Okay, I know Mortal Kombat can be a bit icky in a lot of ways, but Deception not getting as much as a honorable mention is criminal. They built an entire RPG mode, in which you free-roam across multiple realms, meet new- and old fan favorites, learning from them as you go, doing sidequests, seeing- and exploring areas previously only available as 2D backgrounds. And when you beat the RPG mode, everything goes full circle, as the intro now makes total sense. Your player character Shujinko becomes available in all modes, and you'll finish his story proper by beating his arcace mode. It's definitely over-ambitious, but it's also a very primitive version of what SF6 is building, on the goddamned PS2.
The PS2 era was the last time developers aimed to give you as much as they could in a game. Remember Tekken 5? It also had Tekken 1,2 AND 3 and a new Tekken Force game and training mode and gallery and maybe other stuff I can't remember but LOTS!! could you imagine how much they would charge for a package like that now?
@@bruceleeds7988 Considering Tekken put Bowling and frame data behind paywalls, I’m frankly gonna treat SF6 like a religion. I miss Arcade mode with multiple entertaining cutscenes per character. Actual, voiced rival fights is my number one wish these days (outside of, y’know, good gameplay and Rollback) and it used to just be standard.
I wish just once when someone makes a video about single player modes they mention MK9's challenge tower. And yeah SF6's revolutionary mode was done in MK Deception.
@@aramondehasashi3324 Gotta be honest, I totally forgot about MK9's amazing challenge tower too. You can throw Injustice 1's Star Labs missions on top of that pile. They had a lot of fun with that one.
IMO it's honestly a shame that modes like that often got kinda shafted in recent NRS games in favor of cinematic story modes and character customization.
Back in the day I put over 100 hours into Soul Calibur 3’s “Chronicles of the Sword” mode. Something about creating characters and taking over strongholds with your troops, and unlocking weapons & clothing just clicked with me.
Chronicles of the Sword, was AWESOME! Very much with you on that. I liked that different strongholds had different fighting conditions too (Ice floors, lose health while guarding, etc), so even that had a little bit of strategy baked in there.
Shoutout to never being able to finish that because a bug prevented my game from actually saving to the memory card. DID get to the end a couple of times tho. It was super fun
Did you just make a video about single player modes and NOT talk about Thems Fighting Herds? I know it's not the most popular or influential game but still??
I guess I'm one of the wierdos among fighting game enthusiasts (it's my favorite genre), in that single player content is the most important thing to me. It might just be because I'm a massive introvert and I've never been a very competitive person. I prefer to compete with myself, to see if I can do really hard things in a game or get high scores. I got into fighting games back with SF2 because it looked amazing, had awesome characters, cool moves, and it was the most control you could have over a character compared to any other kind of game. I actually like and enjoy the stories, even the "stupid" ones. I did frequently get disappointed by FG stories and endings, but that didn't stop me from playing the shit out of them. The first time I really loved single player in an FG was Tekken 2 and SFEX+A. I unlocked and reunlocked all characters and all the endings in the Theatre Mode for those games multiple times (erasing the file in my memory card and starting again). To date, the series with the best single player content for me so far is either Soulcalibur or Smash Bros. The modes in Tekken 3 and Soul Blade/Edge were rightfully brought up in this video, but I think something should have been said about how later games in those series actually brought back those ideas and expanded or improved on them. Soulcalibur 1, 2, and 3 have amazing single player content, and Tekken 6 tried out Force mode again too. And btw, I HAVE played against others offline and online, and even tried the tournament scene a bit. It can be fun, but it's not the most fun I've had with a fighting game. I mostly entered tournaments to help support one of my favorite series that doesn't usually get good numbers or support. I think my lack of interest in how competitively viable an FG is or it being "popular enough to have a competitive scene or people actually online" lets me explore more FGs out there that most other people ignore. Weird or old, long-unplayed stuff like Waku Waku 7, Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer (Neo Geo CD), Fighters Destiny, Angel Eyes, Bloody Roar, Clayfighters, Mace The Dark Age, Rival Schools, Fatal Fury, Last Blade, Darkstalkers, Battle Arena Toshinden, Yatagarasu, Star Gladiator, Chatan Yarakuu Shanku (The Karate Tournament), Breakers, Power Stone, Tatsunoko vs Capcom, and Power Instinct, and that's just off the top of my head. I can enjoy experiencing and replaying those games for years because I'm interested in more than just their competitive side. I don't lose interest just because I don't have someone to play against. And yes, "What Happened to Single Player Modes in Fighting Games?" Is a question I've asked lately too. I think lately the focus has been on making FGs equivalent to other online-focused and more social games, like competitive FPS, RTS, and MMORPGs. Viable for Evo and Esports. The quality and innovation in single player content has generally declined, and if you thought FG stories were bad before... even I want to ignore them these days. I never considered the angle of how single player or story modes in FGs might have even existed in the first place might be because of arcades and the players needing something to do while waiting for an opponent (even though SF1, Fatal Fury 1, and Art of Fighting all started as single-player-focused games). I guess it's because I always felt character design and story WAS actually important to fighting games, other wise why even have multiple characters and designs and stages if none of it matters? The design and story of a character, even their stage and music, might be a reason for a player to pick up a character over another one and have favorites and even choose who to main competitively. If the competition was literally the only thing that mattered, then there might as well be only one plain stage (like the favorite of competitive players, "the training stage") and every character might as well just be stick figures or wire frames. Even chess has a story to tell with its different pieces, their names, and what they each do differently. I'm also a big believer in single player and story modes being a bridge for casual players to get more interested in deeper and more competitive mechanics in an FG. SF2's and SF3's bonus games were mentioned here in the video, but my favorite games to do it best so far are Dead or Alive Dimensions and DOA5, which really integrated tutorials into their story mode. The mission mode in SFEX+A was also the first time I started to really learn how to actually do moves and combos properly. SF6's ideas look very interesting and ambitious. If nothing else, I hope it does inspire other FG developers to try harder with their single player content too. Try harder to get better writers for better storylines too. My only issue with SF is that I haven't cared much for its characters, story, and style since the era of SF Alpha/Zero and SF3 (Alpha 2/3 were peak-SF for me). Sorry for the novel. 😅
It's great to see that Capcom learned their lesson with SFV. Never underestimate the importance of single player content. I really hope that whatever they have waiting for us in SF6 will be something trully special. Also, I really think that what would make single player modes shine the most is a complete revamp of the CPU. Don't just make a brain dead brick or am input reading nightmare. Make a CPU that behaves like a real person. Let it make some mistakes, let it drop some combos, miss some oppotunities, get defensive when things aren't looking good. Make it learn your patterns and act against it. I'm pretty sure it is possible and would make the experience much more engaging.
Honestly, after the travesty that is SF V's story, ANYTHING that SF VI does will be an improvement. Not to knock World Tour - it looks like it really could be the new gold standard for fighting game single player modes if it at all lives up to what it's promising.
Single player modes in most games, not just fighting games, have become really lazy. The difficultiy settings are not balanced out, everything that should be unlockable is for sale, the story modes are either lazy art pics or 8 hour long movies with quick time sequences not actual games. The most value for money I got when buying a game is when I bought SF4, MKXL and the new Doom Games, oh yeah and PS4 "ultimate" versions of PS3 games with all the content on them.
You are absolutely right. Good points! I feel the lack of improvement on the A.I and lack of good unlockable content in fighting games specifically is really disappointing. Let's hope World Tour turn out to be great and set a new standard.
