The Single Player Experience™ is VITAL for Fighting Games
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 มี.ค. 2021
- Its okay to play with yourself a little (not too much though, you will go blind).
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Literally the whole point of fighting games is to play other people
a very high level response to the convo. remarkable
@@doogies thank you:)
So why did SFV absolutely bomb then once casuals learned about the lack of content, and meanwhile MKX became one of the best selling games of the generation? lol
@@KnucklesWTD became SFV was shit at launch. I couldn't tell you more than that I dont play SFV
@@Swampson7043 casuals did not even realize the gameplay changes,they saw the lack of content and 16 character roster and didn’t buy
VF4 Evo had an unbelievably addictive single player experience, as you battle a variety of unique fighters with different cosmetic items that made them stand out from one another. All the while, you're acquiring more gear for your own fighter and ranking up to fight harder opponents. It truly felt a lot like the online experience made offline, in the best way possible.
Couldn't agree more
Vanilla VF5 had quest mode, too. Playing that with the difficulty raised has made it a very different game (in a good way); I wish I could play Jean Kujo in quest mode.
that's what i like about treasure battle in Tekken too
Yoooo it's NicoB!
Doogies rise, real ones been playing by themselves with themselves for years.
Real sad ones
still playing with myself
@@doogies same
I feel like this is a big reason for why the smash scene is so big because the single player modes can ease in on the more advanced topics without you realizing it
I said something similar about Virtua Figher. Their arcade battle system made you better without you really knowing it.
to a degree. you def saw it play out that way with melee
I am only just now realizing how true this is. I remember learning how to l cancel back in the day from home run contest of all places. Having only 10 seconds to deal damage to the sandbag encourages you to optimize specific parts of your play in ways that are not as immediately apparent in a standard 1v1 setting.
@@300PIVOTMASTER The SB devs really got many of those ideas very right so early on, and it only got better in the sequels. I'm just not sure about the latest ones, because i didnt play. Anyways it must be accurate to say that only SB has kept the same quality of single player content from the 90's and early 00's, when the fg companies were very engaged in evolving and polishing their games. There was a peak period of notable investment in these ideas among the big fg companies around the late 90's to early-mid 00's.
Sadly,even smash fell into the pit of lackluster single player from smash 4 onward.
Sure Classic Mode in ultimate is neat but the World of Light single player gets monotonous real quick compared to brawl's subspace and melee's adventure mode
This is the one thing NRS games have always been great at, between the krypts, story mode, towers, test your luck/might, etc. really expands on the playtime outside of online and enhances the game overall, and more fighting games should follow their example
true!
I was never competitive but subspace emmissary in brawl was so hype. I got to see all my favorite characters interact and its something I wish smash ultimate had
subspace emissary is like, the one exception in modern smash. other than that its been steps backwards in this regard imo
@@doogies I think Smash 4 3DS was good because Smash Run was a blast; but Wii U had basically nothing. I think Ultimate was an improvement from Wii U.
@@doogies I don't know dude, Ultime has too much content. It might not be an epic story with cutscenes, but I recently started playing the spirits boards, and lost a ton of hours just on that. It can be silly fun with items, or more serious play against multiple characters. The fact that it is customizable adds variety to just picking your character and playing against CPUs, and maybe can teach you about match ups, where range is more important than power and things like that.
I used to grind 64 and Melee’s SP modes, and looking back, Break the Targets subtilely taught you movement options and how to use your B moves for the character which is so smart
i learned a few years ago there is a small collective of people that COMPETE in BTT and Home Run records
Looking back on it that's a great example of an invisible tutorial
@@doogies there's a history on peach BTT speedrun/WRs on youtube. That shit is so interesting.
And that's the actual good kind of single player content. Not wasting time and money with movies, which is a totally passive relation with the game.
Those modes of SB are the perfect "next level" step from the SF2 bonus stages, which had a similar purpose behind them, but wrapped up as a kind of rough package... although very natural for very early innovative ideas. (The own idea wasnt original itself, but the use of it in SF2)
And it's also interesting to note that SB decided to invest on those ideas since the first game, in a time the "true" fg's were starting to drop these "minor" contents like bonuses. Look how games changed regarding that aspect from the early 90s to the mid and late 90s: Street Fighter 1-2 to the Alpha series; Fatal Fury 1-2 to 3 and onwards; Samurai Shodown 1-2 to 3 and onwards; Art of Fighting 1-2 to 3. All early fg franchises lost some of those qualities as they entered the mid 90's - which was generally seen as their "teen age" period.
Fighting Game devs want more players to play their game but leave out the game modes that will bring them in. It's hard to convince my friend to buy a game with no content outside of online ranked match. Imagine how easy it would be to convince them if all I had to say was "yo you have to play the story mode, it's so tight" or "this single player game mode is so much fun bro, I was playing it all night and didn't realize what time it was".
the first line of what you typed hits so hard
SoulCalibur 2 and 3 have the best single player modes of any fighting game, free.
Laughs in tekken 7. Most hollow empty single player experience in the entire fgc
I admit. This.
It was a waste of my money, Tekken 3 and Tekken 5.0 just have way more to do and they are older, wtf.
