Love the trailer. If only they would get rid of some of these looney characters and be more serious, I could see them overtaking Mortal Kombat X. It would need at least 2 out of 3 from these:
- Akuma
- resurrected Sagat (more scars, more angry and vicious and this time against Shadaloo)
- evil character like Blanka, Oni or Seth.

Also a versus mode missing is just ridiculous.

Every Fighting Game has its goofy elements. Even MK [Bo Rai Cho with his puking and farting, Johnny Cage with his snarky comments. Humans fighting Robots and not any bones broken and internal damage]

Akuma will probably be in at some stage. They'll probably want to leave him exclusively with Tekken 7 when it finally hit consoles next year.

Sagat is still alive so a resurrected Sagat is silly.

Blanka is not evil.

If/When Akuma makes it in Oni will probably follow at some point given that he's supposed to be Akuma if he was completely consumed by the killing intent.

Seth I would only want back if he gets his own move sets. Not copying other characters abilities.

The story mode was cute, not amazing but it serves it purpose, like MkX's (mk9 was great). I shed a tear at the end with the Rashid scene.

Don't forget there is a Street Fighter V thread for just discussing SFV.

It was really good for their first attempt at a proper story mode. The Rashid scene was definitely a tear jerker.

Yeah, Mk's first attempt at a story mode wasn't good at all (vsDC), though MK9's was really great, but Mk has always had a very good storyline.

SFv's story mode was really good for what it was: the first attempt at a story mode for a SF game (lol). The way it ties the events from the previous game to SF3 was actually genius imo, and the use of NpC was really well done, i loved the dolls.

RIP Marz

They definitely have a lot of room to improve and get to the level I feel like MK is at but it wasn't bad at all for a first attempt. You can't really compare the two to be completely honest because their storytelling styles are so different.

The only thing I feel like MK did better compared to SFV's story mode was the editing was really, really jarring for me. There were a lot of quick, unnecessary cuts that I just didn't really understand the purpose of. However, with that said, the story was engaging for what it was. I did enjoy the use of NPC's during story mode so I can only hope NRS took some notes and finds a way to put at least the first wave of DLC characters into story mode for MK11.

I watched Maximilian's playthrough of the SFV story because I was genuinely curious to see how it would go even though I don't really care for SF all that much, but for the most part, it was better than I expected. I liked that it didn't take itself too seriously, it was ridiculous and crazy and it just felt like a lot of fun. I liked that you could play as the villain, it didn't have MK's shit chapter system, and the cameos were kind of cool even though I didn't really care for them as much because I don't have a strong connection with the franchise.

Like KenshiMaster said though, the editing was very jarring at times. It would cut to scenes that didn't really go together, and it was pretty confusing for me at parts with all of the characters seemingly teleporting to different locations with no real explanation as to how they got there. For their first attempt at a cinematic story though, I felt like it was fine.

I think the story mode was great. Was it amazing? No. But it was enjoyable.


I really hope NRS follows this example when it comes to bad guys winning fights and having EVERY character get to be playable in the story. Even Birdie, the jobber of all jobbers gets to beat up dolls. Why can't Reptile get that kind of treatment?

Villains need to win in order to give gravitas to the story. MK X's story failed because everytime we saw the Villains they got their asses kicked which removed the threat which also ruined the Heroes credibility with the war dragging on for over 25 years. It made them look incompetent because they couldn't win the war sooner.

Absolutely agree with everything both of you said, and that's why I had such a problem with Cassie winning against Shinnok. It didn't feel earned on either side of the fight because what we played, and saw, was so one sided. I have absolutely no problem seeing the story they told if they had made the villains more of a threat and thus making the heroes more heroic when they eventually win. Everything about MKX was just ho-hum, cameos and NPC's aside. Just middle of the road at the end of the day.

Jarring editing and wacky anime styled set-pieces aside, Capcom did a good job with their first attempt and I hope this only pushes NRS to try and up the ante next go around.

Thanks. The next few games [SF6, MK11, Tekken8,etc] will be very interesting to watch out for since all the fighting games [even KOF14 is supposed to have one] so it will be interesting to see who can craft the best story.

Almost a year and a half after this thread was posted, was the OP correct? Nope! As stated by others, Street Fighter 3: Third Strike was the game that actually took roster risks, only keeping Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, and Akuma while bringing in a bunch of new characters. As for Street Fighter 5's roster, most of the characters are from the older games. I think the core gameplay will continue to be its strongest aspect.

