Food for Thought: What the Soul Calibur series needs.

I did not know where to put this exactly, but here ya go...

I posted this on a thread called "RIP Dlc" and figured what I had put was a bit off topic, so, I thought that making a thread would generate more positive feedback on a bigger scale. Hopefully I am shown to be right on that, but hey, you never know.

I typed quite a bit, so here ya go. I hope you guys read all of it and think about it.

In a perfect world, I see SC6 like this:

Owned and developed by Project Soul and co developed/produced with Platinum Games on their own dime.
Think about that for a moment. PS would have freedom to work on it at their own pace, PG would help in the fine tuning and animation bits and the customers would get a great item.

In reality: No way would that ever happen even if all the money that was needed was achieved. The major publishers would most likely never give PS the time to finish it. Hell, they might even do more of the DLC bs when said DLC was already written to disk (thankfully, scv was not that much of a problem in that regard).

What I think...no...what I know is the problem with making another SC game is not particularly DLC or publishers (though those are huge contributing factors), it is more so that the community and the developers communication is not so good as a whole. This is a problem considering that we all have feedback on this (obviously, just read every single post on this site alone), yet we have many huge roadblocks that we do not even think about.

A.) Different languages: Majority of these guys only speak Japanese, and SC is a franchise with fan bases in many countries. Not much can be done about this, however, I do believe that is highly possible to work something out rather soon.

B.) Division in Ideals: This spans into either west vs east thoughts (which are not too different depending on who you ask), but also (and more importantly) Hardcore VS Casual. Let us be honest here, we all are not gonna get our perfect game until we all realize that both sides have equally important input to making a fully realized product...

A full product must be made to sell to the general audience, but there must also be a rich rewarding combat system that equally draws people in. I care not if the story itself is trash or not (which it is), however, the mode itself gives someone something to do with the game and unlockables such as concept art or armor parts help in such a way. Yet the latter is a bit more difficult to tackle. Making any game that is rewarding enough would take, at best, 3 years (assuming you have the most amazing team ever. making games is not easy).

C.) Market: Lets face facts people, the fighting game as a whole is being kicked out the door more and more every day. What is the hottest games? Mostly shovel wear first person shooters. What is the most quality of games? Usually, a fighting game is never mentioned, you get great games do not get me wrong, but the fighting game itself has lost touch. Personally, I think more games that want to be fighting should try the more boxing and bushido blade routes....But, fact is, none of us can remember the last time a fighting game was brand new and was well received enough to warrant a game of the year or even commercials.

Yet these can all be helped. More and more you guys keep supporting soul calibur in hopes it will make things better for the series. If we want any chance of this succeeding in any way shape or form 3 things must happen. First, Bamco listens and we actually have an open dialogue that works. Second, new designers who want to keep this alive or make another series superior must step up into this field. Finally, you guys keep doing what you are doing.

We all have complaints about sc5, but the best thing one can do is continue it's support and keep mentioning what good can come of changes that are needed (and I mean needed for a whole product including it's lasting power). If you dislike how sc5 is now, best thing you can do is support PS and give them reasons to continue. There does need to be many changes, but we need to let both PS and Bamco know that we need to be heard on this. This is a series we love and we should not let our immaturity take hold of what we love so dear.

Troll if you must, but this is what needs to happen as a fan base. If you love it, do what you can.

This is just bare minimum stuff here, but this is the overall general idea. Not here to make arguments or point fingers, just to state facts and see how we, as the community, can approach each individual problem.

Taking away the whole modes, and characters and such......

The most obvious one is Project Soul being taken seriously by Namco. Either that or Project Soul needs to look elsewhere for publishing/co-producing. It seems as though SCV, after the tournaments, will likely be swept to the side by Namco in favor of Tekken Tag Tournament 2. So much marketing in that game for more than 1 year, and the game has not been released yet. I didn't see anything about Soulcalibur V except just news about the production, small ads on websites (Google Search does that), and an ad with Ivy in it. Project Soul has clearly been working their asses off to make the game, but because of time constraints, some goals I know had to be changed.

Another suggestion is some assistance in production from other areas internationally. Europe, and West especially, since they seems to be where Soulcalibur's heaviest fanbase is in many fields involving the game (Gameplay, Story, Everything else). Have some contributions to ideas and such. Will that happen? Probably not, but it would be nice.

I've always bragged about the next game being Arcade first before consoles. Not sure if they'll do financially, but I think it could have Japan interested in it, while at the same time, fixing any glitches and additions once it releases to console. Tekken has done it for every game. Soulcalibur used to do it, and they stopped on SCIV, which is the point where it all changed in the series.

The only problem with finding another company to do business with is that soul calibur is owned by Bamco. If they want to do business with a different company, it would have to be a different IP all together. Though there is nothing wrong with that, it is much harder to catch a new fan base on a 3d fighting game now. You are completely right, the time constraints were a big hinderance in their production and ads. I still see the ridiculousness in the marketing for tekken. Hell, snoop dogg is a great way to get people interested, putting him in the game sealed the deal for that demographic.

I have always said that myself. If they want writing to be better, they could always get western writers into it and share their prospective at least. Only problem I see there is that the Japanese in terms of business tends to be really really non interested in other countrymen working on a project with them. However, I do not think that this team would let that get in the way for them. If Daishi is willing to get CC2 in on this, what's the harm in letting western writers help out?

Problem with arcades in the west is that they are pretty much dead. It could just be MO but we have no arcades here ever. If we do, the most I have seen is tekken 4.

Hmmm, perhaps in order for PS to get Soul Calibur out the door in style is getting the fanbase to have someone talk to Daishi and co. to work out something with Bamco. The right pitch can help out big time. Keep in mind, the namco portion of bamco has always been very very conservative in their business (that is why tekken is getting more love). Getting them to think otherwise is going to be hard.

