“Street Fighter 5: A Shadow Falls” Story Review
[details=Spoiler]It is true that fighting games are usually not known for their story modes. At least 99% of the FGC only really care about frame data, matchups, combos, tournaments and characters-tiers. However, while each character has their own favorable matchups, advantages/disadvantages, and tier rankings, they all have motivations, feelings, and history. They may be be vessels that we use in a video game to beat the crap out of other people, but they are still characters that are rooted within the franchise, and that people can root for and care about.
With Netherrealm’s efforts in adding a single player mode that explores the game’s lore (MK9, MKX & Injustice), it was only a matter of time before Capcom decided to tackle this challenge. Before Street Fighter 5, the only glimpse that the fans got from the lore of Street Fighter was through the character prologues and endings. And every now and then there will be some OVA or movie that ties canonically with the franchise. But in Street Fighter 5, Capcom ambitiously decided to match their competitors with its own epic lengthy single-player story mode. And after a somewhat underwhelming launch, half-effort character stories, and delays upon delays, we FINALLY get the story mode that the fans rightfully deserve.
With a combination of strong characters, an epic story plot, and well paced action scenes, Capcom’s story mode of A Shadow Falls clearly is their best effort to date of delivering on a well-done story mode.
PLOT: A Shadow Falls pits the forces of good and evil as the World Warriors (Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li and the rest of the heroes) try to foil the Shadaloo’s evil plan of enveloping the world in chaos, darkness, despair, and fear by shutting down their most devastating weapon to date: The Black Moons. The Black Moons are giant EMP satellites that orbit around the earth, waiting to be activated and cause destruction. They also upon activation grants Shadaloo boss M. Bison with great power. To activate the weapon, Shadaloo must obtain special activation pieces to unlock its power. However, the heroes are searching for the same pieces so they can activate the shut down program and stop the weapon.
It’s a story that involves a lot of characters. Classic characters involve: Ryu, the wandering world warrior, Chun-Li, the Interpol officer, Zangief, the man with muscles of steel, M. Bison, overload of Shadaloo, and more. You also have returning characters from the Street Fighter Alpha days, such as, Nash, returning from the dead, and Karin, head of the Kanzuki clan. And the newcomers also make their profound impacts on the game such as Rashid of the turbulent wind, and FANG, Shadaloo’s new 2nd in command.
The main story may be about the inevitable good v. evil battle, but there are three teams all vying for the same goal. One team of heroes include: Karin, Chun-Li, Guile, Ken, Dhalsim, Cammy, Zangief, R. Mika, and Ibuki. The second team of villains has: M. Bison, FANG, Balrog, Vega and The Dolls. There is also a third team consisting of Nash, Juri, Rashid, and Azam. Three teams sharing similar goals. With the story inching pacing to the climax, we eventually saw alliances formed, broken, and reformed again as the heroes desperately combat against the Shadaloo forces.
The story does mostly a good job with their side plots too. Good ones include Cammy going rogue to tend to the needs of her “sister” Decapre, leading to the eventual rescue of all the dolls. While it was a risk for cammy to abandon her team, her actions eventually lead us to genially care for the dolls she’s trying to rescue.
Rashid trying to find his friend clearly was the best side plot of the story, and played a major role in the main story. It had him clashing with the heores as it served as a minor obstacle for the heroes, but ultimately served the main story and his character well
There was one side plot that fell short however. Ryu’s bit with Necalli kinda felt confusing and unnecessary. Necalli’s character failed to serve whatever purpose it had. It didn’t detract the heroes from accomplishing their goal, nor was it a strong individual entity in regards to story all on its own.
The pacing and the action of the main story were pretty well paced. During the intense moments, the action was close to being on the edge-of-your-seat. The characters displayed their fighting styles really well. Mostly everyone got a piece of the action. But during the slow moments where you divulge more into the inside of the characters, their motivations, and their histories, you see a different side of them really come out, a welcoming change from always seeing fighting game characters be badasses.
I’ll admit there were some moments that seemed to drag, repeating some of the same fights over and over again. Some fights were completely unnecessary. But for the most part, while it impacted the pace of the story at times, it did not deter from the impact those fighst had on the story.
Overall, the story does a fantastic job in accomplishing its goal. It was entertaining but epic. It had exciting kick-ass fights, paired with character relationships and developments that open them up to the characters, making us see a side of them that we normally never get to see. And despite the occasional unnecessary plot or two, it didn’t detract from the main story. 8.5/10
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT: You can’t have a good story without good character development. Otherwise, it’ll be a boring story without seeing the characters undergo through some kind of change.
I shall grant each and every character my personal review on their character development in a future post. But for now, I’ll just keep things simple with I feel are the three strongest aspects of character development.
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Chun-Li*: (yes, as a Chun-Li fan, I have to include her in my review). Her development was really strong, despite only using her to fight only once, and beating her up two more times. Her interactions with Li-Fen, the young girl hacker, were some of the most heart touching in the entire story. If you know Chun-Li’s history, she had her father killed by Shadaloo. And now seeing this girl being used for their evil intents and purposes strengthens her character as it sets up her 3S motivation for fighting. Although it is a very subtle change, we see her go from headstrong fighter to caring mother in the course of the story.
Rashid: The range of this guy is unbelievable. He has his moments where he is the funniest guy in the story. There are times where he can just be plain stupid, playing the IDIOT card on multiple occasions. And third, there are moments where he is just a complete badass. The interactiosn he had with every character was perfect. The fight with FANG near the end was clearly my favorite. And at the end, after finding closure with his friend, you see a vulnerable side to him. It tugs your heart and makes you care for him.
