Soul Calibur VI: General discussion

[Nyte]

For those of you wondering the emphasis on sex appeal, it's like why the game is full of other cool designs, and over-the-top visual effects like with the (admittedly long) CEs:

Soulcalibur VI was designed to be as visually appealing as possible. I remember Okubo even stated that his design philosophy is that the game must look good on all fronts to invite as many players as they can.

So there's your answer. It has merit too, considering that Soulcalibur is in a niche genre, and was on its last legs having only barely gotten the greenlight, they decided to do everything they can to make the game appealing to the widest possible audience.

 

[masterROBOMAN]

So... i was playing a previous titles in order to remind myself about how to play Hilde (She is one of the least played characters in my experience) and... Why people like SC4? For my, 4 is a most uninspired chapter in SC series with sometimes unappealing character designs and really slow and uncomfortable gameplay!

SC4 lovers! Why do you like this game? What did i missed to ended up liking it?

 

[Nyte]

So... i was playing a previous titles in order to remind myself about how to play Hilde (She is one of the least played characters in my experience) and... Why people like SC4? For my, 4 is a most uninspired chapter in SC series with sometimes unappealing character designs and really slow and uncomfortable gameplay!

SC4 lovers! Why do you like this game? What did i missed to ended up liking it?

Nostalgia. I will admit there were a lot of faults with it but at the time it was really fun.

 

[masterROBOMAN]

Nostalgia. I will admit there were a lot of faults with it but at the time it was really fun.

Nostalgia..? Why am i feeling so old right now?

I feel nostalgic only while i playing SC1 on DC and SC3 on PS2. Yeah, i know, SC3 have a similar gameplay flaws as 4, but i really love character design and music of this game. And a story tolled better then in 4's (Have some opening beefing, chapter names, and ending. done)

 

[RyujiSakamoto]

if they wanted the game to look good on all fronts they should have focused on improving character models to a point past PS3 quality.

 

[mokamoka827]

For those of you wondering the emphasis on sex appeal, it's like why the game is full of other cool designs, and over-the-top visual effects like with the (admittedly long) CEs:

Soulcalibur VI was designed to be as visually appealing as possible. I remember Okubo even stated that his design philosophy is that the game must look good on all fronts to invite as many players as they can.

So there's your answer. It has merit too, considering that Soulcalibur is in a niche genre, and was on its last legs having only barely gotten the greenlight, they decided to do everything they can to make the game appealing to the widest possible audience.

Honestly, it's just frustrating that "as visually appealing as possible" just translates to almost every female character being put in their skimpiest outfits to date, on top of most of them getting breast upgrades.

By all means, have a couple characters with focus on sex appeal, but it's just really boring when that's the focus of the whole female cast. Excluding SC4 to some extent, the whole series has had a balance as far as sex appeal goes. SC6 just kinda threw it out the window imo

 

[artard4321]

Designed by a woman or not it won't change that it looks like a piece of garbage.

Weirdly, i'm a big fan of what Shimazaki did most of the time, like Bayonetta, her works on Okami, T7's Kazumi, and even Josie at some point, but her works in Lost Swords were pure atrocities. (thankfully this trash happened in a spin off game and not a main game, and that's why i didn't care much about it)

Like I stated before, that's the whole point and I deliberately posted what I think to be an ugly design. It doesn't matter whether it be a man or a woman making a design, sometimes it just comes out that way. Point I was trying to make is that the gender of the designer doesn't matter, it's the end result of what they make that does.

Also, Mari Shimazaki did a great job with Bayonetta but I'm gonna have to disagree with you if she designed Josie. Talim was a great design for a Filipino character but Josie makes me cringe so badly. If you ask most Filipinos, at least to my experience, most would also say her design is cringeworthy and not representative of a Filipino character. It's like making a character named Georgia Washington, dressing her up with the American flag or making her look like the Statue of Liberty, then passing her off as an American character.

In the end, how good the character design is is a subjective thing that differs from people to people. Also just saying that it isn't safe to assume who or what kind of person the designer is depending on the character or costume they designed. Even great designers can mess up too, anyone who studied art can attest to this.

 

[Nyte]

Honestly, it's just frustrating that "as visually appealing as possible" just translates to almost every female character being put in their skimpiest outfits to date, on top of most of them getting breast upgrades.