It's funny when you think back on how we went from Tekken 6 having this huge campaign and a real arcade mode where everyone had actual endings, to damn near nothing in T7 and an embarrassing story mode especially for anyone outside of the Mishima family drama.
Agree
Tekken Ball in Tekken Tag Tournament 2 was sick... but Wii U only. I only have that version and understand some exclusives like the Nintendo costumes and Mushroom mode, but Tekken Ball should have been on more platforms especially if the game isn't coming to Switch to keep the Wii U content.
For me, GGXX's story mode was an incredible single player experience in a fighting game. GGXX's story mode was one of the best fighting game story modes, for a multitude of reasons:
-Each character had three separate endings, encouraging replayability.
-There were branching paths that required special conditions in order to obtain; winning via instant kill, winning in less/more than X amount of seconds, winning via super, and etc.
-Some fights had special gimmicks in the story mode; sometimes you couldn't jump, sometimes you couldn't use your specials, and sometimes you'd even be in your character's busted Gold mode for the duration of the fight.
-The awesome pre-fight intros.
And, not to mention great voice acting and great illustrations throughout. Subsequent ASW fighting games tried to replicate this, but they didn't do it nearly as effectively as in GGXX's. And now sometimes ASW just doesn't bother with a *playable* story mode, instead just having you watch a two-five hour movie.
I played a ton of that game and thought that story mode was rad as hell. Which was impressive considering at the time I had literally no idea wtf was going on or why everyone kept talking about THAT MAN.
MoM mode was hype for me tbh
Injustice 2 multiverse for me, grinding to get the coolest looking gear for characters and building your own unique look for your mains was sick
NRS consistently hits in this department
I put hours into Soul Calibur 3’s chronicles of the soul lol.
Immediately thought of this while watching
Yeah dude, i think SC3 is TO THIS DAY, the most complete package in any fg
Chronicles made SC3 my all time favorite.
@@perboscious and the fact that it's not only chronicles, arcade mode was good and had some cool extra fights. Character customization was amazing, you had the custom classes that were basically new characters movesets, albeit more simplified compared to real characters. SC3 was incredible and thinking about it makes me wanna play it again.
Soul Edge and Calibur 1-3 campaigns were lit
Shoutouts to anyone who was grinding GG M.O.M offline back in the early 2000’s
talk 2 em
Bro dont forget fighting gold sol in the mission modes. That shit kept me on for hours
One of my favorite arcade modes in a fighting game was Fighters' Megamix, where the Arcade Mode offered numerous courses for you to tackle:
Course A was the Fighting Vipers cast, Course B was Virtua Fighter characters.
Later courses were always throwing different mix of characters for courses examples include:
- fight the youthful lads
- fight the cute ladies
- fight the buffy/burly men
- fight the mature/sexy ladies
- fight the "weird" characters
Clearing a course unlocked new stages, new characters, and/or new artwork so you were motivated to see what else the game had.
I remember enjoying the Master Challenge mode in Fighter's Destiny because you unlocked new moves every time you won. I think the lack of unlockables in modern fighting games definitely hurt the single-player experience.
"Event match" was always a mode that give me a lot of fun. Kof2002UM, Smash Melee, GGAC+R... They all had setup missions that were fun to get into. Especially the pseudo story ones like play as solo Geese and defeat the four main fatal fury heroes.
shit was hype
Smash Ultimate is "this" close to having the best event match series of all time, but stops short at allowing you to select bosses to fight even though it has like a billion events through Spirits.
I don't mind the stats focus but some of Spirit battles can be pretty dumb if they instantly get supers (okay) or your controls get reversed when you are trying to recover to stage or chase for a kill.
Using Spirits to negate the latter defeats the purpose of the challenge but it is probably only like a small factor of battles.
Smash melee had soooo much. Just realized now that’s prolly how I got into fighting games subconsciously, never felt like fighting
yes, yes it did
GBFV rpg mode may have alot of flaws but its still good single player content for casuals. I like that it incentivize people by giving them weapon skins.
Eventually some casuals learn the game machanics by grinding for cosmetics and hop on the fighting game section next.
This happened to my friend and hes now open to try other fighting games
i agree its still good! just wish it had a bit more juice to it to keep ppl reeled in
When it comes to fighting games we get shafted the most. They’re not gonna do shit until we complain just as much as for netcode
genre has its face in the dirt, for sure
Mortal Kombat Deception was the most interesting single player experience i ever had with a fighting game, i never saw a fighting game do story like that before. Just running around the map, finding secrets and being trained by this iconic characters was really fun.
MK games and NRS titles have been very consistent in this regard
Damn the editing really makes this stream cut feel like a full on video essay. Nice shit
its not a stream cut! filmed offline lol thanks for watching tho!
@@doogies I thought I remembered you talking about this on stream. My bad. GGs
I put hundreds of hours into Dissidia 012 by myself because of the amount of singleplayer content. There's a quite large roster that you can level up to unlock new moves and customize, there's a billion pieces of equipment that cab augment your playstyle, every character has a story mode which can take a few hours to complete by itself, there's a New Game+ for the story to get unlockable boss characters, secret fights hidden in codex entries, little unlockable icons, music, and stamps, and a Labyrinth mode which adapts the game into something like a roguelike. On top of being really fun on its own, that game is just brimming with content to the point I never even missed the fact that I couldnt go online
never thought about dissidia in the convo but sure, that applies!
