Pixel Fighters

Pixel Fighters would be a one-on-one fighting game for all current consoles that takes inspiration from modern-day 8-bit games like Shovel Knight and the Street Fighter NES fan game in that it would be designed with a well-defined NES art-style and very refined, tight gameplay. The 8-bit limitations would only be a design feature. As an example, you can look at the 8-bit map sprites in Fire Emblem: Awakening.

Story
The game's main protagonist would be a young man named Katsuo Akiyama, whose father, Takeshi, was considered the world's greatest martial artist until 20 years before the events of the game. Takeshi, after winning all the world's major fighting tournaments, began accepting challengers in hopes of helping fellow fighters learn and become more experienced, and his challenge matches gained a following from the public just as he had. He carried on with the matches for a few years, but then a mysterious, unnamed figure clad in black came along to challenge him; he didn't look like much of a threat, and Takeshi underestimated him. He managed to fell Takeshi within seconds, to the shock of the entire world.

The press and public direly wanted to learn more about this stranger, but he disappeared without a trace after his legendary victory, and had not been seen since. Katsuo was fascinated by the story of this stranger ever since he'd heard it, and his life goal became to find this stranger and become skilled enough to defeat him. In addition to learning all he could from his father, he followed every lead he possibly could on the stranger, and ran into dead ends time after time.

One day, he finally got a tip from one of his friends, an investigator who had been helping him in his search for the past six months. The tip said that a man clad in black was seen along with a group of large figures heading towards Mount Korab in Albania. This mountain turned out to be the home of a powerful fighting champion, leading them to believe that the stranger in black was travelling there in hopes of a fight. The two travel to the mountain, and make an attempt to confront the stranger. However, they first find the champion in question at his studio, lying badly bruised on the sparring ground. He tells them where he thinks the stranger went, and after soon meeting him for the first time, they are forced into a fight with his henchmen.

After defeating them all, they come to the conclusion that this stranger is not some random fighter, but the center of an organization he assembled to defeat powerful fighters, but for a reason they don't know yet. The champion who had just been defeated also convinces them to let him come along and help them track down the stranger and discover his motives, and the three begin a journey across many countries, meeting many people, and fighting many battles to get to the bottom of what the stranger in black is planning.

Playable Characters
NOTE: The majority of these characters must be unlocked via Journey mode, either by accepting them into your party (in the case of team members) or defeating them (mostly in the case of villains). However, all of these characters are eventually playable.
 * Katsuo - A strong, confident, light-hearted, and respectful martial artist who learned potent elemental combat techniques from his father.  His fighting style is very tiger-like and bold, and he can be quite fierce in a fight.  Some of his moves include a fireball, lightning stomp, and whirlwind punch.
 * Weston - A U.S. federal investigator and a friend of Katsuo's who is helping him pursue the stranger in black.  He isn't as skilled in hand-to-hand martial arts as Katsuo is, but to compensate, he has numerous devices that he can use to surprise his opponents in a fight.  He knows some kung-fu and judo, and also has a hidden billy club, small flash bang grenades, and a taser.
 * Besmir - One of the greatest fighters in northern Albania who accompanies Katsuo after being badly defeated by the stranger in black.  He's rather talkative, and is an expert in boxing and throwing techniques.  As such, he is dangerous to take on at close range.
 * Jason - A fighter who is slightly younger than Katsuo who is a black belt in several types of martial arts.  While Jason has something of an arrogant attitude, he is a clean fighter and never represents as better than those he defeats.  He meets the others in his home-state of Massachusetts, USA when they are following the stranger in black, and he quickly becomes great friends with Katsuo, agreeing to help them in their pursuit.
 * Amelia - A dancer and karate expert with a confident but somewhat shy attitude.  The party meets her in Sydney, Australia, and she joins them after the stranger's henchmen attack her father when he catches them trying to escape through an alleyway.  Jason also comes to have a crush on her.
 * Mei Lin - Katsuo's cousin who follows him on his journey and meets up with him back in their home country of Japan when she intervenes in a fight that Katsuo was losing.  She has a generally serene and polite personality, but she becomes quite aggressive and angry in a fight.  She is rather small in stature, but has a combat style similar in form to Katsuo and is very quick, which is her best advantage.
 * Bohlale - A young African teenager who has become skilled in the mystic arts in a struggle between his family's tribe and an opposing tribe.  After demonstrating his skills in a fight alongside Katsuo and friends against some of the stranger in black's elite henchmen, Katsuo invites Bohlale to accompany him on his journey.  Bohlale asks his parents about it, and they support the journey as a way to discover himself and grow stronger.  Bohlale has an enchanted staff, with which he is skilled in combat and in conjuration magic, and he often makes use of ghosts to help him fight.
 * Roland - An English youth who first became introduced to fighting on the streets of Bristol.  His skill led him on to become proficient in more local styles of combat, and he has spent years studying the arts of boxing and Bartitsu, which involves the use of a small cane that he carries around casually.  He meets the travelling heroes when he challenges any one of them to a fight.  The fight always ends in a draw, and when he hears their story, he decides to come with them for fun's sake, and becomes a powerful asset to their team.
 * Manny - A Brazilian MMA fighter who tries to rob Roland, but joins the group out of admiration for the excellent fight Roland puts up when he tries to attack him.  Manny is a bit low-class and brash, but is very kind-hearted and loyal to his friends.  He's also a very skilled fighter despite his young age, and is always eager for a good fight.
 * Helena - A German agent in the service of the UN who is assigned to investigate the activities of the stranger in black to determine whether he is a threat to global security.  She crosses paths with Weston while in Russia, and this is when she explains her intentions.  From that point on, she doesn't travel along with the others, but turns out to be incredibly helpful to their cause and becomes something of a friend and informant.
 * Frenzo - A man clad in heavy shogun armor. He is working for the stranger in black. When Katsuo and the others find the stranger in black's headquarters, Frenzo apperars from the rooftops. However, instead of fighting them, he tells of how the heroes can defeat the stranger in black. He also reveals that he is only working for him just so he can one day remodel the stranger in black's organization, when he is defeated, as a force for good. He has a great arsenal of weapons, including a spear, a bow staff, and a torch.
 * Larousse - A French clown who is highly eccentric and has a tendency to get in people's personal space.  Katsuo and his friends encounter him on a street corner in France, and while they don't give him much thought, he is intrigued by their appearances and decides to follow them in their travels.  He's no serious fighter, but he uses many ludicrous weapons such as seltzer bottles, stilts, and pies in combat.
 * Model K-8 - Also referred to as "Kate," and one of a series of artificially created assassins.  She is a feminine, blade-wielding android specializing in covert missions, and often serves as the first line of defense against the stranger in black's enemies.  Her speed and metal coating make her a strong opponent, but she is small in stature.
 * Crusher - An exceptionally large professional wrestler who was forced to quit wrestling after severely injuring one of his rivals when they weren't even in a match.  After falling well out of public interest, he decided to become a mercenary, working for several of the FBI's most wanted criminals.  These days, he is in the hired service of the stranger in black, and is usually dispatched to deal with many enemies at once.  Due to his size, he can deal extreme damage if he lands a blow, and his weapon of choice is a massive hammer that he uses to knock his opponents across the room.
 * Shamar - One of a series of personal guards in service of the stranger in black who is not only extremely muscular, but also has the arms of a tiger, claws and all.  As a consequence, being grabbed by him means almost certain death or maiming.  However, his otherwise human body is his most exploitable weakness, but only to a skillful fighter.  Still, his size and abilities make him one of the most dangerous enemies in the game.
 * The Stranger in Black - One of the world's most calculating and skilled fighters, a mysterious and deadly mastermind, and the final boss of Pixel Fighters's Journey mode.  His style of combat is fairly similar to that of Batman, as he makes frequent use of weapons, including his cloak, and will often throw his opponents as part of his attack combinations.  The stranger in black is a powerful fighter, but he relies mostly on combinations and close-up attacks.  Therefore, the key to defeating him is continually pre-empting him and dealing large amounts of damage to him before he can escape.

