Which Fighting games have the best single-player campaigns?

[Ryuhza]

I really enjoyed the Tekken 5 story mode.

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Yeah, I think that was my favorite take on the arcade style story mode that catered to each fighter.

Prologue > Three Fights > Special Fight 1 with pre and post fight cutscenes (and a select few special cutscenes for losing) > Four Fights > Boss Fight with pre-fight and post fight cutscenes (the same for several characters) > Ending Movie (sometimes with an Epilogue beforehand).

A select few characters had two special fights (like Lei), but overall it offered something for everyone. Tekken 6 and 7's story content for anyone who wasn't the very main cast was pretty dire, though at least Tekken 6 had unique pre-stage text for each character in Scenario Campaign. Tekken 7 just gives you one shitty cutscene per fighter.

 

[Spring-Loaded]

Def Jam Fight For New York is a blast.

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For sure.

Building a character then buying clothes and learning fighting styles along with a crazy storyline where you fight old school rappers is awesome. I gotta give it a replay soon.

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Def Jam Fight for NY is absolutely the best

I'm genuinely asking here: what other fighting games let you purchase real-world clothing, get different girlfriends based on fight outcomes, and throw enemies in front of subway trains in their story mode? If there are any, I want to play them

 

[sandboxgod]

Street Fighter V has a lot of SP content these days too and the single player story wasn't too bad. In my list on page 2, I'd place SFV somewhere around MvCI -> DBFZ

Btw, Blazblue & GG Xrd have these nice little prologue stories in arcade that tie into the SP. Samething with UINST

 

[Deleted member 50949]

NRS cutscenes are ok, but they're kinda forgettable and nothing special imo. I liked Guilty Gear XX story mode where get new endings based on the conditions you win the fights.

 

[sandboxgod]

Btw here is a good review from IJ2. He enjoyed the story so much he recommends even buying the game purely for that mode. We used to have an ij2-gaf guild too where we formed a Guild and grind out bosses and stuff in coop. IJ2 definitely blows away everything else in my book although Smash is really great in a totally different way

 

[Leviathan]

Not MK. Characters are too weak to sustain what is otherwise a solid set of storylines.

Injustice takes it pretty handily, even spawned one of the only good DC comic lines in years. Nice pacing, good drama.

KoF is another good one, though it's a gamble on whether characters you like get to shine or even show up each gen.

I'd also say Dead or Alive. Very character driven, always well-paced, etc. Nice selection of humor and drama.

SF and MvC are jokes in terms of story.

BlazBlue is nice if you're bored at work and want to read its wiki. The in-game experience is pretty eh though.

Soul Calibur tries and succeeds on quantity, but I think the actual quality and progression are a little weak.

 

[Callibretto]

Personally, I really enjoy the visual novel approach of Blazblue storytelling. I wish SF V story campaign is more like that, no need of lengthy expensive cutscene, but just give me lengthy story in visual novel format that give plenty of opportunity for character interaction with few fights inbetween.

 

[Korigama]

Soul Calibur VI has been better about this than I expected, in respect to not only the mode devoted to stories focused on the actual cast, but even the leveling/RPG-lite one where you create a character who interacts with them. BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle's was short but entertaining in spite of not accounting for every character from the season pass, Chronophantasma Extend's reeled me back in after how much I hated Continuum Shift's story (granted, the CS games weren't good fighters either). Dragon Ball FighterZ easily had the worst out of everything I've played recently, horrendously tedious clearing of maps with endless waves of literal clones where the character interactions are the only thing to look forward to during the monotony (and they make you do it three times to get the true story and unlock the game's final character). The individual stories in Street Fighter V are interesting enough, but I still haven't bothered with its Cinematic Story and have been putting it off due to low expectations based on snippets and no longer getting any Fight Money from sitting through it.

Surprised to see as much love for Dead or Alive 5: Last Round's in here. As much as I enjoy the game itself, I didn't consider the story or the format to be particularly good even if I have still played worse.

 

[Falchion]

Injustice 2 and Smash both have a ton of singleplayer legs.

 

[John Harker]

https://m.imgur.com/t/for_honor/TbDq2Dl

 

[SirFritz]

Soulcalibur 1,2,3.
1 and 2 have similar mission modes although weapon master in 2 is better imo. I loved how once you beat it you unlock an extra mission for every level making it twice as long.
3 has tons and tons of content.
I got burned bad on 4 and 5 so never bought 6 even though I hear its improved in this regard.