Games rarely do things to make casuals confident enough to go online. Getting blown up isn't fun. The last game I played that did a good job of preparing you to go online was Virtua Figher 4 (? The one with ghosts). It allowed you to fix your mistakes, and you got items in the process. GG Rev 2 is good, but the mechanics are overwhelming. Rival Schools single player was probably the most fun though. You got to make your own character.
rival schools/proj justice for sure
This video reminded me of how Virtua Fighter 4 had that mode where you'd just go from arcade to arcade fighting people with ring names, ranking up and fighting harder and harder ai characters as you ranked up. It really was like a pseudo netplay in retrospect. I think games now would totally benefit from something like that
i showcased it! Really unique approach to hardware limitations at the time. The players were based off of real players too!
Wait a second, that's why it says "Battle against opponents modeled after real-life Virtua Fighter arcade champions." on the back of the box. I bought a copy of it recently and wondered what that meant
I don't know why later VF games took that out and why another game hasn't picked it up and ran with it
@@BlassstProsussin Yea they used footage to build the AI based on thr best VF players of those regions and arcade. Itabashi is on that game also coz he has a Virtua Fighter background
that was how i learned how to play fighting games back in the day
For me it's the BB series, from imho the best story in fighting games to stuff like score and time attack and especially the abyss mode, which I've probably sunk more time into than anything else, it was just fun playing. Not to mention that BBCF alone has like 97 unique arcade runs you can do to flesh out the story and give you perspective into every character's situation and motivation.
As a lifelong MK fan, absolutely this.
Once MKDA came out, I fell in love with the series all over again, thanks to the absurd amount of singleplayer content and juicy lore to discover, unlock, and pore over. Hell, I've had more fun fooling around in Deception's Konquest mode than I did playing entire full-sized RPGs.
Getting all my favorite characters to level 32 in world tour mode was everything to me in 1999.
tellem
To me, in recent fighting games, single player is the online
I don't want it to be but i have to sometimes
i think its a wack trend
damn realest shit ever said
And it's sad.
The old 3D MK games like Deadly Alliance when you had conquest mode, shit was legendary
armageddon stands out in my mind
I loved tekken 3s tekken ball and the tekken side scroller mode. When me and my brother and friends got tired of fighting each other, we’d play those modes and have a blast. Granblue brought that back, but it’s so bare bones, which is crazy because it seemed perfect for a side scroller game with the simplified special move inputs. I also loved the early soul calibur games (2 and 3) for their single player modes.
On another note. How cool would it be if devs designed a mode that would actually teach players basic fighting game skills through single player. I’m not talking about xrd’s or granblue’s mission modes (though the are good). But what if the devs focused more on designing fights with characters that progressively built on those skills like making the AI play a certain way and the goal is to block and punish like 10 times to achieve the goal for that fight with the cpu. And as you get further, you keep applying more of those skills to the next fight while learning something new.
I remember the Tekken side scroller. Super fun.
Tekken force and tekken bowl >>>
All Neatherealm Games have tremendous single player stuff.
agreed
I think the most enjoyable experience i have had recently with single player in fighting games has to be Red Earth/War-Zard. the bosses are really fun to fight and learning how to beat them i feel would probably help boost new players skill levels along with the leveling system giving you new techniques to learn. i think that would really help new players really improve at the game while also having fun by themselves
such a unique game/approach in retrospect
The ones that stood out to me was Soul Calibur 3's Chronicles of the Sword. A mixture of Fighting, RPG, and Real-Time Strategy felt really engaging and cool.
Soul Edge and caliburs 1-3 def hit different
Fighting games and beat 'em ups are twins separated at birth.
I think lengthy and detailed tutorial missions that actually teach you all the different tech is extremely important and a lot of fun to learn for me personally as a newbie. I think Killer Instinct absolutely nailed it though with the whole shadow lab thing where you can train against many different players' characters but controlled by a bot that attempts to imitate exactly how that person plays them. I agree completely with the premise of this video.
Playing some old Fighting games was like piecing together lore in Dark Souls.
Like Tekken 3 you're reading the short character descriptions in the manuals, the Opening Movie montage when you start the game and this Silent Movies at the end with all these Alternate endings.
From there you gotta piece together the Story and Lore.
Why's Bruce not in the game? Well the savvy player may recognise Ogre has his bazooka kick! Ogre must have stolen his powers!
More than enough to keep a 9 year old busy for hours on end.
I was enjoying myself with Under Night's story mode visual novel thing, but the real answer is Dark Souls 2 and 3
PVP feels like an arena fighter that's actually good, even if a bit simple, and the quest has an engaging story that's still bollocks difficult, and yet still retains a large audience. Plus, playing through story mode unlocks new weapons, which are essentially new movesets.
I heard Red Earth did something similar, and Them's Fighting Herds has one that teaches you basic to intermediate fighting game concepts.