By all means, have a couple characters with focus on sex appeal, but it's just really boring when that's the focus of the whole female cast. Excluding SC4 to some extent, the whole series has had a balance as far as sex appeal goes. SC6 just kinda threw it out the window imo

They’re just catering to their primarily male audience by giving them what they want to see. I don’t think advertising woke politics would help the series out at all. It’s certainly not what I associate with SC.

Also, I explained well what “as visually appealing as possible” means across the board. No one seems to have a problem with the over the top designs in general, it’s just sex appeal where they draw the line. Interesting.

Besides, the cast has always looked this way and this is more of an update than an overhaul.

Mi-na in SCII:

 

[werewolfgold]

I remember Okubo even stated that his design philosophy is that the game must look good on all fronts to invite as many players as they can.

Swing and a miss. Have you seen the corruption textures on Nightmare? lol

I don't know if there's going to be this rush of people to use Hilde because her armor has boobs. It might just piss off people that liked her as-is. Hilde's new design isn't even sexy. It's just goofy. Speaking as a man, it does nothing for me. They think they're catering to me? They fucked it up. lol

I don’t think advertising some politics would help the series out at all.

"Politics" = Not having your tits out in a grand display? Gotcha.

SC2 also had this.

The world didn't end.

Like I said before, if the tits-in-your-face-all-day-erry-day thing wasn't your jam, then you had a couple of options before. And now you kind of don't, especially with no readily available 2P outfits. And that's suppose to bring in more people?

And it's not just the sex appeal that causes people to complain. Clearly, some people think Grøh is edgelord-y, out-of-place garbage for example.

 

[Nyte]

Swing and a miss. Have you seen the corruption textures on Nightmare? lol

I don't know if there's going to be this rush of people to use Hilde because her armor has boobs. It might just piss off people that liked her as-is. Hilde's new design isn't even sexy. It's just goofy. Speaking as a man, it does nothing for me. They think they're catering to me? They fucked it up. lol


"Politics" = Not having your tits out in a grand display? Gotcha.

SC2 also had this.

The world didn't end.

Like I said before, if the tits-in-your-face-all-day-erry-day thing wasn't your jam, then you had a couple of options before. And now you kind of don't, especially with no readily available 2P outfits. And that's suppose to bring in more people?

And it's not just the sex appeal that causes people to complain. Clearly, some people think Grøh is edgelord-y, out-of-place garbage for example.

That was a 2P outfit though...

 

[Nyte]

Also, Dead or Alive 6 tried to “cater to world trends” and “make the women look more human” and that game, the direct competitor to Soulcalibur VI, was (pardon the pun) Dead on Arrival. It flopped so bad that the leader had to step down. Soulcalibur VI did much better, saving the series and getting an unexpected second season, while fully embracing sexiness.

I only inferred that because the cast is already sexy, and only having “a couple focused on sex appeal” didn’t sit well with me at all. I don’t want SC to end up like DOA, dying because they went against their integrity.

 

[Assassinate]

Also, Dead or Alive 6 tried to “cater to world trends” and “make the women look more human” and that game, the direct competitor to Soulcalibur VI, was (pardon the pun) Dead on Arrival. It flopped so bad that the leader had to step down. Soulcalibur VI did much better, saving the series and getting an unexpected second season, while fully embracing sexiness.

I only inferred that because the cast is already sexy, and only having “a couple focused on sex appeal” didn’t sit well with me at all. I don’t want SC to end up like DOA, dying because they went against their integrity.

I’m sorry, but do you hear yourself.

SC brought down to the level of DOA. That’s just sad.

 

[Nyte]

I was using it for comparison. I remember when DOA6 was announced, many fans said "I'll just play SCVI instead". Believe it or not, there was a time when DOA was a good series. That has long since past, but still.

Bottom line, there's nothing wrong with what's visually appealing. Yoko Taro gave the best answer when asked why 2B looks the way she does.

 

[werewolfgold]

That was a 2P outfit though...

...

Like I said before, if the tits-in-your-face-all-day-erry-day thing wasn't your jam, then you had a couple of options before. And now you kind of don't, especially with no readily available 2P outfits. And that's suppose to bring in more people?

