• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Mortal Kombat vs Street Fighter, why is MK more popular in the US?

RedAssedApe

Banned
For me it's ease of use. The last street fighter was too technical, I couldn't play it decently at all. MK is way more accessible and I can perform every single move. Performing the MK moves isn't difficult so the strategy is when to best use them. I can't do a lot of the moves in street fighter so it's a little frustrating.

Huh. I'd argue the opposite. I hate games where you have to memorize which button presses will string into others just to perform combos. Reason why I've never been good at 3D fighters. Move lists seem so expansive.
 

Deadstar

Member
Huh. I'd argue the opposite. I hate games where you have to memorize which button presses will string into others just to perform combos. Reason why I've never been good at 3D fighters. Move lists seem so expansive.

Yeah, I can't do combo's in mk. My main point is that I can do the flashy moves easily in MK where in Street Fighter it seemed a bit more difficult. I'm just hoping that SFV is going to be easy to learn but hard to master, which are always my favorite types of games. MK was a let down to me as I didn't really enjoy the three style characters. It required too much memorization to not only remember the move set for a character, but to then remember three move sets per character.

I would kill for a SFV tag team mode supporting four human players. My absolute favorite way to play fighters is two on two. It's less serious, you can have fun in a party setting and it's fun to bring certain characters together on a team.
 

KingJ2002

Member
It's kind of like soccer vs. American football. Soccer is the world's most popular sport, but American football is considerably more popular in the US.

The last two MK games were fantastic, but I am not sure why it resonates with the American audience much more than SF. Thoughts?

it was the gore initially... now it's just content. The storytelling, designs, accessibility and abundance of modes makes it more appealing to westerners.

Street Fighter is still a big franchise... but MK was the original "in your face" fighting game
 
MK dwarfed SF2 in terms of pop culture visibility from about 1993 through 1995. It had a hit song that played on the radio constantly, a massively successful movie adaptation, a popular comic book series, a series of novels, action figures, clothing, cartoon, hit album from the movie, more cross-promotional ties than you can imagine.

In short, the peak of Mortal Kombat mania dwarfed whatever peak SF2 had in the states. Regardless of SF2's influence on every fighting game that came after, MK spawned a merchandising phenomenon that no fighting game had seen up to that point.

Been watching this thread for a few days, and this is one of the best points made as to why MK got so seeped into US pop culture; especially that song. I'm still not sure if the US is for sure more MK popularized over SF, but besides the violence and accessibility, this is one of the best points I've seen.

To be honest, I get the feeling that they're both somewhere on equal-enough footing.
 

RedAssedApe

Banned
Yeah, I can't do combo's in mk. My main point is that I can do the flashy moves easily in MK where in Street Fighter it seemed a bit more difficult. I'm just hoping that SFV is going to be easy to learn but hard to master, which are always my favorite types of games. MK was a let down to me as I didn't really enjoy the three style characters. It required too much memorization to not only remember the move set for a character, but to then remember three move sets per character.

I would kill for a SFV tag team mode supporting four human players. My absolute favorite way to play fighters is two on two. It's less serious, you can have fun in a party setting and it's fun to bring certain characters together on a team.

Ah. So basically our argument is the same. Just different opinions on which series have more complex/larger move sets. Haha

I'm trying to think if any games have done that team thing with online modes. I hope kof14 has modes like that since in that game you play 3v3 all the time. Like have a party of three and you get matched against other teams online. That would be fun and could still accommodate for players who wanted to fly solo.
 

Compbros

Member
Capcom Japan makes all the decisions, so that's why you get games like TvC that have limited western appeal but will never get SFxMK because no-one in Japan gives a damn about MK beyond recognising that it's popular.

But why release TvC in the US is what I'm saying. If the entire argument was about lack of viability in Europe then it makes no sense for TvC to come to the US.
 
Europe here. Nobody I know plays MK. Everybody and their dog are into Street Figher, Smash or Tekken.

Also lol at people that want story mode in a fighting game. If you want story please just go to cinema or read a book.
 

Bleepey

Member
Europe here. Nobody I know plays MK. Everybody and their dog are into Street Figher, Smash or Tekken.

Also lol at people that want story mode in a fighting game. If you want story please just go to cinema or read a book.

