Storytelling in Fighting Games

[Skyblade]

Another topic idea thrust into my head by BlazBlue.

Fighting games have a very, very weird relationship with stories. They've hit an incredible range from no stories at all, to convoluted messes that need companion guides to fully comprehend.

This thread is more than just the quality of the story in a game, however, it's also about how that story is told. For example, Dissidia has a story that's only so-so (the original Dissida, anyway, Duodecim was a lot better), but the storytelling in the game is excellent. It has a very nice story-to-gameplay ratio, and makes good use of animation to help enhance its story. While BlazBlue had a much more solid story, but does not do very well at the actual storytelling. Story Mode for Continuum Trigger has about five to ten minutes of dialogue between every fight, and feels as though half the team just wanted to make an anime.

So, what fighting games do you feel handle storytelling the best, and what sorts of storytelling mechanics and tricks would you like to see spread across the fighting genre?

[Polnareff]

I don't feel like answering the second question but I feel that the Rival Schools series has the best fighting game story of all time. It's not too confusing, it's fairly interesting, and it comes to a head fairly nicely in Project Justice. Sure the story is represented with still pictures of the characters (in Rival Schools the characters all had voices in story mode, however Project Justice cut this out because Hyo's voice actor died, so out of respect they didn't voice the story mode) but it was still pretty expressive for its time.

I would say Fatal Fury as well but the series is really horribly translated as far as the story part goes. If you know Japanese though it's pretty decent.

[Laddy]

With all of its problems, Blazblue is about as good as it gets storywise.

[Skyblade]

With all of its problems, Blazblue is about as good as it gets storywise.

BlazBlue's best storytelling mechanic is actually a fairly simplistic, but awesome one: The dialogue change that occurs with certain character matchups. So easy to understand and program, but it really does a lot to enhance the character relationships.

The rest of the story, while excellent, is just not very well told, in my opinion.

[Del Murder]

Clearly, fighting games are more about battle mechanics than story. But I did think Dissidia's story was pretty good for a fighting game and I like how they tried to explain why all the characters were together and showed them interact. I also always appreciated Mortal Kombat's attempt at having a story. I have, however, been very disappointed in the MvC series in terms of story. For a game featuring comic book characters you would expect something better.

[Araciel]

Lolol it's like playing Gran Turismo - you don't care about the story, but in fighting games they still feel the need because it's people instead of cars.

[Dreddz]

I think asking fighting games to have better stories isn't fair as they don't have much to build on. The story is usually that there is a tournament and everyone's invited. To tell a great story from there would mean you would have to really go into each characters back story which would take ages as most fighters these days have at least 20 characters if not more.

Saying that, there is fun to be had with the story, as long as the developers don't take it so seriously. Tekken 3 is a good example. The ridiculous ending movies were so entertaining that they really motivated me to beat every character on arcade mode.

[NeoCracker]

At it's core I actually think tekken's story is pretty good, the problem is it's presented in such a messy fashion.

And having a lot of playable characters shouldn't impede on the story. Simply make it so the main story doesn't really put a lot of focus on all of them.

With games like Blazblu showing us a fighting game can have a great story, there really isn't much of an excuse anymore to say fighting games can't be expected to have good stories.

I'm not saying a bad story is enough reason to not buy a fighter, simply that it shouldn't be used as an excuse anymore.

[Kokichi]

Tekken and BlazBlue have good plots when it comes to fighting games.

I like crossover stories. They're non-canon, so they're as crazy as can be.

[Depression Moon]

I think asking fighting games to have better stories isn't fair as they don't have much to build on. The story is usually that there is a tournament and everyone's invited. To tell a great story from there would mean you would have to really go into each characters back story which would take ages as most fighters these days have at least 20 characters if not more.


You know that could just focus on a single character or just a few. Out of the ones I've played I think Soul Calibur and MK do it the best, but their stories still aren't memorable for me. I found reading the plot info on sites like wikipedia for Tekken and most of these fighting games to be more entertaining than how they're presented in the actual games.

