Congrats Gekko, now you are doomed to make a musical theme analysis of EVERY new character in STRIVE from now on. :D

While it may just be an entire anime in the game for some reason, Ky and Sol freaking out about being inlaws will never not be great. And now I know where babies come from, thanks Sin

One thing I think you missed is how death is an issue within fighting games. A character’s death can have massive implications within a movie or game where you don’t directly play as that character. However, because fighting games are all about playing a specific character, having them die can lead to a loss of fans of said character or finding ways to bring them back (MK). So now you’ve got this issue where a tool that can be really effective isn’t really an option or is cheapened because you know anyone can come back.

Bridget: Being emotional and all Also Bridget: *ultimate groovy*

I love how Daisuke just. Made two full length movies in Strive

"In a theory that I'd like to call "What the fuck happened to Faust"" That got me gahdamn

I think the issue is the misconception that story = plot. But there are many elements to a story: characters, setting, themes, tone, and plot. Different genres do better at highlighting some of these then others. For fighting games, I feel like characters are the best focus. Not just backstories or character development, either, but the dynamics they have with each other. Friendships, rivalries, sudden betrayals, unlikely alliances... I think fighting games are great at this stuff and should lean into it more.

IS kinda sad how many modern fighting games are not doing custom intros and vs songs that add so much in fighting games as a casual to love the characters even more. About story mode yeah visual novels are not best but I not gonna lie the ending of BB central fiction with Ragna and Rachel did reach my feels. World tour in SF6 looks interesting but reminds that Rival Schools story mode and the japonese exclusive visual novel(almost like a persona game)is a cool idea.

The fact that dissida final Fantasy has the best figing game story mode still astounds me

can you imagine how cool it would be for like some custom game feature in private lobbies where 2 players can fight one superpowered character, like the end of the gg arcade. It would be hard to make / balance and i cant imagine it would be super popular however i think it would be pretty neat for a casual mode

I think games like Skullgirls and Soku worked in interactions for each fight, and TFH merged a tutorial + adventure + fighting game into its story which probably deserves a mention.

bridget's story might be a good modern fighting game story, but to be honest i feel as though its still a little lacking. it still has a lot of symptoms of the main problems many fighting game stories have, at least in my opinion this isn't to say the story doesn't work as is. it definitely functions and tells a complete arc. the problem i have moreso is *missed potential*. giving more time to have a look into bridget during her arcade mode would vastly improve its story as a whole. what if we had a mirror match where bridget literally fights her inner demons? while it is cliche, the opportunity to explore bridget's conflict more would add much more weight to not only bridget's decision, but goldlewis' and ky's actions at the end of the story as well, and this exploration is invaluable because at the heart of fighting games lies the characters, and would strengthen the development of those characters, dare i say, tenfold. this leads into what is what i think is the main problem with fighting game stories -- the unfortunate _lack_ of exploration of characters. most of the methods mentioned in this video surround exploration of characters: ryu's shifting designs, character/stage themes, cinematic intros and dramatic finishes. the problem with these is that these relegate the story to the background, and while yes, this is more often than not the intention, it is what I think is the most unfortunate part of all of this: EVERYTHING is there to tell a good story, but it's almost always never done. characters clashing with one another provides *immense* potential in exploring motivations, initiating developments, and both building and deconstructing characters. my favorite example of this is urien's rival dialogue with gill in his arcade mode in SF3, and by extension Gill's SF5 story as well, because it dares to explore urien as a character. outwards he is a scumbag, an egotistical villain, but in his rival dialogue the writers dared to give the player a crumb of sympathy to him, by recontextualizing his mad desire for power as a desire for freedom and validation, rather than what was initially communicated as just, well, villainy. unfortunately, this is mostly it, this is the end of exploring the character's complexities, and it is such a shame. bridget's story falls into a similar category to this example, and I'll admit, what is in bridget's story is pretty good, and can definitely be considered better than a lot of previous stories! its just theres so much higher developers can go. TL;DR, --play urien-- bridget is love but we need more of bridget's life for maximum story awesomeness. all of the framework and some of the parts are there, its just theres so much more that can be done. thanks for reading this rant and nice video.

The execution is debatable (I haven't played through enough to know how consistent things are), but conceptually I like the way Under Night In-Birth handles story mode. Each character gets a small visual novel prologue to give you context to who they are, the people they know, and why they're fighting. The Arcade mode then tells the story set in the present from that character's perspective while also being focused on gameplay. Also in this house we love and support Bridget for coming to terms with who she is.

I honestly think that Sol should stay in dragon install after his command grab super in Strive. Also throw in Ride the Fire for good measure.

Honestly shout-out to Heihachi vs. Kazuya in Tekken 7. Though the story in that game is questionable at best, the actual final battle is genuinely a contender for the best final boss in any fighting game imo. A proper culmination of the Mishima feud that I don't think could've been done any better.

R.I.P to the comment section on this video

"what the fuck happened to faust" "this can be something like growing a beard, getting a haircut or something very drastic such as losing your family or square one" comedy gold

I think one of the best arcade modes in old fighting games is jojo's one They have one cutscene at the start and after each fight, they are short, skippable and tell the story pretty well, every char has its own story mode (even tho some arent as flashed out as the others) and the fights arent very easy (including some minibosses that changes the gameplay drastically)

I hope this video at least brings up how KOF tells its stories

I have two words you didn't say during the entirety of your video dear Squirrel. Subspace Emissary.

Great video! I think one title not listed that tends to do a lot with their story mode is Tekken. Tekken has beat em up sequences as it carries you through some absurd and elaborate plots. Whether it's fun to play or not is unfortunately a different story, however it has a really cool way of showing story that other games tend to stray away from.

Thank you for enlightening me about Bridget, before i though it made no sense to make her trans, after reading her +r story, but now i actually see it how it is: good character writing.

My favorite way of handling the story is the one seen in SoulCalibur VI. Two story modes, one in which you take control of your own character and travel across Europe and Asia in a pseudo-RPG while you fight other characters and advance your own plot, and another with several stories (main story + every character's own story) with their own dialogues, battles and special battle conditions. You can even tell how and when the different stories intersect or one continues another. Also, there are A LOT of special dialogue lines: Intro quotes, outro quotes, taunts, time over win/lose quotes, ring out quotes, Soul Charge activation quotes, Reversal Edge Quotes. Hwang and Mitsurugi even have different quotes when activating Soul Charge one after the other depending on the order they did it. Too bad the game's budget was little more than whatever Okubo could find under couches and vending machines at Namco, having actual cutscenes instead of an attempt at making a VN would have been great.

Bro I can't wait for your channel to pop off

I think a Fighting Game that has a story that is slept on WAY too much is Soul Calibur. I genuinely feel it's the best story shown WITHIN the game overall.

Honestly hope moving forward with Strive dlc they actually follow what Bridget story did and not have Nago be involved. I get Nago the boss character of Strive but from the bits of arcade mode I’ve seen, he does not work for every character-main example is Testament, I’d really like to learn why they had such a huge shift in personality but their arcade mode is literally just them roaming around, even tho I think there’s a secret exchange with them and Chipp if you want around but I only briefly saw the clip once-the only character I really seen him work with is Chaos given there ties. (Chaos arcade mode was also good I’d say as it gives some post story context, especially with how it’s seemingly in some after life as he runs into the *real* I-No, but I think we all can agree Bridget’s is the best one as of now) Though knowing how Strive handle its story mode and just being allergic to characters interacting, it really could go either way but I’m just hoping Bridget is the start of something new to come.

as a trans woman that Bridget cutscene makes me tear up every single goddamn time

One small niche fighting game with a pretty good story is "Thems Fighting Herds". It's a horse fighting game but the story mode is just a top down rpg and is a genuine story. The story itself was ok, but the gameplay of the story showed a way fighting games can actually tell stories.