It's a bit weird you didn't at least mention Guilty Gear Isuka. Its beat 'em up mode is honestly quite good and unlike Judgement, doesn't strip down any part of the gameplay! (I do like Judgement though.) You can even use your custom Robo-Ky mkII in it!
As a casual fighting game fan, I play arcade mode *A LOT*, I never really picked one game and decided to "git gud" at it, if you will, if I see a game and think it looks good, I give it a go, and I play usually until I'm able to finish Arcade mode on the default difficulty, or I give up trying, whichever comes first... And if I think the game was fun then yeah, I keep coming back to it on occasion... If I have the opportunity to play with someone else then well, lovely I give that a go too, though it usually end up being either with people who are much worse at it than me, or much better than me, no-in-between...
The Smash series has amazing examples of single-player content. Melee had Adventure, a beat-em-up/platformer mode, and Event Matches, 51 special matches with unique restrictions and win conditions. Brawl had Subspace Emissary, a full-on Metroidvania campaign with gorgeous 3D cutscenes, big setpiece boss battles, and a unique equipment system in the form of Stickers. Ultimate has World of Light, an RPG mode that combines the special fights of Melee's Event Matches with the unique equipment system and setpiece bosses of Brawl. (Seriously, check out those boss fights - they're SO cool.)
Its all so shallow though. Everything smash gives is just a standard match with maybe some restrictions or alternate win cons. Most the time you can't pick the stage this challenge is on and for a lot of event matches not even the character you play as. To call WoL an RPG is a bit generous, it gives you stat boosts and new effects its hardly team building and stat planning. Goes to show how lacking the genre is that WoL and Subspace are held in such high regard when in reality its the bare minimum they could make.
I really love the Classic Mode in Ultimate. The fact that every charatcer has their own special route just makes it feel so special. Some are better than others, but they're all fun to see. I was laughing my ass off when you get to the end of Luigi's Classic mode and fight Dracula.
@@jackg6887 Agreed, at least Subspace had cutscenes, during the entirety of WoL I just wanted to 100% it for the Spirit collection and then fuck it, upgrades were fun but it does get boring to oneshot everyone with Ganondorf after a while.
Brawl Subspace emisary is amazing, Ultimate World of light was such a disappointment. They just made two CGI cutscenes for the trailers to hype it up before release, and that's it.... you don't see any characters interaction anymore. I've never seen a bigger missed opportunity, but I get that they focused everything in getting all this crazy crossover characters and making them as good as possible.
About Granblue there are exclusive bosses like big monsters,dragons and etc in the RPG mode,not a lot but there are like 5 or 6 and I think that is very cool reminds me MvC bosses. About Co-op Dragon ball has the raids where you can tag to other players and granblue too had hard version of the bosses and there is the blitz event that is more like an online mode where they disable Rank for a weekend and is a leaderbord and depend how high you are you gain more skins to your player card that appears before every match. Now about single player modes Its so weird like Blazblue had some of the most amazing singleplayer modes but in the next game they just drop it and try another thing that is not as good and others that were bad and thank god they killed. There is one that I always wanted to try but its japonese exclusive that is Rival Schools it looks like a fighting game Persona and I wish that was made like Atlus is a lot smaller then Capcom they could do it I think,World tour look like that but I think there will not have a lot of interaction between characters like Rival Schools.
One of my personal favorites I wanna shout out is the Quest mode from Virtua Fighter 5’s original home ports. It basically simulates the experience of being in the Japanese arcade scene when the game was new, and by the end of it, you’ll even be squaring off in tournaments against AIs based directly on the top players at the time
What I think is also great about RPG Mode is that it allows people who have zero experience with Fighting Games to slowly develop some basic skills in a fun, controlled, familiar environment Will beating RPG Mode make you a monster in Online? Not really. Does it help combat the stress of learning a completely new, honest to God quite overwhelming genre? Absolutely.
Funny enough, I got my start playing fighting games because of single player. Many years ago, I used to speedrun DBZ Budokai's story mode. It followed the story of Dragon Ball Z from Raditz to the end of the Cell Saga, and it only took about half an hour to do. It was a ton of fun, and I really enjoyed sitting down in Training Mode, seeing if I could improve my combos to optimize my damage, which would lead to my time getting better.
Can't forget to mention that after you beat the story the first time, you not only get to get a chapter select but you also got to play extra chapters that either covered more of the story such as Piccolo fighting off against Nappa and the Saibamen or Vegeta taking on Cell as he obtains his Perfect Form, or they let you play as the Villains in a What If Scenario. Seeing Cell become practically a Cell Jr because Krillin sacrificed himself to protect 18 was something wild back then.
A RUclips video about single player modes in Fighting Games and still no mention of MK9's challenge tower 😔 or any of MK's other single player mode throughout the years. Deceptions Konquest mode which is what SF6's new story mode is. Puzzle Kombat, Chess Kombat. Armageddon's Mario Kart type game Motor Kombat. And all the test your Might, Sight & Luck that have been in multiple games throughout the series.
While I haven't tried it yet, the naming of an "RPG Mode" in GBVS reminded me of Red Earth, which I had heard that was sort of similar to a beat-em-up in that, you don't fight hordes of enemies but all that you fight are big bosses and can level up your characters, to the point that there's a feature to save your progress as a password.
I gotta give it to Guilty Gear XX and AC+ since they are the richest in term of contents. For Arcade mode, you have 3 variation: Normal, Gold (Fighting all bosses characters), and EX (Fighting all EX characters and you could even mix both Gold and EX together.) M.O.M, a survival-ish mode but your combo will net you more points and recovery items. Mission Mode is where you beat characters or survival under certain condition. The survival mode was one of the best feature since it was an RPG like experience. The first irritation from XX was just Lv Up based on your combo and reach Lv 500 to defeat Gold Justice. AC+ ver. EXTENDED IT TO Lv 1000 but every 10th level, you fought a Shadow Boss and you gain stats or Ability upon defeating the boss. Once you reached the Gold Boss, they will give you their Unique ability like Time Travel (Axl) to back track for grinding stats or Vampire Form (Make all of your attacks drain and absorb HP from your opponents.) Story Mode was just a treat with 3 endings with 3 paths (XX) and 2 ending and paths (AC+) for each characters. Story Battle could go crazy from you getting poison, no jumping, or you have to fighting the boss ver. of the regular characters. Something you got better deal when you ARE a Boss character as well. Doing Arcade will net you artworks, doing Story, Mission, and Survival will unlock EX characters, Shadow characters and Gold characters. Gold and Shadow can be used in Arcade, M.O.M, Vs., and Team Battle. EX can be used in all modes.
Xrd combines M.O.M., Survival & Mission together for a tough but fun experience that almost compensates for the removal of EX & Gold characters. Then came Strive and while the Arcade mode had some potential, Survival is just a barebones endless mode (though it allows for quicksave for every 10th win (defeat a shadow boss). From XX to Strive, where did it all go downhill?!
i dont like losing to real people but wierdly enough i dont mind losing to bots.... So i spam single player just to get a hang of a game and play. SINGLE PLAYER RULES also good video
BBCF has something pretty cool with its Grimm of Abyss mode. Sure, the grimoire system is pretty strange to wrap your head around with the item drops you can equip a limited amount and type to a certain grimoire with. However, they often have cool perks to help your character get through each dungeon/level and unlock the harder ones. Plus, they're essential to gettung through the Boss Rush, a stage where you fight suped up versions of every single playable character with their own OP gimmicks tailored to their character's in-universe story powers and circumstances. Sometimes, your upgrades increase your stats to better weather the storm, other times, they can shut off the enemy's ablities, which is really good when you face Boss Hakumen who can spam his counter Astral and you really need that ability to turn off the CPU's Astral Heats. Plus, once you beat a boss, you never have to start Boss Rush from the beginning unless you really want to. You can start from whoever happens to be the current enemy you've yet to conquer, or you can set it back to start at whoever else you wanna refight before making your way to where you were at. It's all pretty cool.
one thing I like about granblues weapon system is that some of them actually unlock weapon skins you can use in vs matches. It's a nice way to connect the different modes
Even a lot of the "best" single player conent in fighting games would be considered dogshit in any other genre. These games are lucky FG fans have incredibly low standards. Arcade modes might be the laziest kind of mode a fighting game could give.
