Where Are The Good Fighting Game Stories?

[Lt. Boxy Angelman]

After falling down a rabbit hole full of fighting game lore, it has been made apparent that, when put under a skeptical and scrutinizing eye, a great deal of the best known fighting games have lore and canon that make little to no sense at all.

I've been writing my entire life, and one day aspire to write the best fighting game story of all time, so it's been a bit strange figuring out that that isn't really a thing that's been done in a serious manner. You look at Tekken, which is supposed to be the great big serious martial arts tournament trope, but it's really closer to Yakuza Pirates in Hawaii as far as how absolutely goofy some of the goings on can get. Same can sort of be said for Street Fighter. We all know no one stays dead in Mortal Kombat. The list goes on.

Are there any serious/well made fighting game stories out there? Because so far in life, the only one I can really put on the plate and serve as a solid example is Persona 4 Arena. I am still mad at myself for being terrible at anime fighters, because that was a great time I wish I could have kept having. Labrys, all day every day.

 

[Felipe_Gewehr]

After falling down a rabbit hole full of fighting game lore, it has been made apparent that, when put under a skeptical and scrutinizing eye, a great deal of the best known fighting games have lore and canon that make little to no sense at all.

I've been writing my entire life, and one day aspire to write the best fighting game story of all time, so it's been a bit strange figuring out that that isn't really a thing that's been done in a serious manner. You look at Tekken, which is supposed to be the great big serious martial arts tournament trope, but it's really closer to Yakuza Pirates in Hawaii as far as how absolutely goofy some of the goings on can get. Same can sort of be said for Street Fighter. We all know no one stays dead in Mortal Kombat. The list goes on.

Are there any serious/well made fighting game stories out there? Because so far in life, the only one I can really put on the plate and serve as a solid example is Persona 4 Arena. I am still mad at myself for being terrible at anime fighters, because that was a great time I wish I could have kept having. Labrys, all day every day.

I do remember an indie horror fighting game called Black Heart having some very interesting lore, but I'm sure if held under scrutiny it might simply fall into the "filler gibberish" kind of story. I believe there are no "good" fighting game stories because they simply don't matter all that much. We just want characters punching eachother and doing cool moves - in this case, the how is much more important than the why.

 

[Lt. Boxy Angelman]

I do remember an indie horror fighting game called Black Heart having some very interesting lore, but I'm sure if held under scrutiny it might simply fall into the "filler gibberish" kind of story. I believe there are no "good" fighting game stories because they simply don't matter all that much. We just want characters punching eachother and doing cool moves - in this case, the how is much more important than the why.

That intrigues me to no end, given that we live in a world where it feels like everything has already been done before.

 

[Lt. Boxy Angelman]

I also would be willing to make the case that, across the board from Story Mode, to the character endings, along with everyone's business being there in the first place, that MK Deception was a better and more cohesive experience than the MK9 reboot, and goes down in my history books as THE best that the getting has ever been in a Mortal Kombat story.

 

[TarkatanPeriodontik]

After falling down a rabbit hole full of fighting game lore, it has been made apparent that, when put under a skeptical and scrutinizing eye, a great deal of the best known fighting games have lore and canon that make little to no sense at all.

I heard an exception to this is Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting, but I don’t know myself. Did you look into those two? I don’t know myself.

I agree though with your post!

 

[Dankster Morgan]

I think Injustice 1 is pretty good.

The prequel comics were a lot of fun and they had as decent of an explanation as you can get for why street level characters can fight stronger ones with the kryptonian pill stuff. Evil Superman wasn’t eye rollingly common in 2013. I liked it. The worst part was the good Superman lasering cars full of civilians that Black Adam was throwing at him, shit was hilarious. Or with the Injustice universe Wonder Woman essentially being evil from the get go. She loves evil Superman and was waiting for him to do this for a long time in the comics, which isn’t in character for her. Injustice 2 was decent too minus weird stuff like jobbering Dr Fate.

MK9 is very charming. The plot holds up better than you might imagine if you ignore power scaling, which you have to. Although it does do power scaling and stakes better than subsequent NRS MK games by far. The art style is very fun to me, I love how out there the outworld stages look. I like every male character being roidy as fuck with 22 inch arms and the women just having the most inconveniently large titties. The humor is actually kind of funny. Cage was actually funny and made jokes instead of just being a pop culture reference machine for redditors to jizz themselves over.

 

[Subby Z]

I think the original mk timeline had a lot of holes and iffy shit, but OVERALL had a really good story and created a lot of well liked characters.

Can’t say that for the MK of today. Even the NRS timeline butchered certain things for me.

(Mileena being practically a newborn and the Sub-Zero name not being a family name are just a couple instances).

 

[Lt. Boxy Angelman]

I think Injustice 1 is pretty good.

The prequel comics were a lot of fun and they had as decent of an explanation as you can get for why street level characters can fight stronger ones with the kryptonian pill stuff. Evil Superman wasn’t eye rollingly common in 2013. I liked it. The worst part was the good Superman lasering cars full of civilians that Black Adam was throwing at him, shit was hilarious. Or with the Injustice universe Wonder Woman essentially being evil from the get go. She loves evil Superman and was waiting for him to do this for a long time in the comics, which isn’t in character for her. Injustice 2 was decent too minus weird stuff like jobbering Dr Fate.

MK9 is very charming. The plot holds up better than you might imagine if you ignore power scaling, which you have to. Although it does do power scaling and stakes better than subsequent NRS MK games by far. The art style is very fun to me, I love how out there the outworld stages look. I like every male character being roidy as fuck with 22 inch arms and the women just having the most inconveniently large titties. The humor is actually kind of funny. Cage was actually funny and made jokes instead of just being a pop culture reference machine for redditors to jizz themselves over.

I do not understand how I forgot how good the Injustice stories were. Pretty sure the only thing I remember being thrown off by was the last chapter in 1 where Superman starts chucking moving cars at Black Adam.