I am so glad developers don't listen to fighting game elitist. They'd start to think they'd opinions are gospel. I rarely play the single player on COD yet I know a shit tonne if peoole do and but those games solely cos of them.
 
While the core game is accessible and I think maybe easier to pick up and play, I think it's the excessive gore and over the top violence that lures in a more U.S centric audience and the stronger emphasis on SP content seems like it would be more appealing to a casual player not interested in ranking up and playing against a pro player online.

I've never played MK to "get good", it was always just a fun sit down game. But to be honest, the gore and violence come off as a little annoying to me now.
 
You can't even cancel your run in MK how tf is it more accessible?

How many of you even know the button scheme of that fuckin game? lol
They are talking about the flashiest combos and the game generally being easier to pick up and play than other fighters. Someone good at MK will definitely never lose to a scrub. But you can usually get more done in a MK game with pressing buttons than a SF game.
 
They are talking about the flashiest combos and the game generally being easier to pick up and play than other fighters. Someone good at MK will definitely never lose to a scrub. But you can usually get more done in a MK game with pressing buttons than a SF game.

How are the combos more accessible?
 

Nokagi

Unconfirmed Member
Europe here. Nobody I know plays MK. Everybody and their dog are into Street Figher, Smash or Tekken.

Also lol at people that want story mode in a fighting game. If you want story please just go to cinema or read a book.

This is just ignorant. Even if you personally don't like story modes why in the world would you be against extra content that a lot of people do enjoy.
 
How are the combos more accessible?
Yeah seriously, from reading this thread I don't think the people saying mortal kombat is more casual have played MKX. It seems like they're basing that off the earlier games. I've seen a guy say it's hard to remember which buttons string combos together in street fighter. In MKX not only do you need to remember the button you have to remember which special move and a lot of times the button requires a specific direction as well.
 
Mythology & Characters are more appealing on a visual level. Fatalities are fun. I like the cheesy storyline.

I really don't care about learning fighting mechanics because it becomes a second job and there isn't really much reward in it. More fun to just fuck around with friends.
 
Yeah seriously, from reading this thread I don't think the people saying mortal kombat is more casual have played MKX. It seems like they're basing that off the earlier games. I've seen a guy say it's hard to remember which buttons string combos together in street fighter. In MKX not only do you need to remember the button you have to remember which special move and a lot of times the button requires a specific direction as well.

I'm actually talking about the classic games, the memory approach to doing combos that MK has had throughout 3-8 has always been atrocious and unintuitive, especially since there's no natural creativity of putting moves together, just long strings of proper button inputs based off of memory.

Actual good fighting games bring the intuitive method of stringing a combination of moves and normals that reward for timing and execution.
 

@MUWANdo

Banned
But why release TvC in the US is what I'm saying. If the entire argument was about lack of viability in Europe then it makes no sense for TvC to come to the US.

The argument was about lack of viability in Japan, not Europe.

Weird mega-Japanese shit like TvC gets released internationally because people at Capcom Japan are passionate about it and are willing to do the legwork to get it released internationally, including but not limited to foisting the work onto their international branches and expecting them to figure it out, but when it comes to MK, those people simply don't exist within Capcom Japan--there are people that could be convinced that it'd make enough money to be worth doing, sure, but they don't actually care about MK and aren't personally excited about making it happen, plus I'm sure there's all sorts of intra-branch bullshit that'd make it a non-starter, as there is at most big international businesses.

TvC performed above expectations in the west, incidentally.
 

blakep267

Member
Yeah seriously, from reading this thread I don't think the people saying mortal kombat is more casual have played MKX. It seems like they're basing that off the earlier games. I've seen a guy say it's hard to remember which buttons string combos together in street fighter. In MKX not only do you need to remember the button you have to remember which special move and a lot of times the button requires a specific direction as well.
Yeah. Maybe in the earlier games but I found MKX pretty difficult to get used to. SF4 was actually pretty easy to learn how to use every character( I'm not talking about evo level skills but I could actually do stuff with most of them)
 

KiteGr

Member
  1. It's Easier to get into.
  2. It has TONS of content for a fighting game.
  3. It has a lot of Violence for children. (by that, I mean that only children would consider them selfs mature for playing something so immature.)
  4. It's made in the US.

