Story Mode Ideas

Hey everyone! One thing that has really been asked for in Virtua Fighter is a story mode. If there were to be a story mode in the game, then what should it be like. Share your opinion with me in the comments below!

 

Yes, Yes Story Mode!

It could be called:

"Road To The World Martial Arts Championship" WMAC

It would cover each character's journey, motivations, preparations and character interactions as they prepare to enter the WMAC and take the trophy.

One of the J6 Companies from the Virtua Fighter Universe should be located in Kamurocho (from the Judgment and Yakuza Universe) . A second J6 Company could be located in Kowloon City (in Hong Kong) where parts of Shenmue take place.

By integrating the Virtua Fighter Story Universe with the Judgment, Shenmue and Yakuza Universes , there would be plenty of room to give each VF character a deep back story, and plenty of options for new characters and fighting styles to be added to VF over time. RGG/Sega wouldn't have to pay for anybody else's IP because they already own VF, Judgment, and Shenmue. There are some fighting styles from Judgment and Shenmue that could be added to VF. Also because some of the J6 corporations from the Virtua Fighter back story are criminal organizations they could easily be a part of Kamurocho or Kowloon. Integrating the VF J6 story line with the rich story lines of Judgment, Yakuza and Shenmue would bring more players to VF and more players to the other games (win/win). VF character like GOH, and Jean, could be added to Judgment

The Road to WMAC would be VF's version of a fighting game's career mode and would follow the player ranking up from KYU to their highest rank as they interact with the other VF characters or J6 corporations or characters from Shenmue in preparation for the WMAC tournament.

The VF story mode could culminate in the final WMAC tournament in the main WMAC Arena.

 

This all sounds really cool! So, what do you think about the gameplay of the story mode. Do you think it should be like a cinematic movielike story like in Tekken 7 or Dead or Alive 5 Last Round, or do you think it should be like some sort of minigame inside the game. Let me know what you think! Also, if you have a different idea than what I listed, I'd love to hear it.

 

I think the Soul Calibur series does the best and most effective story modes in a 3D arcade fighting game. Their

• Weapon Master Mode SC II
• Towers of Lost Souls SC IV
• Libra of Soul SC VI

Modes have cutscenes and all result in various fighting challenges which would fit nicely in VF. If Cutscenes were added to Quest Mode and the Quest Mode Challenges from VF, Quest Mode would play alot like Weapon Master Mode of SC II.

VF is all about the character's interactions with each other and J6 with everyone headed to the World Martial Arts Tournament. The Towers Of Lost Souls approach would work perfect if the WMAC was the highest floor or lowest floor of the Tower.

VF could learn a lot from the story telling approach of Weapon Master Mode, Towers of Lost Souls and Libra Soul.


Also the approach that DOA5, DOA5LR was not bad. It was poorly implemented, but Team Ninja was heading in the right direction. Had the story mode in DOA5 and DOA5LR been given a little more effort, they would have been a hit with the fans.

The Tekken 6 Scenario Campaign , Devil Within, and Tekken Force story modes also had some redeeming and seductive qualities. VF could easily take this approach by placing VF characters in sub story from Judgment or Yakuza. RGG already has the Dragon engine and fighting mechanics in these games, so it should be straightforward to extend a version of these story modes as a mini-game within VF. So yeah, a Judgment or Yakuza tie-in Mini game as a story mode would totally work in and modernize a reboot of Virtua Fighter

If I were VF Director/Producer for the next version of VF I would combine something like SC IV's Towers Of Lost souls with the final floor being the WMAC Tournament, and a Mini-Game Approach with material and context taken from a Judgment, Yakuza, and J6 collaboration

This approach would bring Judgment/Yakuza fans who want more of the fighting in to the VF world, and it would send VF fans who want more back story into the Judgment and Yakuza games. I think it would be a win/win for RGG and Sega.

Also adding this kind of story mode stuff would ultimately lead to more players that want to get into the VF e-sports scene.

