universe we live in where normal Jin is more viable than Devil Jin. That's like if Ryu was higher tier than Akuma somehow.
@@MaxMax-qg7gw Devil Jin is more popular than regular Jin, and Jin has always been edgy.
You never get to defeat Geese in Real Bout Special: the game treats the event as a "nightmare" and even if you defeat him he stands up and starts laughing at you.
You should do more research on SNK games.
Another brilliant thing about that fight is that, while Special is a non-canon game, Geese would be dead after RBFF's ending...so you wouldn't be able to fight him since he's dead unless you were in a nightmare
I loved the way Tekken 5 handled it's story mode. It wasn't anything cinematic with cutscenes between each fight,. It was just a mode where each character has their own reason for being in the game and you follow along in that story until you get to the ending cinematic that suits the character's theme and motivation, ranging from epic to sad to silly. Very simple.
THIS
The only problem with Tekken is that most endings aren't canon. Even with T5, more than 5 endings literally started with the characters beating Jinpachi which definitely isn't canon because Jin was the one who beat him. Some others are alright, especially the joke one, but some that seems important just glossed over in the next game.
Like Hwoarang should have one of his eye hurt by Devil Jin in T5 but nothing happened to him in T6 and it's only addressed in T7. T4 was the only one where the story focus was good.
@@LockeGran You're absolutely right. They tend to retcon the stories of their characters a lot in the main timeline. I mean Tag is fine because it's a spinoff. But a bit of consistency in the main story would be great. As much as 7 is my favourite right now, and I'm saying this as a fan of the franchise, they really dropped the ball on the other characters stories. Boiling most of the down to joke characters. Like remember when Yoshimitsu and Bryan were rivals? Or the moral ambiguity that Eddy battled with for working for Kazuya?
I loved how there was always a fight in the middle that usually related to their reason for entering the tournament. It even had a unique intro, and unique scenes for both winning and losing the fight.
@@sir_will_iam Been saying this same thing. Sometimes less is more. They need to go back to the T4-T5 formula, but just add more content to the individual narratives.
The Touhou fighting games do a really good job with story mode. Fighting a giant catfish and riding a volcanic eruption will always be memorable.
People actually played those? I'm pretty sure I have 500-400~h ish of Soku and I haven't touched story mode since
By giving the boss characters multiple health bars and attacks that you can never actually do in normal gameplay, the Touhou fighting games manage to make their battles way more memorable than the majority of games in the genre. Who the hell is going to forget Tenshi riding the giant catfish through space while shooting screen-filling lasers? Or Sumireko fading into a black shadow while the entire screen warps around you and you're assaulted by all seven of the urban legend effects at once? Or Suika literally shattering the HUD to the point where you can't even see your health bar? Definitely not me, I'll tell you that.
@@lasatar6428 I need a link for all of that you mention, since its been a long time i played touhou fighting games
@@rezafahlevi9659 I know this is way late but i'd also like to know what this fighting game is, it sounds fun.
@@rezafahlevi9659 For the last one you can check Suika's boss fight in IaMP. Her last spell card does that.
To me, a really illuminating quote was in a rapid fire interview with Ed Boon:
Interviewer: Which MK characters can survive a bullet?
Ed Boon: All characters can take a bullet, as we see whenever they get shot and then get up...
Interviewer: Yeah, but, like, a cutscene bullet?
Ed Boon: Only Raiden.
I mean, he forgot Geras, but more importantly, it's an interesting look into how the game mechanics have so little impact on the story. And yes, there are equivalents in other games, and I don't think it's the central issue (if there is one), but I thought it said a lot about how little the fights have to do with the plot, because by design the characters can easily do stuff in the fights, over and over, that would be pretty major plot moments in the story itself.
Also Cetrion. Also Shinnok.
The revived ninja that can turn into a skeleton can't survive a bullet ?? K bro
1:53 Ah yes, my favorite fighting game moment. Laura Bailey did a great job voicing a pinned down Hal Jordan. A really bold decision on Naughty Dogs part that I think paid off.
How can you not give KOF it's due in terms of storytelling? A series where the previous installment actually has consequences to the storyline, the characters involved (RIP New Faces team), and even their movesets?
@Goliath Online
You tried way too hard with that joke.
KOF's storytelling value is inherently defanged by the fact that the most popular entries in the series are the dream match games.
I agree they had Iori and Sei Shu lost their fire and ki at one point in the story to the next installment, also him saying Jin changed fighting style, Kyo almost every KOF has a new fighting style narratively saying he's improving, clones where created for those who missed the old fighting styles. Even Robert became a charge character at one point with more damage output.
new faces team will be back in XV. shermie and chris were there in the background of kof 12 stages. so after verse's death it's almost certain they're coming back 🙂
KOF's storytelling is still some of the worst out of any fighting game. How the hell do make a crossover game that's a spin off of your 1st fighting game and have some of your most iconic characters lose to a bunch of band new nobodies?
Them's Fightin Herds has a godlike story mode and I was surprised not to see it mentioned. Instead of being a bunch of cutscenes with fights thrown in in between, the story segments take place on an RPG-like overworld, and most fights are against basic enemies that are mostly defined by their fighting style: wolves attack by pouncing, teaching you to use anti-air attacks, snakes zone by spitting poison projectiles and extending their body, teaching you how to deal with zoning, among others. Doing this allows the fights against the actual characters to be high points in narrative, and the characters are given unique attacks and patterns to help them serve as boss fights to test what you've learned against the basic baddies.
The boss fight against Velvet, the game's zoner, at the end of chapter 2 was my favorite: the battle is built around the challenge of dealing with zoning as a rushdown character. The first phase is a regular fight, which is already a tougher challenge than the basic enemies, but once you empty her lifebar once, the second phase begins, where wind is constantly blowing towards you, making her zoning even more effective, and the third and final phase changes the battle completely, as Velvet covers herself in a tornado which blows you all the way to the other side of the screen and shoots ice projectiles from inside it.
Plus, just because it's a fighting game doesn't mean all you do in the story mode is fight: there are platforming, exploration and even puzzle-solving segments, and while from the outside it may seem like these are just a distraction from the fighting bits, they allow you to truly experience the entire story through gameplay and not through cutscenes, which is something I don't think any other fighting game does right, and is what makes Them's Fightin' Herds' story mode one of the most memorable of any fighting game.
It's a great game. I am loving Stronghoof. And Tianhuo. Oleander is fun, too.
I mean if ya wanna have permanent deaths in stories and still maintain versus mode, just do like Real Bout Fatal Fury Special and give the dead characters a halo on character select so everyone understands "Yeah, they're dead, but we'll still let you play them." Hell, even better, Nightmare Geese, where the logic is literally "You are literally having a nightmare, that's why Geese is here despite being dead."
Old SNK was also really good about having characters make dramatic changes to their move set a la T4 Jin, but still let you play the old version. Kyo changes his fighting style completely after fighting Goenitz and realizing his old style isn't going to cut it anymore, but you can still select Kyo by holding start and get his old style.
