The Inevitable Street Fighter V Story Thread: ARCADE EDITION!

Street Fighter V
3928

Main means what the core plot is centered around. You know what I mean, the main character of the game is whoever the main character of the story is. Of course the CGI trailer is going to show Ryu and Necalli, Ryu is the face of Street Fighter even if the story doesn’t fully center around him he is the character they use as the basis for everyone and his face is what sells Street Fighter. Necalli is the face of Street Fighter V in terms of the new cast of villains, literally the face he has a big V on it, lol. However Nash’s story seems to be the core plot with others intertwining with his.

Bringing back a villain over and over and over and over and over and over is boring and reduces the threat of the character and the effectiveness of the plot. It becomes rote. Ryu knocks down Bison "O’ we defeated him, he’ll be back next time. I guess what we did did absolutely nothing. Bison stands up “So, Ryu, how’s your schedule next week look?” It’s running in place when you get down to it.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iweOSPbU73Y

Also the idea of exploring who his dentist is seems like a really hilariously dumb idea. Like so dumb it’s great. It’d at least make for a funny throw away joke in a plot. They should do what BlazBlue does with the joke story.

3929

I always thought Sagat hosted the SF1 tournament because of video game logic. Usually the boss of a fighting game is the host if the game is using a tournament setting.

3930

I’m not getting ‘core plot’ from Nash.

The core plot that all the prologues seemed to be weaving towards involves 2 key parts.

The first part is Karin gathering all the fighters for her tournament.

Then you have Bison planning on unleashing hell which will likely coincide with the timing of the former.

While these 2 main arcs are happening, you have 2 major subplots bubbling underneath. Nash going after Bison (but everyone will after Bison reveals himself) and then you have Necalli hunting main characters (which also include Bison).

No one really is intertwining with Nash right now as far as I can tell. Guile and Chun-Li probably still don’t know about Nash (and Chun’s prologue largely took place in the past so we don’t know anything about where she stands right now). Ryu had a super casual encounter with him and then that was it.

In terms of character interactions/relationships, Bison, Karin, and Ryu probably have the most going for them.

That’s why I advocate Bison taking a game off, or actually not being the main villain (like SF4). We can have villainous characters participating in the plot without them being the main antagonist. Similarly, Ryu was not the main protagonist in SF3, the same ‘courtesy’ could be extended to villains I think.

3931

Nash is intent on getting revenge on Bison which in turn would stop Bison’s plot. Guile and Chun may not know he is alive at the moment but you can easily assume that at some point that is going to come into play, especially with Guile returning. They already referenced Chun’s past with Nash in her flash back. Ryu’s interaction may have been short and casual but it touched on an important part of Nash’s story in him trying to figure out who he has become via his new powers.

I get the impression that Necalli is kind of a mcguffin for Ryu in a way. He only exists to have a reason for Ryu to have a plot at all.

Bison should be defeated and take a couple of games off IMO or take off one game and then be restricted to a character pulling the strings but not really the main villain. A character who interacts with the main villain of the second game. Personally I wish that villains would STAY dead but this game is an f’n saturday morning cartoon where nothing matters in the end. It’s like DBZ with death just being a time for a character to train, lol. Look at Nash!

3932

Bison has said that it’s too late and they can’t stop his plot. The Illuminati prophecy also states that this apocalyptic scenario cannot be prevented. I think Nash is more concerned about killing Bison himself rather than saving anyone or anything. We’ll see how far he goes.

Re: Chun-Li and friends

Obviously, Nash’s relationship with other characters will come into play but I can’t say that their plots intertwine around Nash. More accurately, Nash and their stories intertwine around the main arc.

3933

They can’t erase that because Dictator has become a pop culture icon of the series since SF is not Just a Video Game but a Pop culture icon, Like He is the King Koopa, Megatron, Dr Doom, Lex luthor, Eggman of Sf in Pop Culture Scene and the many media that is known to many. They could do some spinoffs of Sf for awhile to compromised with the momentary trends and hype like Sf3, like Batman to batman beyond, Transformers to Beastwars, Ghost Buster to GH Extreme, Spider-man to Spiderman Unlimited/2099 but they need to go back to how things were established and familiar in the Pop culture scene…

They could change that but would lead to alienate the series like how Xmen in marvel today is scattered and broke to give way to avengers,

3934

Then you clearly didn’t watch the CGI trailer. Which features Nash more than any other character, and Karin almost not at all.

3935

If that were the case than X-Men would only ever fight Magneto since he is a pop culture icon and the original X-men villain. Batman would ONLY fight the Joker since that is the most iconic rivalry.

Make him go away for a quite a while so that at least the idea that he is fallible and that the heroes have some sort of pull in the fate of the storyline. Hell, think about all of the potential that could bring to NEW characters. Think about how Venom came to be, they could have stuck with just Green Goblin but later they got Doc Ock, and others. Did you know that Dr. Doom wasn’t even the Fantastic Four’s first major villain? It was Mole Man! If Dr Doom never went away we’d never see Namor (though Namor actually predates FF >_>) Can you imagine if Red Skull appeared in every Captain America comic? We’d never have Baron Zemo or Hydra or Modok.

