I tend to be quite a large supporter of the fighting game genre. Games like Street Fighter, Tekken, and Mortal Kombat I adore due to their complex mechanics, interesting characters, and the chess-like strategizing. It's a genre of game that asks a lot from the player, with the ultimate reward being your own satisfaction from seeing success.
Though it's almost immediately apparent that these games aren't for everyone, and that this genre tends to not receive as much attention as other more well known titles. While many people would focus more on the difficulty curve and wide skill gap for this reason, I feel that another more notable issue is how fighting games appeal to the non-competitor. This genre has, and will continue to be, centered around player vs player gameplay. Being able to challenge others and demonstrate your talent/hard work is a core value of each game. But for the fan who has no desire to prove their skills, there tends to be little value left. It's for this reason that many fighting games as of late have been finding new ways to appeal to these players and expand their limited audiences.
I've been playing Soul Calibur VI as of late, and it inspired me to delve more into this issue of single player content in fighting games. The new entry in the Soul Calibur series boasts two different story modes, a character creation mode, and the expected online/offline versus mode. The first story mode (titled Libra of Soul) allows for players to go on an original journey within the world of Soul Calibur with their created character. The second (titled Soul Chronicle) breaks down each main character's contribution to the overall story by providing them with their own unique plot lines. It's a pretty full set of options for players, and should be enough to get the average consumer interested when they read the back of the box. Yet, the issue that I have with all of these extra modes is that they're attempting to take the focus away from what the fighting game is supposed to be about. The mechanics.
As you first begin the Libra of Soul story, you sit through a short introduction of story narration mixed with an animated storyboard (or moving art panels) and then a short animated cut scene. This then leads into being able to create a character (in a limited capacity at first) and then you sit through even more story. Except this time it isn't narrated and the art isn't animated, acting more like a typical visual novel. After about 15 minutes or so you finally get to your first fight, and then it's over fairly quickly. Back to more reading!
You can begin to see my issue with this. Now Libra of Soul does open up into a full map where players progress along a line following a central story, while also being allowed to deviate for short battles. Each battle grants you experience, money, and even items so as to feel like your character is growing stronger. It all adds to a fairly basic role playing experience, but it still allows you to connect with your created character. However, the larger issue at hand is how the game's story modes seem to want to take the focus away from the gameplay itself.
This becomes even more apparent within the Soul Chronicle mode, which is the game's primary plot line. Within this mode, every character on the roster has their own mini story that acts the same as Libra's visual novel sections. Character art is displayed to go along with narrated text that eventually feeds into a short fight. There's this imbalance within the story that seems to prioritize reading drawn out text (that isn't all that interesting by the way) in favor of actually playing the game. Shouldn't the point of single player content be just the opposite? How does extended reading sessions add any excitement or depth to the gameplay in a way that keeps casual fans interested? Not only that, but I've always believed that using text to deliver a game's story is not using the full advantage of what game's allow us to do.
When I think back to a good example of single player content within a fighting game, one of the first titles I think of is actually Soul Calibur II. This earlier entry in the series had a unique mode called Weapon Master, and it allowed for the player to explore different rooms within a variety of dungeon layouts. Each room was a new fight with unique modifiers; such as slippery floors, increased knockback, poison, etc. Through this mode you were able to earn experience and gold to level up each character, as well as unlock unique weapons with their own attributes. It's this idea of variability and progression that makes this mode stand out within the fighting game genre, and what inspired future fighting games such as Tekken and Mortal Kombat with their single player content.
Mortal Kombat specifically (and to a degree Injustice) are what many people point to as a display of proper single player content. I would have to agree with that statement, for the most part, as I too find myself mostly playing offline with these titles. We come back to the idea of variability, as Mortal Kombat offers a slew of unique gameplay modes and features such as arcade towers, test your might, and a massive storyline. Test your luck is one mode that emphasizes variability incredibly well, with the idea being a slot machine that determines random modifiers to the standard versus mode.
Injustice 2 adds even more reason to play offline, as they add a unique form of progression to the character gear system. A system that rewards the player for playing the game by unlocking new options with how to customize a character's look and gameplay. Where variability is what attracts a single player audience, progression is how to keep them coming back for more.
Returning to Soul Calibur VI, the game seems to offer very little of this interesting variability that made the series so iconic with casual players in the first place. That's not to say it doesn't exist within the game, but in order to reach it requires sitting through a rather uninteresting narrative that continues for far longer than it needs to. And even then, the varied matches aren't as creative as they need to be. This all lends itself into feeling as though the story modes within the game were created more out of necessity rather than through the passion of trying to take the genre in new directions.
This issue I have isn't simply related to Soul Calibur VI either, I'm simply using the game as an example as it just released, but this issue can be extended to other fighting games as of late. Street Fighter V and Marvel Vs Capcom: Infinite attempted to fill the single player space with long cut-scene driven narratives, with Street Fighter also offering shorter character stories. Tekken 7, same idea, long cut-scene driven narrative with short character stories. Simply having a large story mode does not, in my opinion, offer interesting gameplay variation. Having extended periods of time watching a movie/slideshow with a couple of normal fights thrown in isn't lending itself to the gameplay, it's simply adding context.
A large part of this story mode trend in fighting games can be traced back to Mortal Kombat 9 in 2011. The game received high praise for its, then ambitious, story where players were able to watch the entire conflict unfold as each fight seamlessly transitioned to one another through narrative cut-scenes. It was as if players were watching a movie where they controlled the action. This mode provided context to who each fighter was and why they were fighting, which in and of itself is great. The issue, however, is that extended cut-scenes have more in common with a movie rather than a game, and they don't take advantage of what games allow us as players to do.
How much more fun would it be in a story mode if players were able to actively influence which fights they took part in, and decide which characters had rivalries with other characters? Not only that, but what if each fight was able to advance the story through mechanics, instead of a cut-scene explaining what happened? It's this feeling of player influence and variation that adds itself to an interesting single player experience. It's an experience that would actually keep players coming back to the single player in a fighting game, and not just be a movie they'd play through once and never look at again.
Going forward, I believe that a single player component to a fighting game needs to be treated as a core component to any full retail title. It's an addition that not only adds value, but also adds reason for non fighting game fans to gain interest. However, linear narrative based stories should not be the primary answer to this. To be able to take advantage of what a game allows us to do requires that we think outside the box in terms of varied gameplay. A good single player mode should highlight and emphasize the mechanics that a fighting game offers, instead of shying away from them.
I don't want to sound as if I'm being too overtly negative on these games. Every fighting game I've listed is great in one way or another. Though I felt it necessary to ask the question of how single player in a fighting game needed to improve. How this could lead to fighting games as a whole to improve. I love this genre for so many reasons, and only wish to see it gain more attention. Yet, in order to do that, fighting games need to be prepared to accommodate for all types of players, and not just the competitive ones.