Applying more to storyline wouldn’t hurt the deepness of the gamelay at all. The only reason we are content with console ports having this poor storytelling is because we were trained to accept it. If the story for SF2 was actually played out in the game then we wouldn’t tolerate any less in T5. The ppl that don’t play fighters for the story will buy the game regardless if the gameplay is good. But those that like good stories will play and maybe, find that they like the gameplay and become more than a casual player. There’s no loss when it comes to this except the port releasing later. If fighting game’s stories were better told then maybe fighters would start getting 10 scores from reviewers and mainstream success(more fighters). I can only imagine that one would not want fighting games with better written/told stories because they feel that developers would then be lax with the actual gameplay and not loke test as much.
Capcom only has problems in stories when you look at the fact that often they don’t actually expand on certain things. Most of their first games don’t have storylines until in the second game. This proved to suck in SF3 because it felt like the story wasn’t finished. In Alpha the story while good, basically makes SF2 story unnecessary, except for the ‘save’ where it is hinted that Bison hijacked Rose’s body and made a weaker clone for the SF2 tournament. Which doesn’t explain why Sagat is still on his side.
In the cases of The Alphas and SF3 series both the first game in each were released unfinished so A2 and 2I basically are completed versions of each game.
The SF2 story is still neccessary because for a few reasons. One it offs Bison and ends his, Guile’s, Cammy’s T.Hawk’s, Vega’s and Balrog’s stories. It also ends Chunli’s main story but not her overall character shown by 3S. Akuma’s appearance is also important as it establishes him as the top fighter in the world at this point.
Sagat is not on Bison’s side in SSF2T, he’s merely the second to last fighter before Bison. A position he holds most likely do to his being the previous WW tournament holder.
Actually no most people buy the game if they think it is good ie the gameplay not if they think the story is good. SRK should be proof enough of that, maybe 10 to 15 percent of the people who buy fighting games buy it for the story. They either buy it because they think its fun to play or they recongnize the name and pick it up.
That’s true, but more story still couldn’t hurt as long as it’s extraneous. I would be willing to accept real time demos like in mid-story T5 now that games are where they are graphically, and so would a lot of people. It shouldn’t be that hard. I would take comics, pictures, whatever. As long as you add more.
Although I sound desperate, I’m just easily impressed when I see that more is put into a game to give a better experience. For me it’s storywise since I’m okay with the state of gameplay in games. For you guys it would be in gameplay since you don’t seem to care about story.
One request is to not have it like MKD’s conquest mode. I want each character to have their own little story and I don’t want to be obligated to go through a story mode to unlock the secrets of a game.
Yeah, but I think the same thing happened with Darkstalkers. Since wasn’t the second game meant to be a remake of the story in the first game with added characters and details to the story?
And as for SF2, after Alpha it actually probably cause more problems for the story than anything else. Even if Sagat is meant to be the second to last boss, in SF2 he still is supposed to have the Ryu grudge he supposedly got over in the Alpha games. Really the only thing SF2 brought a conclusion to either Chun Li or Guile’s story and everything else didn’t matter after Alpha gave everyone their own little story. Capcom basically admits this in later SF3 games and things not really mentioning the SF2 story all that much.
All FG stories start of well(AOF,KOF,SF,Tekken,etc),but for some reason it always turns to crap ,example- KOF.
If Darkstalkers 2 officially replaces Darkstalkers 1 than yes. As is I don’t recall Capcom stating as such. They have however, stated as such with A2 replacing A1, 2I replacing NG and even SSF2TX replacing previous versions.
Sagat got over his grudge in A3 after he saw what Bison did to Ryu and at the same time basically left Bison’s service for good. As per the latest versions, he no longer bears any ill will towards Ryu and is anxiously training and awaiting their rematch.
The second tournament basically ends Bison’s story arc and all that goes with it. That arc began in A2 and spanned three games so it’s quite impressive actually.
I would suggest you play Revival although the anniversary pack may update the storyline to be current now.
I wasn’t stating the contrary to the underlined text. But after thinking about it I’ll disagree. You are right, the current fighting game user base buys fighters if they think the gameplay is good. But don’t you see that the base for fighters is relatively small? There is a reason that not that many ppl are buying fighters. Gameplay tweaks aren’t gonna put fighters back on SF2/MK1-2 level popularity. Tekken 4 to Tekken 5 is regarded by most reviewers as “minor changes”.
