Soul Calibur Clones: Discussion and Video Comparison

Frayhua said:
Cassie was originally going to replace Sophitia in SCII because Sophie wasn't in the arcade version of SCII. Sophitia returned in the console version of SCII. Cassie still had a lot of original moves though. In SCIII & SCIV, Cassie continued to be diverse than Sophitia. Cassie has enough unique moves to have a different style even though it's the similar weapon.

As for Siegfried & Nightmare here's the comparision of similiar moves in SCVI.
A
(A)(Similar Stances SHH & NSS, but different moves come out of those stances)
agA_ag:A
ag(A)_ag:(A)(Similar Stances SHH & NSS, but different moves come out of those stances)
Siegfried's 6A to bgB_bg:B
- Similiar Animation, but Nightmare's version causes a KND on NH.
- Siegfried's Version only does it on CH.
Siegfried's 3A & the 2nd Hit of Nightmare's 3AA are the same.
Nightmare can charge his 1[A]K
WS AA(Nightmare & Siegfried Can Cancel the 2nd Hit in different ways)
WS(A)(Similar Stances SHH & NSS, but different moves come out of those stances)
JMP A
2B
2(B)(Siegfried has BH while Nightmare has NLS)
3K(Siegfried could do a KB followup)
2K
Siegfried's 66B & Nightmare's 22_88B are similar, but Nightmare can go into NLS and causes Lethal Hit.
Nightmare's 44K & Siegfried's 44K are the same, but Nightmare's version is a Guard Break.
Nightmare's A+B Moves from his stances only come out in Terror Charge & Soul Charge.
Siegfried's 66A+B & The 2nd Hit of Nightmare's Terror Charge/Soul Charge NLS A+B are the same.
SBH = NSS(Similar Stances, but different moves come out of those stances)
SCH = NBS(Similar Stances SHH & NSS, but different moves come out of those stances)
SCH K & NBS K are the same.
Similiar low throws
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Absolutely, that's why I think that on a technical level, Cassandra and Nightmare initially were the definition of a clone character, something that some people confuse with characters like Kilik, Maxi or even sometimes Xianghua in regards to unlockable/removed SE/SB characters which just isn't the case, I believe however, that the same rule of Cassandra and Nightmare apply to characters like Astaroth and Lizardman for example.
 
I’d describe a clone character as one who shares of the moveset of another character, only with offering a few new moves, altered properties and hitboxes to already existing moves or just general attribute changes to said clone character.

Sometimes the clone ends up being the superior to the original...
 
To me, a clone character is one who mimics 100% of other character's movesets. An example would be CaS and "mimic" characters such as Edge Master, Charade, Eluysium and Olcadan.

CaS is garbage. I don't want to invest my time building a character that copies the originals when rather I stick with the originals.

"Mimic" characters are more interesting; though they copy all movesets from the originals, they change every round enabling the players to adjust to his/her play style.
 
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Soul said:
A clone is a character who shares no less than 50% of another character's movelist. If you call a certain character a clone of another character, but cannot name at least 3 moves that they share then you're really kidding yourself.

Currently, we have no clones whatsoever. We have same weapons, but no clones.
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Is it that entirely out of the realm of possibility to you that characters who have a couple of moves in common with another character who originated these moves/animations might have been based on that other character? that's what I mean when I say "clone" character, this discussion was not meant to belittle those characters, you do realize that, right?
 
Generally if they share enough attacks outside of the general ones that are similar across most of the cast (AA, BB, 3B, 2B), though even that is tricky because characters like Sophia and Cassandra don't even have the same BB.
 
If a character uses the same weapon or serves the same purpose as a different character that character is a clone.
Rock does everything asta does just worse same goes for mina.
Cassandra started as a clone but evolved throughout the games to the point where she had a completely unique moveset.
Amy also differentiates well enough from raph not to be considered a clone but since she is viola now thats irrelevant.
Nightmare and Sieg also cant be considered clones since they are like day and night both gameplay wise and designwise.
 
Foot said:
If a character uses the same weapon or serves the same purpose as a different character that character is a clone.
Rock does everything asta does just worse same goes for mina.
Cassandra started as a clone but evolved throughout the games to the point where she had a completely unique moveset.
Amy also differentiates well enough from raph not to be considered a clone but since she is viola now thats irrelevant.
Nightmare and Sieg also cant be considered clones since they are like day and night both gameplay wise and designwise.
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Well Nightmare and Sieg were clones in SC1, but yeah I get what you’re saying about that for them as the series progressed.
 
I feel like it doesn't matter if they started out as clones. If they became unique with the following games then they shouldn't be considered a clone anymore.
 
