Could ever a fighting game story be good?

While recently playing Blazblue  "something something" for the PSP I found out that the game has this elaborate storyline you get the regular arcade mode short story but also a separate story mode , you even get little intro scenes before some of the fights with dialog and all , it dosn´t matter at the end of the talk you just fight 2 rounds like always , I moslty skipped those bits of dialog I didn´t find them interesting or funny enough to care , even for me a semi-casual fighting game fan who needs that sort of stuff (extra modes and such) in figthing games because Im not that good at them but at timesI can´t find myself really enjoying most them just to name a few examples. 
 
There is Street Fighter that has this continuing storyline you know Ryu cuts Sagat in the first SF , then everybody vs  Bison in SFII, the alfa games are the highschool version of SF and SFIII is the last one? but after SFII comes SFIV? , yeah Street Fighter stotylines consist on a little text telling what that fighter is doing in the tournament and at the end you get a little scene the usual cheesy campy stuff that dosn´t harm anybody and you care just a bit.
 
Then you got Tekken in what appears to be the craziest of them all , but paying atention there´s actually a storyline with the whole Mishima clan so is not just the goofy stuff , but a goofy story . Soul Calibur is even worse, in IV you get parragraphs of text explaining events that Im gonna guess very few cared about, the series has the theme of the burning souls and a serious tone about it but then Joda and Friggin Spawn start interacting with the other characters, it comes out as stupid cheesy wich is the worst kind of cheesy.
 
Dead or alive I can´t even remember what was all about... oh right Ayane and Kasumi trying to kill each other over and over , and the Ryu Hayabusa the badass of the show barely gets to do anything important in those games.  
 
And while Im not familiar with the King of Fighters franchise Im gonna guess there´s nothing special or harmfull about it just the usual stuff  as well with Virtua Fighter . The lastest Mortal Kombat acording to some people has the "best story mode in a fighting game" I haven´t played so I can´t say , but is it really a good story or is just that the level of goofyness/cheesyness is well done?, I can´t really say but Mortal Kombat is as dumb as the others if not even dumber. 
 
Don´t get me wrong I like the cutscenes at the end and I want more of them is just the fact that the games actually have a "serious" story arround them and stick to it that bothers me because that continuous storyline is usually bad and I don´t think just because is a fighting game or just because is a game about punching dudes the story is expected to be bad, Soul Calibur V is doing something interesting introducing new characters by stating that they´r the offsprings of the old cast could Namco make their stories interesting not making them too serious but not lame and boring? who knows Im just giving as some say my two cents and I will like to know if there´s is a way to make a fighting game story interesting without it being too stupid/cheesy/lame.
( For reference No More Heroes has a goofy story but you care about it is cheesy but not lame, can we get a fighting game story made like that?)

@AngelN7 said:

The lastest Mortal Kombat acording to some people has the "best story mode in a fighting game" I haven´t played so I can´t say , but is it really a good story or is just that the level of goofyness/cheesyness is well done?, I can´t really say but Mortal Kombat is as dumb as the others if not even dumber.

It's very well done, if you ask me. The fights blend seamlessly with the story, which is actually fleshed out really well. The plot is both a nod to the experienced MK players and a great way to get new people into the franchise. So, yeah. A fighting game can have a good story.

I did enjoy the MK story quite a lot frankly. That said that is by fighting game standards

Whether or not they have a good story is largely irrelevant because the staying power is how deep the mechanics of the game are, balancing too of course.
 
This is why Mortal Kombat seemed good at first as it made an effort with storytelling, more so than any other fighting games have lately but it is now pretty much dead competitively, the game isn't deep or entertaining enough to spectate, the lack of views on streams shows this quite well.  I think another issue is the animations in Mortal Kombat are terrible, the fatalities look great but when watching a standard match everything just looks...weird and clunky. It's dull.
 
I believe SSFIV had something like 81,000 viewers for the Evo finals, if I remember right Mortal Kombat didn't even break 15. It has been dropping ever since the game came out.
 
Probably gonna get chastised for this but it's all true.

I want to see a MK-style story mode for SF.  I don't think Capcom is capable of doing it when they want to make multiple versions of a game but still.

Sure, someone just needs to lock down the Bloodsport license.   
 
