Storylines just aren’t that compatible with fighting games, IMO. Much more than in many other genres, in fighting games the gameplay, every facet of it to the tiniest detail, is what matters. It’s hard to come up with some sort of scenario that allows for all of these characters to be together and ready to beat the crap out of each other and have it be somewhat believable. It’s much easier to come up with fitting stories for, say RPGs or action games than for fighting games. Those genres simply lend themselves better to storytelling.
Personally, once gameplay is out of the way, I think character is more important than actual plot. The way that a character’s personality shows through their moves, winposes, and such does more than any sort of attempt at a narrative.
I’ve long held the belief that video games are a very different form of media from things like comics, movies, or books. What makes for a good one of those doesn’t necessarily make for a good video game. The video game industry seems to disagree with me, but whatever.
It depends. I see at least some story as being necessary, but it defies the point if it sucks. It’s harder to actually care if a character has no personality, no history, no motivation; you might as well be watching two hobos fight over a sandwich. I’m certain that there are developers that see the importance in having one to some degree as well, mainly for the sake of marketability. Sure, there are plenty of SNK fans that don’t know how to actually play their games, but their attachment to the characters and whichever universe they happened to be associated with still means money for the company anyway, doesn’t it? Capturing the hearts of the people makes taking their wallets become that much easier.
…Of course, this doesn’t guarantee prosperity for any sort of competitive scene, nor the quality of any game itself.
Yes I agree totally with what he said. Keep in mind also though that there are certain types “Otaku fanboys and many at SNK-CAP” that know more about the story than the characters special moves!!!
For SNK games the sad thing is theres more that care about the storyline than those that play the game!!!
at the end of the day, you’re not going to keep playing a fighting game for an extended period of time because of its story. you aren’t going to be motivated to beat all your friends and win tournaments because of the story. it might be nice, but i wouldn’t call it important. id rather they spend all their time on the gameplay than subtract some of it for a story.
however, i think its important to have appealing characters. it will be much more difficult for super fighting care bears to get rolling even if it has the perfect fighting game engine.
also, i like the sf story! well, i like the characters personal stories.
I don’t think that people care to much about the storylines but i definately believe that the story line is a big part of the game.The storyline makes the game complete.In the end though it’s te moves and characters that make the game memorable and fun to play!
The crux of fighting game stories is the tournament. Think of all the fighting games you’ve played that had stories utilizing some sort of tournament to justify people beating the shit out of each other? That’s alot. Now think of the fighting games that have no tournament. The only one that comes to mind is Guilty Gear, coincedentally this fighter stands as one of the best fighter stories. It’s easier to explain why these characters are fighting by saying it’s a tourney but you also write yourself into a corner. “I want him dead! I know… I’ll announce a tournament to lure him out…”. If Justice had announced a tournament instead of just rushing down the world then the story would be considerably more bland. Imagine if in the beginning of Star Wars, Senator Palpatine just announced a tournament and everything else came from that.
Fighting game stories are also relatively lacking because developers still feel they can get away with it because of the arcade style. If the console versions of SF2 had storytelling on par with RPGS then nobody(even you guys) would tolerate any less from any other fighter to come out after it. Arcade fighting game developers trained us(not purposefully) to not care much about story. Yes, I’m aware that prioritizing story over gameplay brings about the worst kinds of gamer.
Also, fighter developers compromise their stories by retconning character deaths so they can use them again. Bruce and Baek died, he wasn’t in a coma this isn’t a damn soap opera. If Jun is a playable character in T6 then that’s it. I’m gonna… still play T6, but for only FIVE HOURS A DAY…
LOL, but yeah. Tournaments were okay back when fighters first originated, but they’re dying as a storyline now.
Eternal Champions was probably the best use of a tournament storyline ever. It’s a real case of “only one can survive.” That Eternal Champion was cheating like a motherfucker though.
I think I have a tournament-esque solution though: forget just fighting for one prize like the Mishima Zaibatsu or a cookie recipe or something. Have about three or four possible prizes, like a super weapon, godhood, a magical scroll, and whatever. If several sects of people are after something different, that could make things more interesting, with a bunch of different paths.
I actually like fighting games with a good or at least solid storyline, to me I believe it just helps flesh out the fighting game even more. However honestly…now a days, there’s one trend in fighting games which I’m so sick and tired of…that is the “evil” persona of (insert character names)…seriously things like that just needs to be removed, it’s getting old, rehashed and downright stupid imo.
Overall, I actually want fighting games to have a good storyline, I need both.
i’m pretty sure that won’t happen since asuka basically served the purpose as jun’s replacement. i like asuka better anyway.
back to the topic, though… storylines in fighting games are pretty much meant to be crap. i mean, how constructive of a storyline can you make out of games about people kicking each other’s asses? the guilty gear series actually has a pretty interesting storyline, but daisuke ishiwatari had to make the whole thing so convoluted in order for it to be even remotely presentable.
i would rather have the developers design a good engine rather than spend time writing a good story anyway. if i want a good story from playing games, i can always turn to japanese rpg’s.
I used to like Tekken’s storyline, until Namco decided to destroy it with that Kazuya’s ressurection bullshit in T4, just to please the fanboys.
How the fuck do you recover a body that disintegrated in lava, make a clone of it, and the clone comes out adult and with all the memories of the original…?
These mothefuckers who make fighting games love to insult people for some reason.
The last thing I care about is the storyline anymore. I don’t think it gives much personality to the characters either. I think character design is far more important. I’m a Tekken fanboy and after trying to figure that storyline out, I just said fuck it and stopped caring all together.
a good storyline is always good for me . the tekken shit fucked up, when the mof’s that were killed by ogre. came back to life and’ tekkens and have a fucking story to go with it. p.s Saotome Kaneda your avater’s bad ass gay gief that shit( no homo)
how can you have an accurate fighting game story line when you got a bazillion characters to choose, all of which can win the game, thus making the conclusion different, everytime. no continuity and consistency for a story to properly exist in a fighter. they just dont work together very well. never have
Not always. Soul Calibur has a defined canon of who beat who, when. Sophitia and Taki beat Cervantes and Nightmare in Soul Blade. Xianghua beats Inferno in SC1. Nightmare beats him in SC2.
In Guilty Gear, Sol beats Justice in GG, then beats Dizzy in GGX, then I-No in GGXX.
In DOA, Kasumi won the first DOA tourney, Hayabusa won the second, Ayane won the third, and the fourth…just sorta degenerates into the ninjas killing everything in sight.
The main thing is that some endings are canon, most aren’t. At the end of SC2, Xianghua didn’t get the Soul Edge and purify it, contrary to her ending. Potemkin did not run off with Dizzy back to…that country he’s from (don’t remember the name). Hayabusa does not beat down Alpha 142 in DOA4, despite the goings-on in his story mode. They can go well together…but they can never REALLY be completely put together.
:lol: