A Musical Of Punches: Disjointed Narrative and Street Fighter V

Perspectives

Abstract: Street Fighter V’s long awaited story mode is terrible. The writing is poor and the plot is something you’ve already seen a thousand times. The narrative and gameplay poorly align, transforming the story mode into a bizarre musical where punches and shoryukens are the songs. Like many other games, Street Fighter V makes the mistake of relying too strongly on film as the model on how to shape its story. When video games lean into what makes them unique from movies, like their interactivity and perspective, their narratives can succeed.

Let’s not beat around the bush here, Street Fighter V’s story mode is bad. Almost unplayably so. It is a huge bummer. As a kid that grew up glued to the shiny Street Fighter II arcade cabinet, I spent hours creating the world of Street Fighter in my mind. From character dialogue to stages to moves, I used everything I could to create the universe. Given my past experience with Capcom fighting games my expectations for Street Fighter V’s story mode were quite low. It promised to be a step above the comic book freeze frame storytelling of Capcom’s games past games, with 3D models and dialogue and a compelling narrative. I suppose it delivers two of the three.

As of writing this, I’m a little past the story mode’s halfway point. What I’ve experienced so far is 90 minutes of stilted dialogue and haphazardly assembled vignettes that roughly come together to form a narrative. Street Fighter V’s story mode represents so much of what has been wrong with narrative in video games. The writing is god awful. The plot is something a middle-schooler could have whipped up on a lazy afternoon. The action is disjointed—characters hop around with little to no sense of geography or time, motivations shift dynamically and without purpose, and every scene is just an excuse to hobble together an eclectic group of characters to, you guessed it, fight each other. Street Fighter V’s final offense is one that’s been committed over and over again in video games: the gameplay and story are totally disconnected.

Guys, please. Street Fighter V's story isn't worth the fist bump.

Street Fighter V’s story mode is broken up into two discrete parts: non-interactive cutscenes and fights. Never do the two really meet. The narrative heft is put forward in the cutscenes. The Shadaloo bad guys explain why they want to EMP the world, the good guys talk with one another to plan how to stop the evil organization, etc. The fighting, however, exists almost totally outside of the story. In fact, most fights in the story feel forcefully injected between the plot that’s taking place. Characters will get mad at one another at the drop of a dime, or out of the blue will demand a test of a fighter’s skill. Anything to get two people to clash. Playing through the story mode is a strange experience. The shift between cutscene movie and fights is jarring. Many characters come across as trigger-happy psychopaths looking for any excuse to hadouken one another. Street Fighter V’s story mode never lets characters earn their right to fight one another, nor does it skillfully blend fighting in with the larger narrative.

I'm sure you can guess the outcome of the scene by now.

In many ways, playing Street Fighter V’s story mode is like watching a musical. The characters go about their business until BAM, they suddenly need to fight. Like a musical in which people suddenly need to sing. This isn’t the first time this particular dissonance between gameplay and story has been compared to theater. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World director Edgar Wright described how he approached blending the titular character’s fights into the film saying, “We thought it should play out like a musical in a way in terms of the fights are not dissimilar to the songs.” Scott Pilgrim leaned heavily on video games as an influence. This approach worked for Scott Pilgrim, perhaps given the strength of the writing and directing of the film. It doesn’t change the fact that the fights are jarring, dislodging the viewer (if only momentarily) from the experience. That jolt has a more profound impact when playing a video game like Street Fighter V. The player agency in the action combined with the general interactivity of video games make it so that, when gameplay is inelegantly inserted into game’s narrative, you’re thrown pretty far off from the experience.

Scott Pilgrim is a good musical of punches. Street Fighter V is not.

Street Fighter V also suffers from a problem very recently highlighted by the great Brad Bird. Bird shared his concerns about using video games as inspiration for filmmaking and storytelling in a recent interview. The director of The Iron Giant and The Incredibles cited video games’ point of view problem. He said, “I feel like video games are a bad influence for storytelling because they are not directed points of view. They are about floating around universes…a lot of times it’s just motion.” Story mode in Street Fighter V is all about universe and not about a singular, or cohesive, point of view. Perspective shifts happen every couple minutes. Huge fluctuations in characters and tones and locations happen so frequently it is easy to get lost in the fold. By giving every character equal representation in the plot, no one matters. The end result is schizophrenic and astonishingly boring. There’s nothing compelling you to get attached or to move forward.

As inflammatory as Bird’s statement can come off, he does hit on a truth that video game narrative creators need to realize. Simply adapting a film approach and applying it to video games rarely works. It is immediately obvious that Street Fighter V wants the story mode to feel like a movie. Fortunately we already know how well a Street Fighter movie works, and it’s not very pretty. Games have long thought going the Hollywood route is the way to bring great narratives into video games. Rarely is that the case. Only the true masters of the craft can get away with this approach, like Naughty Dog with The Last of Us and Uncharted 4. Nearly every other film-inspired story mode in video games comes across, at best, like a good “B” movie. It’s a point of view problem, it’s a length problem, and it’s an interactivity problem.

Unless you're Naughty Dog, your studio might want to think twice about
making your story "cinematic."

While Street Fighter V fundamentally misunderstands what makes a video game story great (hint: it’s not about making a musical of punches), other games shape narrative construction to fit the unique vehicle that is video games. In response to Brad Bird’s statement about video game narrative, creative lead at Naughty Dog Neil Druckman tweeted, “Someone needs to play Brothers [A Tale of Two Sons] or Ico or Papers Please or Portal or Inside or The Secret of Monkey Island or…” Druckman is right and Bird is wrong. There are fantastic narrative in games. Druckman’s list has something in common, though—none of these games structure their story like a movie. Video game narratives work when they lean into the interactivity inherent in games, and from the unique perspectives games can offer the player. Certain narrative devices like environmental storytelling work so well in games, even outshining their film peers. Games like Gone Home and Portal and Ico and Firewatch have fantastic narratives that would never work the same way on film. Video game narratives have the potential for greatness when they are designed from the ground up to be a video game narrative, not a movie facsimile.

The best video game stories adapt narrative structures to fit
the interactive medium they exist within.

For my love of Street Fighter and its characters I’ll fight my way to the end of Street Fighter V’s story mode. I owe it to my arcade heritage and my fondness for the fighting game community. I just wish Street Fighter V was more Shadow of the Colossus and less “action-movie the fighting game musical."

Greatness From Small Beginnings

Review

Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, Naughty Dog (PS4)

Abstract: Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is a fantastic send off to one of PlayStation’s marquee franchises. Naughty Dog is peerless at crafting cinematic narrative adventures and their skill shines through in Uncharted 4. The game tells a more nuanced narrative than previous entries, filled with great character moments, dialogue, and themes that resonate throughout your experience. Uncharted 4 features smart improvements to nearly all gameplay systems, from more rewarding combat to more thrilling platforming. Uncharted 4 will no doubt be a highlight of 2016 and is easily one of my favorite games this year.

Sic parvis magna. “Greatness from small beginnings.” These are the words that accompanied the intrepid Nathan Drake throughout his five game journey. The words ring true for the franchise as a whole. Naughty Dog had accrued trust with their earlier titles, Crash Bandicoot and Jak and Daxter, but hadn’t really made it into the hall of the ‘greats’. Their first outing on the PS3, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, looked to propel the studio to new heights. The jaw-dropping Uncharted 2 all but solidified their claim. Nearly a decade after the series began, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End marks the conclusion to the widely-acclaimed series. And what an ending it was.

I apologize in advance for a bit of hyperbole here, but Uncharted 4 is the best action movie I’ve ever played. Uncharted 4 builds upon the series’s past successes meaningfully, draws inspiration from its contemporaries, and delivers a nuanced adventure that is not only satisfying in its own right but confidently concludes Nathan Drake’s adventures.