I think my major gripe they stop trying to do something.Xrd and all blazblue at least the arcade mode serves as a prequel to the stories modes and even if they did not landed they were trying to do single player modes,there was one blazblue that had something like a rouge-like mode and that was fun I wish they had updated and evolved that but now I cant call strive arcade mode as even decent arcade mode and outside that there is no singleplayer mode you dont even unlock an artwork or something. It still baffle me that the most ambitious single player modes are from PS1 and ps2 eras.
I thought you would've mentioned street fighter alpha 3's world tour mode since you talked about ps1 games. Now that game had some truly unique stuff I've never seen in anything else to this day. If you haven't played it you should give it a try. Hopefully a lot of that carries over into sf6's version.
They got lazy. Thats all. I enjoy fighting games, but my skill is really bad, so I depend on good singleplayer content to keep me playing the games, since I'm not that good. The reason why I have a lot of hours in Granblue Fantasy Versus over Guilty Gear Strive is fairly obvious as to why. Also the fact that you're playing a beat em up with fighter controls like Dungeon Fighter Online (or DNF if you preffer) with a level system, gear and items to equip and upgrade against unique enemies, bosses and so, fairly excited for Granblue Versus Rising having an extended RPG mode.
Honestly, it's a big shocker that no companies actually invest in GOOD single player content like they used to. They really need to. SF6 though will have some amazing single player content I'm sure
GNT4 has an interesting hoard-mode beatemup where you have constantly spawning shadow ninjas coming at you from every angle. unlike tekken, then screen stays pointed above you and you do have the ability to change targets, but also the number of enemies on field scale over time, so unless you can efficiently take them all out immediately, or play gaara and use your AoE attack to hit everyone around you, you'll get overwelmed quickly. it's not very deep, but it is a fun way to pass the time
The answer to the question “what happened to single player modes in fighting games?” is street fighter 4. That game had 0 content in it, but people didn’t care because it was on of the first big fighting games you could play online. This taught other developers that all you need is training mode and ranked, which would ironically come back to bite capcom with street fighter 5 and the controversy surrounding its barren release.
Now it seems to be correcting itself. Since NRS has been making mad bank with single player content. But there is still room to improve with the chapter format flooding most story mode fighting games. SF6 and Tekken 8 having a bigger budget means they can finally return back to having expansive single player modes in fighting games. Mind you, I grew up in an era where Street Fighter 2 was 70 bucks. So back they couldn't offer much as ports so it was important that playing characters felt responsive to get you to play all the characters without too much trouble. That justified my purchased back then. But during the era of SF4, Any game in the modern era, I'd never spend more than 20$ maybe less cause the PS3 era of Fighter were mostly BARREN in single player content which was important for me.
I used to looooove the single player experience. Getting good at every character to unlock ALL THE THINGS, until the time around virtua fighter 4 evo. Where the absolute shitholes started to shove dlc on disc that u had to unlock by buying it.. (or even worse.. where xbox and playstation had different dlcs packages.... after that. Fighting games died for me.
I was playing granblue and got me that feeling of unlock things like the gacha and the story with in game money let you unlock weapons skins for the characters,arcade mode let unlock some colors and I like gallery modes I wish fighting games devs update more of that with every patch. But then after sometime they tried the battle pass and that was very disapoiting.
During PS1-PS2 era fightings on consoles were more exiting, also because of many content, hidden too. Now nobody makes such fightings with a lot of modes and characters. Now there are DLC. Unfortunately, old games always will be the best…
Of you ever get the chance you should try out Chess Kombat from Mortal Kombat : Deception. The game isn't perfect but that mode is just so much fun to go back to
Esports happened, but as many of the comments suggest there are many games that are the exception. Can you truly be making a review on this topic with an "idc" bias?
For some reason fighting games are obsessed with online fighting, despite most people still paying offline only, and fighting have tournaments despite them being very important.
I sunk a lot of hours into marvel vs Capcom 2 on the Xbox back in the day, it had a point system that you could use to get new characters, art, stages and costumes, that was very exciting because it motivated me to practice a lot a beat Arcade mode over and over.
Speaking of fun siingle player content... Fate/Unlimited Codes has a mission mode that's Character-specific and not only does it have the usual combo trials, it has combo trials where the goal is to break the damage threshold and fighting AI enemies under various conditions (some put you into first person, some adds in an AI partner while a rare few combines both) and there even is a variety of minigames you can unlock if you complete enough missions per character!
What the actual hell are you talking about?! Arcade mode wasn't born from the lack of opponents, the first street fighter was mainly a single player game. Arcade mode against CPU has been the base of fighting games since the very beginning of the genre.
Yeah, exactly. Even other early FGs after SF1 and around SF2's release were single-player focused, like Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting. I always assumed story and character design was important in order to draw people to the games in the first place. They could have just had players play through a survival mode and entirely left out any semblance of a story or character quotes. They could have just had one stage, but they decided to give each character a stage with their own themes. One of SF2's biggest draws were characters representing multiple countries.
I kinda enjoyed MK X's storymode, it gave me a chance to play a variety of characters throughout the series (and while I never understood it), the story was at least interesting to see as a newcomer and honestly it was worth it to unlock shinnok since he became my main and was the character to show me how much fun the lab can be.
Hey man! You left out Soul Caliber 6 which had to story modes. One that lets you play as each character in their own story and the other where you create your own character and engage in a separate storyline.
@@alicekingston8521 100% agreed, but even SC6's single player content was still weak in comparison to all the games up to 4. But then we're lucky that SC6 even happened, so it's not easy to complain. I hope 7 happens and they go all out. I want it even more than T8.
Its always bonkers to me that older games tend to have *BETTER* single-player modes than alot of recent games, and yet devs are trying all these absurd things to 'appeal to the casual audience' instead of giving people a reason to buy the game without going online. Older games often have more creative single-player modes like Weapon master in addition to arcade and/or survival. Even Bloody Roar 4 added a garbage "Career" mode with a bunch of ways to modify your character. Overall, its bad, but its at least there as an attempt. Blazblue basically just gave up on adding fights to its story mode, and then Strive went "Yes, thats what people want! Thats why people play an interactive medium! to play something with no interaction whatsoever!" 10:58 also *HUGE* misstep to not talk about the exclusive bosses to story mode. this might be a hot take but Fighting games almost always have garbage boss fights (either enhanced normal character that you beat by cheesing its AI, a boss character you beat by cheesing its AI, or a BIG boss that doesnt act the same as a normal character so you cant combo and you just attack, block, attack, block). Granblue versus and Smash bros are legitimately the only fighters I'd say have good, well designed, and fun boss fights.