I think Tekken 4 did it right. Arcade mode was unique to every character, and it was ALL cannon, except the endings. Good mix of gameplay and cutscenes with a great narrator to boot! Just missed things like unique character intros, though they did do some unique stuff in some cases iirc. Kazuya waiting for Jin is one example. Jin was captured by Heihachi, so Jin didn't make it to the fight, and that gave us a cutscene of Kaz standing around instead of loading into an a fight

this video does a great job at guiding the hand of a game developer, as a pseudo game dev myself i can say that this should have changed my ideas about how to make a fighting game story, but i am still going to make it a visual novel because its easy lol. also I love bridget with my whole heart

6:01 Well, he has a point, a good point, the Visual Novel just have 61 hours of story

Tbh, if fighting games are gonna do the whole "game inside a game" story mode, why not make your story mode a character action game like DMC or Bayonetta? I mean, that genre is basically single player fighting games already, so it seems like a natural fit to me.

Idk I really enjoyed strives story mode both of them watching the story mode is the reason why I love happy chaos so much even though playing against him is eh

Great video and yeah your last line there gets you sub sir thank you for being a great ally

Okay actual Guilty Gear anime would be sick as hell though

I espected to see a mention to alternative modes like soul Calibur edge master mode, chronicles of the sword and that wierd think tekken 5 and 6 did. They aren't perfect, but are a great way to experience part of the world more deeply

dude the fucking bridget section unironically made me cry like wtfffffff also wtf how are you THIS based

completely agree with your last sentence

"a theory I call what the fuck happened to Faust" fucking killed me

First of all...HOW did you made a video about stories in FGs and turning it into a "the meaning of Bridgets character theme"? - Still great work Gekko! So for my second point: About BlazBlue's VN-styled story approached, imo it is overall the best story told in a FG, and that is also because the style they had chosen to tell it. VNs do have this strange mix of "why I read a book when I play a video game" and "well-written, complex, engaging stories". And for BlazBlue especially if you add the two xBlaze VNs, which are connected to BlazBlue, the whole story is absolutly great. I literally re"played" all of those games, only because I wanted to read the story again XD But since I know, that this style of game is not for everybody, I can understand why this seems odd, off and not appealling at all.

Trans rights!

Ur easily my favorite fgc youtuber also no talk about MK stories? I was curious about your opinion on their effectiveness

Honestly the only fighting game story I even remember because it was kinda cool was (one of the) Bleach ds games, where you had to meet certain conditions in a match in order to get a new route, which was really cool!

This was actually just a very well written and clever way to talk about Strive music for yet another video lmao But fr great video as always and love the work Gekko ❤

Imo for BB, Continuum shift had the best way to approach their story as each character had their own route with good,true,bad, and gag ends. And within those you’d have scenarios where the way you play your char can be fundamentally changed (jin and ragna losing their drive moves and using distortions too much as ragna can lead to a bad end). Which is why you generally see a big disdain for the lack of unlimited chars in CF as certain senarios would’ve benefited from having them

Ah a video with brisket in the thumbnail. Can’t wait to see the comments in a couple hours

as a transgirl i got into this game because of brisket, i may not play her because shes not my style (cough millia cough) but her story hits me hard because its like mine, and i will not argue with anyone about this, she is a girl and shes proud ^^

Gekko, keep rocking my guy. 💙🤍💖

In terms of an overarching story, always though maybe a route system could work. It's similar to a classic arcade mode, but in the beginning most of the characters are locked save a few. As you beat them, you unlock characters along the path of those which share a story, which may help provide additional context. Dunno if the idea is coming across well in my writing but has any game done something similar before?

One key element of stories is conflict. By conflict here I don't mean the "let me punch you in the face" kind of confrontation, of course. I mean the clash of wants and needs, of character ideologies, doubts, fear, beliefs etc. Whenever we talk about games expressing story through gameplay what that usually means is having some mechanics working together as a metaphor for a conflict in the story. As we combine mechanics to build different metaphor, designers can make the game more interesting and more involved. The more mechanics we can get to interact to represent a conflict, the more design freedom we have and we usually end up with more interesting games. That's the hard part about making a Fighting game story IMO: the fight mechanics LITERALIZE conflict to much! That makes it harder to make more nuanced metaphors and, therefore, more engaging stories. That's why Fighting games use cutscenes outside of gameplay a lot. On a cutscenes you can express different types of conflict aside from the LITERAL one allowed us by fighting game mechanics.

There's a huge lack of Tekken and KOF in this video. Sadge.