I always liked in the kof games when I saw some unique pre fight animation (Mai tricking Andy into thinking she had a child or Chizuru showing some sort of mirror to Kyo). It adds some personality to the fight, and establishes relationships in a very cool way
My biggest issue with fighting game stories is that the developers allow the story mode to dictate character roster. Like, "This character died in the last game, or we can't think of a way to included them in the narrative, so we'll just exclude them." Or worse, when a character HAS to be included because of fan demand, so they toss them in story mode in such an awkward and pointless way. Like, "This character died in the last game, but people like him so I guess he's a zombie now, or that scene is a flashback, or whatever."
And that's why NRS story modes can get fucked. Joker is dead in the world where Injustice 2 takes place but they MUST include him since it would be weird to have Batman and Harley without Joker, I guess, so they can say the one you play in versus is from the other universe (which they do say), but in the story he appears in one scene and it's a hallucination (and he looks completely different). Green Arrow is dead in that universe, but they bring the one in the game over from a THIRD universe. Meanwhile, Shazam is dead only in that universe and just gone from the game. Then you have MKX making the kombat kids out to be the new guard, yet 50% of them don't even appear in MK11 at all.
SF5 added Necali to the story as a puddle of mud that attacks Ryu because they couldn't think of any better way to shoehorn him in, but they made the character sooooo... And then there's zombie Nash. And the game doesn't have those little pre-fight scenes that really set the tone for the self-contained narrative like in almost every SF before it. It does have post-fight dialog, but most are just completely out of context.
I think Jin's fighting style change worked out for the better because it allowed them to bring back Kazuya and Devil Jin and you didn't end up with a bunch of clones while still having the characters in the games. SNK has also tweaked characters a lot so their moveset is gone, like Terry in MotW or Robert in every KoF, so you have to pick between sticking with the "character" or finding a new "function" to play. And that's why they will sometimes include EX versions of characters, like All the Kyo clones, which they sometimes even fit into the narrative.
Yeah, why can’t we just have characters who are cool and there for the sake of being there? I get wanting to include them into the story, but if you really can’t, why not just have them on the roster but not in story mode? O_o
@@Aquatj999 People keep sucking NRS's dick and saying they have the best story mode in the gender. But it's one of the worst. The story chapter means villains never win and that the strength levels are inconsistent. SF V has a bad story. But a good story mode idea. Every character gets at least a win and you can fight against minions and stuff.
WHY DON'T MORE GAMES MAKE THIS?
Don't forget about DOA6's story mode, where it has multiple things going on at once. That way, you don't have to get all the characters involved in the main plot.
@@harlannguyen4048 doa 5 story mode was like that to
Why can it not dictate??
It to me would end up meaning we keep getting the same characters over n over with little change or the Story having any impact at all.
Hence why I hated that MK 11 brought back amost every roster mainly of Mk1-2 with few missing and few mk3 while putting them back in the limelight and shoving back the newer stuff using TIME QUAKE as a excuse with a new villan to try to reset and not commit to the ideas.
Also sometimes it becomes annoying that when say a version of a character that the non story modes potray as the DEFAULT are not in the story or are thrown aside like Scorpion and SUb zeros "defaults" and "Dark Raiden" getting yeeted off the story for his Mk2 era form.
I severely doubt NRS meant to do the final example. It's probably a broken clock is right twice a day. That said, it is an excellent example. Fighting games could use that matchup mechanic with a prefight animation (not cutscene) of Raiden teleporting behind an attempted cheap shot. That would be a willful hint that 'Hey, teleport owns this guy!'
I don’t think that removing story mode and just having character interactions should be the way to convey storytelling in fighting games. Instead the interactions should be made apart of the story alongside character dynamics with each other like rivalries or friendships which help flesh out the characters more. Though I like the idea of having story based events that weakens or strengthens the characters based on the current situation which makes them unable to use their abilities which makes the fight harder for the player.
My personal favourite example of this in story modes would be Ragna vs Hazama in blazblue continuum shift where Ragna is unable to use the blazblue due Hazama using he own stronger blazblue to deactivate his soul eater, in this fight you have to take on unlimited Hazama without the use of your powers and can only use your punches and kicks while he can use all of his attacks and new ones exclusive to his unlimited form, his drive is also consistently active throughout the fight and allows him to not only have complete control of the battlefield with his chains allowing him to close the gap between him and Ragna but also give him the ability to steal your health slowly whenever he is close to you. Making it impossible for the player to do any lasting damage to him. It gives a sense of powerlessness to the player that is portrayed not only by the story but also by the gameplay and makes the dynamic with the characters apart of the story and the story apart of the actual game without having it be only in a cutscene.
Having some form of single-player mode is also necessary for people who have just started playing to be eased into the game and its mechanics. As it stands, fighting games have a "wall of learning" newcomers have to overcome. A good, robust single-player mode turns it more into an incline. Dissidia Final Fantasy (the original one) and Duodecim executed this pretty well. I won't say anything about the story one way or another, but every battle was functionally a tutorial on how a character works or how to counter something that might feel daunting if you're not familiar with it. It also gives a multitude of opponents to fight via a clone army of sorts.
For instance, one battle has the AI opponent spam one character's combo over and over and do literally nothing else except move, but it has only 1 HP, so it'll be knocked out the moment you learn how to counterattack. Another one might break any guarding or shielding you use--but again have just 1 HP, and hence it teaches you how to find openings without blocking.
@@Overhazard yeah I think that using a single player mode to learn the fundamentals of the characters is a good way to teach new players how the game works without making it too handholdly.
Oh god, I hated fighting Unlimited Hazama...
There should be no end all,but I agree on this.
I like how Jojo Heritage for the Future’s PS1 port has a full adaptation of part 3 Stardust Crusaders, and some of the Dragon Ball fighting games retell the original story of the anime and manga.
tekken was kind of a good point
the story was really boring, but the moment that final showdown came together, the fight felt like it had so much weight because throughout the last 7 games you've seen how much these two want to kill each other, the health bar trick at the end scared me at first till I realised heihachi wasn't going to go down that easily, and the extra touches like cut scene punches taking actual damage in the fight made it feel more believable
What frustrates me is everyone else's arcs and events going how they went post tekken 4.
@@darkzeroprojects4245 true. Tekken 4 tried it's best to tell a good story
I think the solution to the "vast ensemble story" problem is just to tell more than one story. By having multiple unrelated plotlines you have a reason for someone like Zangeif, a guy who's in it for sport, to remain in the game when the story is about a team of Interpol agents seeks to undermine the efforts of an evil dictator and has nothing to do with a fighting tournament. If you've got a fighting tournament story, you don't need to contrive a reason for R.Mika to go off to a secret base and deal with the "save the world" plot. If you do it right, you can have events in one story effect the other, since they're happening concurrently. Maybe Balrog and Ed are in the tournament, but something happens in a different plotline and they have to drop from the tournament at an unexpected moment. Such like that.