Such a missed opportunity to mention the Scenario Campaign back in Tekken 6. It is the closest thing to a good Fighting Game Story mode we have. Note: I didn't exactly play it, but it essentially is the T3 Beat'em up game you mentioned. However it has cutscenes in it to make the supposed story mode more bearable as opposed to having a five hour movie in it.
I honnestly thought it was average overall. Loved the Mishima drama but the way you play it was still an arcade mode and the side chapters were meh. The mode I remember having fun were 5 or 6 maybe? Beat-em all 3D with Lars and Alisa story. Though not memorable in terms of stories the gameplay was a nice change from regular mode.
The best single player fighting game modes I've played was when they made a completely new game in the game like Devil Within and whatever the fuck it was called in MKA. Yeah you can have a beat em up that uses the mechanics of the characters but it feels awful and makes me wish I'd rather just play a good beat em up. Because fighting game characters are clunky to control, if the template worked, why haven't we seen a single player only fighting game? The best one that preserves the fighting game aspect is Konquest in MKD, which is what SF6 is looking to be.
I love single player modes and fighting games for me I actually enjoy it I don't play against other players because I don't know who they are and I rather play with my friends and family when I'm playing a fighting game then strangers
The first minute of this video is (figuratively) confusing. What are these "arcade" machines and "cigarette smell" one talks about? Are those things from the 1990s barely seen by even people in their 30s during the year 2024? 😶🌫
Honestly all my favorite fighting games have some sort of long rpg like single player mode. Like blazblue abyss mode, persona ultimax abyss mode, def jam, soul caliber 3, street fighter 6 character creator story mode and jo jo's bizarre adventure ps3 campaign mode.
0:23 Jesus fuck were you actually spying on me? Last year part of my house fell down in a storm and had to evacuate. Sitting in a motel for 2 weeks while repairs were being made, I had only my fightstick, a PS4, and ONE game disk which was in the thing when I took it. Had wifi access but it buffered for 5 seconds every 3 seconds when playing a 480p video. Being a fighting game fan is really hard in this situation.. I can't think of a worse genre to wanna play except for MOBA.. But the saving grace? .... ... The game I brought was Soul Calibur 6... The one modern fighting game in this entire genre which outright prioritized the single player content.. With a fully fleshed out 40+ hour RPG for a storymode. With branching story paths for replayability, unlockable weapons and challenge battles with unusual modifiers like the one in Soul Edge, and really flexible custom character creator..
I wanna like Fighting Games. Specifically Guilty Gear. But I really don’t wanna bother with getting my teeth kicked in, online. Yet the online stuff seems to be the bread and butter of all fighting games. Whenever I do engage with the single player offerings, it’s just boring. Though I do hear that Street Fighter 6 has a really good one.
Another good unique single player mode is Persona 4 Arena Ultimax's Golden arena mode. it's like survival except you gain Exp for each battle you win with a character. Each time you level up you get to upgrade your stats, and sometimes unlock a move that will give you a boost such as Tarukaja which will boost your attack or Gale slash which will start the opponent with less HP. All the skills are based on the skills in the actual Jrpg games. You also get to choose a navigator that will automatically give you a skill that a character won't have normally.
It's kinda criminal that XenoVerse wasn't mentioned, especially cause in XenoVerse 1 all the online stuff was locked till you actually beat the Games story mode.
Smash Ultimate also has tons of hours of single player content. Would still say it pales in comparison to playing with other humans but compared to the other fighting games I played it's way better. I could recommend it to people who don't like multiplayer games and just wanna enjoy single player content in the hopes that it could get them into multiplayer and fighting games because if they don't, the single player mode alone is not a terrible use of their money, at least in this day and age we can do much worse when it comes to paying 60$ for a AAA game.
I never played any single player mode in a fighting game cause I play a fighting game to play others and beat the shit outta them. Except tekken bowl. Tekken bowl is the fucking shit
@@Mclucasrv being as tho we got literally arcade cabinets to play capcom arcade games that to me when I played changed everyday, a nice sized cast and we know of dlc, annnnnd the massive single player stuff I’m sure they not playing games this time around with lack of content. Sf5 launch was their example of how not to launch a game with no content anymore. I mean cmon we literally had to download a story mode lol
A huge gripe I have with a lot of fighters is when I choose versus modes and then select random, instead of switching to a new character when I choose rematch, it just gives me that character again. DOA5LR did it well. Triple random gave a new character, new opponent and a new stage each time. Also the removal of team modes. Select a group of characters and then each time you defeat someone, you go down to their next character and the same for you if you lose. It was an amazing mode in Tekken 3.
SFV does survival mode very well with the power up items you can earn. I recently cleared hard for the first time and the items I'd farmed from the lower diffiiculties helped make it more manageable. Tekken force was great I hope Tekken 8 brings it back
As someone who played them when the game was out, and in fact had to because it was the only way to unlock new colors, I really didn't like it. The CPU alternates between birdbrain and input read god in an instant, and there wasn't much you could do to survive back then. I believe the use of itens is a new thing, so maybe it's better now.
Okay, I know Mortal Kombat can be a bit icky in a lot of ways, but Deception not getting as much as a honorable mention is criminal. They built an entire RPG mode, in which you free-roam across multiple realms, meet new- and old fan favorites, learning from them as you go, doing sidequests, seeing- and exploring areas previously only available as 2D backgrounds.
And when you beat the RPG mode, everything goes full circle, as the intro now makes total sense. Your player character Shujinko becomes available in all modes, and you'll finish his story proper by beating his arcace mode. It's definitely over-ambitious, but it's also a very primitive version of what SF6 is building, on the goddamned PS2.
The PS2 era was the last time developers aimed to give you as much as they could in a game. Remember Tekken 5? It also had Tekken 1,2 AND 3 and a new Tekken Force game and training mode and gallery and maybe other stuff I can't remember but LOTS!! could you imagine how much they would charge for a package like that now?
@@bruceleeds7988 Considering Tekken put Bowling and frame data behind paywalls, I’m frankly gonna treat SF6 like a religion.
I miss Arcade mode with multiple entertaining cutscenes per character. Actual, voiced rival fights is my number one wish these days (outside of, y’know, good gameplay and Rollback) and it used to just be standard.
I wish just once when someone makes a video about single player modes they mention MK9's challenge tower.
And yeah SF6's revolutionary mode was done in MK Deception.
@@aramondehasashi3324 Gotta be honest, I totally forgot about MK9's amazing challenge tower too.
You can throw Injustice 1's Star Labs missions on top of that pile. They had a lot of fun with that one.
IMO it's honestly a shame that modes like that often got kinda shafted in recent NRS games in favor of cinematic story modes and character customization.
Back in the day I put over 100 hours into Soul Calibur 3’s “Chronicles of the Sword” mode. Something about creating characters and taking over strongholds with your troops, and unlocking weapons & clothing just clicked with me.
Chronicles of the Sword, was AWESOME! Very much with you on that. I liked that different strongholds had different fighting conditions too (Ice floors, lose health while guarding, etc), so even that had a little bit of strategy baked in there.
Shoutout to never being able to finish that because a bug prevented my game from actually saving to the memory card. DID get to the end a couple of times tho. It was super fun
This was what got me so long into Soulcalibur 3 and what made me not stick arround to future SC games
@@alicekingston8521 Pfp Sauce (Artist)? 🗿
@@VileLasagnayeah,i hate that infamous bug.
"I hate gacha" says the guy who praised Fishing in Strive!
Did you not hear the "real money" part?
@@jahimalnar7978 I think you missed the joke...