A series of fights strung together with Heavy Rain inspired chase sequences, a Persona style relationship system, and maybe even an open world Hong Kong.  JCVD would of course reprise his role. 
 
With all the different characters and their region specific fighting styles you've already got your roster.  The Kumite is pretty much the set up for every fighting game anyway.
 
GOTY

MK9 had a nice contained story mode.  Believe it or not the Xbox/PS3 MKs had good major plot points.

It's possible for a fighting game to have a good plot but as Ygg said, mechanics come first.

The last comment made me think about this. I loved NMH, and the story would work as a fighting game. As I ponder, I think the problem is less the quality of the story, and more the presentation. I can never take a fighting game story seriously, and I really enjoy fighting games. NMH had a story that I really loved, but I think that, were it a fighting game, I would have considered it to be dumb. I don't know how other people feel, but I honestly perceive the story differently based on the genre. No doubt a fighting game's story can be great, but I don't know if I'll ever take it seriously due to my preconceptions.

For me at least, the story mode in Mortal Kombat 9 was brilliant and proved to me that yes a story mode in a fighting game can be good. Actually excited to see where NetherRealm take the MK story next.

Most the time though developers just couldn't be bothered, which is sad as a good story can do a great deal to flesh out a new character.

BlazBlue's story is actually pretty awesome. Or at least the characters are. Those dialog scenes you skipped are actually worth it imo. Especially those gag scenes...

I really liked MK9's story mode, but in the end they can't do much more with the story then MK9 showed off.
Cutscenes, battles, perhaps a choice of whom you side with but besides that...they could try the third person brawler aspect but that often comes out flawed (conquest, the tekken thing).
 
If fighting games keep a story mode like MK9's, I'm game.
Otherwise I'm aboard for the beating up.

BlazBlue's story is actually pretty awesome. Or at least the characters are. Those dialog scenes you skipped are actually worth it imo. Especially those gag scenes...

The KIng Of Fighters has an ever evolving storyline. I haven't played a KOF title in awhile, but the latest one is supposed to be the end of Ash saga, who was a newcomer three or so entries ago.

Mortal Kombat, the first ones, and the last game have some of the best plots seen in fighting games, and enjoyable.  Also Art of Fighting in its style is very good. 
 
I believe they can be good, but probably never as good as a roleplaying game, or similar game. The problem is the gameplay. It is hard to make a good and believable story out of a repetitive gameplay.

You ever play some Evil Zone? That game has a pretty active story for each character.

Well even though I don´t like Mortal Kombat gameplay , everybody is agreeing that the story is good so  I will give it a try someday

It's just going to be story bits wrapped around 1 vs 1 fights with conditions. No thanks, I don't need that. I get more mileage out of training mode.

Yes, but you'd probably spend less time fighting than most players would like.  If you look at tournament animes like Yu Yu Hakusho or Kenchi The Mightiest Disciple there's a lot of time spent training and developing the plot.  I think most fighting game fans would prefer to just get to the battles.  Maybe an RPG-Fighter hybrid could satisfy the need for story in this genre.

@AngelN7 said:

@ESREVER said:

BlazBlue's story is actually pretty awesome. Or at least the characters are. Those dialog scenes you skipped are actually worth it imo. Especially those gag scenes...

I don´t know if I can take your comment as valid since you sport an avatar of one of the characters , anyways I really wanted to care or pay attention to it I might be able to do it I haven´t play all that much but still the stories are to convoluted and sometimes too crazy and dead serious about themselves, I can take crazy but not both is either supid funny stuff or stupid serious stuff I can´t have both because thats when I stop caring

I only sport a Noel avatar because I thought that BlazBlue was a very enjoyable game, not just for the mechanics, but also for the story and characters. (Also because Noel is pretty amazing. Blonde hair/green eyed dual pistol toting, gun-kata styling Vixen? yes Please....) There's some really interesting and depressing themes for some of the characters. Carl for example, has got some major, major psychological issues dealing with his family. Tsubaki is forced to turn on her best friend from the academy for duty reasons. A lot more going on than your standard fighting game.

But I can see why you might think I'm biased. Just remember that there was a reason that I became so infatuated with the game. Because it was good and interesting. Sure it may get a little wacky with its time manipulation and multiple universes kind of thing, but its still understandable... Hell, its better than what you get with most fighting game storylines.