As an added benefit of your model, the world gets more fleshed out. From the outside looking in, Ryu, Akuma, Gouken, Gen, Chun-Li, Guile, and Bison seem like people the world revolves around. Having personal stories of characters like Zangief just so happen to intersect with other characters’ stories helps the world feel simultaneously cohesive and broad :O
That kinda happened in Arcsys' old games
Guilty Gear and Blazblue has story modes where the focus is on different characters, who they fight will differ. And in BB's case it alternate timelines, with a little bit of changes in those timelines, like how Hazama was consistently able to capture Noel and how Ragna is always going to fight Hazama; But there are points in the timeline that Noel might've ran away from Bang or decided to stay and explain the situation.
If I recall correctly, Skullgirls does this. Different characters have different reasons to go around fighting. Beowulf, for instance, literally fights for no reason other than that he can, while most of the rest of the cast are fighting either to save the world, to destroy it, or to survive. He intersects with the rest of the cast by picking fights with them, and once it's over, win or lose, he just moves on.
DOA6 has this as well.
Hey ABI! Your old college buddy here. A few thoughts here. Re: Vs. Mode; Your understanding of this is exactly how pro wrestling works. Each match is a self contained narrative. As someone that's worked in pro wrestling, the wrestlers are aware of this and when taking through their matches backstage one main question that they ask themselves is "What is the story are we are telling?"
As for Story Modes, part of the problem is the arcade roots of fighting games, which ties into your competitive game argument. Sadly, I do think that SNK has been slacking on their story, considering that they were among the first to implement a narrative.
Haven’t played recent (post-Neo Geo) SNK games but I totally agree that what they did in the early to mid-90s to make specific match-ups work, the way you described in pro wrestling, in some of the games was really something.
Fatal Fury 1 released the same year as SF2 and yet there wouldn’t be any Street Fighter game that made a fraction of the effort to intersperse canonical narrative and build up the boss that Fatal Fury 1 did for years - let alone a similarly compelling climax. It took them until Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo, 3 years later, to even include an amped up final confrontation (Akuma/Gouki) and Street Fighter Alpha 3 (5 years after SF2to have a significant # of character specific cutscenes before the ending.
By that time SNK had already long since dunked on everyone else’s story mode with Fatal Fury 3 featuring not only branching boss battle options but branching background graphics and music (in the case of FF1 protagonists vs. Geese). 25 years later, that Geese battle is still one of the best pieces of fighting game storytelling I’ve ever seen.
But even one wants to ignore how far ahead of the game SNK was in storytelling with both Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting (so many pieces of character specific dialog for AoF 2...) the big surprise for me was no mention of Namco’s Weaponlord in 1995. How can a discussion of the player’s fighting’s impact on the story be complete without acknowledging one of the first games where the way you fought specifically changed the story? I don’t remember any game that did that before Weaponlord, where whether or not you use a finishing move in one of the final encounters can prove exceedingly important to how things play out in the story.
Personalize interaction between characters adds a lot of flavor to the game, but I think it's a bit of an over exaggeration to say that it's the better way to tell the story because it's more natural. Imagine you're a creator, you want your game to actually have a conical story because you spent so much time creating this world and it's characters. Not giving them an actual storyline seems like a waste.
From a gameplay perspective, people wants something other than versus mode. Fighting games get blasted all the time for their single player content because just playing versus all day isn't fun for some people. Thing like story, arcade, and challenge modes keep the game fresh
Exactly.
Can't argue with that!
there's something special about aerith getting skewered with Marvel 2 music in the background...
happy waifu killing time
You went over continum shift story mode.
Every story in continum shift is canon since its a possibility.
Making the (maybe) only game where every character can win against anyone and have it canon.
Technically, that's also true of Calamity Trigger.
Time loops are surprisingly useful for that. The "true ends" are simply the last loop performed, are and the powers behind the time loops not rewinding time before that point anymore.
This is why the first two BB games have such good story modes.
Everyone is given an equal amount of spotlight thanks to the character stories and the big plot device of each story allows all of them to feel tangential to creating this convoluted narrative of time loops and timelines.
And it's also why CP's and CF's stories don't feel as good as they should be.
The feud between Ragna & Terumi will always the highlight of the plot. Ragna pretty much fought 3 forms of Susanoo (Hakumen-body, Terumi-soul, Susanoo-true self) and they both have a lot in common despite enemies.
To add to that even with the final story, all of the other story still matter as they not only tell you about the character but can hints towards future event in the main story of other games. For example in Noel bad ending calamity trigger Ragna turns into the black beast right after falling into the cauldron
@loafhero but this is not arcade mode. They have it both.
An arcade mode with some narrative. But the story mode is full narrative giving you the (almost) same story with each point of view.
And it show how if the main character would be someone else. The story would change too
I think garou: mark of the wolves has a pretty great story, even though it is very small and to be honest not well translated. This is because each character has their own reason for being in southtown at that time and it generally goes beyond just wanting to be the strongest fighter or whatever. The characters are all interesting, despite being a completely new cast outside of Terry Bogard, and everybody has a memorable and unique ending sequence after they have defeated the final boss. This is probably because the game only contains a paltry fourteen characters, but I think it is a good example of a story that is told well through its characters.
This post is a year old but I agree. I think fighting games generally lend themselves better to smaller scale, character driven tournament plots. I think Garou is an example of a game that plays to the strengths of the genre
I like Blazblue and guilty gear’s story even if it’s convoluted as hell.
Edit. I really wish there was subtitles or an english dub on central fiction as love the interactions
I find the story telling of the Killer Instinct reboot interesting.
I admit that it wasn't great in Season 1. Every character had 3 different Arcade ending of which it was unclear what is canon, as most contradict each other.
Then in Season 2 it started with the character trailer. Every Season 2 trailer tells you something about the character, mostly narrated by the character himself (exceptions are Aganos and Riptor) and they also show relations to other characters and progress their stories.
Then after all characters released we got an Arcade mode for them, but they were different. Every Arcade tower had an Intro cutscene, one right before you fight your rival (every character has a rival) and one when you finished it. This time every story mode is 100% canon, and they all tie into each other and lead into the Season 3 story mode.
And then Season 3 introduced Shadow Lords. I'm disappointed that none of the Season 3 characters have a traditional arcade mode, but what we have here is so much better!
The closest thing I can compare Shadow Lords to is Towers of Time, but it's actually fun and every consumable is explained and canon in the story.
How difficult the Boss Character Gargos is, depends on how well you did on reducing his corruption all over the globe. And if you're good enough, you may never fight him. Which is ironic because you have to fight him to finish the story.
You said in the video that it's not good if character play styles change in between games because of story reasons, but for a new Killer Instinct, I hope that's exactly what will happen.
For example:
- Make Jago and Shadow Jago one character. Explanation: Jago learned how to control the power of his dark self without succumbing to it.
- Make Eagle and Thunder into one character. Explanation: Thunder's reason for fighting was to find his lost brother. Since Eagle returned, there is no reason for Thunder to keep fighting, so he doesn't. Eagle takes Thunder's Tomahawks.
This cleans the roster and makes place for new characters.
I think keeping Jago and Shago separate would be better due to Jago being the closest thing to a traditional shoto that KI has (maybe you could merge them if you made Shago's teleporting nonsense part of Jago's instinct? idk), but i do agree that having Eagle be alive and playable kind of contradicts Thunder's entire character motivation.