Just want to say you're doing a service. I have been off fighting games since Soul Calibur 2. In no small part due to your videos, I've been giving Guilty Gear Strive a solid attempt and am looking to get into Street Fighter 6.

I think the main reason why the whole Bridget discourse happened in the first place was because of the fact that the story element was in the fighting game genre. If it were in any other medium, it really wouldn't be as much discourse. While I do think that she does need a bit more of storytelling in terms of the decision, I do see why it's hard to do that now. Honestly, thank you for bringing up Bridget in this conversation because it helped clarify a few things.

I like games that has both visual novels and arcade modes Like the main story and the sides especially if they keep it consistent

It fills my heart with pure joy hearing you say “Trans rights are human rights.” Thank you.🥹

I'm just hoping that if lyrics make their way to BB themes they only dynamically activate on Overdrive or low health.

I'm thinking about writing a story set in the universe of a fighting game complete with weird fight centric corporations, tons of ninja's, dinosaurs for some reason, aliens and demons etc. It would follow a colorful group of international fighters with various backgrounds and play up on all the weird tropes. I want it to be as weird as Tekken at the most, Dead or Alive at the least. I actually quite enjoy fighting game stories, they're very entertaining sometimes.

Ah, but forgot the best kind of fighting game story! Where you make up a head cannon that’s better than what they actually went with! I had a whole thing about Strive Faust and how it was a super great metaphor for depression and relapsing and it was awesome and it really helped me because I was going through some stuff at the time- And then what do they actually go with? Faust is just tired cause he made a big portal and he needs to take a nap and he might be dead but we don’t know because we see literally 2 seconds of him after he gets the red eye- oopsie daisy!

Brisket

5:30 "I'm President of the World! Of the Earth! And of the entire Universe!"

Sometimes they can tell great stories of horrors raising up against the bad guys, the catch is that they can't afford to be long winded.

Would a beat em up game count as a fighting game story mode? XD

MBTL is probably going to have the best story mode in a fighting game eventually. Even if it is a Visual Novel. Mainly because of the fact, that the series made by a Professional Writer instead of Game Developer. Same writer who basically inspired...a lot of popular modern things, like FFXIV. Believe Kinoko Nasu ...and mainly because one of the Pioneers of VN Style Storytelling was Melty Blood (alongside Guilty Gear)

I really don't understand why people like the nrs mk story

What are the songs that play I want to know what plays at 4:00

I’m sorry but GGST story mode is great and would love to see more of it

As someone who went through almost the exact same situation as Bridget (having femininity projected upon me before eventually realizing when i was away from that that i was actually a trans woman) her story is so deeplu impactful to me, and Im so happy to hear you talk about it. Bridget is singlehandedly making me wanna play Strive, and it makes me so happy to see people talk about how genuinely amazing her arc is, especially with the weird people ive been so exposed to who refuse to accept her being trans

Gekko can I request a dive into Final Fantasy Dissidia Duodecim? You don't even have to do the full game. Experience everything including the batch with Lightning, Yuna, Laguna, Tifa, Vaan and Kain plus an extra character of your choice just to see how the story progresses from there. Tidus has dodges and movement options implemented into his kit so he might be the best fit since you play Gio. I'd like to see how you think the game handles it's story, gameplay and maps. The maps itself actually matter in this game btw. It's not just a pretty background.

The zangief low kick in sf2 is unblockable when used by the cpu

I'm surprised you didn't bring up MK with its well meaning, but ultimately flawed approach to story and how its formula has been working against it.

How about Rival Schools Story Mode?? I’ve heard it’s pretty good.

One of my favorite stories in fighting game is in Shadow Fight 3 because is a single player fighting game,not a competitive game.

BRIDGET!!!!!!

What was the first BG music from? I remember it so foundly but idk what game it came from

I don't care the fact that Bridget is trans, im just happy that i got to see the story, unlike testament that just... happend... out of screen... i feel robbed out of it

The GG rev story mode is really good, but it's more of a in game movie

0:55 Ah yes, Needy Girl Overdose. My favorite story telling game. Cultured choice

I don't know how you're gonna talk about movies in fighting game stories without mentioning Injustice.

