Damn, my arcade stick is back at home! I don't know why I made such a crucial mistake with Mortal Kombat releasing soon and everything. Oh, who am I kidding? None of my floormates play fighting games. :(

More to the point, the reason characters in 2D fighting games are so ridiculously stylized is because... well, there are two main reasons:

1) It's the only real way to give them any sort of character. Nobody cares about story in fighting games, so if you want any sort of personality at all the characters have to wear it on their sleeves.

2) They all need to be visually distinct and clear. You have to be able to VERY QUICKLY see which character is which and what both characters are doing at any given time. So you get things they very clearly illustrate where limbs are, clothes they sway with motion, big bright colors, etc. It's exaggerated, but due to the sheer speed of the game it has to be in order to be even remotely readable.

Something like Baldur's Gate can afford to be entirely earth tones with more realistic looking clothing because its pace is much slower, so instant readability isn't as important.

I'm not a big fan of the ridiculous character designs in Guilty Gear, but they fit the game like a glove and I happen to love the gameplay so it doesn't bother me.

Both BlazBlue games want a word with you. They have well made Story modes that are more than just "a predetermined string of opponents with a smattering of dialogue". Granted, you probably won't replay either game for the Story mode (other than to see the various paths), but it's not a small/insignificant part.

I've played through both Blazblue games and stand by my statement. :P

Besides, remember that the games were in arcades first and foremost. The console ports added the story mode, but neither the game nor the characters were built around it. The characters were designed to stand out in an arcade long before they actually had a meaningful in-game plot on the console versions.

You are right arcade games are designed to attract people hence the term attract screen but a lot of arcade games did invest in the story. Mortal Kombat and Killer Instinct were arcade games but they also tell the story of the characters when not being played. Sure the story is complete bollocks but it's a part of the characters none the less. In japan there are a lot of manga and anime devoted to Street Fighter and King of Fighters fleshing out the story, there just doesn't seem to be the market for that kind of stuff here in the West.

Of course the Japanese can get rather carried away and while Virtua Fighter has remained remarkably simple in it's story Tekken and Soul Calibur have become full blown soap operas.

And the latter two have become more and more ridiculous with each iteration.
Hell I actually liked the plotline in Soul Edge, it is one of the best made story modes I've seen in any console version of a fighting game, only rivaled by the PS1 version of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure's story mode.

Too bad that in Jojo, every other version outclasses it severely. And now I want to play that, should get MAME and the CPS3 rom since no local arcade is carrying that title anymore :(

Or just buy a Dreamcast and a copy of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure ;)

But none of that applies to the games or characters themselves. It's not feasible to just sit back and watch the attract mode for an arcade game while it sloooowwwwwlllllyyyyy cycles between all the back stories, which again is why the characters are defined by how they look and move more than anything else.

Same goes for all the anime and manga based on them. Those are made after the fact, based on characters designed for a fighting game, but all of those characters' visual quirks exist to serve the game and are only maintained for other media.

Mario has a mustache because it was hard to give him a definable nose on Donkey Kong's hardware, and that origin doesn't change just because the character later appeared in some TV series and a movie where technology was no longer an obstacle.

Mario is a bad example as that was due to the grapics capabilities it was nothing to do with his character. He simply grew into that over the years.

Mortal Kombat and Killer Instinct people did actually stop and read the stuff because whats the difference between Sub Zero and Scorpion otherwise? Same actor and same outfit with just a pallet swap. In the Arcades those attract screens did actually serve a purpose as the puffy jackets would read them while waiting for a noob to come along.

As for the anime and manga yes they grew after them but only due to the fact people wanted to know about them. All people knew about Ryu and Ken was they had the same teacher, they wanted to know more and at the time Capcom were very much an arcade maker so they developed the story out of arcades. Ryo and Iori can't seem to stand the sight of each other, why? They were designed with a big back story but the arcade can hardly do that justice.

That's what I'm saying. In the arcade, where these games were intended to be played, the stories had to be told almost entirely through visuals, with MAYBE a tiny block of text for each one, and some pre or post fight skits if they really wanted to get fancy. It's why the characters have such distinctive designs and unique flourishes, because that's the quickest and easiest way to get them across.

And that's the point of the Mario comparison. It IS a limitation of the medium, just in a different way. A fighting game in an arcade just doesn't lend itself well to telling a story (and let's be honest, back story in a game's attract mode isn't terribly useful if the game is popular since you won't really have a chance to see it), so it finds creative ways to cram in personality wherever it can. I'm not saying the story isn't there, I'm saying the game can't rely on standard means of conveying it.

As for Mortal Kombat, those games crammed in a bunch of backstory because, oddly enough, they couldn't actually differentiate the characters much with the technology and budget they had (palette swapping the ninjas was just a cheap way to get multiple characters from one actor). It also helped that they were just ripping off various cheesy kung-fu movies and Big Trouble in Little China, so they had built-in characterizations already.

Umm... Arc System Works doesn't exactly have the most diverse library of games, especially on PC. You're pretty much looking at a little more Guilty Gear (Which is nothing to get excited about, to put it lightly), and BlazBlue sometime in the far future if we're really, really lucky.

More extras are always welcome. I'd like the music tracks to be properly named, artwork, wallpapers, and avatars would be great too. Some people might like movelists, why not?

Their entire library of PC games (according to Wikipedia):

Guilty Gear X
Guilty Gear X2 #Reload (this game)
Guilty Gear Isuka
BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger

And BB:CT is a GfWL game, so it'll take a lot of work for it to show up here without DRM. And we have what I feel is the best of the GG games (for PC) already.

Yes, I know all that, and as for BlazBlue being GfWM, that's where the "far future" and "really, really lucky" comes in. We do have the best PC Guilty Gear game on GOG. I was basically telling SciFiCat not to expect too many more games from Arc System Works, since there isn't much to expect in the first place. I know they made Guilty Gear, and it's a great game, but until recently it was pretty much all they do. They're very focused, but that's not a bad thing. ;)

I've decided to buy it. It is SF-y, but what the hell, I enjoy it anyway. Works on Linux, too (except for the movies).

Edit:
Now dear GOG, moar fighting games. And by that I mean MK 1-4. Preferably in a $6 bundle :p