Question about VF5R success in Japan

"Tekken 4 and VF5 are both considered the worst in the series by most people and it took years for people to get into SF3."

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<span style='font-size: 8pt'>/flame coat: on</span>

 

And both tekken 4 and vf5 are considered the worst for opposite reasons.
Tekken 4 was too different from 3 and tag while VF5 was too similar to vf4/evo/ft. Namco took a chance while Sega banked on a sure thing.

 

If cut scenes/in game storyline would help sales why does Sega not implement it?

 

I doubt it's the story or some cut-scenes that sells a fighting game ...

 

Tekken, Street Fighter and to an extent Soul Calibur would like to have a word with you.

Seriously to casual players who mash in those games the story is everything. It gets them excited about the game and the characters too. Personally I could care less what happens to Devil Jin/Kazuya in the next Tekken but for some people their like "OMG Devil Jin is going to take on Devil Kazyua! And Jun is coming back!!!"

Face it... without character endings or even prologues to why the characters are there, most casual/newbies won't get into the characters and will throw it off to the side because it's boring. "There's no plot! I'm just fighting" hasn't really helped VF over the years. It wouldn't hurt to put a little something in there telling about the characters and their back stories. Bringing up rivalries between characters can make some people feel at home with the game.

While players like us choose a character based on their fighting style or play style some people prefer to choose characters based on their appeal to them via back stories and dialogue ya know?

 

Of course, characters shouldn't be flat. Every character in VF5 has its little side story that explains motivation, rivalries and what not. But that's where it remains: on the side. Characters are not picked because they want to win the tournament to earn money for their ill sister that is in need of costy medical treatment. They are picked because of their look, personality (bad-ass, ninja, hot girl), and style - probably not in this order. Fighting games are no RPGs, adventures, or Shenmues.

To state that plot is important to "casual" gamers is bold. There's no proof for that. In the end it comes down to accessibility vs. depth and whether the characters' appeal is "cool" enough to deal with.

With cut-scenes, we surely all agree, we - for example - mean those DoA-in-between-matches story-tellers in Arcade Mode, not the two-liners of a character at the end of a match that every fighting game provides.

 

I don't understand why people even still discuss the popularity of VF vs. Tekken.

VF is less "popular" than Tekken for the same reasons why calculus is less "popular" than algebra. It's harder and the majority of game players (even Japanese players) are scrubs.

That's it. End of story.

Flash, backgrounds, story, blah, blah, blah. None of it matters at all. As long as the VF series stays complex and difficult to master, it will be less popular. And if it becomes as stupid to play as Tekken, it won't be VF anymore and I'll personally stop playing it.

 

How is that statement true when VF was more popular then Tekken during the VF3 and 4 days in japan?

 

How much do those "Do-It-Yourself" Funerals run for?

 

i shit you not, probably 75% of guilty gear fans in the us only play it for the plot.

 

I know a big group of Guilty Gear players from a small city here in Brazil (around 20 people or so, a lot, considering the number of gamers there). 2 of them play for the gameplay, the rest play because of the pretty hentai characters and their backgrounds. This same group was put to play SF4 by one of the 2 guys who like the gameplay aspect of games, and everyone hated it because the characters are ugly and the anime scenes are "weak".

Deny it all you want, but this crap does make a difference for most gamers. Specially here in the west where people play at home and explore all aspects of the game (specially the ones who don't like competition too much).

I play FPS for the storyline and co-op mostly And I'm no expert at FPS. It's the same thing with fighters for other people.

 

Because Sega is not a particularly good business?

It's the only way to explain the Sega of the last 10 or so years.

 

Because Japanese players were not "scrubs" back in the day, they have just become "scrubs" after Tekken's popularity. I wonder how we would dub those "scrubs" if VF was still more popular. /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif

 

Ok check this out:

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3173079

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">BlazBlue, from the makers of the Guilty Gear, is getting a wide range of updates for its home port, most involving the new single-player story mode. "Simply playing through it will require more than 30 hours," general director Toshimichi Mori told Famitsu. "I think a lot of casual users enjoy the story modes [in fighting games], so we made an effort to allow people who want to enjoy the story and the characters to play through to the end."</div></div>Just like I said. :|