I preffer Street Fighter over Mortal Kombat, and there are a bunch of other fighting games I would preffer over Street Fighter...
 

oneida

Cock Strain, Lifetime Warranty
Yeah. Maybe in the earlier games but I found MKX pretty difficult to get used to. SF4 was actually pretty easy to learn how to use every character( I'm not talking about evo level skills but I could actually do stuff with most of them)
dial a combo MKX combos are incontestably easier than SFIV combos, the timing involved is much more lenient.
 
I am so glad developers don't listen to fighting game elitist. They'd start to think they'd opinions are gospel. I rarely play the single player on COD yet I know a shit tonne if peoole do and but those games solely cos of them.
This isn't about elitism.
Videogames arent't like comics, books or movies. Storytelling must be served to players throug gameplay. Otherwise storytelling is sterile and pointless.
I don't know about you but MK's story mode was cringeworthy to me. "You piss me off, let's fight!" It's everything you can see there.
Storytelling isn't something that fits well in a fighting game. You have to think about chatacters like perfect strangers. What's the point of them interacting aside few words after a fight?
"Go home and be a family man" it's the perfect example. A pissed off military man doesn't care shit about that indian guy he beated to reach Bison. He just tells him to get out his way. Period.
A real quick intro to the fighter backstory, rivality, a short ending and some word after a fight is all it needs.
On the other hand. Fps's one man army rethoric kind of tolerates narration.
Imho keeping things simple is the right way of doing things.

The "just ignore story if you don't like it" line of thinking is toxic. Videogames need to find a proper way of telling storyes but developers will be never stimulated to do so.
Don't trade quality for content, people.

telling people not to enjoy games on their own terms, real cool guy here
I'm born this way. What can I do?
 

Raw64life

Member
I liked Street Fighter more as a kid but I enjoyed the last two MK games more than the last two SF games due to the amount of content in the MK games. I only had vanilla Street Fighter IV last gen. Online was fun until I hit a wall where everyone started destroying me and at that point I really wish there would have been some single player content to dig into, but alas. SFV doesn't seem to be changing much from a single player perspective. I know there's going to be a story mode but I doubt it will be anywhere near as robust as the kind of single player content that MK offers.
 
I liked MK when I was younger because of the blood/gore. However, I knew that Street Fighter was a far superior game. I like MKX, but the combo system just feels wrong to me. It's just feels too stiff and rigid. I'm too used to Tekken. VF, SF, where it just flows. The combo systems in Japanese fighters feel more intuitive and more open to experimentation.

The recent MK games do excel at presentation and single player content so I'll give it that.
 
I always hated games that present to me 20+ goddamn button strings in the command list. How is that shit casual friendly? Whenever I play a MK game with another clueless friend we always pull up that goddamn list during the match because you can't expect to memorize them when you play at a casual level (casual for me = playing with friends for shit and giggles every few months or so, not being average online). I hate canned strings, be it MK, Tekken or Soul Calibur. They really need to cut the fluff down to the actual 5-7 usable ones.
 

DeathoftheEndless

Crashing this plane... with no survivors!
As someone who sucks at fighting games, Mortal Kombat is easier to get into. I get always stuck at the difficult combos during the training mode on Street Fighter, but rarely ever on Mortal Kombat. There are no useless charge characters. It has a list of all your special moves, combos, and fatalities on the pause menu.
 

AAK

Member
I always hated games that present to me 20+ goddamn button strings in the command list. How is that shit casual friendly? Whenever I play a MK game with another clueless friend we always pull up that goddamn list during the match because you can't expect to memorize them when you play at a casual level (casual for me = playing with friends for shit and giggles every few months or so, not being average online). I hate canned strings, be it MK, Tekken or Soul Calibur. They really need to cut the fluff down to the actual 5-7 usable ones.

image.php


That's the equivalent of saying Makoto should only have 1. Dash-Punch, 2. Karakusa, 3. st.mp, 4. Tsurugi, 5. Fukiage, 6. Super, 7. Ultra.

No air normals, No Focus, No Jabs, No Sweeps, No Grabs, etc. When you think about it, the amount of moves players have to think about between MK and SF isn't all that different.
 
image.php


That's the equivalent of saying Makoto should only have 1. Dash-Punch, 2. Karakusa, 3. st.mp, 4. Tsurugi, 5. Fukiage, 6. Super, 7. Ultra.