Uncharted 4 takes place several years after the conclusion of the previous game. We find Nathan Drake living a quiet life, working salvage and stamping papers behind a desk. The game’s story revolves around Sam Drake, Nathan’s older brother (whom we had never heard of before). You quickly discover that Sam is not as dead as Nathan thought, and that he is in desperate need of Nathan’s help. Sam needs to finish an adventure the two started over 15 years ago – finding the legendary pirate Henry Avery’s long lost treasure. We follow their quest around the world, following hidden clues, solving deadly puzzles, fighting against an entire militia who wants the treasure for themselves, and for the first time, introspection. Uncharted 4’s narrative is more than just setpieces and globetrotting; it’s about Nathan Drake and the life he has led up to this point. Uncharted 4 is not a standalone adventure. Moreso than any Uncharted game before it, Uncharted 4 is a direct sequel to the narrative threads laid out by its predecessors. It’s for this fact that I want to clarify right now that you should not play Uncharted 4 before playing the previous Uncharted games. You will miss out on too much, from call backs to character moments.

Welcome to the end of a great adventure.

In reading other reviews, I’ve seen the word “mature” being tossed around to describe Uncharted 4’s story. Maturity is a complex and abstract concept, so I want to avoid using it here. Uncharted 4’s plot, however, is more nuanced than previous entries. It has a depth, mostly via a real exploration of its character’s motivations and personalities, that made what happens feel more substantive. As much as I loved Nathan from previous adventures, he was a pretty one note character – a quippy ubermensch. He was the fun-having, joke-cracking, bad guy-killing treasure hunter we all know from pulp fiction. In Uncharted 4, though, we’re given a more nuanced view of Drake. Why is he the way he has been in previous games? What motivates his treasure hunting? What makes him uncomfortable with normal life? Is Nathan Drake a good person? This exploration of character extends to many of the game’s supporting cast, from Sam to Elena to Sullivan. Character development is bolstered by Uncharted 4’s decision to pair Nathan up with a partner throughout the game. Similar to what we saw in The Last of Us, this partnering allowed for fantastic back and forths between characters (made even better by the game’s great writing). Perhaps the biggest compliment I can give the story is this: it never felt secondary to the action or setpieces. Uncharted 3 in particular felt like it wanted cool moments above all, and made a story to support their inclusion. In Uncharted 4, everything is about the end of Nathan’s adventure and his relationships to the people who know him best. Uncharted 4 wraps up Nathan Drake’s adventures in a deeply satisfying way.

 

There are action setpieces to be found, of course, but Uncharted 4
 always puts the characters and narrative first.

I appreciated the layers present in Uncharted 4’s narrative, too. The game is more than just one last adventure for a famous treasure hunter and his long lost brother. Uncharted 4 comments on the very nature of chasing impossible dreams. Nathan Drake’s last adventure is scaffolded with characters, and collectibles, that serve as an allegory for his arc. Essentially every character in the game, alive or dead, is a reflection of one of Nathan’s qualities. The overarching theme to the game is the cost of ambition. Naughty Dog does a phenomenal job at reinforcing this theme throughout, while avoiding clichés. For example, Uncharted 4 has phenomenal environmental storytelling. The world, and the collectibles within, offer side narratives and characters that meaningfully add to the story taking place at the game’s surface. Repeat playthroughs would no doubt further elucidate Uncharted 4’s dense narrative world, which makes me respect it all the more.

 

Where is the line between greed and ambition? What is
worth losing in pursuit of treasure?

Uncharted 4 is not just narrative, however. There is a whole lot to like about the gameplay. Uncharted 4 is a wonderful optimization of the franchise’s gameplay. Combat saw across the board improvements. For the first time, shooting felt asterisk-free “good.” Guns sound and look and aim like you would expect them to. Each weapon has an identity, which was great, as low ammo meant you constantly have to use whatever you can find. Enemy encounters feel handcrafted in the best possible way, giving players a dynamic environment that favors mobility and shifting tactics over hiding behind one piece of cover for the entire fight. Stealth has been improved, making it viable to silently take out the majority of your foes. Uncharted 4 added several quality of life features to combat as well. For players who want to engage with the story, but aren’t great at aiming, the game offers an auto-lock on feature that can be toggled on or off at any time. All enemies can be marked, giving players the tools to better plan their attack. On top of all that, Uncharted 4’s enemies are the least bullet sponge-y than they have ever been. Even on the hardest difficulty enemies go down with a few well-placed shots. This not only reinforces player skill but keeps the game’s momentum moving forward at all times.