I agree with others though that MK9 did story mode right. Now if only they were able to make the actual story more interesting, but oh well.

@AngelN7 said:

@ESREVER said:

BlazBlue's story is actually pretty awesome. Or at least the characters are. Those dialog scenes you skipped are actually worth it imo. Especially those gag scenes...

I don´t know if I can take your comment as valid since you sport an avatar of one of the characters , anyways I really wanted to care or pay attention to it I might be able to do it I haven´t play all that much but still the stories are to convoluted and sometimes too crazy and dead serious about themselves, I can take crazy but not both is either supid funny stuff or stupid serious stuff I can´t have both because thats when I stop caring

I also agree with ESREVER that BlazBlue's story is awesome. However, if you're playing Continuum Shift, the story won't make much sense if you haven't played Calamity Trigger.

@ESREVER said:

BlazBlue's story is actually pretty awesome. Or at least the characters are. Those dialog scenes you skipped are actually worth it imo. Especially those gag scenes...

I don´t know if I can take your comment as valid since you sport an avatar of one of the characters , anyways I really wanted to care or pay attention to it I might be able to do it I haven´t play all that much but still the stories are to convoluted and sometimes too crazy and dead serious about themselves, I can take crazy but not both is either supid funny stuff or stupid serious stuff I can´t have both because thats when I stop caring

@Ygg said:

This is why Mortal Kombat seemed good at first as it made an effort with storytelling, more so than any other fighting games have lately but it is now pretty much dead competitively, the game isn't deep or entertaining enough to spectate, the lack of views on streams shows this quite well. I think another issue is the animations in Mortal Kombat are terrible, the fatalities look great but when watching a standard match everything just looks...weird and clunky. It's dull.

That is, like, your opinion. Mortal Kombat is present both at MLG and EVO tournaments. For the first time ever in EVO, actually. You don't like it, fine. But competitively dead? Nope.

Sure as long as the fighting is still good when story starts to fuck up the fighting its time for it to go.

Whether or not they have a good story is largely irrelevant because the staying power is how deep the mechanics of the game are, balancing too of course. This is why Mortal Kombat seemed good at first as it made an effort with storytelling, more so than any other fighting games have lately but it is now pretty much dead competitively, the game isn't deep or entertaining enough to spectate, the lack of views on streams shows this quite well.  I think another issue is the animations in Mortal Kombat are terrible, the fatalities look great but when watching a standard match everything just looks...weird and clunky. It's dull. I believe SSFIV had something like 81,000 viewers for the Evo finals, if I remember right Mortal Kombat didn't even break 15. It has been dropping ever since the game came out.  Probably gonna get chastised for this but it's all true.

@Ygg said:

This is why Mortal Kombat seemed good at first as it made an effort with storytelling, more so than any other fighting games have lately but it is now pretty much dead competitively, the game isn't deep or entertaining enough to spectate, the lack of views on streams shows this quite well. I think another issue is the animations in Mortal Kombat are terrible, the fatalities look great but when watching a standard match everything just looks...weird and clunky. It's dull.

That is, like, your opinion. Mortal Kombat is present both at MLG and EVO tournaments. For the first time ever in EVO, actually. You don't like it, fine. But competitively dead? Nope.

@craigbo180

@Ygg said:

Whether or not they have a good story is largely irrelevant because the staying power is how deep the mechanics of the game are, balancing too of course. This is why Mortal Kombat seemed good at first as it made an effort with storytelling, more so than any other fighting games have lately but it is now pretty much dead competitively, the game isn't deep or entertaining enough to spectate, the lack of views on streams shows this quite well.  I think another issue is the animations in Mortal Kombat are terrible, the fatalities look great but when watching a standard match everything just looks...weird and clunky. It's dull. I believe SSFIV had something like 81,000 viewers for the Evo finals, if I remember right Mortal Kombat didn't even break 15. It has been dropping ever since the game came out.  Probably gonna get chastised for this but it's all true.

SSFIV sold 1.6 million copies. Mortal Kombat has sold over 3 million despite being released a year later. A good story isn't important to the hardcore fighting game enthusiast, the sort who enjoys watching the game played at the highest levels over the internet but it is important to the casual fan. Mortal Kombat definitely broke 15 thousand as well, I mean perfect legend even trended in the top five in twitter after his victory. I can't remember the number but I would be so bold as to say it was over double 15,000.

