Soul Calibur VI: General discussion

damn!! I take a break from this site for several weeks, hoping for a Cassandra reveal at E3.

and.........nothing. :(

and I'll be seriously disappointed if Cassandra is a "joke" character with a silly moveset. Cuz that would not only nix my interest in her as a character, but it would also limit my usage of her style with my CAS characters.
 
FluffyQuack said:
I'm thinking we'll get a Cassandra which is similar to her SC4 personality and design, which is a mix of tomboy, cute, and comic relief. I feel like they've been focusing more and more on her being comic relief ever since SC3. She has that joke ending in SC3 where she tries to return the broken sword to the shrine without being seen, or the official "tutorial" Japanese comic for SC4 where Hilde is serious but Cassandra is super silly constantly, or SC: Broken Destiny's silly story mode where Cassandra is the main character. And of course, her Critical Finish in SC4 which is completely absurd.

I wouldn't mind a bigger focus on her being badass or tomboy-ish, but well, I'm also okay with silly. I like silly characters and there are very few of those in SC. Almost all of them are super serious.
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Honestly, all of the artistic/aesthetic/narrative considerations are incredibly tangential to me when weighed against how well they implement the character's moveset. I meant, after-all, even if the look were of critical importance, there's always CaS. That said, to the limited extent it does matter, it would be nice if her presentation in the story had some reflection of the unforgiving fighter we see in her combat.

FluffyQuack said:
Quick nitpicky time, I've never liked that picture. It's used so many times by people to illustrate how the series has become more sexualized over time, but it's very misleading as it's only focussing on the character illustrations (in the last few games, the female characters have absolutely massive bust sizes in the illustrations, but ingame they haven't changed size from previous games). If one were to look back at Soul Edge as a whole, one would find Sophitia having an unlockable bathing suit, she's nude in the game's intro (though that's censored outside Japan), and Taki has textured nipples on her model. The series was never shy about sexualization from day one. SC4 only stands out because of a few outfit designs (like Sophitia and Ivy).
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Yup, I actually agree with all of the above. I included that image because it was meant to illustrate the point that changes have been going on in the series since day one, but the similar thought that I had when looking at it is that, to the extent that the actual models do map to that concept art (which they do 100% with regard to the later issues, but less so with the first couple), those are still only the 1P models--there are others which could have been used that would have upset the argument the creator of that chart was trying to make. For that matter, there are characters who have gotten more modest clothing as time went along (again, Seong-mina).

And even further, to some extent, none of what the devs do on the official designs matters much at all since CaS came into the picture, because if you give the players the ability to make their characters as scantily or modestly clad as they want (plus, now, as buxom as they like) and allow that content online, it's pretty predictable that a lot of the content that floods the experience is going to be salacious (or for that matter, just plain ugly in design), so official designs are kind of irrelevant at that point and anyone who wants to log some hours with the game is going to have to be fairly indifferent to bikini fighters, garish colours, oddball designs, and (in the case of anyone who chose to use the arcane knight outfit) a straight up hentai aesthetic.

On the other hand, there are changes which more overtly and uniformly suggest a definite trend. The women's outfits have definitely gotten more
revealing on average the longer the franchise has been around (though some characters, like Hilde, buck the trend so far), and the body proportions tell a story all their own--all caveats about that Sophitia chart aside, it gets one thing right: Sophitia's bust has increased game-to-game (that's six times now, counting V/LS) throughout the entire run of the series. I mean, that doesn't happen just by chance. To what extent it's just a function of the successive teams of artists working on the same character (with no one being the guy who thinks they should move them in the other direction), and to what extent its just outright pandering, how could we ever say? That doesn't stop it from being a bit silly though. On the other hand, Voldo started out with a spiked codpiece, so we can appreciate that some changes have definitely moved away from the salacious!
 
Rusted Blade said:
Rather, what has been poorly described as an "ethics department" here--and I'll spare you the details about the complexities of the translation here, aside from to say that the miscommunication here was very much a combination of mistranslation, internet rumor mill exaggeration, righteous indignation about the saddest possible thing to be upset about in the history of the universe, and imprecise/idiomatic language on the part of Nomura himself in the original interview--is actually what we would, in English, call a localization and quality assurance office.

You see, back in the day, a game would be developed first and foremost for the local market. Only if it hit a certain level of success was it likely to be ported to other regions. But when export was deemed economically viable, very frequently the ports needed to be adapted multiple times in order to be legally complaint and/or culturally palatable in the local markets--though it's worth noting that very often this is more about issues of language and religion than sex and violence, as some may expect. As games became more commonly ported across more and more markets, this became increasingly cost-inefficient because this meant composing a localization team for each market. So in time, developers created a more streamlined approach--they rolled localization into the core development for a game: where necessary, slightly different localized builds would be built contemporaneously, but even better was when you could develop content which would be palatable and sell well across all major markets, which is the main role for localization teams today--to advise on the front end and save as much trouble as possible needing to re-do multiple versions of a given piece of content down the line.