Regarding the story mode, I like that you get to play all the characters within the roster instead of having a character-specific chapter format like in the NetherRealm Studios fighting games. That and certain moments are the only real strengths of Street Fighter V's story mode. I think that Cammy, Juri, and Nash were the best (as in most interesting) characters in the story mode. Some characters were just alright (e.g. Chun-Li, Guile) while the rest were forgettable. Overall, the story mode was garbage though it's still not on the same level as Soul Calibur V's story mode. It seems to me that ever since Street Fighter 4, the series has gone more towards the extreme in being silly and cartoony. Sure, there were elements of humor in older games, but these newer Street Fighter games have such an obnoxious, over-the-top style that I just don't like. This goes hand-in-hand with the way characters such as Alex and Urien are modeled. Plus, there's the over-exaggerated sizes of characters' hands and feet which are jarring, to say the least

F.A.N.G. is an example of the over-the-top silliness of the newer games. While I like his gameplay and backstory, he's nothing more than an overly flamboyant sycophant for Bison in the actual story mode. Had his goofiness been more of a facade to mask a more vicious and sinister personality, he could have been a much better character. Instead, I was constantly annoyed with him. My big disappointment in regards to the new characters deals with Necalli. He has boss material written all over him, but instead, he's nothing more than a throwaway character. The style of these newer Street Fighter games hurts his character badly, and he would have been better suited to Mortal Kombat or Killer Instinct. His inclusion in Street Fighter V was a waste, and it would have made more sense to save him for a later game. I think Capcom needs to look to the older Street Fighter games' style to go with a balance between serious and comical. One other thing that was mentioned was the jarring editing of transitions between scenes. It was as if the people at Capcom were taking inspiration from Rover Dangerfield and incorporated that mentality into the story mode.

The thing is, I'm ultimately more critical of MKX even though I still think it's the better game and has a far superior story mode. At least that game gave development to a number of returning characters unlike what Street Fighter V did by keeping many of the characters relatively the same. With MKX, we have Scorpion brought back to life as a human and he brought back the Shirai-ryu clan. Sub-Zero does similarly with the Lin Kuei and even manages to end the rivalry with Scorpion by showing him the truth behind the deaths of Scorpion's family and clan. I think Street Fighter has the potential to become better, but I'm just not currently impressed. Perhaps we'll get more characters later on, but right now, I'd say that MKX took more risks with the roster than Street Fighter V.

NRS took just as much calculated risks as Capcom and only because the gameplay is so good, has it been the best selling game. Roster wise, it's far from the best. Many forgettable characters and overlooked classic characters who should've been in, but instead they pushed for this futuristic descent plot to make way for a new generation. So redundant and unnecessary. I don't now why the makers of MK have been scared to push this game more towards the mythical side with magic, monsters and evil as opposed to this same old earth vs. the rest with little imagination to these characters. Sure this game is darker in the sense of feeling and gore (fatalities), but not so much character nor plot wise.

I hope with the return of Shang Tsung and hopefully the death of some of these old farts, NRS will look deep at what the core of their game is and should be. Explore and create more worlds, more crazy characters, more diverse moves instead of guns and gimmicks, more focus on mystery and hard to perform moves than cheap X-Ray outs and 7-hit combo's that drain your bar for 40%. Make the final fight be a series of battles and not just bad vs. good characters. Have arenas that live like the Temple stage and the PIT, merging worlds and just make it alive, dark and keep the magic and mythical tone alive. Make the game immersive again.

That's the one thing I believe Capcom has over NRS, they know how to keep the feeling, tone and setting of the game the same every single game so you are totally immersed in this silly, cartoonish fighting game. Mortal Kombat keeps switching and some games just gets it right and others not so much. MKX just didn't feel right. Even Goro, who looks the most amazing ever, just doesn't feel like the old, intimidating big goon who had you trembling in the earlier games and movie. I always felt even with the blandness of arenas in earlier games, it felt dark and had me thinking it was part of a scary world. Now, not so much. Even the Jungle which was a highly requested arena for years, felt off. During story mode it seemed even thrown in just to give it a nice back story, which failed.

All in all, I think both took calculated risks but didn't really gamble and created a good enough fighting game to last. However, Capcom has the edge in immersion, staying closest to their core and even story mode, where MKX wins in gameplay and ambition.

The dude straight up murders someone in the first few minutes of story mode by melting her down to a puddle of gelatin. And he going to do the same to the little girl before Chun-Li intervened. I think he showed a vicious and sinister side.