You do realize that the whole purpose of shadow jaho was just a possession of omen right ? it's not because jago has an inner dark side
Guilty Gear, Soulcalibur, Blazblue... There's good stories out there, even back in the day. The problem is that people didn't give a shit, but developers did.
Guilty Gear use to be good Then Rev2 bullshit happened with Ky being stronger than Sol Ariels taking all of That Mans villain credit it was bad Fanfic tiers of story ruining the entire Legacy of the establish lore twenty years ago
as much as i like gg , i cringed my way out of even finishing signs story
@@Doralga welp ky always stronger than sol since ggx story
I hope Guilty Gear Strive will fix it with a fresh new story since the character development in Guilty Gear series are much deeper in my opinion.
@@DollRyougi fucker Ky needs Gear blood to survive a bullet to the face while Sol can survive even when you erase his past self from the Timeline yet you expect to believe Ky is stronger
Is this consistency to you
What about SNK? What about the Art of fighting - Garou mark of the wolves or the alternative universe of KOF?
In my opinion at least in the 90s SNK was the king of stories
Not the point.
@@freedomkme 100% his point. As an SNK fan, it's both appalling (not seeing my favorite 20+ game saga represented in a video about good storytelling in videogames, which I got hooked on entirely for the story) and refreshing (because the video is about bad story telling, which KOF doesn't have)
The ash saga was really good aswell. In my opinion the best KOF saga.
In my opinion SNK should be ranked along with the too fighting games with the best storytelling
cciwaltwls true
11:32 “This doesn’t mean that Videl is now stronger canonically than Frieza, it’s that in this instance she managed to beat him” (I’m paraphrasing here).
YES!! This extends to when a weaker character manages to doge an attack or land a hit. Suddenly the fanbase goes all “ugh! They ignoring the power scaling now! How can Krillin stand up to (insert character here)?”
It’s not that he can beat the guy, that’s not what the show is implying...
Someone tell that to Mortal Kombat fans
Nah you missed the point. It doesn’t matter if krillin can beat “ insert here” character it’s the fact that krillin reacted to the “insert here” character in the first place.
Unless Frieza is holding back would blizt the shit out of krillin
@@Nzosaba_Matenge nah mortal kombat is just inconsistent. It makes zero sense that Kitana beat shao kahn
SNK has great stories for fighting games more than any developers.
that why tournament is good device for story plot and it similar to mk and tekken but different when time change cuz it affect the character itself that make drastic change on other year.
What about Arcsys? Their stories are pretty good
@@jambles3752 Arcsys also a good fighting game.
i came here to say this. im surprised the video has nothing about the most iconic intros, like Iori vs Kyo, Geese Howard vs Terry/Andy Bogard, Takuma Sakazaki vs his disciples, and of course, any Ikari Wariors matchup, but specifically Ralf vs Clark :(
It does seems that way.
Honestly I fucking love fighting game stories because of the immense amount of characters and wacky/convoluted plots (BlazBlue and Guilty Gear being my favorite video game stories ever).
🤡
"A fight is a story." Too bad not many fighting games these days realise that.
6:10 Except for King of FIghters, in which dead characters only return in dream matches, which are the games that have no story whatsoever.
Bloody haven't you heard, apparently KOF has a garbage storyline because it doesn't spend all of it's time showing how radical and cool the Fatal Fury characters are. Whoever genuinely believes this makes me weep.
@@flashystarwinger who even believes this?
GranX check the other comments mentioning KOF, your gonna find him.
@Martin Toledo nope, Garou is Fatal Fury, and the guy behind XIV, who was also behind Garou, said that Garou 2 will be made when, in his own stupid words, the time is right.
@Martin Toledo well, in Japan, Fatal Fury has the name Garou Densetsu, (Legend of the Wolf, the wolf obviously being Terry) so that’s why Mark of the Wolves is called Garou in the states.
Top tier fighting game players could care less about single player content. It's sad because older games of the genre used to come packed with it day one on the disc. I've come to respect Smash Bros. more due to the fact they don't neglect this part of the game and don't launch so bare bones.
Smash single player is still underwhelming imo
@@Mal-go5dl Subspace Emissary was incredible but there wasn't really any story mode in the latest Smash
Giving the circumstances of Competitive scene this might be a wake up call.
@@Mal-go5dl Even if you think that, it still puts most modern fighters to shame. Tekken 7 really made you pay for Tekken bowl...
@@Theyungcity23
There wasn't really a story in Subspace, either
I actually love the idea behind _BlazBlue's_ visual novel-inspired story modes. Yes, they're convoluted and a bit hard to follow, but they're also meticulously planned out and intentionally integrate and lampshade the various perceived fighting game story drawbacks. The characters are caught in a time loop, and so all story paths and endings are technically canon, as minor variations in the loop arising from the laws of probability, until the true ending actually breaks the loop. The sequel then progresses the story forward and introduces alternate timelines, which serve the same function; at one point Hakumen even cuts through spacetime and observes one of his own alternate endings. As the series goes on, they continue toying with these concepts and the overall presentation as necessary. Is it a perfect story? No. But there is a lot to dig into, and it all generally holds up under scrutiny.
Personally never liked Visual Novel formats personally...Feel hardly amusing...But just me.
I think story mode is still a good way to tell the character lore. In BlazeBlue you choose a single character and get a narrative of the relationship between characters you met. If I don't know the relationship of the characters that met in a "simple" vs battle, how could the fight be a good story? They would only some weirdos beating each other. On RUclips Accented Cinema made a video "How to Structure a Fight Scene" it's about fights in movies, but I think you need exactly the same things in a fight from a fighting game and for that you need some lore/context.
I don't like the idear before playing to read 5 or more pages of bio for each character to understand there relationships. Of course the small interactions at the start of the fight is cool and I love it, but can only tell only a few things. Did they like each other or not.
Arcade Mode is also, for me, a good way to just tell the character lore. Meet the rivale with a short dialog and a short ending is enough to establish the relationship between some characters. Even how the end boss is introduced help.
But story mode is the only way to made some kind of world building. Did you need to know there was a giant black beast, that was slain by some legendary heros, but the beast was only a failed experiment (some of BlazeBlue lore, that get maby too far)? No. :D But with it you can build more complex character lore, even it got just toooooooooo crazy.
Blazblue also has match up specific songs. Ragna vs Jin, Noel vs Tsubaki, and imo all of them fit the mood that the story established.
I like blazblue story like I feel like if some people thought it was a little complicated I wouldn't blame them cuz like if someone who's a fan of Kingdom Hearts fate and blazblue I can understand why they think that but I love the different character interactions and everything and I got into BlazBlue from Cross tag battle
Honestly, one fighting game with a story I liked was BlazBlue: Central Fiction. Sure there's tons of anime bullshit and overcomplicated concepts, lots of things that could and should be explained aren't, and many characters aren't that great...