FANG: yes, when we first saw him, he looked stupid. but in the stoyr, he goes from a cold, conniving murderer to just completely losing his shit at the end. A complete 180 for him when things start to not go his way. you start to see the insanity in him start to grow. By the end, he was on the brink of insanity, completely different from the character you were introduced to in the begining part of the story.
There were a lot of great moments of character development and a few weak ones. But overall, the main characters development fed into the story well. We are opened up to their vulnerabilities. And they drive the story well. 9/10
VISUALS: Everything about this story mode was like watching and playing a movie. Granted it didn’t have the level of realism (in regards to human anatomy, not power levels!!!) that Neatherealm achieves, but for Capcom, they pulled off stunning locations, beautiful character movements, amazing effects, and great lighting choices. Visually, it’s Capcom’s best piece of art to date. The CGI animation is a welcoming change from the anime styles of SFIV for their lore content. And it was a ultra upgrade from the artwork we got in the character stories. There wasn’t anything I could find a fault to in this aspect of the story. Can I say that it was achieved exceptionally… SHORYUKEN!!! 10/10
FIGHTS + GAMEPLAY: If the story mode was as easy as the character stories, I wouldn’t bother giving this a score. However, the CPU difficulty does increase the further along you go into the fights. And the fact that it has a harder difficulty in place after completing it the first time finally adds some grit and effort into the fights.
I’m not a big fan of 1-round wins though. If I wanted to enjoy the story, at least give me the 2 out of 3 rounds. I know capcom wanted us to get familiar with the characters in the story, but how can we do that if we only get one round? It’s not a sufficient time to explore what we can do.
But speaking of fights, what kind of fighting game story mode would we have if we didn’t have any? And by goly, we got a lot… and I meant a lot!!! Of course you control the fights, but seeing the characters fight on their own, like against the Shadaloo minions, was a visually stunning thing to see. It really felt like it came from a movie. And I can appreciate watching great fights as well as controlling them.
Some of the moves look like they really hurt. And god dammit, you saw Ibuki just threw a kunai into a soldier’s face! SHE’S IN HIGH SCHOOL GOD DAMMIT!!! This may not be on the MKX level in regards to “Pain” and “Ouch” factors, but for a Capcom Street Fighter game, they really did a marvelous job.
Plus, the in-fight banter is just amazing!!!
Overall, the only bad thing I can say about the fights and game play is that we are limited to one round. But the large abundance of fights that we get to see all throughout the story more than makes up for it. You get a thrill controlling your favorite fighters and beating the crap out of someone. And you can also enjoy watching your favorite fighters beating the crap out of someone. 9/10
MUSIC: Background music for every cutscene and fight just fit hand-in-glove. It was great to see Capcom expand on the music choices. They could’ve easily given us the themes to the stages we were playing on. But they went a step further and took the unexpected route. Honestly, the only few flaws I can think of (and it’s toally subjective on this) is no song made me connect internally with the moment, and that there were no renditions of the character themes during a fight. Still, music was a solid spot in the story. 8.5/10
VOICE ACTING: Come on, let’s admit it. We all agree that English dubbing in all things is generally looked down upon, compared to the Japanese original. And in Street Fighter games, the voice acting can range from truly amazing, to “I wanna blow my brains out, this voice is horrible”. Surprsingly, the voice acting in SFV story mode was superb. When watching the preview at E3, I had a preview of what to expect, and it didn’t disappoint. Now after seeing the whole story mode,yes there are some voices that sounded annoying. Some sounded good. And some were just amazing. Just to name a few…
Karin: Despite the Mary Sue character, her regal and elegant voice really resonated with her character. Her mannerism and inflections reminded me of Rarity of My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic. Lauren Landa did an exceptional job voicing this character with class and dignity.
Li-Fen: Probably the most adorable voice in Street Fighter history. Megan Taylor Harvey voiced her pretty well. She had such a shy tone about her, yet calmness about her voice that never broke. Li-Fen looks adorable already, but paired that with her voice, then you;ll want to just give her a hug and tell her things are gonna be alright. (Like Chun-Li did)
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Chun-Li*: Speaking of Chun-Li (yes, y’all knew I was gonna do it), she was one of my favorite voices in the game. When we first heard Chun-Li when the game was in the beta, most of us cringed of how she sounded. Then her character story was released, and she was redeemed a bit. Now Laura Bailey’s performance in the story mode just goes above and beyond everything she’s ever done as Chun-Li previously. (Not to mention she shows why she’s one of my favorite voice actors). Laura Bailey kept that ferocity that Chun-Li always has, but also brings a soft, gentle side of her voice that clearly resonates throughout the entire story.
Honestly, the only points I can knock off for this was that some of the dubs didn’t match the lip moment, and some of the English voices sounded bad. But that didn’t deter from this high score over all. 9/10
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CONCLUSION**: Is the the absolute most perfect story mode? No. Were there some aspect of this game that could’ve been handled better? Yes. Do I think I could write a better story than this? HELL YEAH I CAN BITCHES, I GOT A COMIC COMING OUT!!! But that’s not the point.
The point is, this is by far the greatest story mode that Capcom has ever achieved. They set out an ambitious goal when they first announced a hint of it and they have pulled through. It felt like it was the perfect length. Not to long, not to short. The pacing of the story was well done, slowing down on moment when it had to, and developing character, and it sped up when the action started to pick up. Regardless of how you feel each character was treated, everyone had their turn in the spotlight, whether it be a little or a lot.
Capcom has set the bar high again for story modes. We’ll look forward to something like this in future Street Fighter games. Capcom has accomplished something great for their casual fans. And we look foreward to future stories to be told, whether it be in futre SF games, or maybe a future story mode content down the line for SFV.[/details]
Overall Story Mode Score: 9/10