@Joe It's amazing how much you remind me of the Nerd emoji... 🤓
Bro you don't actually use real money for fishing in strive
Did you just make a video about single player modes and NOT talk about Thems Fighting Herds? I know it's not the most popular or influential game but still??
This is the second time he snubbed TFH. Shame
I guess I'm one of the wierdos among fighting game enthusiasts (it's my favorite genre), in that single player content is the most important thing to me. It might just be because I'm a massive introvert and I've never been a very competitive person. I prefer to compete with myself, to see if I can do really hard things in a game or get high scores. I got into fighting games back with SF2 because it looked amazing, had awesome characters, cool moves, and it was the most control you could have over a character compared to any other kind of game. I actually like and enjoy the stories, even the "stupid" ones. I did frequently get disappointed by FG stories and endings, but that didn't stop me from playing the shit out of them. The first time I really loved single player in an FG was Tekken 2 and SFEX+A. I unlocked and reunlocked all characters and all the endings in the Theatre Mode for those games multiple times (erasing the file in my memory card and starting again).
To date, the series with the best single player content for me so far is either Soulcalibur or Smash Bros. The modes in Tekken 3 and Soul Blade/Edge were rightfully brought up in this video, but I think something should have been said about how later games in those series actually brought back those ideas and expanded or improved on them. Soulcalibur 1, 2, and 3 have amazing single player content, and Tekken 6 tried out Force mode again too.
And btw, I HAVE played against others offline and online, and even tried the tournament scene a bit. It can be fun, but it's not the most fun I've had with a fighting game. I mostly entered tournaments to help support one of my favorite series that doesn't usually get good numbers or support.
I think my lack of interest in how competitively viable an FG is or it being "popular enough to have a competitive scene or people actually online" lets me explore more FGs out there that most other people ignore. Weird or old, long-unplayed stuff like Waku Waku 7, Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer (Neo Geo CD), Fighters Destiny, Angel Eyes, Bloody Roar, Clayfighters, Mace The Dark Age, Rival Schools, Fatal Fury, Last Blade, Darkstalkers, Battle Arena Toshinden, Yatagarasu, Star Gladiator, Chatan Yarakuu Shanku (The Karate Tournament), Breakers, Power Stone, Tatsunoko vs Capcom, and Power Instinct, and that's just off the top of my head. I can enjoy experiencing and replaying those games for years because I'm interested in more than just their competitive side. I don't lose interest just because I don't have someone to play against.
And yes, "What Happened to Single Player Modes in Fighting Games?" Is a question I've asked lately too. I think lately the focus has been on making FGs equivalent to other online-focused and more social games, like competitive FPS, RTS, and MMORPGs. Viable for Evo and Esports. The quality and innovation in single player content has generally declined, and if you thought FG stories were bad before... even I want to ignore them these days.
I never considered the angle of how single player or story modes in FGs might have even existed in the first place might be because of arcades and the players needing something to do while waiting for an opponent (even though SF1, Fatal Fury 1, and Art of Fighting all started as single-player-focused games). I guess it's because I always felt character design and story WAS actually important to fighting games, other wise why even have multiple characters and designs and stages if none of it matters? The design and story of a character, even their stage and music, might be a reason for a player to pick up a character over another one and have favorites and even choose who to main competitively. If the competition was literally the only thing that mattered, then there might as well be only one plain stage (like the favorite of competitive players, "the training stage") and every character might as well just be stick figures or wire frames. Even chess has a story to tell with its different pieces, their names, and what they each do differently.
I'm also a big believer in single player and story modes being a bridge for casual players to get more interested in deeper and more competitive mechanics in an FG. SF2's and SF3's bonus games were mentioned here in the video, but my favorite games to do it best so far are Dead or Alive Dimensions and DOA5, which really integrated tutorials into their story mode. The mission mode in SFEX+A was also the first time I started to really learn how to actually do moves and combos properly.
SF6's ideas look very interesting and ambitious. If nothing else, I hope it does inspire other FG developers to try harder with their single player content too. Try harder to get better writers for better storylines too. My only issue with SF is that I haven't cared much for its characters, story, and style since the era of SF Alpha/Zero and SF3 (Alpha 2/3 were peak-SF for me).
Sorry for the novel. 😅
It's great to see that Capcom learned their lesson with SFV. Never underestimate the importance of single player content. I really hope that whatever they have waiting for us in SF6 will be something trully special.
Also, I really think that what would make single player modes shine the most is a complete revamp of the CPU. Don't just make a brain dead brick or am input reading nightmare. Make a CPU that behaves like a real person. Let it make some mistakes, let it drop some combos, miss some oppotunities, get defensive when things aren't looking good. Make it learn your patterns and act against it. I'm pretty sure it is possible and would make the experience much more engaging.
Honestly, after the travesty that is SF V's story, ANYTHING that SF VI does will be an improvement.
Not to knock World Tour - it looks like it really could be the new gold standard for fighting game single player modes if it at all lives up to what it's promising.
@@Darkkfated I probably will go through it once but it’s cool that is an option for the non-online warriors
Single player modes in most games, not just fighting games, have become really lazy. The difficultiy settings are not balanced out, everything that should be unlockable is for sale, the story modes are either lazy art pics or 8 hour long movies with quick time sequences not actual games. The most value for money I got when buying a game is when I bought SF4, MKXL and the new Doom Games, oh yeah and PS4 "ultimate" versions of PS3 games with all the content on them.
You are absolutely right. Good points! I feel the lack of improvement on the A.I and lack of good unlockable content in fighting games specifically is really disappointing. Let's hope World Tour turn out to be great and set a new standard.
I know this criminal didn't just make a video about fighting game single player modes and didn't mention Mortal Kombat's Konquest once 😂
I don't think he has played any of the pre-MK9 Mortal Kombat games.
A better question would be _"Why didn't he talk about the MKX/MK11 towers!?"_
Or MK9's challenge tower
I loved Konquest
It's a bit weird you didn't at least mention Guilty Gear Isuka.
Its beat 'em up mode is honestly quite good and unlike Judgement, doesn't strip down any part of the gameplay! (I do like Judgement though.) You can even use your custom Robo-Ky mkII in it!
As a casual fighting game fan, I play arcade mode *A LOT*, I never really picked one game and decided to "git gud" at it, if you will, if I see a game and think it looks good, I give it a go, and I play usually until I'm able to finish Arcade mode on the default difficulty, or I give up trying, whichever comes first... And if I think the game was fun then yeah, I keep coming back to it on occasion...
If I have the opportunity to play with someone else then well, lovely I give that a go too, though it usually end up being either with people who are much worse at it than me, or much better than me, no-in-between...
The Smash series has amazing examples of single-player content. Melee had Adventure, a beat-em-up/platformer mode, and Event Matches, 51 special matches with unique restrictions and win conditions.
Brawl had Subspace Emissary, a full-on Metroidvania campaign with gorgeous 3D cutscenes, big setpiece boss battles, and a unique equipment system in the form of Stickers. Ultimate has World of Light, an RPG mode that combines the special fights of Melee's Event Matches with the unique equipment system and setpiece bosses of Brawl. (Seriously, check out those boss fights - they're SO cool.)
Its all so shallow though. Everything smash gives is just a standard match with maybe some restrictions or alternate win cons. Most the time you can't pick the stage this challenge is on and for a lot of event matches not even the character you play as. To call WoL an RPG is a bit generous, it gives you stat boosts and new effects its hardly team building and stat planning. Goes to show how lacking the genre is that WoL and Subspace are held in such high regard when in reality its the bare minimum they could make.
