Assemble your brigade!

[Rusted Blade]

We all have our mains--and depending on our varying levels of discipline in training our favoured styles, maybe a substitute or five--for each entry in the franchise. What I want to know is, who is in the larger pool of styles which you have experimented with most frequently with across the series. So I'm proposing a little game to source a sense of those preferences:

1) Pick your top 20 characters from the franchise roster (according to whatever criteria you wish--how unique or fun their moveset is, their visual style, how well you performed with them, whatever). I'm gonna name mine, because why the hell not? Needless to say, feel free to use whatever criteria you want for what is an individual character, but I intended to choose only one character per style, as at the end of the day, the style selection is really what concerns me and what I am getting after here.
2) Additionally, pick your top 3 favourites from the guest characters selection.
3) Pick your top five series stalwarts, including your specialty.

The Rust Brigade: The Rust Ringers: [2B]
The Furies: [ ]


There's some seventy movesets to choose from, so I'm curious to see how much overlap there is once we all have a broader canvas than we usually do when talking about our favourites. But honestly, who could you put up against such a well selected crew as the above?

 

[Ukkesh]

Heh, always loved things like this that make me think. 20 is a limited number, but I'm pretty happy with this.

The 20 favourites:
and Ashlotte
Guests:
2B, Geralt, Ezio.
Ashlotte would always be my number 1 guest , but It's up in the air just HOW canon she is, though with the rebooted timeline, I think it's better to set her as an actual character, to avoid (my) confusion. I was never really one to play with guests.

Stalwarts:
[]
I'm not sure what you mean exactly by stalwart, but I'm guessing the most iconic to me personally?

I felt kinda bad for leaving out hwang, because as much as I'd like to see him in a new SC, I never played soul blade and Hilde just edges him out I guess Otherwise I guess she would have made it. Personally, Natsu and Leixia are interchangeable to me at least, I liked both of them. Groh and Azwel could have made it I had space but alas. (Maybe if groh was less of an edge lord.) . I just don't like ivy as much as Zas or Zwei. Also she looks kind of similar to me (facially) which kinda weirds me out, but it wouldn't be SC without her.

 

[Ciruxxx83]

Let's play the game then. I've been playing SC since its very beginnings, SB (god I miss my arcade years so bad!!!) some 20 + years ago, and Soul Calibur was the first game I bought back in my Dreamcast days (I miss that too goddammit!). Been a Taki main ever since, but with age comes wisdom (or so they say) and I've learned to enjoy MOSTLY every character presented in the franchise. Here goes:
20 favs:

Guests:

, Ezio, Geralt.
I feel these are the guest that better adjusted to the game in terms of mechanics and styles (not just magic-wielding emos like...)

Stalwarts:

I know I'm leaving some good fellas' behind, but IMO, no Soul Calibur game is complete if those characters are left out. Partly one of th ereasons SCV gor pummeled so bad. Thay left out Sophie and Taki due to being "too old" for the timeline, but Mitsu was there in his 40 some, performing perfectly... Anyway, Taki, Sophie, and Cervs are quintessential story-wise, the girls were the first to defeat Soul Edge and strip Cervs of his eeeeeevil power. There would be no sequel if they hadn't. Mitsu is a keeper and an all-time favorite, and Nighmare, well, he is pretty much the whole reason for Soul Edge to be back on its terror-spreading campaign. One could argue it was Siggy, but I think he wouldn't have had much relevance had he never grasped Soul Edge.
Anyway, those are my picks. I'm curious to see what other players choose.

 

[Rusted Blade]

Heh, always loved things like this that make me think. 20 is a limited number, but I'm pretty happy with this.

The 20 favourites:
and Ashlotte
Guests:
2B, Geralt, Ezio.
Ashlotte would always be my number 1 guest , but It's up in the air just HOW canon she is, though with the rebooted timeline, I think it's better to set her as an actual character, to avoid (my) confusion. I was never really one to play with guests.

Stalwarts:
[]
I'm not sure what you mean exactly by stalwart, but I'm guessing the most iconic to me personally?