But, goddammit, that story has an emotional core with Ragna. Seeing him try so so goddamn hard despite nothing in his life going right, leading to its heartbreaking conclusion was a rollercoaster.
Also Kagura vs Azrael was surprisingly badass.
Might help that BlazBlue was originally supposed to be a JRPG, but it was changed into a fighting game without changing the story much.
One problem with CF's story mode was the complete removal of special story mode gimmicks, like characters being rid of certain tools or being in Unlimited Mode. Imagine how much better the final battle against Susano'o would be if it was Unlimited Ragna VS Unlimited Susano'o.
KOF is the King for unique interactions between characters
About moveset change, Kyo the main protagonist got a lot variation play style from balanced to rush down, Iori Yagami flame or no flame, Ralf and Clark, etc
I started thinking their game just basically bunch of experiments but it works and I actually like it 😅
I remembered when I first played KOF 98. Seeing a unique intro with Iori against Kyo, with the normal Team Japan theme changing to a different song to emphasize the rivalry (same thing happens vice versa.) was an amazing surpirse for the first time.
A unique intro between Kyo and Iori is also there in KOF 97. Also lots of other unique intros in those games and other KOF titles: such as Terry vs Blue Mary, Athena vs Kensou ('98), and the hilarious one where Mai dresses up as a bride while fighting Andy.
KOF14 did the same thing as well, using tracks from previous games to highlight rivalries.
I'm still trying to figure out how Jade & Kotal were a thing. lol
Kotal never brought up his relationship with Jade in the comics or MKX (not even in his intro dialogue with Kitana does he state that he knew Jade personally), but MK11 makes a huge deal about it. Also, why is Jade in love with someone who is of another (humanoid) species?
@@ryanm.8720
Wtf does the species matter??? Lmao he's basically a fucking human, there's very little discernable difference between them. And isn't Jade an Outworlder anyway??
@@Blittsplitt5 Jade was born in
Edenia. Though she could still qualify as an Outworlder, since she resides there.
@Embodiment of destruction I forgot that Kotal fancied D'vorah before her betrayal until you brought it up. ruclips.net/video/bAuLE_TvYFQ/видео.html ruclips.net/video/bS6XZC9MEQk/видео.html
The Jin fights in BlazBlue are probably my favorite story fights. After the agonizing fight where you cant even draw your sword going to then fight in unlimited mode was amazing, I loved the feeling of power you got from that transformation.
I actually loved Blazblue Calamity Trigger story. Branching paths with different timelines meant everything was both canon and not, while the gameplay was actually a strong part of the narrative. Unfortunately it both created the Nu-13/Lambda-11 problem and became unfeasible with the ever growing cast of characters in later instalments
centralfiction, right? nu and lambda were new to BBCF
i know she first appeared just as a palette swap for Nu, but they gave her some personality and in later games she is a totally new character with different moves and gameplan. My favorite character in blazblue and my main in BBCF and i still love her, even if the initial idea for her was so cheap
@@onihaiena6152 No Nu was in BBCT and Lambda was in BBCS
@@onihaiena6152 Nu appeared in the first game. Lambda was her balanced replacement in the second. The third game, BBCP, brought back Nu, but allowed her to switch between both movesets because they didn't play exactly the same. The updated rerelease, BBCPEX, made the two separate characters which was retained in BBCF.
@Naquin Green Did you see Central Fictions ending? Lambda *is* one of the nuns working at the church
I've played Rachel Alucard for a short while and I never noticed she doesn't directly take a hit ever. That's funny.
I first suspected something was up when I noticed Rachel's "knocked out" appearance is her just sitting on the ground with her ASSISTANTS knocked out instead. So I took a closer look and realized they were taking all the damage.
"And maybe Freiza should've been blocking Videl's mixups" SENDS ME
One aspect of storytelling that goes unnoticed a lot of the time: Stages!
Character-specific stages can tell you a lot about the character it represents. You wouldn't guess Guile was an Air Force pilot if his stage didn't have a plane. Same for King in Tekken 2 and his church stage. Sakura's home from Alpha 2 shows that she lives a lower-middle class life. Vega's cage dropping down changes the fight from a fair brawl to a sudden dirty fight where the player is handicapped.
Seeing your teammates in KOF games cheer you on or lick their wounds makes the fights feel more meaningful and adds a nice way to characterize these personalities further.
One of my favourite stages in fighting games is the final boss stage for Tekken 2. It starts out with just an endless black void and a luxurious carpet, setting a creepy stage for the fight with the now-antagonist Kazuya. And then, in round 2 it goes balls-to-the-walls with these infinite mirrors and Devil Jin and the music getting more dramatic: it was a revolutionary technique for the times but it still carries the impact to this day!
I actually really liked the story modes in Soul Calibur 6. Each character has their own narrative path shown on a timeline, and the Libra of Soul mode used the context of a custom character to frame a lot of the story. The dialogue choices, and inclination towards Soul Edge or Soul Calibur helps a lot, and because the fights against canon characters are started outside of the fight within the story, it lets the characters shine a lot more.
especially the hwang one i think that's the best one
I sunk way too many hours into Libra of Soul because it's a story mode for our OC
I was hoping to hear Raven's "orgasmic paralyzation" referenced along with the characters that are too strong to lose. "You didn't win, you just hurt him... to completion."
Fighting games are interesting because outside of RPG's, you are not getting a better genre for lore. the problem is fighting games don't know how to tell you that lore. it's like having the best idea for a painting ever but having broken fingers, it doesnt matter how great the vision or how good you are at conveying visions outside of this context, it will always come out wrong in this situation.
One of my longest fighting game mains has been Paul phoenix, solely because of 2 bits of trivia. 1. He tied Kazuya for first place in tekken 1 after an hour of fighting. 2. He technically is the winner of 3 but king of iron fist tournaments have stupid rules to force the narrative to let a Mishima win without any sense of urgency.
To me growing up that was the thing that made me pick fighting game characters and play the games more. Paul can fight toe to toe with all of the devil powered (and Heihachi) Mishama's and a war god? hell yeah i wanna play him. Ralf Jones is punching you with grenades in his hands and somehow this normal dude is so tough the grenades blow you up and not his fingers? why would i not main him?! This basically naked ninja girl beat a ghost pirate powered by an evil blade? I think i'm gonna main Taki. And come on. Did anyone really not play Akuma at least once after learning this living devil who turned to a dark force for power, kills multiple people in the series and can destroy islands with a single strike's main career is a casual street vendor who sells people home grown fruits?
These character's are really engaging and have plenty of opportunities to expand upon their characters. the problem is when they do it usually feels half assed or ruins the character. Paul Phoenix despite his insane out of universe popularity is treated in universe as a complete loser. Taki is never allowed to do anything significant anymore despite being better than the main hero because they can't naturally write her into a story mode because she's not the focus Siegfried is. Akuma despite being....Akuma has very mediocre interactions with everyone he interacts with, and because he's so strong he can't interact with that many people without making everyone irrelevant for the story. and Ralf...is actually well handled in all things and has been shown to a lot deeper than he appears...guess they can't all prove my point, but you get the idea.