Platforming, another essential part of Uncharted, has seen similar across the board improvements. The animations in this game are incredible, reinforcing the physicality of both the world and characters as you jump and climb your way around. Navigating through the environments has been made decidedly less constrained. Uncharted 4 offers several paths for players to take to get from A to B, from its more open environments down to even the handholds or ledges themselves. It removes the feeling of being shuttled down a corridor, enhancing immersion. Uncharted 4 introduces a series first handful of truly open environments. You have a set objective, but are free to wander and explore beautifully detailed and wide-open spaces. These are hit and miss, unfortunately. I enjoyed the sense of discovery and the great dialogue that happened while exploring, but overall the environments felt a bit too large (& too empty) to be worth scouring. A minor gripe to be sure, as you don’t spend long in any of these settings, but one that could have been tweaked to improve the player experience.

 

Encounters encourage mobility and experimentation.
No more being trapped behind chest high cover!

Puzzles make their return, of course, and are better than ever. For a game that so heavily relies on narrative momentum, puzzles can be a risky proposition. You don’t want the player to torture themselves trying to figure out something overly complex. Nor do you want them to be so easy they might as well have not been there. Uncharted 4 straddles this boundary perfectly. Some puzzles are more successful than others, but for the most part, all are just hard enough and just quick enough that I felt both satisfied to have solved it and happy to move forward. One puzzle in particular, found at the end of the game (symbols on floor squares), is now a franchise favorite of mine. Serious Indiana Jones vibes in all the right ways.

 

You won't be scratching your head too long trying to solve Uncharted 4's
puzzles. Which is great!

The biggest change to the Uncharted gameplay formula, rather than just refinements, is the addition of the rope. Nathan and his brother come equipped with a grappling hook-tipped rope that they use liberally throughout their adventure. The rope’s inclusion is odd at first, since Nathan was never previously the Tarzan type, but it eventually clicked and added a nice new layer to playing. Hilariously, its inclusion is even explained through the narrative. Swinging from cliff edge to cliff edge adds tension to platforming. Swinging around in the open air creates some beautiful vistas. Last minute hooking onto distant structures is built into some of the game’s best setpieces. The rope also adds to the dynamism of combat. Several of the game’s combat encounters have rope points, allowing you to swing action movie style from building to building, firing upon foes from midair. All it took was one dramatic midair headshot from my AK-47 to melt away all my rope skepticism. It’s a great addition.

It's hard not to grow attached to the rope. Moment-to-moment or action setpiece,
the rope is consistently fun.

As I mentioned on our podcast, Naughty Dog is peerless in the industry. No one can deliver gripping cinematic narrative adventures like they can. One of the ways in which they solidify their number one spot is just how fantastically detail oriented the team is there. Tender love and care bleed through every corner of Uncharted 4. For starters, Uncharted 4 is probably the most graphically stunning game I’ve ever seen. Character models, facial expressions, physics, environments: Uncharted 4 is jaw-droppingly gorgeous. I honestly do not even know how they do it. Uncharted 4 looks better than other games running at max specs on several thousand dollar PCs. It’s crazy.  The TLC goes much further than looks, though. Everything in the game is scripted well, reacts naturally, and feels real. The game has a ton of extra features and accommodations to players of all skill levels, interest levels, and engagement. Upon beating the game you unlock a wealth of content, including game modifiers (like spawning guns or bullet time mode) to aesthetic features (like a full 8-bit mode) to unlocking specific encounters for players to replay. The game’s epilogue in particular showcases how much Naughty Dog cares about its characters, its world, and its fans. Uncharted 4 is a rich game.