Visual Novel thing feels like a cultural thing, popular in JP but hard sell overseas.
As someone who has put a lot of time into soulsborne game pvp, I 110% agree with this.
this is so true back when i got in to ggac i had no-one to play with so i played survival to unlock the shadow character and story to unlock gold and i gave me a spot to mess around and unlock stuff while letting me learn and practice on my own and unlock weird versions of the characters was really fun. it gave me something to work with in the short term that kept me coming back in the long term i remember at one point taking a week just to be i-no but it was a blast because i was able to learn and improve in other areas before hand witch made me get even more into it
single player got a LOT of ppl into the games in a more hardcore way...weird to ignore that
I've never played GG before, but when the I-No trailer dropped for Strive, I remember the sheer number of comments from people reminiscing about her accent core bossfight. It's really cool how memorable it's been for so many people, and how iconic it's made her character.
I love all single player modes in fighting games. They give me a chance to work on my execution against a moving target. Not to mention its a less stressful way to learn a game before you try online or competitive play. I will ALWAYS preach that. A lot of people think competitive play is the best way to learn but it really is the worst for the average person. Obama, you've taught before so you know as I do that the average person doesn't learn well on the fly and need things repeated and drilled in to actually grasp things in most cases. If you dont have a person talking to you and explaining why you are losing and what to work on then online is a graveyard for new players. If you want to learn a game effectively try single player until you understand the mechanics of the game or learn from a friend but getting beat down by nameless, faceless, voiceless people online wont teach you things as fast. Thats why I will always love the single player sides of fighters even if I dont play them as much as I used to.
P.S. yes, I have met many people online that had been playing online alone for MONTHS that did not understand things that I was able to show them in 5 or so MINUTES of 2 player online practice while mic'd up. So thats why I feel new players should try single player instead of multiplayer to get an understanding these games but there is an unfounded notion that they should jump straight into versus to learn.
there are so many that hit different bruh
Soul calibur’s mission mode blew the teams collective mind when we got ahold of it. We would take turns, loser passes sticks, in a one player fighting game campaign mode INSTEAD of fucking versus matches…that shit is crazy. Peace to Lizard Man.
I never really enjoyed the versus gameplay of Skullgirls, but found it's story mode really fun and engaging. Usually I have a hard time staying invested in story modes
good to hear! thanks for watching
Hmmm I think VF4 EVO was one of my favorite single player experiences. Going to all the arcades and trying to 100% them and get all the items and quest orders, slowly working on making each character customized and feeling a sense of accomplishment.
great game, really ahead of its time in some ways
I spent so much of my childhood on Soul Calibur/Mortal Kombat singleplayer content, and I never really gave it a second thought until now.
Soul Calibur 3 had this turn-based tactics mode "Chronicles of the Sword" that I thought was the coolest thing ever (tbf I didn't have a ton of games growing up). As you played through it, your character would level up and you'd unlock more items for the character customization.
those 2 series hit for 1p content
Tekken 5 had the best story mode with prologues, pre-fight cutscenes, post-fight cutscenes, epilogues and endings sprinkled through out eight stages, making every fighter worth trying out to see wait their deal is and you begin to figure out which ones you like the most. It took an hour to beat Jinpachi with Feng Wei but managed to beat him on the first try with Steve Fox.
Dead or Alive 4, while I never played it, I love the presentation with 3 stages set within the Tri-Tower and you can even see in the background in the casino street stage. Then the story mode has nearly everyone drawn to the tower and their stories are all going on at the same time, so there's more than one canon ending but you have to go through them before you unlock Helena's story, which was, at the Aerosmith song being played put it... It's amazing.
Tekken and Dead or Alive's story modes have gotten worse since. T6 and DOA5 were really dumb and messy but there's still plenty of fun. T7's story was way too short and had so much filler and sub-plots that went nowhere and the climax isn't even the end of the saga. DOA6's story is somehow even worse than that.
I hope a Tekken 8 can just be built with Tekken 7's rollback netcode and balance so time can be used to add some proper content for people who can't play competitively and have no one left to play these games with.
I always thought MK Deception Konquest mode was cool as hell because I learned a lot about the MK world than just the game.
MK armageddon was the king of this shit
BlazBlue CT was engaging enough in single player that I stuck around
Abyss Mode in Continuum Shift 2 is why I'm still interested in the series despite barely playing any games. Boss Versions of characters and blowing up your stats.
It was also a thing in Dragon Ball games on PS1 and the PS2 though most PS2 games did it through equippable items rather than a campaign with some sort of progression.
Blazblue is just an awesome series in general that is severely underappreciated. BBtag was sort of a curve ball but not a bad game either.
Used to love unlocking hidden fighters in old fighting games. Even SF4 used to have rosters behind unlock when I first played it.
Personally I think that Melee has a great single player experience. All star, Event, Break the Targets, Adventure and Classic modes provided me with a stupid amount of entertainment when I was younger.
Besides that the only thing I can think of is the +R story mode. I got into +R recently and been playing the story mode and it has been fun for me and I'm planning on playing the Xrd story mode as well as strive when it comes out. Besides that, there are mission modes like in UNICLR that I found fun because I really like how that game plays but that's pretty much it honestly. Not many recent FGs have had interesting single player experiences.
