buts its so damn MANLY it doesn’t matter everyone cries. because they are manly tears!
“DEFEATING YOU WILL BE AN ACT OF LOVE!”:sad:
Agreed.
I think a lot of people here are underestimating the potential meaning of “story”.
“Style” is a function of story. Look back at this entire thread, and you’ll see dozens of avatars. People representing their favorite characters.
And, why are they your “favorite characters”? Simply because they are easy to win with? Simply because you like that +6 frame advantage that their crouching fierce gets? Naw…
That might be part of the reason. But, I’m willing to bet that an even bigger reason is becuase you like the character’s “style”.
Any fans of Terry Bogard here? Why, because you like his combos? Of maybe you think it’s REALLY cool how his qcb+K has overhead properties in Garou, so he’s, like, totally your favorite character now.
Of course not. That’s silly.
You like his CHARACTER. You like his STYLE. You like his butchered “English” phrases. You like the various things he can do to a hat when he wins. You like his colorful red, white, and blue attire (or his even cooler leather jacket from Garou). You like his attitude…his look…the way he carries himself in game…
All dictated by STORY.
Even his gameplay is a reflection of his background story. “Power Wave”? “Buster Wolf”? “Crack Shot”? “Burn Knuckle”? A bunch of in-your-face, loud moves that are so satisfying to connect with. And, guess what…every single attack that Terry has is a function of his STORY…his PERSONALITY…his STYLE.
The same can probably be said about MOST characters. Gameplay is a function of the mood, story, and atmosphere of the game. Vega and Chun-Li hop around gracefully, because that’s their personality…as dictated by their STORYLINE. Hugo, Zangief, Astaroth? Same deal. Voldo, Yoshimitsu, Q? Ditto.
Heck, even the posterboy for “no-personality”, Mr. Akira Yuki is a function of his (sparse) story. He’s a super disciplined martial artist…and this translates to his gameplay, where he uses stone-like, disciplined movements. Abrupt, rigid body checks and thrusts reflect his rigid mindset. Meanwhile, Pai Chan, an actress, has a freer attitude and personailty…as evidenced by her flowing, graceful flips and spins.
This is all a function of STORY, people.
You know you likah teh story.
I like Johnny (Guilty Gear) because he can combo off his throw and his MistCancel gives him frame advantage and all sorts of trickery.
In Real Bout 2, I hate Xiangfei, but I like her QCF+A/C, so I play Xiangfei.
In ST, I hate Ryu’s character, style, and story, but I practice and play as Ryu for the chance to land his forward j.MPx2 into super nonsense. The combo looks so ridicules, I love it.
I would and do.
One day I’ll make a fighter that is composed of a bunch of colored hitboxes. And this game would support the addition of Fluff Packs that would add music, sound effects, stage backgrounds, sprites, and story to the game. It’ll be awesome. They’ll be Loli Packs, Manly-Man Packs, and World War II Packs. And people who enjoy the true essence of the game can do so without needless clutter.
someone has already made mugen tho
Oh yeah…
I guess it’s time to make Epileptic-Hitbox Man for mugen.
well, storylines are definatly popular among the fighting gamers now.
but dont forget that in the past, when MK and SF2 was hot off the arcades…nobody gave a shit about ‘story’.
with SF2, all that mattered was that fat sumo guy, strechy guy, green guy that shocks you, that chinese girl, that boxer, the ballerina, the wrestler, army dude, ken and ryu.
oh yeah…and the guy that slides with his feet.
with MK…it was all about fatalities. who cared about story?
“FINISH HIM” was all that mattered back then.
things changed now.
im not against story-lines. i like them too. they enhance the single player experience so that you’re not just fighting this guy 1st, then this guy second.
Dude, that’s the character’s bio, not storyline. There’s a difference.