Soulcalibur VI has a good story mode and separate stories imo

TOURNAMENT ARCS!!!

I think you missed 1 series that has a multi year story the king of fighters it has more than only games it has several manga and other ways to tel it's story

Thank you Gekko for making this video, I've been yearning for someone to talk about how great her story and song are. Fantastic video!!!

I feel like Namco took the wrong lessons from Soulcalibur 3. The balance and game-breaking bugs needed adjustment. The single player content - the Create-a-Character campaign or the narrative Arcade mode with story blurbs, the occasional (sometimes interactive) cutscene, and split-path decisions between fights - that was all fine.

Is that the ooblets ost in the end segment lmao

I'm surprised there's no mention of Mortal Kombat, because at least as of MK9, I feel like NRS has a good thing going with story mode. I think it's a good combination of gameplay engagement with arcade mode, but by forcing you to play different characters it also let's new players get their feelers out there and creates a cohesive narrative.

IMO the semi-consistently greatest fighting game series to play for its story is Soul Calibur. Especially 3 and 6. Imagine not having internet for a month, no-one locally ether.. Out of all the genres you *_don't_* want to be a fan of in this situation, Fighting Game is second only to MOBA. This happened to me at the start of the year, and it really made me appreciate just how much Soul Calibur 6 is the exception to that. Including a multi-layered story-based RPG into the game, without detracting from the actual fighting game gameplay ether.. Meanwhile SC3 did something similar but with an Army-Tactics game.

video about fighting game stories but kof doesnt get mentioned at all

i have been playing fighting games since there were fighting games and i only know of one with an actual cohesive story and conclusion(s.) Also, Apocryphal is really the only style chosen by writers of Fighting Game stories because that's really their only *option.* Apocryphal is the style that you describe for Street Fighter. (WarHammer 40K is a celebration of this style as well.) i'm not really sure how else to tell that kind of a story. @ 8:40 As for Strive i think that story means more to you dependent on education, background and what about life is important to you. It's Philosophical, in other words. The reason i don't count Guilty Gear as having an actual *cohesive* story and conclusion is because of it's (like all Fighting Games save one) inconsistency and lack of ever having a full, satisfying conclusion. Strive came very close, it *is* an excellent story. Yet there is not only all that came before but that next season's on the way too..... :3

Wait a video talking about fighting game stories and storytelling and not one mention of any of SNKs catalog of games?

Dragon ball super sonic warriors 2 for the DS has a awesome story mode, is all the DBZ story but each fight is special or have diferent outputs and can make "waht if" sceneario, like if you are with krilling you cant win a fight vs freeze, so your objective us to survive and time out him, BUT if you do a PERFECT to freezee new story arc opens

Anyone know what the game is after ultrakill at 0:59?

Comments are still huffing copium from Bridget coming out as trans

I was so frsutrated with all the discourse around bridget because of how much media illiteracy it takes to not get her story from both how SHE LITERALLY OUTRIGHT SAYS IT and how blunt some of her song lyrics are for how her story in strive is discovering her gender properly. When I first heard the town inside me it literally brought me to tears, it so well represented my own feelings when I was going through the same thing as bridget. It lead to me finally having enough motivation to properly get over my fear of fighting games, even if I found other characters I enjoy playing more than bridget (baiken and testament mainly) I love her so much for how her story reflected myself.

Ah yes, BlazBlue, the fighting game with a visual novel attached to it. Its strange, for sure, and it can /definitely/ go on for a bit too long, but i personally wouldnt want to lose out on its world and characters (i mean just look at my damn picture here. Noel for life BAYBEE)

Yooo! You drink Fentimans gingerbeer? Fuck yeah! 😎

I'm surprised you didn't bring up the NRS games. Injustice and MK have great presentation to their stories (not to speak to the quality of the stories themselves)

You play so much rivals of Aether music I have a feeling you were a smasher before being a STRIVER. 🤔

Bridget's pre-Strive story is very much a mixed bag. On the one hand, I do think it still "matters" since it do think it highlights how out of her control Bridget's life was pre-Strive. Bridget was always extrinsically motivated. She had to live as how her parents presented her to stay alive, then she had to assume the masculine role of bounty hunter in order to try and not have her village's superstition rule the rest of her life. It's only after she is free from both of them that she can finally become intrinsically motivated. On the other hand, I don't disagree about the... crowd it drew to anime in general, not just GG.