I really love the Classic Mode in Ultimate. The fact that every charatcer has their own special route just makes it feel so special. Some are better than others, but they're all fun to see. I was laughing my ass off when you get to the end of Luigi's Classic mode and fight Dracula.
@@jackg6887 Agreed, at least Subspace had cutscenes, during the entirety of WoL I just wanted to 100% it for the Spirit collection and then fuck it, upgrades were fun but it does get boring to oneshot everyone with Ganondorf after a while.
Brawl Subspace emisary is amazing, Ultimate World of light was such a disappointment. They just made two CGI cutscenes for the trailers to hype it up before release, and that's it.... you don't see any characters interaction anymore. I've never seen a bigger missed opportunity, but I get that they focused everything in getting all this crazy crossover characters and making them as good as possible.
I've been saying for years that every fighting game needs to have a beat em up mode.
Gram Blue has this cool mode but DNF Duel didn't?! Wtf, it would have been perfect!
What cool mode? Grandblue rising not even out yet
About Granblue there are exclusive bosses like big monsters,dragons and etc in the RPG mode,not a lot but there are like 5 or 6 and I think that is very cool reminds me MvC bosses.
About Co-op Dragon ball has the raids where you can tag to other players and granblue too had hard version of the bosses and there is the blitz event that is more like an online mode where they disable Rank for a weekend and is a leaderbord and depend how high you are you gain more skins to your player card that appears before every match.
Now about single player modes Its so weird like Blazblue had some of the most amazing singleplayer modes but in the next game they just drop it and try another thing that is not as good and others that were bad and thank god they killed. There is one that I always wanted to try but its japonese exclusive that is Rival Schools it looks like a fighting game Persona and I wish that was made like Atlus is a lot smaller then Capcom they could do it I think,World tour look like that but I think there will not have a lot of interaction between characters like Rival Schools.
One of my personal favorites I wanna shout out is the Quest mode from Virtua Fighter 5’s original home ports. It basically simulates the experience of being in the Japanese arcade scene when the game was new, and by the end of it, you’ll even be squaring off in tournaments against AIs based directly on the top players at the time
What I think is also great about RPG Mode is that it allows people who have zero experience with Fighting Games to slowly develop some basic skills in a fun, controlled, familiar environment
Will beating RPG Mode make you a monster in Online? Not really. Does it help combat the stress of learning a completely new, honest to God quite overwhelming genre? Absolutely.
Shadow Fight 3
Since I’m broke and can’t buy Nintendo switch online consistenly I just play Smash Ultimate single player….
Funny enough, I got my start playing fighting games because of single player. Many years ago, I used to speedrun DBZ Budokai's story mode. It followed the story of Dragon Ball Z from Raditz to the end of the Cell Saga, and it only took about half an hour to do. It was a ton of fun, and I really enjoyed sitting down in Training Mode, seeing if I could improve my combos to optimize my damage, which would lead to my time getting better.
Boudakai 3 is a FANTASTIC game
Well we're getting Budokai Tenkaichi 4
Can't forget to mention that after you beat the story the first time, you not only get to get a chapter select but you also got to play extra chapters that either covered more of the story such as Piccolo fighting off against Nappa and the Saibamen or Vegeta taking on Cell as he obtains his Perfect Form, or they let you play as the Villains in a What If Scenario.
Seeing Cell become practically a Cell Jr because Krillin sacrificed himself to protect 18 was something wild back then.
Cool, Now we need a video about AI's in fighting games
The "good", the bad and the Cheaters
And the Shadow Mind
A RUclips video about single player modes in Fighting Games and still no mention of MK9's challenge tower 😔 or any of MK's other single player mode throughout the years.
Deceptions Konquest mode which is what SF6's new story mode is. Puzzle Kombat, Chess Kombat.
Armageddon's Mario Kart type game Motor Kombat.
And all the test your Might, Sight & Luck that have been in multiple games throughout the series.
Bro having chess kombat in 2023 gonna be fire, no rollback needed
While I haven't tried it yet, the naming of an "RPG Mode" in GBVS reminded me of Red Earth, which I had heard that was sort of similar to a beat-em-up in that, you don't fight hordes of enemies but all that you fight are big bosses and can level up your characters, to the point that there's a feature to save your progress as a password.
Absolutely want that arcade mode video
I gotta give it to Guilty Gear XX and AC+ since they are the richest in term of contents. For Arcade mode, you have 3 variation: Normal, Gold (Fighting all bosses characters), and EX (Fighting all EX characters and you could even mix both Gold and EX together.) M.O.M, a survival-ish mode but your combo will net you more points and recovery items. Mission Mode is where you beat characters or survival under certain condition. The survival mode was one of the best feature since it was an RPG like experience. The first irritation from XX was just Lv Up based on your combo and reach Lv 500 to defeat Gold Justice. AC+ ver. EXTENDED IT TO Lv 1000 but every 10th level, you fought a Shadow Boss and you gain stats or Ability upon defeating the boss. Once you reached the Gold Boss, they will give you their Unique ability like Time Travel (Axl) to back track for grinding stats or Vampire Form (Make all of your attacks drain and absorb HP from your opponents.) Story Mode was just a treat with 3 endings with 3 paths (XX) and 2 ending and paths (AC+) for each characters. Story Battle could go crazy from you getting poison, no jumping, or you have to fighting the boss ver. of the regular characters. Something you got better deal when you ARE a Boss character as well. Doing Arcade will net you artworks, doing Story, Mission, and Survival will unlock EX characters, Shadow characters and Gold characters. Gold and Shadow can be used in Arcade, M.O.M, Vs., and Team Battle. EX can be used in all modes.
Xrd combines M.O.M., Survival & Mission together for a tough but fun experience that almost compensates for the removal of EX & Gold characters.
Then came Strive and while the Arcade mode had some potential, Survival is just a barebones endless mode (though it allows for quicksave for every 10th win (defeat a shadow boss).
From XX to Strive, where did it all go downhill?!
@@Wolfedge75 EX characters are way too much fun to be left out though. I mean who wouldn't love EX Slayer Rekka series and his GATLING COMBOS!!!!
i dont like losing to real people but wierdly enough i dont mind losing to bots.... So i spam single player just to get a hang of a game and play. SINGLE PLAYER RULES
also good video
BBCF has something pretty cool with its Grimm of Abyss mode. Sure, the grimoire system is pretty strange to wrap your head around with the item drops you can equip a limited amount and type to a certain grimoire with. However, they often have cool perks to help your character get through each dungeon/level and unlock the harder ones. Plus, they're essential to gettung through the Boss Rush, a stage where you fight suped up versions of every single playable character with their own OP gimmicks tailored to their character's in-universe story powers and circumstances. Sometimes, your upgrades increase your stats to better weather the storm, other times, they can shut off the enemy's ablities, which is really good when you face Boss Hakumen who can spam his counter Astral and you really need that ability to turn off the CPU's Astral Heats. Plus, once you beat a boss, you never have to start Boss Rush from the beginning unless you really want to. You can start from whoever happens to be the current enemy you've yet to conquer, or you can set it back to start at whoever else you wanna refight before making your way to where you were at. It's all pretty cool.
one thing I like about granblues weapon system is that some of them actually unlock weapon skins you can use in vs matches. It's a nice way to connect the different modes
Even a lot of the "best" single player conent in fighting games would be considered dogshit in any other genre. These games are lucky FG fans have incredibly low standards. Arcade modes might be the laziest kind of mode a fighting game could give.