Also I would wager that when creating fighting styles for characters, story wasn’t that big a proponent in thinking up the moves. They’ll think “Well this character is a grappler, what kind of grapples should he have?”, not “Well he’s from Russia, and likes to wrestle bears…his favorite food is pie and he’s a Taurus…so it’s obvious he needs a spinning piledriver.”
Personality is not inherently connected to the storyline. It’s why you can pick up a fighter in japanese, that you’ve never played before, and pick a favorite character. You don’t know what he’s saying, or even what his motivation is, and even in absence of all these story points you can still think he “looks cool”, or that his moves are cool. When I first played Fatal Fury I thought Terry looked cool, I couldn’t understand what he was saying all too clearly, and I never knew why he was fighting all those people, but the guy looked cool so I liked him.
Liking a character design is different than liking a character’s story. Take when Falcoon makes alternate costumes for people in KoF XI and people kill him for it, (I actually like 'em, but it may just be me), it’s not because the storyline of the character has changed. Terry still is Terry, he still says his engrish and stuff, but he looks different, and people complain about the “out there” designs.
Of any genre of gaming, Fighting Games have almost consistently had the weakest storylines, for how much they stagnate, the way very few have closed story arcs, and for just being plain bland when compared side to side by what would generally be considered a good story. (Which is subjective, I admit, but many must admit the “revenge”, “wandering fighter”, and “rivalry” storylines are well played, and overused, and usually not all that interesting to begin with. So Ryu and Ken are friends right? They are rivals sure. That’s the story in a nutshell, there’s sadly not much more to it.) What hurts fighters more than other stories is the fact that storylines between characters tend to be as bland as the overall storyline. (At least Garou had somewhat of a twist of Rock leaving with the last boss, I’ll grant I’ve not seen that storyline used much in the fighting world.)
So when it comes to fighters I think character design greatly outweighs story design. Otherwise all the characters would be to bland to like.
doesnt matter how complex the story is, because it boils down to one line;
“Im going to kick your ass”
roll credits.
megaman vs fighting games
“i am more than a robot DIE WILY”
vs
“STOP PUNCHING ME YOU MOTHERFUCKER”
i think the winner is obvious
Bio = Biography = The STORY of someone’s life.
How are you going to design a character without knowing who that character IS? The minute you ask the question “who”, you’re forced to create a world and a motivation for the character…a.k.a. a storyline. You can try to throw a bunch of random traits together…but, it won’t work unless there’s an underlying story connecting it all together.
There MUST be a story…even if it’s a very preliminary, small story that will be developed more later on (as seems to be the case with SF).
Think about the popular fighting games over the past decade or so. Then think of the characters and their moves. Ask yourselves whether the moves match the character’s personality as predicted by their storyline.
Does Ryu ever whip out a chainsaw and start hitting people with the handle end? No…he’s a disciplined martial artist searching for philosophical truths, not an idiot.
Does Iori ever start tickling his opponents? No…he’s trying to kill Kyo, why would he want to waste time tickling anybody?
Does Cammy go around giving people Chokeslams? No…she’s a trained doll/assassin/warrior for Shadowloo, not a 7 foot, pro-wrestler.
I mean, if nobody cares about storyline and background, why not give random moves to random characters? Give Ryu a shank…give Hugo nunchucks…give Kazuya the Sonic Spin Dash. Why not?
Well, because, this behavior would violate the respective characters’ underlying story.
Storyline is the glue that keeps the characters in a particular game related. In terms of character design, that is EXTREMELY important.
Basically, what I’m saying is that design and storyline are not unrelated at all. The former could not be accomplished without the latter.
There seems to be debate on just what counts as story, which is getting split between the overall story of the tournament, the backstories of the characters, and the general designs and attitudes of a specific character. (But not things like “His qcf+B is extremely good.”)