The Hilde situation is made worse because the game makes you stick with the default unless you take time to go make an outfit yourself...and that's not an option in tournaments or even if you just go play with someone else. You're just kinda stuck. T7 wised up and gave everyone their alternate outfits from the select screen when they did the Season 3 patch. SC6 should get on that as well.

Also, Dead or Alive 6 tried to “cater to world trends” and “make the women look more human” and that game, the direct competitor to Soulcalibur VI, was (pardon the pun) Dead on Arrival. It flopped so bad that the leader had to step down. Soulcalibur VI did much better, saving the series and getting an unexpected second season, while fully embracing sexiness.

You're missing a few pieces there. You can't make these claims as if the reason SC6 succeeded was because of the sexiness and not in spite of it without a whole bunch more data we don't have access to. It may have not factored into people's purchases at all. Especially when SC6 was pretty much your only option for a weapons fighter before SS came back. Some people got into the series just because it had Link that one time. We'd have to figure out if the sexy characters are the main reason why people are into SC when I kind of doubt it. For DOA...that might be a different story by this point.

It's also relevant to point out that even at SC's lowest point, it has always outsold DOA even at DOA's most shameless. And it's also weird to say that DOA6 was a direct competitor to SC6 when the games released near half a year apart from each other.

And speaking as someone that owns DOA6, that game had a whole host of other problems. No lobbies, weird textures, bugs, dumbass costume unlock system that they had to patch 3 times, etc. Not to mention that it might be a tough sell coming off of DOA5LR which has more characters and even looks better graphically in some areas.

DOA6 just wasn't that stellar of a product and the reviews and word of mouth hit it pretty hard. And who knows if the EVO Japan "Core Values" incident helped or hurt it in the end? I don't. But, you can't only take the parts of the situation that fit your narrative.

Lastly, Shimbori didn't "step down." He went from being both the producer and the director to just picking one. I forget which one, but he's still there.

 

[DanteSC3]

woke politics

There's not two extremes, it doesn't have to be one or the other. SoulCalibur V struck a good balance, hearkening back to SoulBlade-SoulCalibur II, even SoulCalibur III, which had the best outfits in the series, where it had a fair split between good design with some fanservice on the side, for both genders. SoulCalibur IV and SoulCalibur VI are the egregious offenders, with the female characters in particular, with regards to outfits that are clearly in poor taste.

Mi-na in SCII

Mi-na has always shown skin, this much is true, but her bikini top in SoulCalibur II was well-fitted and athletic, not the undersized underboob queen she currently represents. It's not the same thing. She was underbooby in SoulCalibur III and SoulCalibur IV as well, but it was at least a little stylish in those.

Hilde's new design isn't even sexy. It's just goofy.

Very much this. Hilde looked practical in both SoulCalibur IV and SoulCaibur V. Now... not so much. It can be addressed if they give us her SoulCalibur IV or SoulCalibur V 1p outfits as CaS parts, but mildly sad that it has to come to that in order for her to look respectable. That being said, though, I definitely appreciate having customization as a method with which we can create more appealing outfits than the standard. Particularly if Season 2 gives us even more quality parts to work with, as is the hope.

That was a 2P outfit though...

And? Ivy's 2p from SoulCalibur is arguably her best outfit to date. And a ton of SoulCalibur III 2ps are the best for the whole series. 2p outfits are great.

 

[Nyte]

It’s not comparable with the 2P costumes, because as you said SCVI doesn’t have them. They wanted to, but time/budget constraints forced them to cut it.

My point with DOA6 was them catering to a vocal minority hurt them massively, while SCVI didn’t and was no worse for wear. This isn’t for a lack of trying either what with sites like Polygon, Fandom and Kotaku trying to shame them.

 

[Nyte]

There's not two extremes, it doesn't have to be one or the other. SoulCalibur V struck a good balance, hearkening back to SoulBlade-SoulCalibur II, even SoulCalibur III, which had the best outfits in the series, where it had a fair split between good design with some fanservice on the side, for both genders. SoulCalibur IV and SoulCalibur VI are the egregious offenders, with the female characters in particular, with regards to outfits that are clearly in poor taste.