 

The libra of soul approach is a really good one. But a big problem with that is that like the scenario campaign, the story is primarily based on dialog rather than cutscenes. So I think that maybe the story mode could be like the Libra of Soul mode, but more heavy on cutscenes rather than dialog.

 

Well, I suppose cut scenes are more expensive to make, and they would make the digital footprint of the game much bigger.

Yes, I would definitely rather have cut scenes. But Sega always seem not to have the budget

At this point, the Libra of Soul approach would be a big step forward for VF

 

Cutscenes probably are more expensive to make. But seeing how much of a success VF5US was to attract people to the game, The developers will probably have a huge success with VF6, and especially with the story mode. It's a bit of a shame that VF has never had a story mode because so many of the characters have really interesting backstories. I'd even go as far as to say that their character stories are some of the best in the business, with only Soulcalibur being a rival.

 

There is no coincidence that VF is the only 3D Arcade Fighter with no in game story and it happens to be the least popular 3D Arcade Fighter.

Every 3D Arcade Fighting game that has a good sized online and offline community has a Story Mode, and has used cut scenes in part to tell the story and have had in game character profiles (every single one). Soul Calibur does this better than anyone and it has an extremely loyal fan base.

Its not clear whether budget or philosophy is the reason why VF has no in-game story mode or story telling cut scenes. Maybe Shenmue was originally meant to deal with that deficit I dunno

But there is a direct correlation between the popularity of Virtua Fighter and its lack of in-game story mode or story telling cut scenes

That's why I bring up Judgment, Shenmue, and Yakuza here. Those are stories that Sega already owns and tell in video games. And it would be relatively easy to add the J6 organization to any of those stories which would create an immediate story context for Virtua Fighter. All three stories have martial arts of some form and so it would be easy to integrate VF characters into any of those story lines, and it would be easy to integrate stories for Shenmue, Judgment, or Yakuza into VF

I hope that the reboot of Virtua Fighter addresses the flaw of having no story mode and no story telling cut scenes. The lack of a story mode and story telling cut scenes is the largest single reason that VF comes in last place when it comes to popularity in the FG community

 

I agree with you 100%. I did have a post on annoying VF myths. But the lack of story mode is true and awful.

 

If the next VF has a story mode, hopefully, the stories in it are not as cheesy, as the stories seen in other fighting games.

 

@beanboy Exactly! in 2022 and beyond there is no reason to have a cheesy story.

I'm sry for continuing to bring up Judgment and Yakuza and Shenmue but these games demonstrate that Sega knows how to tell an engaging story.

J6 is a conglomerate of 6 corrupt but very influential corporations.

That's plausible

The corrupt corporations are into Weapons Development, Arms Sales, Cloning, Genetic and Bioengineering of Biological Weapons, Enhanced Humans, Meta Humans, etc

Okay, that's not totally crazy in 2022.

The Yakuza, and the Triads are into the J6 for a piece of the action

That's plausible

There are professional assassins working for J6 (Goh Hinogami, Jean Kujo). Sarah Bryant, Vanessa Lewis, Tsukikagi (Kage's Mother) were victims of illegal J6 genetic and biological experiments

Alright that's somewhat plausible too

Takayuki Yagami and Shun Di work together to infiltrate J6. Of course Shun pretends to be an inebriated bumb

All the fighters have one reason or another to be involved with J6 or with the World Martial Arts Tournament, or with each other.


The VF story could be presented as realistically as the Judgment series stories, or the Yakuza stories, or the Shenmue stories. Obviously in vignette (short story) format


@beanboy there is no reason absolutely no reason for a cheesy story at this point.

 

The stories will probably be amazing with a story mode because the story is already super engaging and great. For the most part anyway.

 

Good post above masterpo, even though it was a reply to my comment..

Yeah, I think we all agree on that. Sega does great story telling.

Meta Humans.........all of a sudden, I remember Facebook. Sega doing Meta Humans in stories, long before Facebook.