I would also guess tournament storylines are the thing most people find issue with, as they are the things that often fall into absurdity. Characters die for overall story purposes, only to come back because they are too popular to stay dead. People year after year attend tournaments that are always run by corrupt villains, to the point that it becomes a joke in some characters’ stories. Stories become more of a mess when a company tries to stick one game between two pre-existing games. When a game keeps getting upgrades to replace the prior incarnations, stories get changed just to keep variety on victory screens.
Character backstories generally stay relatively sane, except for cases where successive games keep altering them. (Poor Cammy.) Character designs stay relatively static, because people don’t like to see their characters change too much. (Which is why Iori will never be allowed to have a life outside of hunting Kyo, regardless of how at one point he was arguably shifting from that overwhelming hatred.)
How so? Thus far I see her backstory getting fleshed out and detailed but still consistent.
I don’t think a characters moves reflect their personality. Look at the shotos. three characters with distinctively different personalities but nearly identical move lists. Without knowing character bios beforehand, most of us would have no idea what fighting game characters personalities are supposed to be like, but because you already know them, you think you can draw accurate parallels.
and its obvious if you gave a character some outlandish weapon it would look absurd, just like having any woman chokeslamming people is because she is simply shorter than most of the other characters. but if ryu threw sonic booms from the beginning people wouldn’t be looking back and thinking ‘you know, that sonic boom move just never seemed to fit ryu’s personality’
Wrong.
Iori has moved on from wanting to kill Kyo since 97 they were on the same team and again on the same team for 2k3 and then XI.
Yea there not the best of friends but that whole beef is done, the fact riotblood Iori no longer exists, means alot of his hate has gone.
All Iori wants to do now is beat Kyo as a rival ala Ryu/Ken, not actually kill his ass, all the hate is going to be on Ash.
XII is going to have one interesting storyline.
Iori didn’t want to team with Kyo in 2K3. Chizuru brought them together again, against both their wishes.
Iori has made some progress in the main series, but if anything has degenerated in the spin-offs. Maximum Impact 2, for example, presents an Iori that is driven only by a consuming hatred of Kyo. (And spells that out in both his written backstory and his ending.) SvC:Chaos also went with Kyo-hating Iori.
But back to the main KOF line, we’d really have to wait and see how it ends and how he appears in the next arc, since Ash should be drawing quite a bit of Iori’s attention by this point.
That’s MI2 and SvC. Those don’t count. Yeah, the lazy man summary of Iori’s character is “he’s the guy with his legs tied together who hates Kyo” but he’s gone beyond that.
As for XII…my prediction is that Ash is gonna drain Kyo like he did with Chizuru and Iori and just go crazy on everyone with whatever crazy Orochi powerup he’d get. I just wonder if they’re gonna re-promote Adelheid and have him bring teh arpe.
I thought Tekken had a good storyline until about 3, 4, and 5. The whole father/son hate relationship was bad ass, and the fact that the main character (at least in my mind) Kazuya was evil as fuck. First time I can remember the hero actually being kind of an anti-hero. But then Tekken got all sorts of fucked up, people coming back from the dead for the fifth time, aliens, time travel. Mortal Kombat’s story sucks balls, Guilty Gear’s is way out there, SF is ok, I can deal with SF. I just wish they would expand more on the character’s, but who really gives a shit? I’m more interested in gameplay, but having a story or ending that gives you a sense of accomplishment or satisfaction is a definite plus. I also find myself picking characters that I can kind of relate too based on how they are by their personalities, that’s why I pick Kazuya/Jin in Tekken, Ryu/Akuma in SF, Chipp/Testament/Sol in Guilty Gear, Kyo/Iori/Terry in SNK games, Akira/Wolf in VF. I have to somewhat like the character for me to pick them. Like I can never pick Yun or Yang in SF3, I don’t give a flying fuck about tiers, something about hip hop and skaters just really pisses me off.
Sort of a follow-up to the thread’s question:
Would people in one region care more about storyline in fighting games if they were exposed to all that the game’s parent region had to offer? Putting series that came from Japan on the spot.