That is the thing, most of the examples you gave the characters have a wide variety of major villains to pull from and don’t need to see the same villain over and over and over. There can be several VERY long storylines where these players never even make a sideways reference. You could have a whole year go by with Doom and Fantastic Four never crossing paths once.

3936

Batman and Spider-man is like a solo conflict theme like Chunli can go with Cammy, Juri, Urien and Claw, Ryu can go with Adon, Sagat and Akuma. Guile can go with Abel and Nash.

While Seth, Dictator and Gill was presented as a universal grand villain or something that can affect everyone and lead others in SF universe even without knowing them. They like the doom, apocalypse, thanos and so fort villains not the nemesis/arch-rival type like sabertooth, venom, hush, wrath, red skull, or bane that can be hype momentarily for some media as the main grand villain for a dc or marvel universe but only for awhile.

Its like Juri, Adon, Sagat, Urien, Claw or Akuma can be set up by hype but will never replace those that become icons of their general whole universe that is established in the eyes of many.

I see doom as a universal threat that connects everyone like thanos,

Mole man wasn’t the pop culture iconic villain of F4 thats why they could easily erase it. Yup F4 can go a whole year without doom but people would fantasize or would thought of a what if situation wih doom in that show.

3937

I don’t know, people, maybe I’m not a romantic guy or I have become desensitized towards powers, but I don’t have the slightest interest on plots and characters that focus on the power sources themselves. It’s cool that these people can do all this superhuman stuff, but I don’t care if Mu is the opposite of Fu, if Soul Power goes well along Sane Power or if Satsui no Hadou gets triggered by the Hadou no Satsui. I want the plot to involve the characters, not the labels of their powers, and I want the characters not to be focused or built on that stuff.

Like, I’ve played many games and I’ve seen fireballs of all shapes and colors, from hand-shaped to galleon-shaped, I’ve seen Willow shoot dozens of fireballs and Madmartigan shoot sonic booms with his sword, and I don’t give them a second thought. When I see Ryu doing a hadouken I see the character, not the power. When I see Rose I see nothing, because she’s nothing beyond the magical power stuff. My brain auto-disconnects whenever I hear a power label.

3938

Well then. I need to see this fighting game.

3939

Funny thing about that, Thanos and Doom have stopped appearing as “villains” as of late. Even Galactus’ role has been reversed.

The status quo has to be flipped on its head some time.

3940

That insists that you can’t have a new main threat and still have Bison in the game.

You don’t have to kill off Bison and not have him in the game in order to tell a new story with a new antagonist.

Nobody ever complains that nothing Honda ever does is relevant to the main story of a SF game. There’s no reason why, after being defeated, Bison can’t just be doing things in the background to try and recover while some other villain pushes the main plot for awhile.

3941

I would like to Bison take a game off as well but Capcom isn’t the one to bench villains. They like keeping the same character as the villain. Look at Mega Man. How long have Dr. Wily and Sigma been the main villains of their respective series? Wesker been the villain for the majority of RE games.

3942

Obviously that’s not clearly true. I’ve seen the CGI trailer an unhealthy amount of times in fact. Enough to have Bison walking down the corridor as my desktop background since, and enough to know that Nash, Bison, and Ryu are all tied at about 30 seconds of screen time each.

I’m also not basing my argument about who is the main character on a cosmetic trailer, but on the actual character prologues and what little we know about the cinematic story. Nash’s vendetta against Bison is not the main story arc of SF5, but it is a major subplot - Not necessarily because of Nash either, rather because of its potential to reel in the next big players in the SF timeline.

Can you please elaborate? As I haven’t been paying that much attention to the side of my interests lately.

Familiarity breeds contempt. This is the only reason why I would want Bison to take a game off (as an MIA rather than a ‘dead’ character, too many resurrections trivialize the power of death).

3943

Right. The plot guide. It wasn’t stated anywhere else, but there. Sagat being the host is a total invention by the plot guide guys. Capcom never created a “Street Fighter” game where the tournament wasn’t hosted by some suspicious guy with an agenda, so this whole “They did it once” is invalid until someone shows me prove that Sagat was the host.

You cannot apply common details to a game that came out before said detail became common.

The first fighting game with an explicit tournament setting where the boss was definitely the host was “Street Fighter II”, then “Fatal Fury”, then “Mortal Kombat” if I didn’t forget any game in between.

“Street Fighter I” appeared four years earlier.

And, surprise: There is no indication whatsoever that “Street Fighter I” is supposed to be a tournament at all:

You can choose the stage where you want to begin.

When you lose, the opponent taunts Ryu with “Try again, kiddo”.

No spectators in any of the stages at all.