I think the best stories are the Guilty Gear XX stories. they just take us into events of an individual and we get to see how things turn out for them. And the fights matter. If you lose once in Sol's Accent core story you get the bad ending. This adds replayability to the campaign because there's alternate paths that give you different fights. In one dialogue you can choose to have a friendly bout with slayer, the strongest character in the series who's so strong his KO animation is laying there bored and uninterested throwing the fight for you. this is just a normal fight. You can also choose to go all out. Which makes you fight a super powered boss mode of him where he's got regenerating health/meter, 4x damage, 6x defense, and combo options you don't see normally.
It lets you shape your own narrative through the actions you take. And you can build off the lore of these characters well with these options. Sol LOVES a good fight so it would make sense and fit his character if the player chooses to go all out on slayer because Sol is so strong these opportunities never come up. But Sol is INCREDIBLY lazy and hates hard work as well, so him just saying "Look let's just get this over with..." halfheartedly and not getting a real match from a guy way stronger than him is very in character and because it's self contained you don't have to have people interact with each other who don't need to because you need to make a story mode where everyone gets together.
Ryu taking down Bison is the most forced BS in SF history because it's not his story arc to resolve but he does anyway because main character vs main villain has to be the ending. but in XX plenty of major characters don't interact and that;s fine because it wouldn't make sense for the dutiful soldier Potemkin to be interacting with the sneaky assassins' guild characters during his public investigations on Zepp security matters without major conflict happening that would derail their plots or get one of them killed, so he interacts with characters more befitting of his straight forward approach to things like chipp Ky etc. and doesn't interact to much with the cloak and dagger characters. the writers knew their roles and let them stay in them and fleshed them out there instead of trying to make one big party where everyone interacts.
@Shin Shaman Pretty sure he meant in SF5.
@Shin Shaman wow just came back to this and was actually happy people would be willing to have a thoughtful discussion on this. So you can imagine my disappointment when it’s one asshole who not only can’t fucking read but insinuated that bison vs ryu would ever be smart, and a guy reminding you to read better...
seriously they do not work as antithesis’s to each other. Bison should be fought by Chun li because she’s stated to have brought down shadaloo and has a deeply personal reason. Ryu. Could not. Give less of a shit about shadaloo. His arc villain has to be akuma because it’s the only one that works with his motivation.
Chun li fights to avenge her father, her antagonist should be the man who killed him. Ryu is on a personal journey of strength and enlightenment. Dealing with politics would be a stupid derailment of this. Akuma represents the corruption of his ideals, and presents the conflict for ryu’s character that he would have to sacrifice his humanity to achieve his dream of mastering his fighting style. So the only villain ryu should ever fight is the man who actively challenges his ideology of what strength means and what sacrifices one must be willing to make for it.
It’s why ryu never really did anything plot important in older games, and why his ending in 2 has him completely ignore the main antagonist or the victory ceremony. Ryu isn’t caught up by material possessions nor is motivated by anything other than his determination to be the best he can be. Ryu would realistically only look at him the same we he looks at sagat at this time, a cruel and twisted man that could test his strength.
But nah fuck all that let’s have him save the world from bison because everyone agreed to form a super friends group. Screw 3 games of building up Chun li and Charlie/Guile’s back story and motivation let’s let the homeless guy who doesn’t have any true motivation to stop bison do it.
"Now go home and be a family man!"
I don't care what this video says, Guile's ending is all the storyline I need!
I remember a fight in Blazblue Continuum Shift pretty well. It was during Tsubaki's mission to take down Jin and Noel. The whole time she was dreading seeing either of them, but that plot is left for a little bit. Later on you're playing as Noel, and you encounter Tsubaki. You as the player know why she's here, but Noel doesn't and you see them talk for a bit. The reason though that this fight is so cool, if if you hadn't sat in VS or Training mode forever, it was the first time you'd seen the rainy stage and heard Memory of Tears, a very lovely and melancholy song. Maybe it was just me, but I think that particular framing was excellent.
I honestly love BlazBlue's story mode, despite the fact that it can be hard to understand at times
@@yeetus2824 English cast is really fun imo
Background music doesn't sound right without hearing "Spidey Sting" "Venom Fang" or "Goodnight Sugah".
So I get what you're trying to say with the achievement completion rates, but achievment stats are always kinda crazy low. For Example, as of today, the PS4 achievement rate for playing a ranked or casual match in Dragon Ball Fighterz is 23.9% and 21.3% respectively. That means more people are playing MK11's story mode than are doing the actual fucking point of Dragon Ball Fighterz
Sean's ending from Third Strike was also just him dreaming he won against the cast
Imo Calamity Trigger's story was the best fighting game story. There's little exposition or explanation of the world, so it is entirely up to the player to piece together the mysteries of what's happening, be it the central plot and the reason behind the time loops, to small elements like the Blazblue being Ragna's arm. And because the plot is about time loops with small differences between them, it allowed any match-up to be cannon, and to get the true character endings, you had to do unorthodox solutions like intentionally lose fights. Admittedly, while this style was great at telling small contained stories that fit into a greater whole, it wasn't very good at actually moving the plot along, which is probably why CP dropped it.
3:05
I get the point that story completion is a pretty low percentage of the player base, but 3.8M players to complete a story mode in a genre where story is at the bottom of the list of desired features is pretty damn good, when most fighting games would kill to have 3.8M in sales in their first year.
I understand the point of the video, and I agree whole heartedly, especially when considering MK11 is the current best-case scenario.
I'm just saying I was actually pleasant surprised to see those numbers.
Compared to an over-arcing mode that might feature some of the cast, I prefer the classic individual story approach. Like in Skullgirls, when you pick a character, they become the protagonist for that playthrough.
The issue is that fighting games that have massive casts now so you'd have to make stories with 20+ protagonists. And you can't make a smaller cast without pushback
@@FraserSouris this is exactly how all games do it. Not hard at all, barely an inconvenience
@@FraserSouris I was thinking Blazblue should go back to using that format, they used it in both Calamity Trigger and Continuum Shift...but instead to make it much easier(and so many character can get an ounce of spotlight and not be wasted) they combine 2 or 3 characters stories together. You play as one character for the first half of the story and the 2nd or 3rd character for the second and third halves. That way it's much faster and easier to go through every characters story equally.
Cross over Fighting games in a nutshell
Villains: Let's work together
Other Villains: K
Heroes: Those guys are Strangers, Let's beat em up
Other Heroes: *OH YOU WANNA GO!*
I recall that someone complained about the absurdity of Mortal Kombat, specially MK 11's story and that scene with Sonya Blade and Cassie Cage.
Cassie is about to get promoted, her mother Sonya is proud of her and that shows. Just one last spar, give the troops a show and Cassie gets to prove herself. It feels heartwarming. Then the battle starts and Cassie puts a few bullets in her mother's heart, and Sonya retaliates with a chainsaw from the environment.
And that's why MK 11's combat felt forgettable between the movie cutscenes. It's too over the top. A lot of actions that should've finished the battle are taken, and thus you don't pay much more attention to it than to a progress bar, because you know that even if you were to constantly snap Skorpion's arm, it wouldn't matter until the post-battle cutscene said otherwise..