Melee, sure! Thats an experience that has been increasingly nerfed over future versions of the game though with the exception of subspace emissary imo
@@doogies TRUEEE How could I forget Subspaceeeeeee. Playing it recently you can see that it's a bit rough around the edges but it does so much that others haven't that it's insane and it's still fun. Even World of light that is massive feels like a failure to me because, while it has some good ideas, it became WAYYY too repetitive for what it was and it was wayy too long.
I actually enjoy arcade mode on the idea that it used to be where we learned the lore via a character's ending. Granted a lot of games have a dedicated story mode, but i still like the feeling when i beat arcade and get an ending specific to the chatacter i just used. A character's story could connect me more to them, and was usually how I picked my fav in a game versus a tier list.
exactly. even if the story is bunk, its something you take with you and develops their character
I miss when fighting games came with huge ammounts of single player content already in the disk:
Tekken 3 had: survival mode, tekken ball, tekken force and the idea of unlocking characters and endings (this was before DLC)
the MK games from the ps2 era had: chess kombat, kombat kart (mario kart clone), koncuest mode wihch is a multiple hour adventure game, the crypt
Soul calibur had: adventure mode where you can make your own deciciosn chaning the story and fights, a special mode where your custome made character had his own adventure.
the dragon ball games from the ps2 era had huge ammounts of content: story mode, what if mode, finfind secrets.
the amount that we have received in initial packaging as time has gone on feels less and less
I agree but everytime I talk like this everyone just calls me a fuking boomer with nostalgia sindrome who doesn't want to spend money to support developers, so...
Just remembered a fighting game I played a lot when I was younger with a unique approach to single player - One Must Fall 2097, a DOS game where you played as giant robots. As you did matches you'd win prize money which you could put into improving your mech with permanent upgrades. It encouraged you to win as decisively as possible because you also had to pay for repairs if you lost or got really messed up in the fight. It was pretty simplistic but addictive and kept me playing it for a long time. Also the menu theme kicks ass.
never heard of it, ill check it out
Soul Edge and Alpha 3 stood out with fantastic single player experiences. Can’t understand why Capcom hasn’t repeated something like this in any of their other titles. Unlocking all the secret characters in Marvel vs Capcom 2 was also a blast.
One of the points that stood out to me was the one you talked about it at the end.
Targeting the core/fgc player is vital but ensuring that you include stuff that appeals to people who don’t even play the game yet is massive but also seems really tough to pin down. Things like team battle in Tekken or similar party modes in other games suddenly become a lot more important if you are aiming at people who might only dip into the game to play with friends or relatives in a casual setting.
It’s the sort of stuff that I have dismissed before so it is cool to have to reconsider that if you’re thinking about what are the weird little side modes that appeal to a 10 year old who’s playing their first fighting game. For boomers like me it’s something that I massively take for granted as I am maybe too stuck in the fgc mindset.
you need to bring in new folk. thats the whole point. thanks for watching
People clown on him for good reason but this makes me think of this Malcolm Gladwell video about customer satisfaction, marketing and product design: th-cam.com/video/iIiAAhUeR6Y/w-d-xo.html
It touches on stuff like how people don’t tell you what they actually want and how businesses get stuck trying to ask people the right question.
I think that’s part of the problem for FG devs honestly. There’s a lot of obvious stuff that they get wrong but on top of that there’s things that they don’t even know how to ask or know where to start.
I miss KOF xi’s “mission mode” instead of character specific ones they had 50 random scenarios with different characters, I remember you have Ryo and had to parry King’s leader super which was 14 fireballs at different elevations or something. Needless to say I got reallllll good with Ryo’s parry after that
i think it would be cool to have both!
I poured hours and hours and hours into VF4:Evo. Started in the tutorial to learn basics, took that to the arcade quest mode, then back to more advanced tutorials when I was ready, used that knowledge to get further in quest mode. Having named enemies at specific locations that had noticeably unique play styles was a magical experience that I don't think will ever be replicated. VF4:Evolution will forever be my gold standard.
Great to hear! I had a similar experience with VF4:E
Seeing a lot of people say Smash Melee and for good reason. That game had an abundance of single player content whether it was:
-unlocking characters
-adventure mode
-home run contest
-break the targets
-classic (arcade) mode
-10/100/endless melee mode
-playing against/watching CPUs
-Collecting trophies
-Mission mode (this one was my favorite)
Doing all of this single player content incentivised playing and improving at the game without throwing tutorials at the player because a lot of the single player content could be difficult at times. (Most of these can also be played co-op as well)
agreed! melee hit in this regard for sure
Even though I have fun playing online, I tend to get some anxiety/stress from competitive play since I'm certainly not great at fighters. A singleplayer mode can be a nice way to cool off and continue enjoying the game without any pressure - games like MVC3 I was pretty happy just messing around in training mode for hours but I'll always explore singleplayer stuff. Even I couldn't stand survival mode in SFV though. I was defending SFV at launch because I thought all I really needed was good gameplay and decent netcode but I really do think the lack of modes contributed to me falling off the game. I've been looking at Granblue because I heard it had a focus on that aspect but if that stuff is disappointing, that's a bummer.
sometimes the single player shit is cool to chill with yeah
In terms of single player I always thought Red Earth was a pretty interesting not often discussed one. There are only a few playable characters and the other characters essentially exist as bosses in the single player mode, similar to the first Street Fighter. I honestly can't think of another fighting game like it.