I felt kinda bad for leaving out hwang, because as much as I'd like to see him in a new SC, I never played soul blade and Hilde just edges him out I guess Otherwise I guess she would have made it. Personally, Natsu and Leixia are interchangeable to me at least, I liked both of them. Groh and Azwel could have made it I had space but alas. (Maybe if groh was less of an edge lord.) . I just don't like ivy as much as Zas or Zwei. Also she looks kind of similar to me (facially) which kinda weirds me out, but it wouldn't be SC without her.

Well, you could always make room for Hwang by swapping out Astaroth or Ashlotte, since they share a move set. I totally get where you are coming from with Leixia and Natsu--of the understudy styles of V, those two were definitely the ones I liked most, representing the best balance between being faithful to the older character that inspired them and shaking things up a bit. But with one game, they only make it on to this list because I mostly stick to just a few characters per game for the vast majority of my play (not atypical of course), so even after more than two decades of playing the franchise, it was hard to find twenty three characters that met some of the criteria that I was using--namely that I could honestly say were in my wheelhouse to the extent that I would be vaguely competent in mid to high level play, or at least felt that I had really explored their moveset, that I was (for want of a more precise term) basically familiar with them and how they play from more than an opponent's or a casual player's standpoint. So they both just barely edged out Zas. I think if I had to choose more it would start to become hard for me to say that I had put a huge amount of time into them. Don't get me wrong, I've played every version of every character in the series numerous times, but I think basic competency with a given version of a given moveset takes about a hundred hours, if you already have deep experience with the series. That's enough not to make a fool of yourself. With a focus on just a few characters, that means that I only hit that threshold with three, four, maybe five characters per game (though one or two of those I will put many hundreds of hours into). I'm sure there are characters there where I've certainly put well more than a hundred hours into across the series (Yoshimitsu, Zasalamel, Maxi, Yun-seong, maybe Tira), but today I wouldn't call myself truly familiar with them in any one particular game.

Let's play the game then. I've been playing SC since its very beginnings, SB (god I miss my arcade years so bad!!!) some 20 + years ago, and Soul Calibur was the first game I bought back in my Dreamcast days (I miss that too goddammit!). Been a Taki main ever since, but with age comes wisdom (or so they say) and I've learned to enjoy MOSTLY every character presented in the franchise. Here goes:
20 favs:
View attachment 57418View attachment 57420View attachment 57421View attachment 57422View attachment 57423View attachment 57424View attachment 57425View attachment 57426View attachment 57427View attachment 57428View attachment 57429View attachment 57430View attachment 57431View attachment 57432View attachment 57433View attachment 57434View attachment 57435View attachment 57436View attachment 57437View attachment 57438
Guests: View attachment 57439, Ezio, Geralt.
I feel these are the guest that better adjusted to the game in terms of mechanics and styles (not just magic-wielding emos like...)

Stalwarts:
View attachment 57440View attachment 57441View attachment 57442View attachment 57443View attachment 57444
I know I'm leaving some good fellas' behind, but IMO, no Soul Calibur game is complete if those characters are left out. Partly one of th ereasons SCV gor pummeled so bad. Thay left out Sophie and Taki due to being "too old" for the timeline, but Mitsu was there in his 40 some, performing perfectly... Anyway, Taki, Sophie, and Cervs are quintessential story-wise, the girls were the first to defeat Soul Edge and strip Cervs of his eeeeeevil power. There would be no sequel if they hadn't. Mitsu is a keeper and an all-time favorite, and Nighmare, well, he is pretty much the whole reason for Soul Edge to be back on its terror-spreading campaign. One could argue it was Siggy, but I think he wouldn't have had much relevance had he never grasped Soul Edge.
Anyway, those are my picks. I'm curious to see what other players choose.

You definetly picked what might be considered the thematically most central characters of the series (considering all entries), I feel. If someone were to say "who are the twenty main characters of Soul Calibur?" I think your list would more or less be the answer--although Amy, Zasalamel, and Tira are arguably clambering for that spot of Hilde's.



Interesting. So far, three very different rosters, especially among the elites, except one thing--everybody put Taki in their top five, and if @Ciruxxx83 put his in order of preference, she was top pick for two of three. We clearly have an early favourite!