some people say the game attained "console seller" status, but that is up to debate.
Up for debate by who?? Granted the Dreamcast wasn't the best selling console of all time, but SoulCalibur was unequivocally the best-reviewed game on the system. Unless you were a gamer at the time, you probably can't grasp how big a deal it was.
As for Rock... he is just irredeemably boring no matter what you do with him, he is just outdated and has nothing going for him that Asta doesn't do better.
SB characters were mostly cookie cutters
Okay, I see stuff like this said a lot, and I feel the need to address it. My goal here isn't to convince you (or anyone else) to love Rock, but just to understand the appeal he has.
Soul Edge's character designs aren't lazy, generic, cookie-cutter, plagiarized or any other critique you can think of. They are archetypal. Just like Street Fighter's Ryu embodies a Japanese warrior and Superman, Captain America and G.I. Joe all embody the American hero. I've heard people call all of these characters boring, and I can't exactly argue against that, but that completely misses how important these characters are.
These characters are all deeply
understandable. We just have to look at their designs and we immediately
get them. And when you're making a video game for the world market,
this is super important. This was such a big consideration at the time that Namco didn't just censor Mitsurugi (or make him an Englishman with an eyepatch), but instead replaced their archetypal Japanese warrior with an archetypal Korean warrior. They wanted these characters to resonate with players. This was a very smart decision on their part, because fighting games especially benefit from these character archetypes. It's no exaggeration to say that Street Fighter, the most successful fighting game series of all time, is built around this idea. But if you look at Tekken, KOF, Mortal Kombat or any other long-running series, you'll find the same sort of character design philosophy coming up over and over. Especially when launching a brand new fighting game, these characters can make or break your series.
(Although there are of course some exceptions. Voldo was just the freak character that all fighting games are legally required to have.)
So how about Rock? Just a barbarian, right?
Nope. (Well, there might be a little bit of that in his design...) He's primarily a representative of the
noble savage archetype. From Wikipedia:
A noble savage is a literary stock character who embodies the concept of the indigene, outsider, wild human, an "other" who has not been "corrupted" by civilization, and therefore symbolizes humanity's innate goodness.
Now, I'm going to completely ignore the flaws in this idea, but it needs to be said:
This is an incredibly powerful idea.
You can find examples of this idea throughout the world, across more cultures, religions and movies than you could ever list. The idea that the natural world can have a positive, improving influence over the individual is still widely believed to this day. If you have any friends who are really into hiking or camping, they might just believe this too.
So Rock - orphaned in the New World as a young boy, never formally trained or taught, becomes this incredibly strong warrior. And he adopts an orphan himself, demonstrating that he's not just naturally strong, but also a kind person.
Rock is not the wild barbarian archetype, who is typically representative of the most violent impulses of humanity. (He's not going to be raping and pillaging any time soon. Unless SC6 goes in a really weird direction...) If this was all he represented, there's no reason why Astaroth couldn't replace him completely.
Thankfully Rock is also not a tree-hugging, Pocahontas-wannabe, bullshit-spewing hippie either. The fact that he's always wearing animal furs communicates that he's not a stranger to the harsh realities of survival in a wild land. But it also indicates that he doesn't kill out of malice or sport. The bears and buffalo he's killed are obviously the only protection he has, and almost certainly his main source of food.
To put it as simply as I can, Rock is appealing partly because we admire individuals who can survive on their own in nature, and partly because the idea of the inherent goodness of humanity is really appealing.
Again, I'm not trying to tell you that you should love Rock. That shit's subjective. But so many people have asked "why does anyone like him?" that I felt the need to give an answer. Sorry for the wall of text.