If I could swap story mode for interactions between EVERY character, I'd do so in a heartbeat. It's way more interesting seeing Cooler call out Frieza or for Rachel to tease Ragna when they're on the same team then to see a large amount of exposition for an all powerful evil I don't care about too much outside their personality, design and motivations which are all present in good movesets anyway.
Cross tag battle is the best at this and the reason I love it. So many team ups that bring me so much joy
for me ''arcade mode'' is the right way to incorporate cutscenes and a narrative for all characters of the roster, one cutscene at the start for showing characters motivations and goals, and one at the end to show what they learned/win on their journey.
I know the memes about smash not being a "true fighting game", but i think brawl's story mode could have been a good addition to this video
I don't know if that franchise is a "fighting game one" in the traditional sense. But I really love how the Puyo Puyo games tell their stories (At least in 20th anniversary since the other games are either, everyone as his own version of the story or you can only play as these three for the story). First of all every stories of the franchise is based around character interactions and character driven narrative.
And basically in 20th anniversary, every characters get their own self-contained story that can happen at any moment and since the game they play (Puyo) needs wits instead of raw power, anyone can beat everyone if they are in a good condition. (I just regret the fact that the editor stopped every attempts of the developper at making a serious story... ^^')
Or you can make the Arcade mode a separeted story for each character, where all are canon and not canon at the same time like in skullgirls, but it's still a solution if it's gonna be just one game without sequels.
Or make the sequels unrelated to the events of the first game
i know people here hate NRS but my god the character intros is something every fighter should do
Idk why they go so far out of their way to shit on NRS.
Because that costs a lot of money. Plus you can see them reuse voice lines so they couldn't think of everything. KoF XIII's and SVC Chaos had text instead of that shit so that would be the only other viable solution but otherwise generic intros are gonna have to work.
@@Garupan Guilty Gear has sweet character introductions though.
KOF 13 has pretty well written dialogue for the most part; My favorite being Terry talking with K'.
.... Let's be honest, only MKX does it good of the NRS games.
having just 2 animation sets per character, and them be matched to the (opening, comment, response) lines looks good
having to repurpose the animations for work for both sides of the conversation and making mirror matches god awful to look at is not good.
Hmm, a lot of the dialogue in those is noticably nonsensical, though. It's a cool idea, but when a lot of the characters don't actually have clear reasons to justifiably fight each other, it just leaves me going "wuh? huh?" rather than getting hyped for an epic battle. Especially with MK11's, there's way too much friendly dialogue, and "let's spar" framing just doesn't make sense for that gameplay. And then they start reusing old voice lines when the DLC characters come out and it just gets even more awkward and surreal.
Honestly, I think the overblown and excessive intros and outros in Guilty Gear Xrd are my favourite. Nothing gets me hyped for a match like Baiken's intro.
But I've gotta give a shout-out to Skullgirls. Whenever you get a knockdown, your character has a relatively large amount of match-up specific insults that they throw at the opponent, and the opponent gets a retort voice line if they tech roll. So the entire fight has this banter woven all throughout it.
Dude, you're gonna regret not mentioning SNK fighters lol.
But I do believe that Fatal Fury has the best story, even though it is told in an arcade style.
And KOFs team system makes it plausible that most teams can beat each other. Maybe Chang and Choi are really stupid crooks that can't beat anyone but Kim is a very skilled fighter and he can cary his team. And their anime saga style is also pretty cool.
KoF also actually has the story affect the gameplay. Like in KoFXIII when Iori cannot use his fire because Ash stole it in XI.
Yeah the ash saga was the best
SNK teleports behind you
nothing personal kid...
Did you forget that SNK also made KOF? Those games stories are pure trash.
@@rockmenx8xx411 I'm not sure why you're hating on KOF in response to literally every comment that mentions them, but KOF's story is quite alright.
Apollo Justice he's hating on it because KOF doesn't take every opportunity possible to fellate Fatal Fury.
@@flashystarwinger so he's a troll?
@@theyneverlearn3679 How is the story alright?
One thing i liked about them's fighthin herds story mode is how they repurposed the engine to make a platform game that teaches the new players small mechanics like short hop, super jump, etc...
And how they made the normal characters into bosses by giving them 2-3 health bars as well as some extra moves/super moves.
Like how velvet phase 2 is just her using a infinite version of her wind-push move and phase 3 is her inside her own lv1 zoning you alway with projectiles, essentially teaching the player that velvet is a bi... a zoner and how to get near her by avoiding her projectiles. (Even though she's shooting bigger versions of her normal projectiles)
Or like when you beat paprikas phase 1, the screen goes black to make a fake loading screen as if the fight has ended, them her phase 2 starts without any warning as she comes flying at you, giving emphasys to her crazy personality. Also if you get hit, arizona will say "hey not fair", but if you evade her attack, arizona will say "nice try".
Glad KOF is the one known for its good stories, specially the Orochi saga, and SNK fans actually cares about the lore in KOF
I may be in the minority here but I actually thing Guilty Gear Xrd and Strive got it right with story. I think too much is done to try and integrate the fighting game mechanics into the lore of the characters. At the end of the day, all I want is background and some extra material to form attachments to my characters with. I care about the characters in fighting games. There are many characters I don't play because I don't like their story. My biggest issue with MK's story is how cheap the combat felt. It was unnecessary. So just cut it out and give me the cutscenes because as the video pointed out, many of us just want to see the "movie" that comes with the game.
Three words: Them's Fightin Herds.
Really, im not joking, the story mode does exatcly what you say it should be done, a story withing the fight.
Makes me honestly glad Smash Ultimate didn't put too much effort in making a full blown story mode with a roster that massive. I agree a fight itself is more than enough.
Yeah. True, Subspace Emissary was kinda grander in scale, but...much like in modern NRS games, a lot of characters got the short end of the stick by...merely just being there and not having much personal impact on the story. Ike, Yoshi, Ice Climbers, Olimar...The list can go on.
@@MrAuthor3DS Ike defused a Subspace bomb, but I mean, you could always play the sections as him first, to be honest, only a few characters get priority to the story, (the Kirby characters) but that's only for a while.
I genuinely miss Subspace Emissary.
I will say that I do kind of like how Pokemon Trainer only starts with Squirtle and has to get his other Pokemon later on in the story, but after that, yeah he does kind of get shafted in terms of story.
I like how Blazblue Calamity Trigger (and only Calamity Trigger) has the "every fight is canon" mentality in its story mode because of the time loop, and that every win and every loss has a cutscene related to it (even if some repeat themselves). It honestly felt refreshing, and I was disheartened that the rest of the franchise didn't follow it up.
This is an excellent analysis of story mode as a concept,
great work here.
If I'm honest, I kinda feel miffed, like it's a copout to say _"playing the fighing game is the story ALL along,"_ or something.
I do agree with your point that fighting games, as fighting games, are far, FAR too removed from their narratives to make focusing on those narratives compelling.
