Proof That Street Fighter IV's Plot is Ridiculous, In Chart Form

[Keane Ng]

Proof That Street Fighter IV's Plot is Ridiculous, In Chart Form

Everybody knows that the plot for any Street Fighter game is utterly absurd, but just because it's ridiculous doesn't mean that's it's not densely and unbelievably complicated, as this intricate chart shows.

Believe it or not, there are people out there coming up with story backgrounds for Street Fighter games. Each character has a backstory, which ties in with some other character's backstory, and so and so forth until there is some kind of reasonable justification for all these people in these games to suddenly find each other and duke it out for whatever reason.

But if you thought it was simple enough as "Sagat wants to beat Ryu, so they fight," oh boy, you have no idea. There are games out there with books and books full of lore, but I'm not sure if quantity necessarily trumps complexity here, at least if we're going by the diagram Capcom has prepared as a one-stop shop for Street Fighter IV plot questions. And here I thought Lost was convoluted.

EventHubs has a bigger version [http://www.eventhubs.com/images/2009/sep/01/street-fighter-4-plot-chart-diagram/] of the diagram, which apparently is not without some enlightening information. If you scratched your head when Guile encountered Abel and Abel remarked that he'd seen Guile's Sonic Boom before, well here's your answer: apparently Abel had been rescued by Charlie (Guile's war buddy who he's been searching for) some years ago.

And apparently the boss you fought in the game, Seth, is only one of many Seth clones, #15 to be exact, and the genetic model used to build Seth was also used to build Abel. That explains why they look alike, but I guess it also means Abel's a clone? Guess that one went right over my head.

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[John Funk]

I actually think BlazBlue's is more convoluted, but Street Fighter has the problem that there's a bunch of different canons. The different games, the animated movies, the UDON comic books...

 

[Rigs83]

I once saw a similar chart for Metal Gear Solid and it was more ridiculous than any of the cut scenes.

 

[The Great JT]

Shouldn't the plot of a Street Fighter game just be "punch fools in the head"?

 

[scotth266]

I've seen something like this before in EGM, only in that case it was a diagram of the plotline of a Metal Gear Solid game.

Doesn't make this any less awesome/hilarious though.

I actually think BlazBlue's is more convoluted, but Street Fighter has the problem that there's a bunch of different canons. The different games, the animated movies, the UDON comic books...

You have Blazblue?

Is it good? I was really interested in getting it.

 

[ghalkhsdkssakgh]

There's actually a story? I always assumed it was just 'Person X meets Person Y. Person Y dislikes Person X. Person X dislikes Person Y. Faces are punched. Repeat.'

 

[John Funk]

I've seen something like this before in EGM, only in that case it was a diagram of the plotline of a Metal Gear Solid game.

Doesn't make this any less awesome/hilarious though.

I actually think BlazBlue's is more convoluted, but Street Fighter has the problem that there's a bunch of different canons. The different games, the animated movies, the UDON comic books...

You have Blazblue?

Is it good? I was really interested in getting it.

Yes. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/6240-Review-BlazBlue-Calamity-Trigger]

 

[Woe Is You]

There's actually a story? I always assumed it was just 'Person X meets Person Y. Person Y dislikes Person X. Person X dislikes Person Y. Faces are punched. Repeat.'

Plenty of fighting games prove that you don't have to dislike a person to punch them in the face. I mean, heck, in SF4 Ryu does just that to Sakura and she doesn't even seem to mind it.

Doubly so for the hilarious "Hey, I'm your fan. Let me punch you in the abdomen!" exchange Abel has with Fei Long. It isn't quite as ridiculous as fighting over cabbage [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUMnFvAzqbU] but it's up there.

 

[Nutcase]

I am disappoint. The chart isn't complicated at all.

 

[Woe Is You]

Yeah, a chart has to at least involve time travel in some shape or form qualify as complicated.

 

[Altorin]

I actually got MOST of that from playing Street Fighter iv.

sure, it looks really crazy when it's in a huge sprawling flowchart, but MOST of that stuff is clearly discussed in the scenes during each characters story mode.

 

[Brok3n Halo]

Aw, this is no where near as complicated as it should be. It completely ignores several relationships outlined by the Street Fighter 2 and Alpha timelines (4 is a prequel to 3 and therefor 3 story hasn't happened yet).