No air normals, No Focus, No Jabs, No Sweeps, No Grabs, etc. When you think about it, the amount of moves players have to think about between MK and SF isn't all that different.

What? i'm talking about the amount of canned dial a combos, why are you making a list and removing air normals, specials, sweeps etc? You make no sense.
 

AAK

Member
I'm saying that your claim of MK's supposed "large" command list being the reason for it not being casual friendly compared to SF is inconsistent since SF has a larger amount of normal and jumping moves that pretty much even out the number of useful moves between the 2 games.
 
I'm saying that your claim of MK's supposed "large" command list being the reason for it not being casual friendly compared to SF is inconsistent since SF has a larger amount of normal and jumping moves that pretty much even out the number of useful moves between the 2 games.

I never said SF was more casual friendly.......? Wtf?
 

AAK

Member
I guess you didn't, but that's what I thought your post implied based on your avatar and your mentioning other mainstream fighting games exclusively that aren't SF.

EDIT: Also adding to the fact that this was a thread comparing the 2 games in the first place so I suppose I got carried away with the sentiment. Sorry.
 
Street Fighter is more near and dear to my heart, I can tell you that. I love the character design philosophy of SF2 and it's spirit lives on in the sequels.

Now give me an Aussie fighter, damn it.
 
Many fans are less vocal about MK on NeoGAF because this is a pro(as in for) Street Fighter forum. I hold no allegiances. I love both games equally, yet I favor SF's lore more than MK as weird as that sounds. I just stick my neck out to defend MK because SF fanboys are so damn dismissive. I don't think it can be denied that MK has a slight edge over SF in terms of overall popularity.
 

Compbros

Member
The argument was about lack of viability in Japan, not Europe.

Weird mega-Japanese shit like TvC gets released internationally because people at Capcom Japan are passionate about it and are willing to do the legwork to get it released internationally, including but not limited to foisting the work onto their international branches and expecting them to figure it out, but when it comes to MK, those people simply don't exist within Capcom Japan--there are people that could be convinced that it'd make enough money to be worth doing, sure, but they don't actually care about MK and aren't personally excited about making it happen, plus I'm sure there's all sorts of intra-branch bullshit that'd make it a non-starter, as there is at most big international businesses.

TvC performed above expectations in the west, incidentally.



My point being that why would they look at lack of viability in Europe for MKvSF but not lack of viability in US for TvC? That's why I don't buy into the viability argument.

I also don't know if I buy this considering they didn't get any Japanese Marvel character voices in MvC3. This may have been a Marvel hangup but we have no way of knowing either way. Regardless, that "passion" leaves many games not released overseas so why is TvC considered a passion project but some of the Phoenix Wright games aren't?

Yes and SFxT underperformed, these things are hard to gauge.
 

Bleepey

Member
This isn't about elitism.
Videogames arent't like comics, books or movies. Storytelling must be served to players throug gameplay. Otherwise storytelling is sterile and pointless.
I don't know about you but MK's story mode was cringeworthy to me. "You piss me off, let's fight!" It's everything you can see there.
Storytelling isn't something that fits well in a fighting game. You have to think about chatacters like perfect strangers. What's the point of them interacting aside few words after a fight?
"Go home and be a family man" it's the perfect example. A pissed off military man doesn't care shit about that indian guy he beated to reach Bison. He just tells him to get out his way. Period.
A real quick intro to the fighter backstory, rivality, a short ending and some word after a fight is all it needs.
On the other hand. Fps's one man army rethoric kind of tolerates narration.
Imho keeping things simple is the right way of doing things.

The "just ignore story if you don't like it" line of thinking is toxic. Videogames need to find a proper way of telling storyes but developers will be never stimulated to do so.
Don't trade quality for content, people.


I'm born this way. What can I do?

The trade quality over content is a false dilemma. MK9 was just as much quality and content over SF4, was well balanced, had tonnes of characters at launch (28 instead of SF4's 19 if i recall), had tonnes of casual shit, and had alternative costumes in the game at launch and not as DLC. Hell MKX had 20 or so characters at launch and the variations had just as much difference between them as say Ryu or Ken. It was able to have what's practically 60 different characters at launch and be well balanced. Their online was garbage to be fair but I heard they are going to patch in godlike GGPO. I say all of this as someone who prefers playing SF games!
 