There's also the fact that fighting games can and have nailed characters, their backgrounds, motivations, etc., as any review of a Digi-Valentine's "Who's Dat" (on a fighting game character) could show you.
We have also seen that trying to pick out the fighting game characters, and put them in a single player game, to focus on a story, simply fails to do so more than not, as Shaolin Monks, Death By Degrees, or Guilty Gear Overture has shown.
A final point, which Max has brought out about MVCI multiple times, sometimes just HAVING a story mode there, no matter how poor it actually is, can make the sales that a publisher / developer is ultimately looking for. MVCI sold a million copies, and it certainly wasn't because it was a beloved fighting game.
Maybe one day this problem will be solved with a solution that works, and maybe we will FINALLY know what the heck happenes after Streer Fighter 3.
Good stuff as usual
I think MK is the best and worst at selfcontained story, their intro dialouges are great! Two characters with deep connections can acknowledge that and build upon their story. Two rivals will trashtalk, two friends will talk about sparring etc etc. But they also break this hardcore when after the fight, one of the two best friends can decide to brutally murder their friend lol
I respectfully disagree, in the regard to this type of storytelling both KOF and Street Fighter (mainly the Alpha series) do it much better.
In some cases But Mk11 felt weaker.
I honestly think they tend to not be fitting to have when instigating a fight...MKX had more antagonizing to initate....Mk11 were not fitting or were cringe inducing references.
32% seems like a decent amount of players who actually finished the story mode to me. Especially in a fighting game where some players are only in it for the versus modes. I'd like to see this statistic compared to other fighting games, as well as other more story-driven games in general. I know personally, I finish the story mode of less than 10% of all games I purchase unfortunately.
for "the last of us 1" which is praised as one of the best story games ever only 40% of people that bought it beat it according to PSN trophies, so 32% is a good number definitly, i feel like his point using achievement rates is very poor since it applies to most games from what i can tell.
He makes some good points but I've always liked the idea of taking a character or characters going through the story in their eyes and waiting to see what happens in the next installment. Because a lot of times there's a little bit of canon from previous installment in the new one. I also disagree with him on a lot, like the reason for character death. The character deaths of Scorpion and Hehaichi didn't stick with me because they were terrible not because I could pick them in versus. They tried "killing" Hehaichi like three times now and it stopped meaning something after a while.
Also the self contained narrative is fine and all but you don't get that without some story. If there was no story mode we wouldn't know the actual depth of the two characters fighting.
But kof tho!! how can you not mention kof it has 3 big arcs finished and the 4th is just starting, each arc has its own protagonist and each villain has a reason for their motives.
When it comes to guilty gear the way they tell the story may not be the best but the story itself is actually good with some depth to it.
P.S I might be bias because these two games are my very first into the fighting game genre but i still believe the stories are good compared to other fighting games
Fantastic storytelling and Metaverse can't help us from the amazing SNK English.
He's not talking about whether it's good or not, he's talking about how the stories take advantage of the fact that they're videogame stories.
@@nurandika4563 it took us like +30 years, but we're finally there: acceptable translations
I like the way King of Fighters 13 and Street Fighter IV did it. Little bits of story in the pre match and win quotes
What about Skullgirls? Each fighter there has their own self-contained story mode and the story itself isn’t that big.
12:12 ...but the story explains why they can.
Nappa techinally can't remotely touch anyone on the roster but he can because of the story in the game which applies to the canon of the roster
I really hope I'm not going to have to reply to this comment by the end of this video with a "Play Them's Fightin' Herds Story Mode! it's actually super good!" comment.
DAMNIT, A.B.I., I have to make a "Play Them's Fightin' Herds Story Mode!" comment!
Yes, the Vs. elements you say are all there. Pom realistically should never win a match with her frantic flailing and such, but her win quotes frame it as her feeling like she got lucky or her dogs just went in so hard on her behalf that she managed to eke out a victory. Paprika is treated like being in combat with a Tex Avery cartoon who the NPCs in story mode all fear for her fourth-wall breaking nonsense and the fact that even when you beat her, she's got a big, doofy smile on her face like she found the whole thing fun while the other cast members see it as a struggle for their lives, lest they be crush hugged and drowned in Alpaca floof.
Them's Fightin' Herds has a wonderful story mode through that uses it's mechanics to teach players and put them in dramatic situations that expresses emotions perfectly. Before the fight with Velvet the pompous zoning reindeer begins, you the player as Arizona have been subjected to rude NPC after rude NPC as the xenophobic and hedonistic folk of Reine City give quite the chilly reception to the little cow calf that could only to meet Velvet, have Pumpkin Spice cider spit into your cow's face, and then have her hautily declare herself the true champion and you just a plebian.
Of course, the fight starts like a normal Vs. match, you're having to deal with Velvet keeping you out and making smug passes along the way, only for when she starts to get roughed up and have her beautiful visage touched to start doing things like activate a wind that constantly pushes you away so she can continue to do rude lame zoner things to you, and eventually turns into a bit where she kicks up the wind so strong that it pans the camera back to make full screen WAY Farther back than it was, only for the wind to start pelting you with this high/low mixup zoning nonsense while pushing you back! At this point, most players who don't have the patience to deal with zoning are probably fuming, getting impatient and rushing in just to try and end it, less they get chipped out by the hailstorm coming their way. Never mind that this super ultra ice tornado attack where she pushes you way back and shoots projectiles is very highly telegraphed and is probably the easiest phase in this 3 part boss fight. If you haven't had the chill to be patient, it can catch you off guard having to suddenly go from a normal fight to suddenly having to play what feels more like a platforming mini game or dealing with Lowain Yggdrasil nonsense than an actual fight.
There's an even better example of this in the 4th chapter, but... A.B.I., I'd deeply encourage you to check it out itself, check out some of the hurdles the animation team had to overcome to make quadrupeds kicking each other in the face read clearly in silhouette, and... really, enjoy the story. If nothing else, the story mode and much of the game's lore WAS overseen by Lauren Faust herself, even if she let the team do the animation and fill in a lot of the smaller gaps from her outline!
Why?
@@ClexYoshi Them's Fightin' Herds wins again
Also, I'd like to hear A.B.I's opinion on RPG overworlds framing the fighting game story
@@ClexYoshiThem's Fighting Herds is made by a team of fighting game fans, and their passion and understanding of the genre really shows. The game is one of the most competent fighting games that money can buy. Pretty bloody impressive for an indie game with a minuscule budget and creative crew compared to the big companies.
Not to mention the small platforming challenges which teach you how to use short hops and super jumps, the mook enemies who teach you things like proper anti-airs, blocking mixups, dealing with zoning, controlling space yourself, etc.
As for the character boss fights, what’s so amazing about them is that phase 2 and 3, especially in the Velvet fight, test the same skills and strategies that work against the character in a normal match. As a Velvet main, when I got to the boss fight, I jumped forward while air-blocking a lot, did my best to keep tons of pressure on Velvet, and knew how to avoid and deal with all of her tools. It felt so easy because Arizona’s my worst matchup thus far, and I know what to fear from the cow, and getting in some role reversal is brilliant ❤️