Mi-na has always shown skin, this much is true, but her bikini top in SoulCalibur II was well-fitted and athletic, not the undersized underboob queen she currently represents. It's not the same thing. She was underbooby in SoulCalibur III and SoulCalibur IV as well, but it was at least a little stylish in those.


Very much this. Hilde looked practical in both SoulCalibur IV and SoulCaibur V. Now... not so much. It can be addressed if they give us her SoulCalibur IV or SoulCalibur V 1p outfits as CaS parts, but mildly sad that it has to come to that in order for her to look respectable. That being said, though, I definitely appreciate having customization as a method with which we can create more appealing outfits than the standard. Particularly if Season 2 gives us even more quality parts to work with, as is the hope.


And? Ivy's 2p from SoulCalibur is arguably her best outfit to date. And a ton of SoulCalibur III 2ps are the best for the whole series. 2p outfits are great.

Why are you even following SC if you hate sex appeal so much?

The way you constantly praise SCV, and speak like what you're saying is fact, makes me wonder if you even realize that you're in an extreme minority. People HATE Soulcalibur V, because it was a shitty game. That's why they rebooted the series and abandoned course. And hello, ever notice how women always go for sexy cosplay?

Video Game Cosplay -- General

Video Game Cosplay -- Soulcalibur

\

Video Game Cosplay -- 2B (aka the most cosplayed character of 2017)

Yeah, women really hate those objectifying designs made in poor taste. /s

But seriously, I'm starting to get why you're so desperate to prove SCVI isn't a reboot and why we're totally going back to the SCV era. You want to get rid of the old female cast all over again!

 

[Heniek]

I believe that people tend to overestimate the influence of "antiwoke" reactions. But as said earlier - it's not about two extremes. It's important to keep in mind that sex-appeal has many facets. I personally like Mina being underboob queen but I find her SCVI bra ridiculous and would opt for some bandages instead.
Also personally I don't mind boobplate (most of my earlier points were about historical and practical aspects, not design ones) tho I would agree her previous designs were better. I still have my fingers crossed for her previous armours being DLC, tho common sense wishes me to think they will settle with dress because time and money

 

[genghis_chan]

I was using it for comparison. I remember when DOA6 was announced, many fans said "I'll just play SCVI instead". Believe it or not, there was a time when DOA was a good series. That has long since past, but still.

Bottom line, there's nothing wrong with what's visually appealing. Yoko Taro gave the best answer when asked why 2B looks the way she does.

thank god Japan doesn't give a fuck about SJW/PC shit, otherwise we would end up with something like this.



On the topic of DOA being a good series, yes it was a good series and you could say that if DOA made the right moves with DOA6 they could have been bigger than most fighting games out now even SC6, but they fucked up on the looks of the Characters, i remember fans not being pleased on how Kasumi looked, gameplay was not received well by the community and then DLC, you can expend up to €/$1200 in game purchases and the base game was and still is €/$ 70 and then after like 2 moths making the game semi free to play that was a slap on the face for people that bought the game full retail price what made things even worst.
Not listening to the the community and such atrocious and shameless motorization plans is a big red flag and people jumped ship and now DOA is where it is now.
This does not mean DOA is dead (more dead than alive ) they are more in the state where SC4 is.
Next DOA will be their redemption arc at least thats what i hope.

 

[Nyte]

thank god Japan doesn't give a fuck about SJW/PC shit, otherwise we would end up with something like this.

View attachment 67784 View attachment 67785

On the topic of DOA being a good series, yes it was a good series and you could say that if DOA made the right moves with DOA6 they could have been bigger than most fighting games out now even SC6, but they fucked up on the looks of the Characters, i remember fans not being pleased on how Kasumi looked, gameplay was not received well by the community and then DLC, you can expend up to €/$1200 in game purchases and the base game was and still is €/$ 70 and then after like 2 moths making the game semi free to play thats what made things even worst.
Not listening to the the community and such atrocious and shameless motorization plans is a big red flag and people jumped ship and now DOA is where it is now.
This does not mean DOA is dead (more dead than alive ) they are more in the state where SC4 is.
Next DOA will be their redemption arc at least thats what i hope.

Wait, how is DOA6 comparable to SCIV? I thought SCV is more comparable in this case. SCIV, hate it or love it, was a big success and didn't "kill" the series anywhere near as much as SCV did.

I love everything else you said though.