Story modes in fighting games

Off-Topic
1

I’m gonna be brutally honest. They need to tone it down. I feel fighting games were never meant to be Immensely Story driven .If you want a big story don’t do it in fighting game. Do it in a RPG pls.

If I was designing a fighting game (which will never ever happen)

I would NOT give it a expansive story mode like SFV or injustice. WHY?

Because of 3 reasons:

  1. I feel it goes against everything fighting games stand for.

  2. It gets WAY too complex.

  3. It could be used somewhere else.

If you’re gonna make a fighting game story here is how I would do it:

Backstories for the characters:
Why are they here? What is their goal? What did they achieve/lose?

World Setting: This probably should be number 1…What is their world like? Where do they come from? And what is the main goal for the all the characters? Who is the big bad boss?

The character’s journey in short segments, look at season 2 story mode of KI, But add dialogue from shadow lords

Rival Scene: Play (with a cinematic) only at the climax of the journey. This is where things get tough and the character has to face their rival.

Examples: Ryu vs Sagat, Scorpion vs Sub Zero (make this a thing boon), Batman vs superman, Jago vs Fulgore, Maxi vs Astaroth, etc.

Final boss intro/fight: A cinematic to show he has Immense power. The you fight him for whatever the character’s goal is.

Ending: What did the character gain or lose from this experience?

Some games that did all of this right: Ki season 1-2, soul calibur 1-4, tekken, Usf4, Skull girls.

Some games that did all of this wrong: SFV, SC 5.

Other games that could go either way:

Ki season 3, Sfxt, Mk9/Mkx, Darkstalkers resurrection, Injustice gods among us.

In conclusion:

Keep fighting games stories simple. I know everyone want’s to know more about the lore, but for fighting games this probably isn’t a good idea. It get’s too complex and turns out to be a mess.

If you want a big expansive story: that’s nice. But if you do it, Do it right. My way is not the only way.

I’m sure you can figure it out Devs and writers.

rant over

7 Likes
2

I want to point out that I’m inspiring to be a writer myself.

So while this may seem to be hypocritical… I just wanted to give my thoughts on this.

3

Well, it depends on resources I guess.
When you have enough money and workers there’s no problem in story mode and all, imho.
Problem is when you sacrifice primary fighting game sides to expand the lore.

4

I’m more or less talking about stories in Fighting games need to be more simple.

There should be no need to expand the lore to the point where it looks like an elder scrolls games.[quote=“zerowhitemonkey, post:3, topic:16410”]
When you have enough money and workers there’s no problem in story mode and all
[/quote]

I’m not talking about cutscenes or how good it looks.

I’m talking about actual story content quality.

Like Mkx had a good looking story mode but IMO, the actual writing was way to complex and turned out to be a mess.

5

Ok, got it.
To me, as long as this does not interfere with the quality of the “fighting” side of a fighting game, I’m fine with it anyway.

1 Like
6

It’s all good.

Everything is subjective anyway.

I just wanted to see what people think about this. :slight_smile:

7

Fighting game stories are pretty easy to understand for the most part. I understood MK9, MKX, and Injustice perfectly fine. They were never too complex or messy for that matter. Stories should stay. Why take out the one mode that is the reason for a lot of the sales of a game?

8

It doesn’t matter to me which it is - if it’s big and grandiose and involves everyone, or if it tells a seperate story for each character… As long as the story is good and doesn’t fail to entertain, that’s what really matters to me.

What I do prefer, though, is consistency. Because of the seasonal model, KI is anything but consistent when it comes to its story methods. For example, I’m still trying to figure out how Spinal, of all characters, is really even relevant to the story at this point…

9

I probably should Clarify what this thread was about…

I prefer arcade modes to story modes like the ones we got in SFV/injustice/MKX.

Probably because I’m old school and loved Arcade modes much more then the story modes because it tells the tale of a single character fighting everyone else.

Another way it could work is to have both but that would be way too much work IMO.

IDK it’s probaly just me…

I just had a hard time putting it into words. And then I babbled the OP. :confused:

This bugs me to no end. I hate how spinal got the short end of the stick when it comes to story… but at the same time the seasonal model like you said is probably to blame…

10

Damn… I should not have made this thread at all.

11

I love story modes, when the devs are actually doing something good with it.
NRS have so far done a great job with both Mortal Kombat and Injustice, Capcom did an okay job, but could be far better, in Street Fighter V, Team Ninja did a really half-assed job in Dead or Alive 5, but it had potential for a handful of the characters while others were incredibly generic and could just as easily been cut out… and then there were Soul Calibur V which was far beyond atrocious!

But I am glad that the devs are at least trying.
KI’s story mode is rather lacking though. I loved what they did with Season 2, considering their budget, but Season 1’s was just the standard arcade endings, and Season 3’s Shadow Lords, as cool a mode that is, does not work as a story mode. It’s still a good mode! It’s fun! But it’s more a tactical mode than a story mode. I would personally prefer to have ALL characters get the Season 2 story mode treatment, with Shadow Lords as a seperate mode.

All that said though, I LOVE it when the developers go the extra mile and provide some lore and story into fighting games. And I would love to see more of it in the future. ^^

12

As long they don’t go into the elder scrolls depth of lore…Then I’m fine.

I’m mean they could but why do that for a fighting game?

I feel Mortal Kombat did this and that’s why I find it confusing.

13

Mk9 was fine.

It’s the time skip to MKX which I found confusing.

14

Well, a fighting game is a fighting game… not an RPG.
I absolutely adore the Mortal Kombat lore, and yes, they have gone deep… for a fighting game.
It COULD be a potential RPG, but they would have to go WAY deeper before they can do that, however, the MK universe could easily be set up to become such. It has the potential.

Luckily, I’m also an RPG fan, which might explain why I love lore and stories like this. :stuck_out_tongue:

I just get so easily bored with fighting games where it is just “there’s a tournament, people fight a bad guy” and then that’s it.

15

And that’s what I want it to return to though :stuck_out_tongue:

Simple but enriching.

But I understand It can get boring after awhile. Especially if we’re talking about MK.

Me too. My favorite is ff6 (if that counts)

And it had a good story, even if dated.

Now, I honestly don’t know what the point of this thread was…

16

Of course it counts! It’s a really good game!
I just like the balance between gameplay AND story in fighting games. If it is ALL about the gameplay - which I by the way DO agree is a vital part of a fighting game, the most important part even, and without good gameplay it isn’t a good fighting game - but with no good background and story to support the concept, that’s when the game just falls flat to me.

I can’t play Virtua Fighter for long, because it’s just generic characters fighting eachother. The gameplay is A+++, no doubt about it, but because there’s nothing else to it, I quickly lose my interest in it.

1 Like
17

This. This is what I’m trying to say.

1 Like
18

How? They explained it in the very beginning of the story mode.

2 Likes
19

*clears throat*
Being the Mortal Kombat fan I am, I would be happy to try and explain the story for you. :stuck_out_tongue:

2 Likes
20

I actually forgot that. They did didn’t they…

I’ll look it up.