@AngelN7: Both Guilty Gear and King of Fighters have/had really long, involved fiction. It's funny, but BlazBlue's "Story Mode" sounds like a pitch-perfect match for Guilty Gear XX's (same dev, so it makes sense). As for MK's story mode, it really is the best I've seen in a fighting game. Yeah, Guilty Gear XX's had more branches/variety (with each character getting their own), but Mortal Kombat's told an evolving, dynamic story that brought a massive cast of characters together under one roof. The story itself is cheesy, but the important distinction to make is that it takes ITSELF seriously. It's not trying to be "meta" or "post-modern," and in that way it's a lot like the first MK movie.

 
 
Not sure why sales are being brought up, I was speaking of staying power which SSFIV arguably has much more of. As I said, 80,000 live viewers vs way under 50k for Mortal Kombat. I think I remember what MK had, it might have been around 28k now that I think of it, however when I ventured onto that stream the chat was filled with people just asking "When's MvC3? When's SSFIV?"  I don't recommend fighting games to people unless they are in it for the long haul. Mortal Kombat is by far the most fully featured fighting game out there (except maybe Tekken 6) so if you wish to play against the computer you can't really go wrong. SSFIV on the other hand has poor single player options in comparison and I wouldn't recommend that unless you intend to play other people often. Those reasons alone helped the sales of MK substantially, that and all the blood.  and well, Street Fighter is definitely harder to get into than the most recent MK is so that's another important factor. A more casual friendly game will always see higher sales.  I believe that's all I can really add here.

The story in fighting games can be good, the problem is that there isn't a fighting game that has implemented a good story in a new way for a long time. The story in a fighting game gets presented as a cutscene/dialogue outside the fight. So literally, fighting game stories are never really part of the game as the story has no impact on what happens in the ring. Sure you got special intros on some of the older fighting games but that usually does not transfer over to the actual fight itself (like say bonus damage). Street Fighter 4 actually had some voice dialogue during the rival fights (before Seth) about what happened during the cut scene, but that dialogue never progressed the story or reveal anything new. I haven't played MK9, but I can vouch for BlazBlue's story (barring the annoyance the first game has of not having a retry option after losing in story mode -_-). Guilty Gear X2 and Accent Core + also have a decent story mode as well.

I think the main problem is that nobody has figured out a better way to tell the fighting story outside a mishmash of arcade mode and a visual novel. Though honestly a better story would only address a niche crowd that wants a more involved single player experience. Fighting games are essentially made exclusively for the multiplayer experience and until that changes I wouldn't expect the story to get much better.

tl;dr: The stories can be good. They won't be good unless players demand more out the single player experience.

@AngelN7: Honestly? I think MK is worth it even just for all the single-player content (every character has a "Ladder" (or "Arcade Mode") ending, plus the Story Mode and the Challenge Tower bring it together nicely. I thought it wouldn't be my cup o' tea either, I'd never really played a Mortal Kombat game prior, but it's turned out to be a ton of fun so far. It's flaws are mostly that the characters' basic attacks are all essentially the same and the game is extremely dial-a-combo driven (like Tekken), which some people like.

This is like asking, "can a video game story be good?" 
 
You have to acknowledge the platform you're talking about.   
 
I enjoy the overarching story themes of the MK, KoF, SF, and Tekken series.  They are cool and entertaining, like action movies.  I wouldn't say they are particularly deep or nuanced.  They are male power fantasies and very enjoyable. 
 
The problem is that these story themes are often told very poorly.  You'll get more enjoyment reading them on a wiki or watching the anime adaption, than trying to make sense of the absurd cutscenes.  There are exceptions of course. 
 
This is a long way of saying "yes", they can (and have been) good.  

Mortal Kombat has probably the best told story. Especially the new one, they actually go into detail to make the characters have motivations that aren't pure insanity (I'm looking at you, Street Fighter).

BlazBlue probably has the best story, at very least it has the MOST story. It is very elaborate, but also extremely opaque and senselessly convoluted. The BlazBlue writers could do with an editor.