I think my major gripe they stop trying to do something.Xrd and all blazblue at least the arcade mode serves as a prequel to the stories modes and even if they did not landed they were trying to do single player modes,there was one blazblue that had something like a rouge-like mode and that was fun I wish they had updated and evolved that but now I cant call strive arcade mode as even decent arcade mode and outside that there is no singleplayer mode you dont even unlock an artwork or something.
It still baffle me that the most ambitious single player modes are from PS1 and ps2 eras.
I thought you would've mentioned street fighter alpha 3's world tour mode since you talked about ps1 games. Now that game had some truly unique stuff I've never seen in anything else to this day. If you haven't played it you should give it a try. Hopefully a lot of that carries over into sf6's version.
Street fighter 1 had several mini games in between arcade mode matches
They got lazy. Thats all. I enjoy fighting games, but my skill is really bad, so I depend on good singleplayer content to keep me playing the games, since I'm not that good. The reason why I have a lot of hours in Granblue Fantasy Versus over Guilty Gear Strive is fairly obvious as to why. Also the fact that you're playing a beat em up with fighter controls like Dungeon Fighter Online (or DNF if you preffer) with a level system, gear and items to equip and upgrade against unique enemies, bosses and so, fairly excited for Granblue Versus Rising having an extended RPG mode.
Honestly, it's a big shocker that no companies actually invest in GOOD single player content like they used to. They really need to. SF6 though will have some amazing single player content I'm sure
GNT4 has an interesting hoard-mode beatemup where you have constantly spawning shadow ninjas coming at you from every angle. unlike tekken, then screen stays pointed above you and you do have the ability to change targets, but also the number of enemies on field scale over time, so unless you can efficiently take them all out immediately, or play gaara and use your AoE attack to hit everyone around you, you'll get overwelmed quickly. it's not very deep, but it is a fun way to pass the time
The answer to the question “what happened to single player modes in fighting games?” is street fighter 4. That game had 0 content in it, but people didn’t care because it was on of the first big fighting games you could play online. This taught other developers that all you need is training mode and ranked, which would ironically come back to bite capcom with street fighter 5 and the controversy surrounding its barren release.
Now it seems to be correcting itself. Since NRS has been making mad bank with single player content. But there is still room to improve with the chapter format flooding most story mode fighting games.
SF6 and Tekken 8 having a bigger budget means they can finally return back to having expansive single player modes in fighting games.
Mind you, I grew up in an era where Street Fighter 2 was 70 bucks. So back they couldn't offer much as ports so it was important that playing characters felt responsive to get you to play all the characters without too much trouble. That justified my purchased back then.
But during the era of SF4, Any game in the modern era, I'd never spend more than 20$ maybe less cause the PS3 era of Fighter were mostly BARREN in single player content which was important for me.
I used to looooove the single player experience. Getting good at every character to unlock ALL THE THINGS, until the time around virtua fighter 4 evo. Where the absolute shitholes started to shove dlc on disc that u had to unlock by buying it.. (or even worse.. where xbox and playstation had different dlcs packages.... after that. Fighting games died for me.
I was playing granblue and got me that feeling of unlock things like the gacha and the story with in game money let you unlock weapons skins for the characters,arcade mode let unlock some colors and I like gallery modes I wish fighting games devs update more of that with every patch. But then after sometime they tried the battle pass and that was very disapoiting.
I think GG Isuka beat them up mode is also similar to the Grandblue one, with coop.
I really appreciate things like Melty Blood Type Lumina's Boss Rush mode
During PS1-PS2 era fightings on consoles were more exiting, also because of many content, hidden too. Now nobody makes such fightings with a lot of modes and characters. Now there are DLC.
Unfortunately, old games always will be the best…
Not mentioning deception, armageddon, or mk9 seems like spite here
2:38 SFV Arcade mode has the barrel game from SFIV as a mini game.
I dream of a fighting game single player mode that is just megaman/castlevania (no subspace emissary does not count)
Soul Calibur VI single-player is actually decent. At least better than most modern FG.
Of you ever get the chance you should try out Chess Kombat from Mortal Kombat : Deception. The game isn't perfect but that mode is just so much fun to go back to
Sfv arcade mode does have a barrel mini game as well
Esports happened, but as many of the comments suggest there are many games that are the exception. Can you truly be making a review on this topic with an "idc" bias?
For some reason fighting games are obsessed with online fighting, despite most people still paying offline only, and fighting have tournaments despite them being very important.
It's almost like it's a genre built on fighting other people 😮
I sunk a lot of hours into marvel vs Capcom 2 on the Xbox back in the day, it had a point system that you could use to get new characters, art, stages and costumes, that was very exciting because it motivated me to practice a lot a beat Arcade mode over and over.
Speaking of fun siingle player content...
Fate/Unlimited Codes has a mission mode that's Character-specific and not only does it have the usual combo trials, it has combo trials where the goal is to break the damage threshold and fighting AI enemies under various conditions (some put you into first person, some adds in an AI partner while a rare few combines both) and there even is a variety of minigames you can unlock if you complete enough missions per character!
What the actual hell are you talking about?! Arcade mode wasn't born from the lack of opponents, the first street fighter was mainly a single player game. Arcade mode against CPU has been the base of fighting games since the very beginning of the genre.
Yeah, exactly. Even other early FGs after SF1 and around SF2's release were single-player focused, like Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting. I always assumed story and character design was important in order to draw people to the games in the first place. They could have just had players play through a survival mode and entirely left out any semblance of a story or character quotes. They could have just had one stage, but they decided to give each character a stage with their own themes. One of SF2's biggest draws were characters representing multiple countries.
The same things is happening in all games
The CEOs (that most likely never played Games) think that Singleplayer is a dying ''trend''
Now the hardest single player fighting game is Shadow Fight 3.
No them's fighting herds mention? Nice video though
2:38 Dude, SF1 has TWO minigames, what are you talking about
I kinda enjoyed MK X's storymode, it gave me a chance to play a variety of characters throughout the series (and while I never understood it), the story was at least interesting to see as a newcomer and honestly it was worth it to unlock shinnok since he became my main and was the character to show me how much fun the lab can be.
The fact he didn't talk about bbcf grimm of the abyss mode makes me mad
Crosstag still no arcade mode. :(
What’s the background music you used in this video plz if you mind me asking
Hey man! You left out Soul Caliber 6 which had to story modes. One that lets you play as each character in their own story and the other where you create your own character and engage in a separate storyline.
Honestly all of the Soul Calibur games (except 5) deserve a mention. The series has always been pretty solid about single player content.
@@alicekingston8521 100% agreed, but even SC6's single player content was still weak in comparison to all the games up to 4. But then we're lucky that SC6 even happened, so it's not easy to complain. I hope 7 happens and they go all out. I want it even more than T8.
@@zhizn_snake Yeah, but I hope we even get a 7
Its always bonkers to me that older games tend to have *BETTER* single-player modes than alot of recent games, and yet devs are trying all these absurd things to 'appeal to the casual audience' instead of giving people a reason to buy the game without going online. Older games often have more creative single-player modes like Weapon master in addition to arcade and/or survival. Even Bloody Roar 4 added a garbage "Career" mode with a bunch of ways to modify your character. Overall, its bad, but its at least there as an attempt. Blazblue basically just gave up on adding fights to its story mode, and then Strive went "Yes, thats what people want! Thats why people play an interactive medium! to play something with no interaction whatsoever!"