I also always liked smash's single player content a lot. I really enjoyed subspace emmisary in brawl, regardless of what anyone says about it. I also really enjoyed the P4 Arena story mode and how it was a continuation of the storyline of the RPG, it's a genius move honestly because even if you have no interest in fighting games you'll still get it if you're a fan of the original game to play it for that alone.
Red earth was a weird, very experimental game. would be cool to see a re release with some of those ideas revisited
Oh also congrats on 10k subs! Keep the vids comin!
We will! Its thanks to folks like you man!
the single player mode for sc2 is the absolute standout in my mind, the fun and sometimes frustrating stipulations on matches kept it fresh and fun for when i couldnt get the friends over to play matches
Soul edge, SC2-3 hit hard for this
Even as somebody who really only plays online in FGs, I couldn't agree with this more. I'd love for modern FGs fo have more in depth single player modes. Like shit what if somebody made an actually good version of the dungeon crawler mode in Ergheiz, that'd be sick as fuck.
i dont play them either, generally, but i recognize the value
I so agree with this. Or like a Tobal dungeon crawl mode. Tekken Force went sorta far with that and they gave up on that.
I'm not any good at fighting games, so as far as single player content goes, I find myself enjoying character specific trials. It's nice to make believe that I can learn how a character is supposed to be played.
i dont think you are alone!
The first fighter I got was Super Street Fighter 4 on 3ds and I had a blast playing through everyone's arcade modes and trying to line up how the stories fit together. It was cool how you'd get animated cutscenes in the beginning and the end of the arcade mode. Really felt like a reward to watch that final scene.
I think thats one of the lesser rewarding ones but that shows even that can be a good experience for some people
Them's Fightin' Herds has a really interesting story mode as well, despite the fact that you can only currently play as Arizona. You get to explore a pixel world, and aside from fighting enemies (sometimes several at once), and bosses that actually challenge you, they even made use of the 2D fighting perspective for platforming sections designed around Arizona's movement options. So sometimes, you need to do super jumps, or short hops in order to traverse through these areas.
TFH i cant comment on but i hear good things
There's always the obvious ones like Tekken 3's Force Mode and Ball Mode, Smash stuff, and of course just discovering things in training mode but man.. I seem to remember spending a lot of time with CVS1. Picking up the game for the first time, wondering to myself, "What the fuck is a millennium?". I had to be like 10, 11 or so because I know there was no way we got that game on release as poor as we were. Also, way too old to not know what a millennium is.
Anyways, after I got done ogling Mai's animations in training mode, I definitely spent days and days just messing around with the custom colors. Making sick palettes for every character. This game was my introduction to SNK characters so it was a lot to take in. Super fun.
the first ones you list got mad burn for me
That remind me of a friend of mine that is not into fighting games but he was getting interested in Strive and the first thing he asked me was if there's gonna be a campaign, i didn't know what to tell him.
yea, I was actually excited to see how they change M.O.M. mode in this GG and then the features trailer came out and I was like "... oh no, really?"
@@breaka666
I'm sure they didn't show everything and are leaving some things as surprises.
i dont think he is alone
See if he intrested in the older titles, I haven't played them but they seem to have a huge story mode to them.
I have always loved fighting games and I almost exclusively play arcade mod/towers/etc. I love the feeling, the speed, the crispy combos, and just everything fighting games in general but I just don't have a drive to play competitively. I love watching tourneys and am amazed by high level play but I stick to playing with buddies and singleplayer. Sometimes it feels like the genre just doesn't want people like me around but I'll always love FGs.
Mk11 kept me engaged in single player. I felt like beyond the story mode, I also had fun playing the towers, then moving on to the challenge towers then getting decent enough on online.
Like kinda got back into games with mk11. Everyone says how much better mkx is. I bought it and played it. The problem is I just don’t want to have to relearn a new game. Hell the characters are so unique even learning a new character is a big commitment
Soul Caliber campaigns were excellent. I really liked the features in Guilty Gear Isuka, it has this beat em up mode that was really fun. It let you use the characters in a different way while still learning the inputs. Playing through as Chipp was a blast.
Soul Edge and Calibur 1-3 hit different
I have like over a thousand hours on fighting games but the number of matches I've had with other people is less than 20
Not everyone can just find someone else to play with easily
i dont think its that rare!
Real talk, loading the arcade mode with tons of secrets always does it for me. When I played Street fighter 3 as a kid on the PS2. I had so much fun trying to figure out how to get all the alternate rival fights in the arcade mode. And one time I got q to fight q and the game made a special intro for him. it blew my mind cause I never realized that he doesnt normally show up until that moment and it made me super curious about his lore and did I have to do to trigger that event.