MK always seemed easier to me, at least the original trilogy anyway.
I only recently played the reboot, seems far more balanced and closer to SF in terms of a beefy fighter, which I always felt SF was.

Then again I played MK more as a kid so wtf do I know?
 

Compbros

Member
You can't even cancel your run in MK how tf is it more accessible?

How many of you even know the button scheme of that fuckin game? lol


Yes you can, there's literally something called "run cancels" in the game. You can't dash cancel but you can run cancel.



As far as "easier", I can hand the controller over to my brother that doesn't play fighters, pick Scorpion and tell him to do 111xxspear, 111xxEn.teleport, uppercut and he'll hit it fairly quickly. He just did a 10 hit combo for 25~ percent with barely any work. Now I can show him the most simple Ryu combo from V, tell him to hit it, and it'll take much longer if he even gets it.

That's what's more casual friendly about MKX, you can pick it up and in 10 minutes you can be doing combos that take a fifth of your opponents life. But if you actually want to be good it requires a TON of work.
 
I guess you didn't, but that's what I thought your post implied based on your avatar and your mentioning other mainstream fighting games exclusively that aren't SF.

EDIT: Also adding to the fact that this was a thread comparing the 2 games in the first place so I suppose I got carried away with the sentiment. Sorry.
Either way your counter argument wasn't making any sense, imo.

Dial-a-combo is a lot easier than the tight frame links of Street Fighter. At least for me.

Dial a combo's only good when normals cancel like MVC/Vampire.
MK combos were usually button inputs that required memory, instead of combos based around situation and execution.

SFIV is the only street fighter that had a heavy focus on tight frame links. Alpha series and SFIII had more of a focus on chaining normals into specials/supers, juggles, custom combo,etc. They were much more accessible than the adding of unnecessary difficulty through constant linking.

The MK games do have some execution based combos, but they aren't accessible to do in comparison to Street Fighter.
 

BadAss2961

Member
Yes you can, there's literally something called "run cancels" in the game. You can't dash cancel but you can run cancel.



As far as "easier", I can hand the controller over to my brother that doesn't play fighters, pick Scorpion and tell him to do 111xxspear, 111xxEn.teleport, uppercut and he'll hit it fairly quickly. He just did a 10 hit combo for 25~ percent with barely any work. Now I can show him the most simple Ryu combo from V, tell him to hit it, and it'll take much longer if he even gets it.

That's what's more casual friendly about MKX, you can pick it up and in 10 minutes you can be doing combos that take a fifth of your opponents life. But if you actually want to be good it requires a TON of work.
Especially on the defensive side. The one really tough thing about high level MKX is defending all the ridiculous high/low combinations and 50/50s characters can throw at you. You really have to know the matchups.

And yeah, there's all types of run cancelling in MKX. Plenty of combos can be extended by it.
 

Matty77

Member
Most of this thread is missing the point. There have been a couple of good posts that have touched the heart of the issue but most has been insular forum arguing. MK is really popular in the USA but not as a game but as a brand. There are lots of people that like the brand that have never touched the game. I won't retread what a couple of good posts said about other merchandise and leave this instead. In the USA you can walk into a Wal-Mart and in the clothing section buy Mortal Kombat shirts.

Just the games, street fighter has always been more popular in enthusiast circles but if you just do it by games and game sales numbers neither are very popular in the US.

TL;DR

It's all about the brand not the game.
 
D

Deleted member 752119

Unconfirmed Member
It's probably mostly the more realistic art style and the gore that help the game and brand in the US. Cartoony art styles seem to be a harder sell in the US.

It's also a more accessible game to beginners as the inputs are simple for special moves, xray attacks vs. supers/critical arts etc. But any added appeal there shouldn't be stronger in the US than elsewhere.
 
It's pretty simple really:

# of moves you have to think about/memorize in MK ≈ # of moves you have to think about/memorize in SF

Once you chaffed the useless strings from the viable ones maybe, but initially? No. SF5 has 6 more normals (standing, crouching, jumping times 2 buttons) but MK has 20+ strings on top of that. It's like if every SF characters had 20 target combos on top of their command list.
 

Slixshot

Banned
It always does surprise me. Personally, I think it's the gore... but that's exactly why I don't play MK. I can't handle that.
 
Top Bottom