Character Roster is culturally uneven

[Thaeonblade]

Anyone notice that most of the people missing without explanation in SCV were non-whites?

Zasalamel: African/Mesopotamia
Rock: European/Native American raised
Talim: SE Asia
Yunseong, Hwang and Seong Mina: Korea
Setsuka: European/Japanese raised

The game's too dominated by Western Styles with a blatant unbalanced ratio of 16/6/1. There are only 6 characters from the East who represent Eastern Culture or have eastern styles (Leixia, Xiba, Natsu, Maxi, Yoshimitsu and Mitsurugi). Everyone else is mostly western-cultured and this appears to be a blatant step backwards for a series where diverse characters from around the world clash with each other.

Now it's just European fighters with a few token Asian fighters. Did Project Soul decide to ignore Africa, North America, the Middle-East and other parts of Asia apart from China and Japan?

There's a word that I'm thinking of that starts with an R and it has an I and an A.

Rabias. Which is French for third-rate and cheap.

You're better than this Project Soul, please don't repeat this in SCVI or the Rabias will turn into another six-letter word starting with R and that will hurt sells worst than SCV did.

PS: Kilik doesn't count cause he's a mimic now. Algol stands alone because his civilization is further into the past than Zasalemel.

 

[Kai_lombax]

I'm sure it was unintentional. I certainly hope it wasn't anyways because one of the reasons why I like Tekken and Soul Calibur is all the different cultural people coming together.

 

[Gatsu]

I'm sure it was unintentional. I certainly hope it wasn't anyways because one of the reasons why I like Tekken and Soul Calibur is all the different cultural people coming together.

Lol

They stopped give a spinning flying fuck about some kind of cast variety long ago, now it's all about chase like crazy whores anything can look even remotely marketable

And this is only 50% theyr fault

 

[lostinseganet]

They like their skin pale and their nips pink...Every character that can not reproduce that is expendable.

 

[Ronin]

Soulcalibur should involve warriors from north, south, east & west. And it should have true real history of the world, right?

 

[WuHT]

Well you can always make darker skin CAS copies if it REALLY bothers you enough (to actually post about)

 

[DrakeAldan]

Project Soul... doesn't care... about black people. And I'm really happy for you and imma let you finish but Dampierre is the greatest character of all time. All time!


... but really though Rock and Setsuka are pretty white by my definition...



Anyway, er, cast variety... I don't think this is a major selling point. Games have come a long way since The World Warrior and I don't think this is a priority anymore over other things that please shareholders.

Would I like to see more cast variety? Sure. But I'm not holding my breath.
I'm sure they have plenty of ideas for characters, and never enough time and money to carry them out.

 

[iMesmerise]

I can't wait for the Zulu warrior character in the next game.

 

[Kai_lombax]

Well you can always make darker skin CAS copies if it REALLY bothers you enough (to actually post about)

This here. I have some ethnic inclined CAS so it doesn't bother me a whole lot. Besides, there's always a possibility that characters like Yun-Seong, Zasalamel, and Talim can come back or even possibly, new ethnic characters will be introduced in the future.

 

[WuHT]

you know under the CAS there is like african ethnic zebra stripes and such. I think project soul is making a decent attempt at allowing the end user to make up ethnic specific characters.

In all honesty I don't think they've done enough research (even low level deadliest warriors) on different fighting styles (more than the ethnicity) to make a high quality fighting style. Thats probably the problem there.

 

[DrakeAldan]

In all honesty I don't think they've done enough research (even low level deadliest warriors) on different fighting styles (more than the ethnicity) to make a high quality fighting style. Thats probably the problem there.

Namco seems to be real stingy when it comes to new mocapping.




... Actually it seems it's the same thing for Team Ninja too.


New animations across the board would be nice. Maybe in next-gen.

A man can dream.

 

[Sett]

They made astaroth green.... check mate haters.

 

[Naiitomea]

1. I wonder why color comes into the aspect.

I personally make all my CAS ambiguously loud colors such as: Green, Pink, Horse, Red, and or gray.

And by the way.
The horse in the colors was intentional.
;D

Oh yes. ~
Beating my opponents with a horse that's bright pink or Red.

That'll teach ProjectSoul to remove ethic characters. ~

 

[ZOo00OOm]

I don't think I've seen a single middle-eastern character appear in the roster. Just an observation.

 

[DevilsDisguise]

If were talking about cultural inexactitudes then we have to consider that Talim looks more indian than Philipino... and Lexia looks white...


...and why do they bother to make white characters that are "Japanese raised" anyway?

Well you can always make darker skin CAS copies if it REALLY bothers you enough (to actually post about)

Darker skin alone doesn't really change anything if all the faces are oriental/european based.... the closest thing to a Afrocentric face are those ugly scrunched up ones nobody chooses. Until we can edit facial features ourselves.

 

[TsunamiBye]

If were talking about cultural inexactitudes then we have to consider that Talim looks more indian than Philipino... and Lexia looks white...






...and why do they bother to make white characters that are "Japanese raised" anyway?

Beats me. Why do the blondes like Lili, Pat, Natsu, Cloud, Pyrrha, Noel, etc happen to have the most stereotypical anime-ish infused with them? Better yet, do Japanese peeps have a favoritism for blonde haired people?

and then I see this post as some response to accept......

Lol

They stopped give a spinning flying fuck about some kind of cast variety long ago, now it's all about chase like crazy whores anything can look even remotely marketable

And this is only 50% theyr fault

 

[Menace]

Where's muh sombrero lazy poncho guy!

 

[Kai_lombax]

Where's muh sombrero lazy poncho guy!

It's funny cause that could become a new character type added to the cast haha

 

[Norik]

There's no racist like a liberal racist.

Anyways, this is more of a Japanese design issue than anything else. Mostly because:

..do Japanese peeps have a favoritism for blonde haired people?

Kind of. The Japanese have never felt like they belong with the rest of East Asia (cultural thing), so they design themselves like westerners. Because of this trend and it's evolution, nowadays it's common to see all Asian characters with large brown eyes, light hair, and pale, pink skins (and sometimes even ASIAN FUCKING REDHEADS). So how do you distinguish that from real westerners? Well, they use the only stereotype they know: Europeans are blond and blue eyed. This is why we get Danish-looking Greeks, Swedish-looking Frenchmen, and fucking German-looking Ottomans. Conversely, stereotyping of African characters gives us a Nigerian-looking North African.

So to answer OP's question: Japanese game designers can only make western-looking characters. As this series moves further away from its historical-stereotypes roots and closer to medieval fantasy (which is absurd, as this game takes place during the height of colonialism), you can expect even fewer non-European characters.

 

[DevilsDisguise]

Better yet, do Japanese peeps have a favoritism for blonde haired people?

They do, but its not as bad as how deluded Korean pop culture is but thats another matter.... Zasalamel and SC4 Talim are considered gifts to the coloured fans. Maybe thats why the Talim fans are so insanely attached to her. The fact that shes Philipino and dark-skinned in this society is pretty important.