My eyes welled up with tears when I set the controller down at the end of my adventure. Uncharted is always a series I liked, but after A Thief’s End, it’s now a series I love. Nathan Drake is definitively done adventuring, so I guess I have to be too. It was great seeing him through his fantastic adventure, and I’m thrilled that Uncharted got a perfect send off with Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. I’ll miss you, buddy.

Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End

5/5

News & Views

9/26/15-10/2/15

Happy October everyone! Fall is here and The Impact Factor is here to keep delivering content goodness to you all. If you missed it yesterday, I made a post about October Scare Fest 2015, my month long plan to watch as many new horror movies as possible! I hope you’ll follow along with me as I watch some (hopefully) great films.

This week’s News & Views features writing about Twitch banning games, headshots in Destiny, how Middle Eastern developers can counteract negative stereotypes, and SOMA’s narrative design.

And of course you can check out the brand new episode of The Impact Factor podcast that was posted today! You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, or if you prefer other methods, check out our SoundCloud. We’re on YouTube too!

Spotlight

The Secret Developers of the Video Game Industry

Matt Leone, Polygon

Worth Reading

Four Years of the MADE: A Post Mortem

Alex Handy, Gamasutra

How Middle Eastern Game Makers Can Counteract Western Misconceptions

Jason Johnson, Kill Screen

Destiny one year on: Bungie's 12 months at the final frontier of gaming

Keith Stuart, The Guardian

Inside the original pitch for Uncharted

Andrew Webster, The Verge

Doing an HD Remake the Right Way

Lars Doucet, Fortress of Doors

With Comments

On my games being twice banned by Twitch

Robert Yang, radiator Design Blog

Yang writes about Twitch’s hypocrisy on banning streams of his games. Yang explores sexuality and bodies in game unlike any other developer out there, so it seems strange that despite the sexual nature of many other titles that are permitted on Twitch, only Yang’s seem to be targeted. Twitch really needs to get their banned games rules straight, and fast. In general, Yang is a great source of interesting game design and unique perspectives, so keep his work on your radar. It’s fascinating stuff.

Touched by a headshot

Ethan Gach, Kill Screen

Gach writes about a phenomenon that’s all too common for gamers, but if often impossibly difficult to describe. There are moment in games that can resonate deep within your core. Usually it’s small things: like for me, when I hit the baseball on the thickest part of the bat in Backyard Baseball or the dull “thud” of downing an enemy player in Modern Warfare 2. For Gach, it’s Destiny’s headshot. Destiny has extraordinarily satisfying first-person shooter gameplay, and it’s great to see how it can affect its players.

SOMA and the lost layer of narrative design

Adrian Chmielarz, The Astronauts

Chmielarz provides a fascinating take on one of my favorite games of the year, SOMA. Through his experience as a game designer, Chmielarz dissects what he sees as the ‘lost layer of narrative design’ in SOMA. That is, how the world isn’t perfectly interactable, which results in moments where immersion and player engagement are (briefly) lost. While the phenomenon he describes didn’t really affect my playthrough, it’s still a treat to read how a game designer reacts to the design of similar titles.

SOMA is a better game than Bioshock

Phillip Kollar, Polygon

Click bait title aside, Kollar’s article really got me think. What if SOMA is better than Bioshock? It is not a question I thought I would ever have to ask myself. But after reading through his points, I can’t say I totally disagree. An important note to remember, however, is that SOMA and Bioshock have totally different emphases and thematic content. SOMA explores parts of old school French enlightenment philosophy whereas Bioshock deconstructs Ayn Rand’s (bs) objectivism. I also appreciated Bioshock’s meta-narrative about that act of playing a game. The one thing I know for sure is that both are must-play, genre-redefining games deserving of your time.

Dying Light Creators Respond Amazing To Fan's Drunken Rant

Patrick Klepek, Kotaku

Klepek finds some of the best stories. A Twitter rant about how the electrical infrastructure in Dying Light’s city is completely wrong turned into a hilarious and genuine interaction between a developer and fans. Techland is now building quite a history of awesome social media moments (remember their ‘drink a glass of water, get free Dying Light DLC in response to Destiny’s preposterous Red Bull DLC content?). Cool stuff.