But these teams don't trump the senior developers or have a veto power over their artistic ambitions--rather they just advise on how to make content as successful as possible in all markets and they develop approaches to certain common issues in localization that tend to crop up often. When a developer is constituted by several different studios located in different countries, each is likely to have its own localization and QA teams, but they coordinate to advise one-another and polish localized versions of the game. It's just a much simpler approach and a more efficient use of resources. However, in this instance, since Nomura used ambiguous wording, it's unclear if we are talking about a localization team request, a QA suggestion, or even some team within the core development staff who have input on making game assets, y'know, not look like shit.

Now, the problem here is that the average consumer of media puts very little effort into understanding how the art they enjoy is actually produced. If gamers did know these basic facts about how developers create their content, they would have seen the nonsense in this story a mile off. For that matter, even somebody who knows absolutely squat about game development still should have smelled the bullshit here, because directors are not in the habit of bad-mouthing their company's internal practices and admitting to instances where they were overruled by beaurcracy. Actually, there are about a dozen additional reasons why anybody who heard the outrage-steeped version of this story should have been instantly suspicious, but I'm not going to spend any more of my own time today discussing remedial critical thinking strategies and proving why a bunch of f---boys losing their shit over Tifa's bust size is an absurd waste of moments out of a human life.

What I will do is assure you that nothing that is accurately described in English as an "ethics department" forced the game's director to compromise his vision of the final product: someone suggested that Tifa, a martial artist being rendered in a modern engine, should have a sports bra instead of a tank top, so it would make physical sense that her breasts weren't flopping around while she did roundhouses and backflips. And he agreed with that obvious assessment, because of course he did. That's it. That's the whole story here and everything else is very much the internet's creation. So 'flabergast' away if you must.
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You did more or less describe the department and its purpose accurately, as an emphasis on preparation for various markets around the world is how a Square Enix representative recently described the ethics department's work:

"In the Square Enix Japan studios, the Ethics Department is actually a group within the company that evaluates game content to make sure it is aligned with the anticipated age ratings standards across the globe (CERO, ESRB, PEGI, etc)."

Still, for situations that likely fit the implication of a word like "ethics" better in the early 90s than today, "ethics department" is what they call such sections of the Japanese corporate structure. Nomura's wording in the controversial interview was 社内の倫理部署 -- "the company's internal ethics department."

Of course, had folks taken as much care with accurately translating what he said the department told his team, there would never have been an Internet Chernobyl over it. He said they simply told them to 胸部を絞める ("constrict her chest") so she wouldn't look unnatural in intense action sequencess.

Whether "unnatural" here refers to "breasts ... flopping around," as you eloquently put it, or just being oddly rigid when there should be flopping? Unclear.

Starringrole said:
In regards to the whole Tifa thing I actually really prefer her new design! I wish they made her a touch more busty but the outfit changes make her look pretty good I'd say.
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The most ironic thing about all this is that they actually made her breasts bigger than they were in her design for the original game. She may not be more busty, but for her breasts to still appear as large as they are while tightly constricted enough to her frame to hold in place while she's doing somersault kicks and such?

pJI0beR.jpg


Look at that distance from bust to band. She's still a C cup right there while constricted.

Those aren't knockers. They're battering rams.
 
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TresDias said:
You did more or less describe the department and its purpose accurately, as an emphasis on preparation for various markets around the world is how a Square Enix representative recently described the ethics department's work:

"In the Square Enix Japan studios, the Ethics Department is actually a group within the company that evaluates game content to make sure it is aligned with the anticipated age ratings standards across the globe (CERO, ESRB, PEGI, etc)."

Still, for situations that likely fit the implication of a word like "ethics" better in the early 90s than today, "ethics department" is what they call such sections of the Japanese corporate structure. Nomura's wording in the controversial interview was 社内の倫理部署 -- "the company's internal ethics department."

Of course, had folks taken as much care with accurately translating what he said the department told his team, there would never have been an Internet Chernobyl over it. He said they simply told them to 胸部を絞める ("constrict her chest") so she wouldn't look unnatural in intense action sequencess.

Whether "unnatural" here refers to "breasts ... flopping around," as you eloquently put it, or just being oddly rigid when there should be flopping? Unclear.



The most ironic thing about all this is that they actually made her breasts bigger than they were before. She may not be more busty, but for her breasts to still appear as large as they are while tightly constricted enough to her frame to hold in place while she's doing somersault kicks and such?

pJI0beR.jpg


Look at that distance from bust to band. She's still a C cup right there while constricted.