Bonus Characters and Exclusives
Much like Soulcalibur II, Pixel Fighters would have special exclusive characters on certain consoles. Since Pixel Fighters would be available on all current consoles, there will be a number of exclusives available on appropriate consoles: Aside from these exclusives, there will also be a character available in all three versions, and that is:
 * Nintendo Wii U - Captain Falcon (from F-Zero)
 * Nintendo 3DS - Mewtwo (from Pokemon)
 * Xbox 360 - Master Chief (from Halo)
 * PlayStation 3 - Cole MacGrath (from Infamous)
 * PlayStation Vita - Kazuya Mishima (from Tekken)
 * All versions - Ryu (from Street FIghter)

Gamemodes
Considering the fact that this is a fighting game, it wouldn't exactly contain a wealth of different gamemodes, but there will be as many in this idea as I can reasonably squeeze in. Of course, I don't want to simply add in a bunch of modes that no one would ever play; however, I want there to be many modes to add depth and replayability to the game. In all, I'm going to include about 5 gamemodes, all of which should hold some interest for everyone.

Journey
As you can probably guess, this would be the traditional Story Mode of the game that centers around Katsuo's journey across the world in order to fight the ultimate duel with the stranger in black. This mode would be a combination of dialogue, one-on-one duels, and duels with minor henchman, similar to a beat-'em-up.

Duel
This would be a straight-up, Street Fighter-esque, one-on-one duel mode between two players. These duels would take place over a custom number of rounds of custom lengths, in various stages with different hazards to spice up the action.

Brawl
This mode would be a Smash Bros.-like mode where up to 4 players could duke it out in a beat-'em up format in a free-for-all or team-style battle. As a reference, you can look at the arena from Castle Crashers, in which any two, three, or four players can start battling each other at any time. The last man standing (or the one with the most points, if you're doing a contest match) is the winner.

Survival
In some levels of the Journey mode, it is necessary to fight off some of the stranger in black's minions in order to progress. Survival mode is a spinoff of these levels in which you pick a character and fight off wave after wave of minions in an ever-growing stage to accomodate more opponents. Achieving large combos and striking multiple opponents with one attack racks up more points for the round. A high enough score for a single round or a high enough number of waves reached has the potential to unlock playable characters before reaching them in Journey mode, making this a worthwhile mode to play.

Climb
In this mode, the objective is to scale a series of platforming levels while also fending off enemies through standard fighting as you ascend. Falling makes your character take damage, so being knocked down from a high place will likely result in your immediate death. You can compare this mode to classic games like Kid Icarus, Super Mario Bros. 2, or Metroid, but crossed with a fighting game. This is a distinctly unique mode, and is intended to put an innovative spin on a normally concrete gameplay style.