[Martyr]

I also always appreciated Mortal Kombat's attempt at having a story.

I agree, but I'm not sure why MK seems to be so effective.

[Depression Moon]

Probably because it emulates a RPG like structure.

[Kokichi]

MK started out really well.

Then they traded story for playability (UMK3), and got ridiculous. (MK4 - MK8)

[Martyr]

There must be a lot of MK games I haven't played. I just kinda remember uppercutting people to death and thin finding out that Johhny Cage was a movie producer. That kinda thing.
There's an RPG Mortal Kombat? I thought the awful movie would have prevented that sort of thing.

[Depression Moon]

Mortal Kombat Deception's story mode is sort of RPG based. I haven't played 9, but I saw something that was apart of Deception in it so it's story mode might be similar to it.

[Wolf Kanno]

MK1 and 2 had a pretty nice and simple story, basically a simple interesting premise and a handful of interesting characters with enough backstory to have a stake in it all. SCs was interesting but when everyones story is basically them coming back to do what they did in the previous games, it gets old.

I like Guilty Gear's story, simply because it is several stories at once and story mode in GGXX was pretty nice if a bit of a guide dang it. Still I like playing through different characters cause they involve different plots and elements going on like the Government trying to protect the Japanese, the Assassin's Guild, Eddie, The Government mass producing Robo-Ky, Axel's time skips, and of course the truth about the Gears and That Man. Its got a good narrative going for it, it just gets a proper sequel every five to ten years...:eep:

I wouldn't really count Dissidia as one of the good ones, its pretty pretentious and most of the real plot is happening in the background through the Secret Reports, the FF cast is just invited to put up a visual spectacle to distract the player from what is really going on.

[Skyblade]

MK1 and 2 had a pretty nice and simple story, basically a simple interesting premise and a handful of interesting characters with enough backstory to have a stake in it all. SCs was interesting but when everyones story is basically them coming back to do what they did in the previous games, it gets old.

I like Guilty Gear's story, simply because it is several stories at once and story mode in GGXX was pretty nice if a bit of a guide dang it. Still I like playing through different characters cause they involve different plots and elements going on like the Government trying to protect the Japanese, the Assassin's Guild, Eddie, The Government mass producing Robo-Ky, Axel's time skips, and of course the truth about the Gears and That Man. Its got a good narrative going for it, it just gets a proper sequel every five to ten years...:eep:

I wouldn't really count Dissidia as one of the good ones, its pretty pretentious and most of the real plot is happening in the background through the Secret Reports, the FF cast is just invited to put up a visual spectacle to distract the player from what is really going on.

What you mentioned there about Guilty Gear is also another interesting point about BlazBlue. Most character stories are separate from the main overall plot story. In some ways, I think this is great. For example, with Litchi, we get her quest to help Arakune (who I hate and think needs to just die so Litchi can get over him already), in a totally separate arc from the main story. Her interactions with the other characters revolve around this, such as going to Tager to get Sector Seven's help. Where the storytelling fails here is, I think, in tying everything together at the last minute back into the main plot. The final boss of almost every character (excepting the main bosses/villains) is the same, regardless of their individual stories or motivations.

I think telling separate stories for each character which only loosely relate into the main plot would be, overall, lead to more solid stories and a better developed world. It's as though the game is afraid that making them secondary to the main plot would make them unimportant or less liked as characters, and, to be fair, this might be true, I'm not sure. But I think it is definitely worth experimenting with.


Dissidia had a pretty lackluster story, yes. But, especially in Duodecim, it did a great job of telling it. The dialogue accented the game, it didn't overwhelm it. The existence of manikens as filler battles was a brilliant design decision that basically padded out the story mode with a ton of excess combat. There was still an incredible amount of dialogue, but it was more evenly spaced along a much greater amount of gameplay, leading to much better storytelling.