So BlazBlue best overall, MK best told.

Fo Sho!

This is like asking, "can a video game story be good?"  You have to acknowledge the platform you're talking about.    I enjoy the overarching story themes of the MK, KoF, SF, and Tekken series.  They are cool and entertaining, like action movies.  I wouldn't say they are particularly deep or nuanced.  They are male power fantasies and very enjoyable.  The problem is that these story themes are often told very poorly.  You'll get more enjoyment reading them on a wiki or watching the anime adaption, than trying to make sense of the absurd cutscenes.  There are exceptions of course.  This is a long way of saying "yes", they can (and have been) good.  

I think they can have a good story, the newest Mortal Kombat had a good story mode. It's when they try to continue that story 2 or 3 more games that it gets messed up. Honestly, I haven't paid attention to a story in a fighting game until MK and when usually wiki'ing them is a head ache.

I fucking hated BlazBlue's story characters and structure.  I think Mortal Kombat's is well done and has some interesting story bets as well as being purposefully cheesy.  Street Fighters and the VS games are hollow.  Tekken seems to go towards crazy and it doesn't make sense.

While the latest Mortal Kombat plot is still a bit weak, the way they tell it and integrate the fights into the story makes it "the best fighting game story ever told".

I wish more fighting games would do it like this.

Mortal Kombat has always embraced it's fiction from the very beginning, framing the arcade incarnations as a sequential series of tournaments with defined winners. 
 
Most Japanese made fighting games don't do this because they begin and spend a large amount of their life in the arcade. The new Mortal Kombat could afford such a lavish story-mode because it was never released in the arcades. 

i think if a caompany puts out a fighting game and works on the story it could be good.

@Ygg said:

@JoeyRavn said:

@Ygg said:

This is why Mortal Kombat seemed good at first as it made an effort with storytelling, more so than any other fighting games have lately but it is now pretty much dead competitively, the game isn't deep or entertaining enough to spectate, the lack of views on streams shows this quite well. I think another issue is the animations in Mortal Kombat are terrible, the fatalities look great but when watching a standard match everything just looks...weird and clunky. It's dull.

That is, like, your opinion. Mortal Kombat is present both at MLG and EVO tournaments. For the first time ever in EVO, actually. You don't like it, fine. But competitively dead? Nope.

Yes it's present, I never said it wasn't, however it's not been embraced by the community quite like Street Fighter or Marvel has been.

I have my doubts MK will even be at Evo 2012, what with SF X Tekken, UMvC3, SSFIV AE 2012, Blaz Blue and Tekken all having to be catered for. It gets pretty negative reactions in chat constantly when being streamed.

It's dead in the sense it has a serious lack of hype (the finals were boring as hell during Evo) and the stream figures speak for themselves. MK has had a poor amount compared to other games and it has been dropping ever since release. Evo spiked it back up but as I've said, tons of people were just spamming chat asking when the "real" games were starting. (their words)

@craigbo180

said:

@Ygg said:

Whether or not they have a good story is largely irrelevant because the staying power is how deep the mechanics of the game are, balancing too of course. This is why Mortal Kombat seemed good at first as it made an effort with storytelling, more so than any other fighting games have lately but it is now pretty much dead competitively, the game isn't deep or entertaining enough to spectate, the lack of views on streams shows this quite well. I think another issue is the animations in Mortal Kombat are terrible, the fatalities look great but when watching a standard match everything just looks...weird and clunky. It's dull. I believe SSFIV had something like 81,000 viewers for the Evo finals, if I remember right Mortal Kombat didn't even break 15. It has been dropping ever since the game came out. Probably gonna get chastised for this but it's all true.

SSFIV sold 1.6 million copies. Mortal Kombat has sold over 3 million despite being released a year later. A good story isn't important to the hardcore fighting game enthusiast, the sort who enjoys watching the game played at the highest levels over the internet but it is important to the casual fan. Mortal Kombat definitely broke 15 thousand as well, I mean perfect legend even trended in the top five in twitter after his victory. I can't remember the number but I would be so bold as to say it was over double 15,000.