Many things were what sold the deal for Tekken Tag Tournament 2: Snoop Dogg, Bikinis for guys and girls, old characters returning, and just the fact that Tekken Tag Tournament 2 has been long awaited for years.

Agreed, but I guess I'm going in too much of a comparison to Mortal Kombat, which was all published and developed by the West, but since WB bought Mortal Kombat franchise, while still including some key workers of the series that have been there since MK1.

It may be dead in the West, but I was speaking about the Eastern audiences (Japan), as it is still active and popular there. Tekken Tag Tournament 2, Street Fighter IV, and Virtua Fighter 5 (including expansions) have been able to do so and look at how they are now, even though Street Fighter is pushing it a bit with these expansions. Why can't Soulcalibur, after they have been doing it since their debut? Financial reasons may be the obvious one, but still it's all about "Bamco" and their prioritizing.

Since this is Daishi's first time, compared to Harada being director since Tekken 3, I'm sure the odds are in Harada's favor.

I just had a thought, perhaps harada could lend his hand in marketing?

Well, this is because that Namco Bandai is a very conservative business. Every move they make is pretty much 0 risk. Tekken has had slightly longer time than the soul series, so I guess they think that Tekken would be of more worth than SC.

I truly think that If Soul Calibur creators want to get anywhere, they need more coherent feed back and support. More over, they need to really pay attention to both sides of the coin. All of that would not go anywhere if they do not get the proper time frame either. Best thing Diashi can do is give the best pitch of his life.

Not sure if it will happen, but it is absolutely possible. I'm not even sure if Daishi and Harada have that kind of relationship. Most of Harada's contributions I've seen in Soulcalibur series are just to promote his own brand (Devil Jin's style, Tekken 5 song, the fact that Harada's character even has Devil Jin's style)

I'm sure it is. Even Pac-Man isn't getting much attention lately.

With all that's transpired, I just don't see why they cant include the undeveloped characters now? They pushed out so much DLC already right? If they were smart they would have been working on the characters after launch.

Characters are irrelevant to SCV at this point. If there is any, and I mean ANY chance of a 6th iteration of the series, then is when we talk about who is among the roster to add. Though honestly, I personally did not have much gripe with this (aside from 3 mimics).

But on point, let us discuss how we can get the attention of PS and Bamco. The floor is open, any suggestions?

That's what I was about to say. lol

But as far as any attention, tournaments have been a good start, and Project Soul themselves are doing great with that. The more players there are, then the more Namco will catch on to that, and they would want to make sure they keep those fans too.

If Daishi/Bamco is open for any feedback gameplay-wise, or even presentation-wise, then I'm sure we could give it, even though there will be the more obnoxious suggestions like the obvious "Bring back a, b, and c".

Of course my suggestion would be to storm the buildings and demand Soulcalibur to get some attention. lol

Tournaments are a good start, but that is only one side of the fan base. If anything, I would encourage people (even if they do not want to participate in tourneys themselves) get out there and see if they can not get some face time.

Yes, that is the next objective, or more like a problem. I don't know what would give Namco attention to the series based on the "casual players" perspective. Maybe word-of-mouth, or a pep rally *gasp* T-shirts! lol

I will give that to you. That whole bottom row was pretty sad, and caused quite a stir when it was revealed. The only one on that row that I was able to tolerate was Pyrrha Omega, and that was because of the story and how Pyrrha Omega was portrayed.

It makes sense that Tekken is Namco's favorite :
It's the most beginner friendly 3D fighter and yet it allows competitive play. It's cool to watch, easy to learn.
I can think of a dozen of buddies who played and liked Tekken and weren't FG fans, but when it comes to SC... well, beside the handfull who played SCII, I can only remember one guy...

Conclusion ? I think SC is more of a niche game, like the Virtua Fighter series and the violent 1.02 patch certainly helped this.

Perhaps we were lucky to get a SCV, in the end...

Disagreeing on the bottom row thing, since that was clearly story reasons (and one sees it even clearer when looking at the artbook content), I agree on the rest. In fact I try hard to find Project Soul didn't want to include Zasalamel -- he is immortal and was a new character, damn it.

On the story thing you guys are saying, remember the game had to ha e the story cut to 1/4. So god knows how was even the finished part to be played off.

Again, I was not to angered about Alpha Pat (honestly, I wanted the style of setsuka without the umbrella to begin with so I got what I wanted XD), but 3 mimics are not needed, 2 is pushing it, but a third is down right silly. That is all will say on that subject.

As for the story, we know. They had time constraints because bamco had other projects they wanted to sink money into, kinda the point why we keep bringing it up. Part of the reason why we need to have an open dialogue with Namco Bandai, to help out PS as much as possible so they have the time needed to put out a quality product with a longer life span.

Come on hasukage. We all know the 3 mimics wouldn't have enraged anyone if Talim and Zas had been in, for example. But what I said is actually true, it was story:

-Edge Master is simply obvious
-Elysium, the opposite of Inferno
-Kilik, the artbook clears it up on this one. After years of training he finally masters all styles, taking the path of his master. From the energy of Astral Chaos he creates the Master, the weapons from warriors from Algol's time

This game simply needed 3 more characters. One would have been Chinese Sword (I mean a la Hwang) user, and the other two... well, I still believe Project Soul had them in mind:, Cassandra and Zasalamel. Notice the two statues at the center of the image:



We know Daishi said he wanted to give Cassandra the style of a longer sword. The artbook said she disappeared on Astral Chaos. Damn, I feel it was perfectly set up.