I hate the "Arcade mode" method of telling stories, it's lame, and they don't usually incorporate story really well. Maybe something like JoJo HTFT or MB did a pretty good job at it, a visual novel mode ain't bad, but if it's just a movie... I find it hard to be immersed in it without having prior context to any of the elements of what's happening. I tried hard to get into GG's lore and it's just a mish mash of fucking timelines and events that took place and relationships over years. Also read Tsukihime, it's pretty good.

I don't think story modes in fighting games needs to focus on story. We need to create interactive tutorials to have more fresh blood into the scene and continue to let the genre grow. SoulCalibur 2's Weapon Master is still the gold standard in teaching new players how to play the game while letting them play the game. Mortal Kombat Deception had an interesting story mode that had you mimic the different characters including a tutorial mode where you learned to fight as said fighter. KI (2013) has a fantastic Dojo mode, but it still feels like hopping into practice mode which won't feel good to casuals. The Shadow Fighter system is a fantastic learning tool, but again, it doesn't seem very interesting to new fighters. Time spent on creating an "engaging story" could better be used to create better modes and systems to help new players play their game. I think all 1v1 fighting games should implement something like KI (2013)'s Shadow Fighter system, even though it doesn't help new players, right away, it is a perfect tool for helping a dedicated player grow. What better way to learn your bad habits than to fight against yourself? KI (2013)'s Combo Assist System is precisely the type of tools we need for new players. It allows someone to just pick up the controller and play nearly every character without needing to go into practice mode, first. I understand that Combo Assist can only work due to KI's interactive combo system and since Ki, and prior, we've gotten games with auto combos like DB Fighters and BBTAG, but even GGST doesn't have an auto combo feature. I think, at minimum, auto combos should be a thing for every fighting game moving forward. Obviously manual combos should be harder to execute and deal more damage, but we need more games that allows anyone to pick up a controller and at least be able to do cool shit right away. Fighting Games are so much more than just practicing execution for combos. In the meantime, if people want an engaging story from fighting games, they should check out EVO and other major tournaments. There's an amazing video by The Cosmonaut Variety Hour that talks about Fighting Games being anime. THESE are the best stories that fighting games can tell, because they are stories that ONLY fighting games can tell. Trying to push fighting games to have stories akin to a single player game will give new players false expectations and incorrect viewpoints on the genre. I'm not against fighting games having powerful narratives in the future, but I want developers to focus on the new player experience. They should continue to develop tools and interactive tutorials that makes transitioning from a casual to a dedicated fighter easier and easier. It's sad that KI came out in 2013 and only recently are we seeing new fighting games come out with the casual audience in mind, but we need to be sure that the systems we implement for this audience doesn't harm them in the long run. Sure, SFVI will have a story mode, as well as simplified buttons, but even SFVI's simplified buttons will require the player to completely change the way they play the game when attempting to ween themselves off of the simplified mode to have full control over their character. This makes the accessibility tool become a detriment to player growth in the long run, in other words simplified buttons are a "noob trap". What makes simplified buttons a "noob trap" but not auto combo is simple; in the middle of a match a player can choose to auto combo or manual combo. In KI (2013) with Combo Assist on a player can choose to utilize the Combo Assist, or manual combo; however, in SFVI you cannot change from simplified buttons to full manual in the middle of the match. THIS is why the accessibility feature is a detriment to the longevity of player growth and is a bad way to get new players into the game. Project L will have simplified buttons, but the difference is the entire game is designed around simplified buttons and there aren't any options to have more a more complex control scheme for further control and options. Instead the complexity of Project L will be determined by how well the players utilize the tools of the characters as well as the robust assist system. This is an example of proper accessibility. Overall good video, and I agree developers should look into finding ways to tell stories through small interactions more often, but I don't want that to be the focal point when there's a glaring flaw in the genre that needs to be looked at, first.