Crash X said:
Well Nightmare and Sieg were clones in SC1, but yeah I get what you’re saying about that for them as the series progressed.
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Yea they serve a completely different purpose. Nightmare is a demon soul edge badguy who is out for destruction, Sieg is his antagonist and the complete opposite. That on top of the fact tha their gameplay is drastically different unlike any other "Clones" is why i dont even consider them.

damn-I-Suck said:
I feel like it doesn't matter if they started out as clones. If they became unique with the following games then they shouldn't be considered a clone anymore.
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Exactly, which is why i dont consider Cassandra and Amy clones anymore.
 
I find it depends on the context. When clone is used in a gameplay context, I'm more restrictive with its application. For example, the Greeks aren't clones because their gameplans are very different. Clones are typically characters where the discussion is around properties of a character, like Eddy/Tiger's hitbox size advantage over Christina back in older Tekkens. I think Kuma and Panda are clones.


However, if we're just talking aesthetic similarity between movelists, clone seems to be the common term for when someone doesn't know a grouping category. Like when someone who doesn't use the term Greek and says Sophi clone instead. I just let that slide because it's whatever.
 
For me, a clone is a character that shares most of the moves of another character, with, maybe, some others added for the sake of variety. In the SC series, at least in the games I played (SC2>SC5), there really weren't that many clone characters, unless you're talking from one game to another, in which case, there are plenty. The only real clone characters from the same game are the Bonus Characters from SC4, all others, even though they were similar, were still original enough to not be called clones.
 
When it comes to fighting games, the only time I consider a character a clone is A), if they're a mimic character (Inferno and Mokijin/Combot (Tekken) andi if a certain characters hasl ike 50-60% + moves of a certain character. So for example, Yun-Seong was technically a clone of Hwang in his SC2 debut though to his credit, he did get some moves of his own to help differentiate him a bit).

But then you have characters like Sophitia and Cassandra who I've heard some people refer to as cloned characters to which I disagree since both characters play completely different from each other.
 
What is and is not a clone often can depend on what kind of variety people expect from the game. Any shared trait, be it a move, style of clothing, background, weapon can be considered a clone trait, so what defines a clone from one person to another can vary greatly.

For some it's a pure fighting game and they see it only in moves, nothing else matters. In the extreme such a person would be fine if it was a game of greek school girls all with swords and shields so long as none of them shared the same moves.

Clearly no one wants such extremes, and same can be said for all I've mentioned.

For example some might care only about story, therefore backgrounds is all that matters, it would not matter if everyone had the same weapons or move set so long as each character has a clear difference of story and character. Another form of this is wanting the game to represent more background cultures.

For others it's all about appearance. Every character needs to look very distinct from each other. Is hard to do this without changing up some other aspects effectively, but taken to extremes, it could in theory mean as long as every character looks different in drastic ways, including the appearance of their weapons, that's all that would matter, even if moves were mostly the same.

Then there are those who care about weapon representation, they love it's a fighting based game with weapons and want more weapon variety. They're different from the moves people in that while they obviously want different moves to differentiate the weapons, but it's hardly a focus. If there are shared moves, that's fine where appropriate. No matter how different two characters with the exact same weapons are, they will find them more boring than two characters with different weapons that share several moves.

So, when asking, what is a clone character, one must consider all the different perspectives above.

Let's take Cassandra and Sophitia. While their moves have become quite distinct in terms of weapons they are clones, in terms of style and background they share some clone like qualities, which are further exacerbated by the shared weapon style. So are they clones? Not in terms of moves, but they sure are in some other categories.

Now let's take the current state of Kilik and Seong-Mina. Sure they in their last incarnation shared a lot of moves, but their weapons are distinct and they have clear background and style differences. To the people that care about moves first, they are too clonish, but to those who care about weapons and style for example they are much less clones than Cassandra and Sophitia.

Point being what makes a clone has many different variables to different people. The best way to determine a clone is, how far removed they are from each other in all categories, and to understand that each of these categories have different levels of importance to different people.

I for one find any of these taken to an extreme boring, as I'm most everyone else does as well. So unless you're happy with any of these extremes, to some degree the other aspects matter to you as well. No one wants to play sword and shield greek school girl identical quintuplets from the same school of fighting championship.
 
damn-I-Suck said:
Shura was a clone of cervantez in sc4, because the moves WERE the same (as far as I remember, I don't have a copy of the game anymore so I can't confirm that).
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I can confirm that for you; Shura was indeed a clone of Cervantes due to the exact same move sets; the only difference is that she has longer reach and the space of her hit box is less than Cervantes' making him obsolete when used for playing-to-win in tournies that allow her.
 
franman said:
I can confirm that for you; Shura was indeed a clone of Cervantes due to the exact same move sets; the only difference is that she has longer reach and the space of her hit box is less than Cervantes' making him obsolete when used for playing-to-win in tournies that allow her.
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Were there any SC4 tournaments that allowed the bonus characters at all?
 
The only tourney I knew back then that allowed bonus characters at that time was the Toonie Tournament held by Ooofmatic.

I played Shura for reasons stated in my previous post.
 
Cloneds are characters that are super similar. And rock. (Mina plays differently than kilik imo)
 
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