Those aren't knockers. They're battering rams.
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You know, you raise another interesting point here insofar as plenty of content depicting Tifa's new look was out well in advance of that interview and probably most people devoted to the original game would have seen them. That means a significant number of people let themselves be worked up even though they had previously seen the design in question and presumably had no visceral reaction to it at the time. Meaning in turn that what really upset them was not any potential results but the abstract notion that someone had reduced her breast size for supposedly 'PC' reasons, because that very concept makes them angry, whatever the actual results and whether they would have been noticeable otherwise.

Anyway, if I'm honest and blunt, even if they -had- reduced her bust by two cups, that's still the absolutely saddest possible thing for any person to be upset about. It's just way too much investment in the body of a fictional woman for a grown man (or indeed anybody) to have, to say nothing of the mass freak-out this non-story inspired. I mean, I'm just dumbfounded by the apparent priorities and sense of proportion of anybody who actually feel incensed by something as trivial as this--and clearly a lot of people had such strong emotions given how the mis-represented story tore like wildfire through the gaming community at large online, and considering the vehemence of some of the shit I heard. I mean, how pampered does a person have to be, and what kind of life devoid of anything resembling real deprivation, challenge, or hardship must they have led to this point, that this seems important enough to rage about and frame as a genuine injustice? It's just so depressing to think about, even before you get to the part where the story was bullshit from the start and virtually nobody noticed the clear signs or looked into the details before jumping on the outrage train to Whiny-bitch-Ville.

All of that said, I almost hate to discuss Tifa's body in abstract terms now, because at this point the very subject just stinks of incel rage tears to me. I swear it's becoming harder and harder to take pride in being a man lately, given the entitled persective-less way some of our fellows act. But I will say this even so: for my money, Tifa's best look to date is her Advent Children design. Powerful, slick, agile, athletic--and incredibly beautiful, as fictional women go. And her breasts were smaller there than in any other iteration. And nobody noticed, or if they did, they didn't feel the need to treat it like the frickin' U-2 Incident. Ugh, can I go back to 2005 please? I'm happy to take back my flip phone and live through the disappointment of SCV again if it means not having to see some version of 'Gamergate' every few weeks!
 
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I think Remake Tifa looks fine.

and judging by the live crowd reaction ( and Youtube Reactions ) when she 1st appeared in the E3 trailer, I think most fans instantly recognized her as their beloved Tifa.

and I'm typing this as I'm listening to Tifa's Theme on Youtube.....haha.
 
I always liked Tifa. She was cool in FF7, cool in Advent Children, and I'd wager she'll be cool in the remake. Her new look is cool too, and most definitely Tifa.
Sanctimony, melodrama, particularly on repeat -- they were never cool.
 
I was always more partial to Aerith way back when I played FF VII. but after experiencing unrequited love myself, I can relate to Tifa more. I know I certainly wouldn't mind having a childhood friend like Tifa......haha.
 
Okubo gluing his mouth shut everytime someone asks for next DLC always pisses me off. I would understand if he got the question right after another reveal but pretty much three months in now and he's still keeping his mouth shut. Is it really THAT long till we even get a trailer? And i would be even more bummed out if the official release date said: CoMiNg SoOn! since that would only mean that we have to wait another two months probably.
 
Tifa is just wearing a sports bra now, her tits are still the same size. They're just properly constricted for an athlete, which makes them "appear" smaller to anyone who doesn't know what they are looking at. Does no one have any idea how big her breasts have to be, to be that pronounced in a fricken SPORTS BRA???

Not sure how people can be so big into tits, but not know how they work in different outfits... this disconnect probably explains why some stuff fits and looks so stupid in CaS...
 
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TresDias said:
Look at that distance from bust to band. She's still a C cup right there while constricted.
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...

Just gonna leave this right here. lol
www.gamespot.com

We Should Talk About How Bra Sizes Work

From Tifa Lockhart in the Final Fantasy 7 Remake to the ladies (and monsters) of Mortal Kombat, it's time we settle the age-old question of how bras work.
www.gamespot.com www.gamespot.com

Where's Cassandra at?
 
ummmm...........bewbs..........

but anyways, back to SC. when is this next tournament/event where Cassandra may or may not but most likely won't be revealed at?
 
Now that the game has been out for a bit, are there some standout examples of Reversal Edge being incorporated into tournament level play? Just curious as to how the mechanic has (or has not) been embraced at higher levels.
 
Cricket said:
Now that the game has been out for a bit, are there some standout examples of Reversal Edge being incorporated into tournament level play? Just curious as to how the mechanic has (or has not) been embraced at higher levels.
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Most Talim players will use the RE cancel with near reckless abandon (including myself).

Some of the NLBC players also use it fairly often, such as Linkorz.
 
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