Alpha 3 is probably the most fun single player experience i've had with a fighting game. I remember playing world tour on dreamcast or just me and my brother trying to run through dramatic Battle co-op. I really wish they'd add more modes like this in the future.
was pretty fun for sure
Gotta be the adventure mode in the Tobal games.
Since I had bad internet at the time and didn’t want to subject others to it, I would play arcade and shit. Games like injustice 2 and MK11 were enjoyable with the modes they provided
NRS titles hit with this very well
Red Earth. I would love to see more fighting games with the Red Earth single player experience, just the fact that you unlock your special moves one by one would help new players to get used to the motion and see in which situations the move is usefull
I loved Mortal Kombat Deception's story mode. I played that game for months and never ever played against another human being.
Rival Schools's Disc 2 with all its cool shit.
100% Agree. Mentioned Rival Schools in my comment. That game was really fun.
the minigames bruh...home run derby
+R survival mode is godlike for me and maybe cpu vs cpu in versus mode, it's kinda cool to see bullshit ai fighting againts another bullshit ai
challenge mode in AC/+R was hype
I remember being really impressed by the first BlazBlue's story mode. The time loop made it so that for once it actually made sense that all characters would face the same end boss, with a true ending waiting at the end of everything. For anyone who likes anime time loop stories it's really superb, well executed, and capable of pulling a good amount of hours.
BB Abyss mode >>>
Guilty gear missing link is probably one of the best single player fighting game experiences ive had. The arcade/story was always cool to see unfold as you grew to know the characters and finally beating justice your first time feels nothing short of amazing. The OG Guilty Gear sold me on the whole series
The OST too. shit was fire
There’s a reason Netherrealm fighters sell so well beyond stuff like fatalities. Best single player content by far.
true
Easy, SC3's Chronicles of the Sword, 12 year old me wasted so many hours on that game mode that I literally can't think of Soulcalibur without picturing that gamemode
Calibur 1-3 and soul edge 1p stuff hit different
For fighting content, Soul Calibur 2 is one of my favorites as a single player game. Not only were the mission modifiers a blast, but unlocking new weapons injected something into a fighter I never really got unless I played an action or rpg title. It fused so many things together that I loved about games.
For general modes I just love Tekken Bowl so much. Arcade bowling is the exact kind of thing that I love - taking characters WAY out of their element is just so much fun to see, and it's actually just fun to sit and play, especially with some friends over!
Great vid, Obama.
thanks for coming through man!
I had so much fun playing the single player content in Tekken 3, Tekken 5, and Tekken 6. The endings were a good motivation to play every character's arcade mode, and the beat em up modes (Tekken Force / Scenario Campaign) provided a new way to play the game, especially in Tekken 6's case which had a plethora of stages and loot drops, giving it a ton of replayability. Tekken 6 had a very expansive customization system with so many unique items to unlock, which is still the best in the series.
I'm still all for arcade modes. I like the character specific self contained stories that come from them more than I like some big overarching story mode. It lets you get to the meaty fighting game sections without too much exposition, but it also lets you get to know a little more about the character you picked, their background and motivations, which you really don't get from something like "survival mode". Arcade modes were the perfect middle ground.
agreed. i just want more engaging stuff than play stages then play boss
Mortal Kombat 9 was where I started with putting time into fighting games and I can count the amount of online matches I played on one hand.
That game's story mode and singleplayer modes were unrivaled at the time, Smash was the only one that came close for me.
from that era, i agree. mk9 and subspace emissary were very good
YES! I'm in South Africa and the FGC here is very small. When I was growing up, apart from playing matches against my siblings from time to time, there wasn't a lot of multiplayer. So I always loved modes like Tekken Force, because I could enjoy the game on my own! It really is important, I miss it
Thanks for watching man! and I totally agree, its important
DBZ Budokai 3 has one of the tightest single player content; I lost count on how many times I breezed through Dragon Universe to unlock new characters, stages, and even super moves!
Smash 4 3DS has got to have one of the best, most replayable, single player experiences ever. Smash run is such a godly idea executed well enough that it allows for a lot of fun for a casual. I was casual competitive (interested in the competitive scene but still a casual) in smash for a long time and I remember playing smash run at lunch breaks in school, or when at family gatherings among other things. If you don't know, smash run is a rouge-like mode for smash 3ds (exclusively) where you run around a world of a few different variations, fighting enemy ai (not other fighters, actual enemies) and getting stat upgrades for different stats. There are also challenge rooms you can run into which range from braindead easy to decently difficult. After like 2 minutes of running around collecting stats, you and 3 other ai (fighters this time) duke it out in a variety of different ways, such as (race, climb, normal smash, etc). When you add custom special moves (2 new specials for each direction and each character) and custom equipment (changes stats and gives some new abilites) this game mode becomes incredibly fun. I really wish they brought this mode back for ultimate, as it is one of the best single player experiences in any fighting game, aside from maybe subspace emissary (which is also from a smash game).
The AI opponents at the end can be actual players, but the game is nice enough to let us fight AI as much as it sounds basic.
I haven't played too much SoulCalibur and some other games mentioned here, but I think Smash Run beats them all as well.