Examples off the top of my head:
- Cammy is an ex-Bison henchman (via brainwashing in Alpha)
- Chun-Li's father died investigating Bison before SF2 (hostility)
- Bison killed Chalie before SF2 and Guile wants revenge (two missing hostilities)
- Sagat killed Dan's father, and is a Bison henchman until SF3, so he still would be at this time

There's plenty more, but that's all I can think of right now, hope someone creates a more complete version, can be researched pretty extensively on the wikipedia.

All that being said, any semi-modern Mortal Kombat relation timeline would fatality this with it's complicatedness.

 

[Aardvark]

Dan's story is the greatest.

"I tried to call you, but you didn't pay your phone bill"

 

[Kiutu]

If you scratched your head when Guile encountered Abel and Abel remarked that he'd seen Guile's Sonic Boom before, well here's your answer: apparently Abel had been rescued by Charlie (Guile's war buddy who he's been searching for) some years ago.

And apparently the boss you fought in the game, Seth, is only one of many Seth clones, #15 to be exact, and the genetic model used to build Seth was also used to build Abel. That explains why they look alike, but I guess it also means Abel's a clone? Guess that one went right over my head.

I knew all that. Why? I played the single player. I dont think Street Fighter is as bad as the article makes it, long as you pay attention a bit. Not like MGS or anything.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Examples off the top of my head:
- Cammy is an ex-Bison henchman (via brainwashing in Alpha)
- Chun-Li's father died investigating Bison before SF2 (hostility)
- Bison killed Chalie before SF2 and Guile wants revenge (two missing hostilities)
- Sagat killed Dan's father, and is a Bison henchman until SF3, so he still would be at this time

June and Juli are clone sisters of Cammy who were built by Bison...

 

[antipunt]

How about the fact that Cammy is a Bison-clone.

In other words, every time Cammy's load-out sequence is displayed....
...yeah, you know whose ass that is.

Spoiler

Bison's ass

 

[katsa5]

I am disappoint. The chart isn't complicated at all.

I'd agree, this barely covers a quarter of the craziness that is the Street Fighter Universe.

Aw, this is no where near as complicated as it should be. It completely ignores several relationships outlined by the Street Fighter 2 and Alpha timelines (4 is a prequel to 3 and therefor 3 story hasn't happened yet).

Examples off the top of my head:
- Cammy is an ex-Bison henchman (via brainwashing in Alpha)
- Chun-Li's father died investigating Bison before SF2 (hostility)
- Bison killed Chalie before SF2 and Guile wants revenge (two missing hostilities)
- Sagat killed Dan's father, and is a Bison henchman until SF3, so he still would be at this time

There's plenty more, but that's all I can think of right now, hope someone creates a more complete version, can be researched pretty extensively on the wikipedia.

All that being said, any semi-modern Mortal Kombat relation timeline would fatality this with it's complicatedness.

I suppose they're only interested in trying to explain the relationships involved in 4 and not bothering delve too heavily into the others.

I'm surprised that they left out the Cammy-Bison relationship -- that she's his clone-- or the Rose relation -- he stole her body while they prepared a new one, and that she was born as a cosmic reaction to Bison's psycho power.

Oh, and remember, the entire Alpha saga occurs within the 7 years between SF and SF2. So, Sagat left Shadowloo at the end of his plot line in Alpha 3, which all happens before SF2, so he should be unaffiliated in SF4 and SF3 (if he were in it, which he's not). By this logic, he should be unaffiliated in SF2, but Capcom's not one to rewrite the classic game to reflect that change.

Note: all of this is subject to change due to Capcom's writing department having to pull more story out of their butts.

 

[T'Generalissimo]

Abel remarked that he'd seen Guile's Sonic Boom before

How is that not a euphemism for something really, really dirty? What a wasted opportunity.

 

[randommaster]

Shouldn't the plot of a Street Fighter game just be "punch fools in the head"?

Don't be rediculous, that would be boring and stupid.

You have to have kicking, too.

There's actually a story? I always assumed it was just 'Person X meets Person Y. Person Y dislikes Person X. Person X dislikes Person Y. Faces are punched. Repeat.'

Plenty of fighting games prove that you don't have to dislike a person to punch them in the face. I mean, heck, in SF4 Ryu does just that to Sakura and she doesn't even seem to mind it.

Doubly so for the hilarious "Hey, I'm your fan. Let me punch you in the abdomen!" exchange Abel has with Fei Long. It isn't quite as ridiculous as fighting over cabbage [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUMnFvAzqbU] but it's up there.

That's pretty ridiculous, but all I can say is that Hitomi must use a crapload of starch when doing her laundry.