Why storyline in fighting games are generally bad?

A

ajan-ko

Guest
Why they are bad?
Is because you need to have a reason for everyone to fight 8-10 people?
Is because you don't need storyline to throw energy ball into each other like Goku and Vegeta?

Edit: Let me throw myself into volcano to get some inspirations.
 
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D

Deleted member 13992

Guest
Because their motivations to fight 10 opponents are generally immature. So anytime you try and flesh out a kind of story out of that, you end up with shallow detestable characters that can't use their brains to resolve conflict, which you don't want in a fighting game obviously.

So you keep the story light/non-existent.

EDIT: Yes this was a light stab at fighting games. I do enjoy many of them though! I grew up in arcades during the 90s with my face glued to KI / MK / SF
 
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T

tavo

Guest
like carmack said once (the guy who created doom)
videogames are like porn , you expect an storyline but its not the important thing there
 

RangerX

Member
- There's no complex reasons for fighting
- The story is tucked in the game so people don't complain there's none
- Because in fact, this type of game doesn't need a story
 
G

Guest User

Guest
because the people who wrote them can't write. no doubt your players ain't going to give a fig if there's a reason for the violence or not.

if it's not worth time nor money to do so, there's no motivation for going above and beyond mediocrity. thus, bad storylines.
 

Rob

Member
Maybe it's down to expectations. You expect an RPG to have a good storyline with characters that stand out. If you compare today's RPG's to those of 20 years ago, you can see the features that define the genre evolving.

With fighting games, you expect good combo's, fighting mechanics, as well as varying enemies that make you want to continue the fight. Different types of bosses to mix things up also help to make the game better. It's been a long time since I played any fight-em-up's, though.
 
B

blue apple

Guest
Why they are bad?
Is because you need to have a reason for everyone to fight 8-10 people?
Is because you don't need storyline to throw energy ball into each other like Goku and Vegeta?

Edit: Let me throw myself into volcano to get some inspirations.
Situations where you got a real mature reason to fight 10 people are rare , so most of the time , the story's writer just chose an easier way that is over-used , "cliché"
 
G

Guest User

Guest
Edit: Let me throw myself into volcano to get some inspirations.
if it's important your game has a good story, a more pressing question is whether you can do that at all.
most people don't come with an inborn talent for this sort, so if you've never written a thing in your life be cautious about making this your first.
 
W

Widget

Guest
They're more complex than they need to be most of the time.

The best justification for why everyone is fighting each other is just have a tournament. Occam's Razor and all.
 
B

basement ape

Guest
They're more complex than they need to be most of the time.

The best justification for why everyone is fighting each other is just have a tournament. Occam's Razor and all.
Indeed. Fighting game stories tend to be overwrought and kinda nuts. But it's totally fine to break away from that Enter the Dragon-mold if you want to. Jade Empire for instance has tons of kung-fu fighting and a pretty strong story so it's not like martial art action is anathema to proper storytelling or anything.
 

NeoShade

Member
Also consider that you kind of need to write a story for why EVERY character has motivation to fight 8-10 characters, not just one/the main character.

In a game with 10 or 20 playable characters, that's 10 or 20 stories you need to write.
 

Niels

Member
like carmack said once (the guy who created doom)
videogames are like porn , you expect an storyline but its not the important thing there
Well that was in a time we didn't have TLOU, planescape:torment, mass effect, telltale games, undertale, and tons of other games that can tell a story really well
 

Yal

🐧 *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
Also consider that you kind of need to write a story for why EVERY character has motivation to fight 8-10 characters, not just one/the main character.

In a game with 10 or 20 playable characters, that's 10 or 20 stories you need to write.
Yeah, that. A lot of games seem to solve it by only having an intro and an ending for each character, and then generic quotes for challenging someone and accepting a challenge (+win quotes etc) that can be combined any way you see fit. Obviously writing dialogue meant to be generic makes every line seem detached, and it's pretty much impossible to write something GOOD this way.
 
I

inkBot

Guest
I think the recent trend of having a story mode where you play different characters throughout (kickstarted by MK9) is a good side-step of the whole problem with having motivations for every character to fight such and such many opponents. even if they are inherently basic stories (depending on the franchise), I would argue it's a step in the right direction in regards to story in fighting games. That of course opens up the potential issue of a player getting to a point where they have to fight a character they generally lose to, with a character they aren't good with.

Then there's what ArcSys did with Xrd, making the story mode a completely separate thing altogether devoid of gameplay.
 
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