Look at RPGs. Without the well-told stories(or told stories at all), who would put up with the monotounus micromanagement of characters you know nothing about and random encounters with turn-based combat? The hardcore and that’s it. And while the gameplay of fighters is not that monotounous(in our POV at least), fighting games would benefit from better stories. Fighting games would get a boom in sales if they equalled the best offline RPGs’ stories. If fighting games had better-told stories(better cutscenes, character emotions etc.) then fighters would be more than a genre for the hardcore, exactly what happened with RPGs when FFVII debuted. As it is right now fighting games are failing so we know gameplay isn’t the thing that’s gonna put the genre above “dying”. SquareEnix-quality cutscenes and story-telling will dramatically increase the mainstream following and while SRK does not like scrubs it will help us in the long run.
even though rival schools is so anime , in fact is my anti-depressant .
eventhough it had pethatic gameplay , i still keep on playing it , i just love the cast …
seriously , you know why a fighting game became popular …
because 70% of them liked the game is because of the designs and the storyline … and every characters’ personality …
30% is because of the good level of game play .
you know that i saw bunch of anime fangirls/boys gathered around playing ggxx and rumblefish2 , they’re gameplay level is horrid .
But that’s the problem with comparing fighters to RPGs. Ultimately, it will come back to just a limited scope of fighting characters fighting each other with moves and combos that the player themselves have to learn the game. RPGs at least has changing scenary, conditions and actually advances the more you play. In fighters, you only advance as far as you WANT to. And when you encounter some bullshit AI boss, you can’t exactly LEVEL UP and beat them later, you yourself have to improve, or find some other bullshit tatic to beat his ass.
With the whole RPG thing, I think that pre FF7, rpgs in general had good story telling. It’s just that FF7 was the first game to have a marketing campaign outside of advertising on WWF power hour, or some kids channels. They marketed that shit like a fucking movie, like it was Jesus’ second coming.
Sure if we implemented the cut scenes, for every permutation of a character intro for any other character intro…people might buy to play it. Sure, playing through everyone’s storyline would probably equal the time investment for an RPG. But ultimately, all it will be is a dressed up fighter.
But perhaps that is what we need. We need sales to be produced in order to support fighting games in general. We need a shit fighter to come out but is impressive enough to warrant making another one down the road that will later be better. Much like how MK:A came out with a tetris like game, a fucking RPG mode and shit like that. Hell even MK Chess.
But I’m not saying it can’t be done, but it might be futile in the end because as much as the CG might be a cause for entertainment, but in the end the gameplay will catch up.
OC
Well the story mode could also be a kumite-ish mode where the difficulty of the AI could not be set by the player and the setting rises as the player goes on. The higher levels of difficulty would have AI that actually have strategy and go for custom combos. The console version could actually teach the kind of stuff you have to go to SRK for(if the developers were alittle more in touch with the hardcore). The leveling up of fighting game characters could truly represent the player’s skill. The game could keep record of the player’s execution/defense/tact/offense/etc. and if the player lost in story mode then the opponent could give [constructive/insulting] criticism regarding the player’s weaknesses. But I’m getting carried away.
I don’t deny that pre-FF7 rpgs had well told stories. But until FF7 you couldn’t visualize the emotion. Like how some people prefer to watch an animated medium over reading a book. FF7 was marketed like that because it had the shiny cover that mainstreamers like so much. You know FF6 wouldn’t have been accepted in commercials(in America at least).
Yeah, it’d just be a fighter with candy coating. But if the gameplay is also good then no worries right? The worst this would do is spawn clones from other developers and ppl will soon get tired of them and the good ones will pull through. If I have to wait until 2008 for SF4 then it damn well better be epic.
Fighting games became popular because they say fireball and supers and weird things like that they hadnt seen before. Not because Ryu beat up so and so.