10:58 also *HUGE* misstep to not talk about the exclusive bosses to story mode. this might be a hot take but Fighting games almost always have garbage boss fights (either enhanced normal character that you beat by cheesing its AI, a boss character you beat by cheesing its AI, or a BIG boss that doesnt act the same as a normal character so you cant combo and you just attack, block, attack, block). Granblue versus and Smash bros are legitimately the only fighters I'd say have good, well designed, and fun boss fights.
Yeah can't fucking wait for SF 6 in that department, World Tour looks incredible
Such a missed opportunity to mention the Scenario Campaign back in Tekken 6. It is the closest thing to a good Fighting Game Story mode we have. Note: I didn't exactly play it, but it essentially is the T3 Beat'em up game you mentioned. However it has cutscenes in it to make the supposed story mode more bearable as opposed to having a five hour movie in it.
I honnestly thought it was average overall. Loved the Mishima drama but the way you play it was still an arcade mode and the side chapters were meh. The mode I remember having fun were 5 or 6 maybe? Beat-em all 3D with Lars and Alisa story. Though not memorable in terms of stories the gameplay was a nice change from regular mode.
6:17-6:24
And that's why it sucks.
Not many people know this, but Tekken 6's Scenario Campaign was co op and pretty fun to run through
Blazblue has hours long story that puts the confusion of Kingdom Hearts to shame.
Plus they had a neat rpg mode with power ups and a ladder.
The best single player fighting game modes I've played was when they made a completely new game in the game like Devil Within and whatever the fuck it was called in MKA. Yeah you can have a beat em up that uses the mechanics of the characters but it feels awful and makes me wish I'd rather just play a good beat em up. Because fighting game characters are clunky to control, if the template worked, why haven't we seen a single player only fighting game? The best one that preserves the fighting game aspect is Konquest in MKD, which is what SF6 is looking to be.
I love single player modes and fighting games for me I actually enjoy it I don't play against other players because I don't know who they are and I rather play with my friends and family when I'm playing a fighting game then strangers
The first minute of this video is (figuratively) confusing. What are these "arcade" machines and "cigarette smell" one talks about? Are those things from the 1990s barely seen by even people in their 30s during the year 2024? 😶🌫
02:36
While Street Fighter V doesn’t have an ORIGINAL arcade mode minigame. You do play barrels halfway through a SFV run.
Honestly all my favorite fighting games have some sort of long rpg like single player mode. Like blazblue abyss mode, persona ultimax abyss mode, def jam, soul caliber 3, street fighter 6 character creator story mode and jo jo's bizarre adventure ps3 campaign mode.
0:23 Jesus fuck were you actually spying on me?
Last year part of my house fell down in a storm and had to evacuate. Sitting in a motel for 2 weeks while repairs were being made, I had only my fightstick, a PS4, and ONE game disk which was in the thing when I took it. Had wifi access but it buffered for 5 seconds every 3 seconds when playing a 480p video.
Being a fighting game fan is really hard in this situation.. I can't think of a worse genre to wanna play except for MOBA..
But the saving grace? ....
... The game I brought was Soul Calibur 6... The one modern fighting game in this entire genre which outright prioritized the single player content.. With a fully fleshed out 40+ hour RPG for a storymode. With branching story paths for replayability, unlockable weapons and challenge battles with unusual modifiers like the one in Soul Edge, and really flexible custom character creator..
I wanna like Fighting Games. Specifically Guilty Gear. But I really don’t wanna bother with getting my teeth kicked in, online. Yet the online stuff seems to be the bread and butter of all fighting games.
Whenever I do engage with the single player offerings, it’s just boring. Though I do hear that Street Fighter 6 has a really good one.
Another good unique single player mode is Persona 4 Arena Ultimax's Golden arena mode.
it's like survival except you gain Exp for each battle you win with a character. Each time you level up you get to upgrade your stats, and sometimes unlock a move that will give you a boost such as Tarukaja which will boost your attack or Gale slash which will start the opponent with less HP.
All the skills are based on the skills in the actual Jrpg games. You also get to choose a navigator that will automatically give you a skill that a character won't have normally.
It's kinda criminal that XenoVerse wasn't mentioned, especially cause in XenoVerse 1 all the online stuff was locked till you actually beat the Games story mode.
Pick up Them's Fighting Herds. It has a Single Player Mode that will separate the Boys from the Men. Yes, even if you're female.
Smash Ultimate also has tons of hours of single player content. Would still say it pales in comparison to playing with other humans but compared to the other fighting games I played it's way better. I could recommend it to people who don't like multiplayer games and just wanna enjoy single player content in the hopes that it could get them into multiplayer and fighting games because if they don't, the single player mode alone is not a terrible use of their money, at least in this day and age we can do much worse when it comes to paying 60$ for a AAA game.
I never played any single player mode in a fighting game cause I play a fighting game to play others and beat the shit outta them.
Except tekken bowl. Tekken bowl is the fucking shit
So essentially. Make modes which are not specific 1 v1 fights?
That RPG Game is an Entirely Different Game! What the Fuck?!
Ngl I expected him to say make something for people that don't have friends
nahhh bro what song was playing during the soul edge section
Never forget. There are two types of fighting game story modes.
Bad stories and Netherrealm stories.
Whats the music in the tekken segment
Your sunset from tag 2.
The hotel is a hero preventing you from using wifi for your fighting games.
Soul Calibur 3 chronicles of the Sword
Whats that bgm when he's talking about soul endge/blade
Mortal Kombat Krypt and Konquest Mode?
Yes, I would like that arcade mode history video.
what was the game in the begining of the video?
Won’t have to worry about that for sf6
Yeah im curious if they will expand that with the seasons or if its just a one time thing.
@@Mclucasrv being as tho we got literally arcade cabinets to play capcom arcade games that to me when I played changed everyday, a nice sized cast and we know of dlc, annnnnd the massive single player stuff I’m sure they not playing games this time around with lack of content. Sf5 launch was their example of how not to launch a game with no content anymore. I mean cmon we literally had to download a story mode lol
0:21 We love Travelodge
I swear this man posts at the most convenient times for me. Not complaining, though! Good video!
Where's subspace emissary
A huge gripe I have with a lot of fighters is when I choose versus modes and then select random, instead of switching to a new character when I choose rematch, it just gives me that character again.
DOA5LR did it well. Triple random gave a new character, new opponent and a new stage each time.
Also the removal of team modes. Select a group of characters and then each time you defeat someone, you go down to their next character and the same for you if you lose. It was an amazing mode in Tekken 3.
12:16 I disagree.
But what about SSBB?
Ello gekko
mandatory comment for the algorithm !
10:25 ooh, does this come in Couch Co-op flavour tho?
Yes but I think you unlock that in chapter 2 there is a trophy to play locally.
Sf6 revolutionary? No they just aped mortal kombat deception.
SFV does survival mode very well with the power up items you can earn. I recently cleared hard for the first time and the items I'd farmed from the lower diffiiculties helped make it more manageable.
Tekken force was great I hope Tekken 8 brings it back
As someone who played them when the game was out, and in fact had to because it was the only way to unlock new colors, I really didn't like it. The CPU alternates between birdbrain and input read god in an instant, and there wasn't much you could do to survive back then. I believe the use of itens is a new thing, so maybe it's better now.
@@daviddamasceno6063 The items where added in arcade edition and you can spend fight money to continue it's a lot less pressure now.
What's the game at 4:16? Seems fun.
BlazBlue cross tag battle
@@neon-lake thankd