Story

What it is

A story accompanies nearly every fighting game. Moreover, there is usually a slightly different story for each character within a game.

 

However, most of the story is usually not revealed within the game itself (with opening, ending, and intermediate cutscenes, if they exist, tending to be relatively short). Those who are interested in the full story (and particularly the introduction) generally have to resort to official materials such as instruction manuals, strategy guides, magazine articles, and web sites (not to mention the many potential unofficial sources out there).

 

Some games have a pretty heavy story element in-game (Arcana Heart for one), but others nearly have the whole story expunged (like Guilty Gear, which has a backstory but almost nothing to indicate such in-game).

There are some series that have gone on long enough that you may have little idea what is going on if you are not familiar with previous installments. KOF is probably the guiltiest example (though admittedly, with KOF, you could have paid rapt attention to all previous items in the series and still not know what’s going on in some cases...).

Finally, in some cases, different series can take place in the same universe.

Further reading

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ぱふぅ,
Attributed (but not necessarily endorsed) under
Creative Commons 3.0.
Based off the article on the kakuge.com wiki, edited on or before 5 January 2009.
Unofficial translation published by BRPXQZME / Alfie Parthum 4 February 2009. No unauthorized redistribution permitted.