Smash Ultimate has the potential to be up there, but I would have taken Smash Run over what we got even if we got over a thousand Event Matches effectively. My problem is that stats are too important and impossible to separate from skills like reflecting shields.
Smash Run is still really playable with no bonuses but not broken if you equip a bunch of perks or custom moves.
dope to hear. i think melee and brawl 1p modes are better than 4 and ultimate, personally!
Coming from the very early point in fighting games I remember doing things like setting handicaps in SFII games to get bootleg training mode to practice things so when the EX series put those trials in the game for PS1 my friends and I put days into that mode alone. Imagine three teenagers sitting in a room with the correct amount of controllers to play versus mode opt instead to run trials all day long. Same with Vitua Fighter 4 for PS2. A friend and Instead of playing each other and probably getting nowhere by our selves played the quest mode together and it was still fun. The right single player modes can still be enjoyed by groups.
EX Series has some fun shit
Shadow Lab in KI is technically the best single player mode of all time, but it didn't get the attention it deserves.
i attribute that more to KI console woes than anything else. i think most ppl agree on this
3rd strike arcade mode. That soundtrack is the reason i play street fighter now.
the music scene on TH-cam that revolved around SF III back in the day was big stuff. I got into 3rd Strike too because of the music
SFA3 World Tour Mode, SFEX+A Combo Trials, GGXrd Rev2 Missions that taught you about matchups, and any game with a color edit option.
EX series isnt mentioned much but had great 1p content
I agree with this wholeheartedly.
There's a fighting game I play that's frustratingly close to being able to have good single player content
and that is Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3.
Two modes in particular are a great example of such wasted potential.
After release, there was a mode called Heroes and Heralds, which featured cards that activated various effects that alter
attributes, properties of moves, and more. Some of which are references to ideas cut in development such as everybody
having an air dash.
They didn't lean in to it all the way and could have done so much more with the mode.
The online faction mode is a nice idea but didn't last long. They could have made a quick story mode/campaign mode that gives context
and meaning to the online faction, and explain the whole herald thing to those not familiar with Galactus and the Silver Surfer.
That mode could have tied progression to things like the Card Ranks and the amount you can use during a battle. Also they could
have made special and reference battles using the effects and the existing cast to reference characters that didn't make the cut
or are not in the main cast. They could have also let you use the cards in offline Versus as an option or section that off in
the H&H Menu as well. TBH, Smash Ultimate's World of Light and Spirit Board are a good example of what I'm getting at.
Then there's Mission mode, which would have benefited massively if you could create your own missions and submit them online
to the public and friends. The in game missions are really dated and suboptimal at this point in time making them kinda useless.
Also the mode would benefit through allowing THCs and TACs since most Team BnBs integrate them into
combos now.
heroes and heralds mode was tight
My first fighting game was probably KOF97 and I loved how there was a story just from who you were fighting (e.g., Riot of Blood Iori/Leona, Chris/Yashiro/Shermie, Orochi). There's some variety to make me want to replay the levels after finishing it a few times.
kof story is wild but thats cool to hear!
Growing up, the 3 fighting games that I can remember fondly offline were, Super Street Fighter II for the Genesis, Soul Calibur II for the Xbox and Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max for the PSP. Growing up, I was very shy and didn't have a lot of friends, so playing by myself is what I mostly did, and each of these games has so many fond memories for specific reasons with the era of my life. While I enjoy fighting games in a different perspective now (playing competitively), there was a time in my life where offline modes were the things I enjoyed the most in fighting games, and without that appreciation, I wouldn't be competing now and enjoying the FGC.
A3 max and SC2 hit different for sure
In terms of Story I think Xrd was a recent single player experience that I enjoyed a lot. I know you don't really interact much and it's just a bunch of cutscenes, but I had a ton of fun with those... So much that I can't wait to play Strive and see the rest of it. My curiosity for the story is a very big selling point in the case of that game (heck, I even bought GG2 so I could see the story properly instead of just reading about it online!). It should be mentioned that arcade and M.O.M. modes in Xrd were also fun to me though, so it feels like a complete package for me.
As for older games I think the example you gave on the video (Alpha 3), is a great one. World Tour was a really cool single player experience and Soul Calibur is a series where I normally spend most of my time in the character creation or single player modes than anything else, so that might say something... lol
In the end I would also like to see devs trying more with single player modes! GranblueVS single player mode might not have been perfect, but I can definitely see the seeds for something better in the future if devs keep going through a similar route...
I dont prefer the movie style story modes or VN style modes but they have a value
Good vid. A3 World Tour on Dreamcast was amazing. Even CvS2 had create a groove for casual fun.
Couldn't agree more!
I had an idea for a fighting game single player mode the other day, which is basically have a single player mode that's just a metroidvania style game where your character controls exactly the same way as it does in a normal match, but you're running around and exploring a big seamless map. have sections of it gated off by bosses (other playable characters) that play like a normal match but they show off a particular play style of that character that you need to learn how to beat in order to progress through the game (sort of like how the footsies arcade mode works).
but you're right, there's no money to implement stuff like this even if the devs wanted to