 

[Syril]

Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution is really cool because the opponents have different playing styles that you have to figure out and beat while you're fighting them, making it the closest I've ever seen a fighting game come to actually approximating players.

BlazBlue Calamity Trigger's story mode is nice too because it's the only one all of the characters actually have individual stories while not getting beaten by the same invincible villain all the time.

 

[JJ!]

mk9
mkx
injustice 2.

basically nether realm games lmao. tekken 7 story was pretty good but doesn't stand anywhere near nether realm games stories

 

[Tetrinski]

Soul Calibur and Soul Calibur 2.

 

[SavoyPrime]

I enjoyed Rival Schools story mode.

 

[Korigama]

Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution is really cool because the opponents have different playing styles that you have to figure out and beat while you're fighting them, making it the closest I've ever seen a fighting game come to actually approximating players.

BlazBlue Calamity Trigger's story mode is nice too because it's the only one all of the characters actually have individual stories while not getting beaten by the same invincible villain all the time.

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Personally, I found the way that Calamity Trigger handled things to be redundant as a result of only one "true" path unlocked actually counting, this also being part of the problem for Continuum Shift (much of the rest of BBCS's problem being taking the invincible villain issue and then doubling it before magnifying it exponentially as the narrative can't stop fawning over them). I much preferred how Chronophantasma streamlined everything, though this was also at the cost of making certain characters even less relevant in respect to the overall plot.

Even though multiple what-if scenarios are often a major factor in visual novels, a format that BB utilizes for its story modes, I generally have more liking and patience for that sort of thing in an actual VN than an ongoing fighting game series that will base what it does next on what it decided to have count (how short BBTAG was and the fact that it's self-contained leading me to make an exception for that, though the joke endings in mainline BB can still be fun).

 

[Master Milk]

Rival Schools also had a create a character story mode, and it was pretty fun

 

[Dinobot]

Smash Bros Ultimate
Mortal Kombat 9
Mortal Kombat X
Injustice
Injustice 2

 

[John Harker]

 

[Zolbrod]

Nothing beats the PSP Dissidia games, but there's waaaaay more than just 10 or 20 hours.

 

[Syril]

Personally, I found the way that Calamity Trigger handled things to be redundant as a result of only one "true" path unlocked actually counting, this also being part of the problem for Continuum Shift (much of the rest of BBCS's problem being taking the invincible villain issue and then doubling it before magnifying it exponentially as the narrative can't stop fawning over them). I much preferred how Chronophantasma streamlined everything, though this was also at the cost of making certain characters even less relevant in respect to the overall plot.

Even though multiple what-if scenarios are often a major factor in visual novels, a format that BB utilizes for its story modes, I generally have more liking and patience for that sort of thing in an actual VN than an ongoing fighting game series that will base what it does next on what it decided to have count (how short BBTAG was and the fact that it's self-contained leading me to make an exception for that, though the joke endings in mainline BB can still be fun).

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I didn't really mind there only being one plotline that "counted" because they were good about filling the other stories with character and setting development. You'd have one of Litchi's routes involve learning all about how the Kaka clan functions, or another character might encounter Nu-13 and you'd get a sense of the danger that's lurking under everyone that no one's even aware of. You got a sense of how everyone was trying to get by all jammed together in this one city because they had nowhere else to go, and it was all crazy bananas technomagic on top of it. Like, for a while I thought Kagutsuchi was a really cool setting.

 

[Foxdeimos]

MK Deception for the adventures of the worlds most gullible idiot Shujinko.

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While there are certainly more appropriate answers than that (Stuff like the NRS games and the earlier Soul Calibur games were the first to spring to mind), I feel like Deception's story mode is a heavily under appreciated gem. Not the greatest thing in the world, but I sure was impressed at the time after playing it to completion.

 

[Toriko]

Injustice 2 is better than any DC movie, including Nolans trilogy.

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This has to be sarcasm right?

 

[The_R3medy]

Every game from Netherrealms, especially Injustice 1 & 2. I even really enjoyed the Mortal Kombat X story.

 

[Raider34]

NRS make great campaigns since joining Warner Brothers

 

[Freddo]

VF4 Evolution and Soul Calibur II stand out to me.

 

[Modest_Modsoul]

That CAPCOM's Jojo's Bizarre Adventure fighting game with the Super Story mode.

The story from beginning of Jojo part 3 until final battle with Dio.

It has fighting, cutscenes, mini games, story art from the manga, etc.

That time I don't know anything about Jojo, but the Super Story mode was so fucking cool, and somewhat faithful to the manga.