And when you win the game, the ending says: “But remember, you have no time to rest in your glory, for there is always someone waiting in line to knock you off the top”, indicating that the champion title is something that you can win and lose at any time and not through an organized tournament.

None of these things are in SF2 anymore. Instead, SF2 has an award ceremony.

So, SF1 is most likely supposed to be similar to the “Alpha” games where Ryu just traveled the world to find opponents.

Furthermore, while the SF2 tournament is prominently mentioned in SF4 and while the battle between Ryu and Sagat is still relevant to the storyline, they never ever mentioned a pre-SF2 tournament.

3944

Sorry to chime in on the whole “Character should/shouldn’t die” discussion but I strongly disagree with this particular comment

I honestly feel like, despite it being hard to let go off certain characters (unless you do a KOF-style or Tekken-style Dream Match/Tag Tournament) - they CAN and SHOULD sometimes die.
Certain characters dying - whether they are killed by the villain, or sacrifice themselves, or in a decisive battle - is important.

It can act as a plot device to move the story forward, it can act as a way to advance story arcs, it can act as character development by showing certain sides of their persona that we never see usually.

Example - let’s look at Dragon Ball Z. Goku has always been shown as a nice kinda childish guy, always goofing and fooling around, yet capable of being strong and serious when a fight is taking place (and just the first Saga of the series shows that to us on several occasions). But we’ve never seen him truly angry, like REALLY pissed off, even when Tien, Yamcha and Piccolo died versus Nappa and the Saibamen.
Then we skip towards the Frieza saga - and Frieza kills Krillin. One could think “yeah, Krillin died, no problem, he’ll be revived later”. But then, Goku becomes MAD. He gets so furious because of this, that he goes Super Saiyan for the first time.

This alone moves the plot forwards in SO many ways at once - Goku becomes stronger, Goku is exposed to the viewer/reader as the one that can be fucking angry for a moment, the Legend of SSJ is revealed as something that is actually true and not just an ancient legend, and we get to know just how strong Goku’s friendship with Krillin is and how important he is to Goku (Goku himself calls Krilling his best friend after turning SSJ).

Street Fighter has never really practiced nor utilized this as they never kill off characters we learned to like and love after so many years. Really any important to the plot deaths were

  • Dan’s father (killed by Sagat), which made Dan become a martial artist and avenge Go’s death
  • and Goutetsu being killed by Akuma, which happened long before the events of Street Figher Alpha
    So as much as I’d hate somebody like, say, Bison die forever - it WOULD move the general story of Street Fighter universe, and give a chance to bring in completely new villains or even heroes.
    Capcom did this in Third Strike by introducing The Illuminati and getting rid of Bison/Shadaloo, Capcom also did this in IV by introducing Juri and Seth, and now they did this in V with Necalli. (the relative success of such actions is a whole another topic of discussion, so I’d prefer to not digress here)
3945

The problem is people misconstrue death for story progression. A character death itself is not an example of story progress. Killing Bison or whoever won’t magically make SF’s story a literary masterpiece.

Death is an opportunity for birth, for a new beginning. If you don’t make it count and work at the progression, then it was pointless and you just got rid of a much adored character for no good reason.

I agree that some deaths are important for story, and death as a literary tool needs to be respected.

3946

[quote=Daemos;10664782"

Well, if you are asking about Doom, after he became “God” in Secret Wars his face was further deformed and his super godly powers could not repair his face. At the end of Secret Wars, he is seen with his face finally healed. In the recent Invincible Iron Man comics, he appears without his armor stating he no longer has any interest in ruling Latveria and its people though he does say he now knows he is meant for more. Nobody knows what he meant by that, but he seems to want to take “clean” this new planet from beings or mystical artifacts from other universes that might endanger the laws of physics of his planet. Matter of fact, he gives one such item to Iron Man, telling him it’s best to keep such items from his hands.

If you are asking about Thanos, well it’s been many years now but after becoming “God” and being rejected by Death he stopped doing evil, and became more interested in trying to fix what was wrong in the universe, and making sure nobody was too powerful. He knew he had made too many enemies and that they would come for him one day, but now he just wanted to live his life in seclusion and in peace.

About Galactus, he has been made to be what apparently he was always supposed to be, the life bringer.

3947

Exactly. Just killing a random characters because “DYING IS SAD, GUYS!” isn’t the right way to do things.

Character death needs to have a meaning, importance, some weight to it, so that it could serve as things I described in my post - such as developing the character him/herself or open up a whole different character from a new perspective to the viewer/player

Naruto did this in a great way when they killed off Asuma and it helped to develop Shikamaru’s character as a strong warrior and a true heir to the arts he was taught. Gurren Lagann did this in a great and kind of “HOLY SHIT” way when they killed Kamina to develop Simon’s character as the next hope of the oppressed that had to dig deep beneath into the mines and find a living there.

Street Fighter has yet to have/experience this, sadly