To barakall:

You make some points with which I agree. They tie into what I said before about being more critical of MKX compared to SFV despite my preference for the former. The more I thought about it, the more I came to the viewpoint that it would have been much better to have separated MKX’s story into two whole games. The post-MK9 game would cover the battle against Shinnok and his forces while the next game focuses on the new generation of heroes. I agree with you about the approach of having the focus of the Earthrealmers vs. the villains. This combined with the character-specific chapter format makes for more of a linear storytelling experience, which I think doesn’t work too well for Mortal Kombat. However, I can understand that this approach, because it makes the process of development much easier. To me, it would be preferable to have an ensemble storytelling format in which we get to explore the different realms, factions, etc. I too miss the sense of mystery, mythology, and mysticism. Those elements are largely lacking in the NetherRealm era of MK games.

I’m up for having Shang Tsung return, but he has to have interesting development as well as a different voice actor. If there were someone who could have the sort of flair of Cary Tagawa, that would be great for Shang Tsung. About the roster of MKX, I can understand that having a lot of the familiar faces from the old games appeals to a lot of the fanbase as well as connect to the newer generation of characters. If I get too much into MKX’s roster, I know I’ll go into rant mode, because I think certain characters could have been switched out for others. Since you mentioned Goro, I think his inclusion was a waste since he didn’t have the story elements from the comic to give more connection to characters like Kotal Kahn.

You said that you believe Capcom has the advantage over NRS in keeping the feeling, tone and setting of the game the same in every single game, and I disagree. I would rather have Capcom go back to the feel of something like Street Fighter Alpha 3 or Third Strike. I even look to the Street Fighter 2 animated movie, and I wonder why we can’t get that same quality in tone. There were the lighthearted, comical moments, but when things got serious, they got serious! To me, Street Fighter 5 feels dumbed down.

To Human-Smoke-4-ever:

You made reference to F.A.N.G. murdering Rashid’s childhood friend. While that was one of the better moments of the story mode, we don’t get a full view of it. Personally, I would have wanted him to do more damage to the heroes, especially because he has those powerful poisoning techniques. I still say that F.A.N.G. is an overly flamboyant sycophant, and the delivery of his lines was pretty much always over the top. When looking at how most of the characters were handled, it was pretty safe. One of the reasons why I like Nash a lot is that there was a sense of danger since he was on limited time. I like the story with Cammy trying to free Decapre and the other dolls. Why can’t we get more of that sort of stuff with other characters?

So how we feel about the risks now? Season 2 of DLC includes the great classic every asked for in Akuma and 5 NEW ones! Bold move

I was one of those who applauded Capcom for not going the safe and boring route with its roster like MKX did. But even *I* think having 5 out of the 6 Season 2 characters be brand new is too much. Half and half would have been better, I think. Actually, I really just wanted to see more pre-existing, but underappreciated characters like Q, Poison, Elena, and Hugo.

MKX introduced a bunch of new characters. How the fuck is that playing it safe?

SF V 's story mode is a joke, a bad joke.
The story of Mk Special Forces felt like Citizen Kane in comparison.

SF5 has great characters tho. Urien and Necalli are my new favorites. Urien looks like a baws in that suit. I skipped all the cinematics so i dont know how good or bad the story mode is. I guess it's a bit silly. But than again the gameplay, characters and new mechanics are outstanding.

I think the overall gameplay mechanics of SF5 are what help the game a lot. I actually played some more today at a friend's house, and we had a lot of fun. I really like Urien and Necalli as well, but Necalli was SO poorly utilized in the story. The backstory fights were building up to something interesting, but in the story mode, he was barely there. He had no real significance. It's really a shame, because he has so much potential.

I must DEVOUR :P I remember somth like that. That and the still images kept me from checking out the story mode. I will look into the new story mode one day

Half of MKX's new characters were literally relatives of legacy characters. And yes, I'm aware that they don't play the same as their relatives. But the mere fact that they're related makes them feel derivative to me. Also, most game sequels introduce new characters, so bringing in new characters, in and of itself, isn't really going out on a limb. If a majority of the characters on the roster were new, that would be something different.

But the roster risks I'm most interested in are the kind where they take a lesser-known character from an older game in the series and give him or her another chance to shine. I would have loved to see what the current MK design staff could do with someone like Havik or Li Mei (as playable characters), but we got precious little of that in MKX. Maybe we'll see it in MK11, but with Warner Brothers running the show, I doubt it.

according to this logic, SF too is plenty of derivative characters:

Ryu, Ken, Akuma, Sakura, heck even Dan.

Guile and Nash and Cammy and Alex

just to name a few...