GGXX is kind of a bad example as it gets hardly no play at all. Those guys dont really play it for the storyline either, they play it to try to think of there next hentai fantasy and then post about it on Gaia.
oh ok… chicke combo XD XD ! more weird stuff and combo , more people want to XCOPY >_> …sigh …
about ggxx which you are saying …
sounds logical , yeah is true . about ggxx scene , sooner or later they hardly play GGXX , they’re no longer gonna play may or bridget in the game , but just got to have them in their forum sigs 
, because they got owned by sol and eddie sso hard. yeah man i’ve gone to an anime forum where hippies in there curse and swear on sol users … and replied perfectly like a noob .
sigh … what about rival school ???
I like Rival Schools, Hinata owns you for free lol. Mainstream doesnt know about it though. The only games that get kinda followed storyline wise are Guilty Gear and thats mostly for Yaoi/Hentai fanfics and KOF which is almost the same. Difference being alot of the hardcore KOF players actually try to pay attention to the storyline. IMO most of there storylines arent actually that good to begin with, Garou is probably the only SNK fighter with a decent storyline. If you look at the best selling fighting games the last 5 years or so you can see that storyline is not that much of a selling point.
DOA - Really no storyline whatsoever, alot of hentai fantasies.
SFAE - Actually hit top 10 list and was there for awhile, 3S has a story but no one pays attention to it.
CvS2/MvC2 - No comment needed
SC 2 - Actually has a decent storyline to it but no one knows or cares about it. It gets played because it looked cool.
Tekken Series - Storyline is kinda shitty to be honest mostly gets played because people think its newb friendly at first.
That’s another problem that comes up. The thing is only the basics are taught and AFAIK, the only really comphensive tutorial for a fighting game was SFEX, that being goals they required for you to finish in order to get extras and some semblance of being able to do some advanced techniques.
I’m not doubting the ability of programmers to program that stuff in. In fact I’m all for it. But since the beginning of time, it’s players who found the innovation in games in how to play them/how to exploit them. I mean it’s not like the game is going to stop and say “Ha ha ha, you’re AHVB timing is off!” or “Roll cancelling is garbage to me” when tactics such as those are discovered post release. It’s not like the CPU AI will find out that you can link this move to this move and so far.
But ultimately, it might be just me being pessimistic on the intelligence of the average gamer, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t get it to drink. Even if the computer can teach the person to do it, it’s up to the player to adopt it. And fighters have one of the more misunderstood learning curves ever because of gamer mentality, not because the game is difficult to learn. I mean a player can hack and Slash in DMC and learn patterns, but if they tried the same shit in fighters, they’d sooner get frustrated at the lack of advancement than put their mind to finishing the damn thing.
The thing is, there’s really one person to lead the way for fighters in that direction. I mean if I’m a start up company, or an already existing company what’s going to be my pitch? “We are going to make the most interactive intense fighter ever. We are going to have HOURS of cut scenes alone etc. etc. We will have programmable AI, AI that REALLY LEARNS and even taunts you, teaches you, whatever etc.”. All execs are going to look at are numbers from games who had that same concept, see it’s failing numbers…not imagine it’s due to it’s shitty/buggy gameplay but instead thinking the market is dead for fighters and then pass it on.
I mean a fighter is a huge investment it seeems. I mean it seems for many games, it takes at least a 2nd or 3rd try to make a game worthwhile to play/balanced…if you get that far enough to rerelease an already existing game. And half the time, it’s lucky that it self balances.
All I’m saying that when it comes to the end of the day, unlike RPGs, side scrollers, or even adventure games; fighters will always boil down to gameplay and the gamers ability to play that game. It doesn’t help that some button movements are an eye-coordination NIGHTMARE for people to remember, let alone produce consistently. Hell, it doesn’t help that FPS’s who boast probably an equal amount of actions compared to a fighter (if not less), simplifies the damn thing by pressing one button to produce a cool action.
I’m not saying that I won’t mind the whole thing to be produced. I would love to see a fighter get the FUCKING WORKS the same way a Final Fantasy game would get. I’m tired of suffering through mediocrity while the only appeal is to the hardcore.
OC
HCparker:
I thought Vampire Hunter did officially replace Vampire?
If you say so. I don’t have a copy of AAC and I don’t read Kanji so you probably right.
GG sucked, the only reason I picked up GGX was the storyline and art. Same reason I don’t play MVC or CVS or SVC. I think way too much to just ignore the storyline. shrug It would not be that hard to have two main teams on a fighting game…engine side…story side. After all, not everyone is good at fighting games. Making or playing.