Not sure why sales are being brought up, I was speaking of staying power which SSFIV arguably has much more of. As I said, 80,000 live viewers vs way under 50k for Mortal Kombat. I think I remember what MK had, it might have been around 28k now that I think of it, however when I ventured onto that stream the chat was filled with people just asking "When's MvC3? When's SSFIV?" I don't recommend fighting games to people unless they are in it for the long haul. Mortal Kombat is by far the most fully featured fighting game out there (except maybe Tekken 6) so if you wish to play against the computer you can't really go wrong. SSFIV on the other hand has poor single player options in comparison and I wouldn't recommend that unless you intend to play other people often. Those reasons alone helped the sales of MK substantially, that and all the blood. and well, Street Fighter is definitely harder to get into than the most recent MK is so that's another important factor. A more casual friendly game will always see higher sales. I believe that's all I can really add here.

I'm going to have to agree with JoeyRavn on this one, that's a whole lot of opinion being presented as fact. Let me clear some things up:

• MK EVO Finals stream broke 50k viewers, not way under 50k as you're telling everyone
• When MK is streamed by Spooky, IPW or Level|Up at majors, it rarely drops under 12k, just like Marvel and SSFIV & AE

MK's stream numbers are healthy, MK not being at EVO 2012 is dependent on something different entirely, but that's for another thread.

As for relying on MK hating stream chat trolls to back up your arguments? No-one believes that they represent the fighting game community.

@Undeadpool said:

@AngelN7: Honestly? I think MK is worth it even just for all the single-player content (every character has a "Ladder" (or "Arcade Mode") ending, plus the Story Mode and the Challenge Tower bring it together nicely. I thought it wouldn't be my cup o' tea either, I'd never really played a Mortal Kombat game prior, but it's turned out to be a ton of fun so far. It's flaws are mostly that the characters' basic attacks are all essentially the same and the game is extremely dial-a-combo driven (like Tekken), which some people like.

Whoa whoa whoa, Tekken games are dial-a-combo driven? Tekken is based on frame data, no differently than Capcom games. MK9 being dial-a-combo driven is irrelevant in the face of combo-breakers and the meta-game that goes with building and saving meter to use them.

@JoeyRavn said:

@AngelN7 said:

The lastest Mortal Kombat acording to some people has the "best story mode in a fighting game" I haven´t played so I can´t say , but is it really a good story or is just that the level of goofyness/cheesyness is well done?, I can´t really say but Mortal Kombat is as dumb as the others if not even dumber.

It's very well done, if you ask me. The fights blend seamlessly with the story, which is actually fleshed out really well. The plot is both a nod to the experienced MK players and a great way to get new people into the franchise. So, yeah. A fighting game can have a good story.

+1

@FLStyle: Hold on, now, all I was saying is that MK is far more Tekken than it is SSFIV. MK definitely has moves that lead into combos more than SF has somewhat more customization options. And yeah, compared to Virtua Fighter where you can make your own combo with the ones that are available, Tekken is much more "Hit the buttons in the correct sequence to start a move"-style. And I'm NOT making a judgement on which is better since I do love both.

Yes, as they've got a great penchant for creating absolutely fantastic characters that just sit sort of stagnant. Guilty Gear is probably one of the biggest offenders, with Axl Low, Bridget, Dizzy, Faust, and so many more being ridiculously crazy bases for fighting game characters and then doing NOTHING with them. If you had them interact in crazy ways (perhaps like the characters in No More Heroes or, more appropriately, Mortal Kombat 9?) it would make for a very compelling story. I won't get into the "is MK9 a good fighter" debate going on because the single player experience is great and that's what we're talking about.

Yes, they could have a great one. The real question is does it matter if it does, and I'm going to guess not because those who are really attached to fighting games are more often becoming attached to players instead of individual characters. Though if an EVO match between two people I don't know involves Zangief or C. Viper, I'm rooting for that person, and I'm always rooting for the person not playing Rufus.

@Undeadpool: "style" being the key word. Tekken has become more juggle-heavy over the years, but that's more how it's evolved over time with launchers and the bounce system, not due to combos being automatically sequenced in a dial-a-combo fashion. My point is the term dial-a-combo has become a lot less relevant since the Deadly Alliance and Deception days.

The problem with almost all fighting game stories is not that the story itself is bad, its that the story telling.  Fighting games need to find a way to tell their stories both in and outside the fights, and right now they are mostly limited to just the latter.