Hiya!

So, a lot has happened with Street Fighter 6 last week. Not only did we get a new character in Yasmine (who I think is pretty neat but generally mid-tier), Capcom also gave each and every character a slew of buffs and nerfs. This did mean some characters got stronger and some got weaker. Of course, with the introduction of Yasmine, that means she gets her very own Arcade story!

So, what is her lore? Why did she decide to hit the streets and become a fighter? Well, in essence, Yasmine’s Kuya/big brother goes missing and she falls into a state of depression. She starts “doomscrolling” and sees a video of Manon fighting. Finally inspired, Yasmine sets out to fight in the streets in the hopes of encountering her brother. In her ending, Yasmine runs into AKI and the poison assassin comments she finds Yasmine’s weapon/karambit rather familiar. They fight and… Yasmine goes back to school, now cured of her depression.

Wait… what?

What happened to her brother? Was she able to get more information about him after her fight with AKI? Did she get to meet Manon during her travels? While we’re asking questions, why does Yasmine seemingly have scary ki powers as seen when she unleashes her Level 3? Yasmine’s arcade ending doesn’t really give any answers. Then again, this is pretty emblematic with almost all of the endings Capcom made for Street Fighter 6 and, honestly, they really need to do something about it.

Now, it may sound silly to be complaining about the story in a fighting game. After all, most fans play fighting games for the competitive aspect, not for the story. Most of the time, arcade more is play once or twice just to see what each character’s ending is and they never touch it ever again. This might be the reason why Capcom didn’t really focus all that much in writing most of Street Fighter 6’s endings for each character.

The really sad thing is Capcom actually put a good amount of effort crafting Street Fighter 6’s main plot. So, way back when, Street Fighter 6’s roster got leaked and fans noticed Ken looked a whole lot different than his previous incarnations. Oh, you could say that for a lot of the returning characters. Ryu looked a little more mature. Blanka looked less beastly and more cuddly. Ken’s situation is a little different, though. The millionaire fighter was looking a whole lot more unkempt. As these were just leaks of the concept art, we didn’t know why Ken was looking less like a rich guy and more like a hobo. All of a sudden, rumors started spreading how Ken lost the Masters’ fortune, Eliza, Ken’s wife, left him and took their son, Mel.

Well, this wasn’t true as Ken’s story was a little more complicated than that. It turns out Ken was framed by JP for funding terrorists, leading to him going on the run in order to protect his family. His name is eventually cleared with the help of Chun-Li but, with his reputation irreparably damaged, Ken still can’t reunite with his family, choosing to live as a regular construction worker for now.

This pretty much sets up Street Fighter 6’s main plot, essentially setting up JP as the game’s main bad guy. Heck, like M. Bison before him, he’s been doing a lot of nefarious stuff such as, but not limited to, having to do something with Kimberly‘s uncle’s death and taking over the nation of Nayshall. So, what happens to these storylines? Were any of them resolved? Of course not! I don’t think they’ll ever resolve the entire Nayshall thing because Capcom isn’t going to be updating World Tour mode any time soon.

However, what really bugs me is how we also don’t get any kind of finality to any of the stories in Arcade mode. I guess it’s fine for the “smaller” stories. Things like Zangief thinking Marisa was looking for a wrestling tag team partner and not a tag team parter for life or Luke meeting Jamie for the next time is fine. What’s not fine is how the more serious storylines, like Ken’s and Kimberly’s stories don’t have a proper conclusion. It’s also annoying how some characters, like Cammy, have their endings more like a setup for a future installment… which we probably won’t get any time soon.

Actually, this does feel like a sickness in a sense as Street Fighter 6’s arcade mode for the new characters feels like Capcom is creating more loose end rather than trying to tie them off. Lily is a prime example of this. Well, more precisely, this deals with Dhalsim‘s arcade mode. The yoga master feels a spirit akin to the Satsui no Hado surrounding Lily. After fighting her, he’s unable to sense the spirit anymore and is unsure if the spirit is good or evil. That’s how his arcade story ends. Once again, it just sets up a mystery around Lily but doesn’t do anything to actually give us answers to the questions it starts to ask.

There are several reasons why I’m peeved with the direction Capcom is taking with Street Fighter 6’s arcade endings. First, I can’t help but remember how, in earlier installments, specifically in Street Fighter II and Street Fighter III, had actual satisfying endings! In Street Fighter II, we had Guile reunite with his family and Chun-Li avenging the death of her father. In Street Fighter III, we got Dudley retrieve his car from Gill and Hugo gathering the fighters he beat to create a new wrestling faction. We get to see why they were fighting and actually seeing them achieve their goals just feels infinitely more satisfying.

Things did start to change by the time Street Fighter IV and Street Fighter V rolled around. This is when Capcom started embedding character mysteries into their characters with some of them getting resolved, like how the kid Balrog took in his ending growing up to become Ed, and some not, like Rose‘s premonition of the world ending. As this was the beginning of when they started to do this, I was hopeful to see Capcom continue these storylines in later games. I’m still waiting up to this day.

Another issue I have is Capcom keeps on piling in more lore and, while that does keep things fresh, they do have to give us answers and we’re simply not getting any. Street Fighter VI feels like the worst at doing this. We get a lot of new stuff like M. Bison resurrecting but not going after JP‘s organization yet, Ed’s Neo Shadaloo organization going around the world liberating other Shadaloo experiments but we don’t actually see any of the thankful people who they saved and, most recently, the case of Yasmine’s missing brother.

I know a lot of fighting game fans don’t really care about this. However, I just don’t like how Capcom used to put some care into crafting endings in the Street Fighter games but they’re slowly switching to dangling storyline carrots in front of the gamers who actually care about this stuff. I’ve heard Capcom is trying to really draw out how long they can keep Street Fighter 6 alive and, for me and the gamers who actually care about the lore, one of the easier ways to do that is to just tie up some storylines. Let’s see Ken redeem himself and return to his family. Let’s see Cammy and Chun-Li expose JP. Let’s see Dhalsim actually figure out what kind of spirit Lily is close to. Let’s actually see some endings in arcade mode be endings!

Byee!

What do you think of Street Fighter 6’s arcade more endings? Let me know in the comments section below!