Soul Calibur VI: General discussion

When did this start happening ? The goofy broken-weapon state in Soul Blade (that was clearly a weakened character state) that never returned ?
The out-of-place 1-time guest characters that are the exception rather than the rule ?
Well, of course unarmed combatants are the exception rather than the rule, and of course all guests are 'out-of-place' relative to the setting...I mean would Tifa really be any more so than Link, Darth Vader, Geralt, or 2B?

The point is, none of these qualms amongst fans who can only tolerate what they consider to be 'appropriate' characters according to their various personal, idiosyncratic standards have stopped the devs from making guests--and an unarmed fighter was one of the very first batch, nearly 20 years ago. There's no real reason to believe these objections are going to suddenly become much more important to the devs such that they constrain themselves from doing whatever they wish to do with the roster selection, be it for artistic or pragmatic/profit-motive purposes.

If it takes some anachronistic character from a weeb game released over 2 decades ago as the guest character to anchor Season 3.. I'll be honest: I may have to compromise on my principles. I'm hoping there is another way, but we're in strange times.
I'm not sure what you mean by this--just that you won't be buying that season pass, where you normally would? Anyway, in all the ways that count for Namco, we're not talking about a game 'released two decades ago'; we're talking about a very much contemporary game (that is apparently selling very well even beyond what the nostalgia factor can explain, which is of course how they positioned and marketed the game--to be a blockbuster, not just appealing to some old school RPG fans). Whether it aligns with your taste or not, that's going to make for an attractive option as the source for a guest character in season 3, especially given their established relationship with SquareEnix for this sort of thing of late. In any event, I think accusing Final Fantasy fans of being 'weebs' from the position of a forum devoted to Soulcalibur may be a bit of a rock/glass houses situation. ;)

SC6's 2 season passes have been exceptional so far, and there isn't any indication that they'll drop the ball if a Season 3 gets the go-ahead from the higher ups. New seasons allow for fat changes to game mechanics not available in regular balance patches (new HUDs and selection background, SA, RI revamped SA, many new moves for every character). Makes the game feel fresher
Yes, I agree there. And you hilight a factor that not everyone appreciates: the continuing support doesn't just give new shiny content, it is also essential to smoothing out the rough edges over a period of time that would otherwise probably be financially unfeasible for the developer.
 
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Nevertheless, I think the fact that we are inbetween releases for a new multiple volume game means that a guest from FFVII:R is reasonably attractive to both the potential licensor and licensee.

Most certainly.

Rusty said:
Well, as to that, I guess it comes down to whether one considers Word of God to be sufficient to establish something that is itself not an integral part of the work, even if the outside info seems to clash with what is suggested in the work itself.

Did you ever read "Episode:Tifa" of the "On the Way to A Smile" novellas (the AC prologues)? It's clear enough without any extra-textual commentary.

Rusty said:
That's actually one of my main problems with FFVII:AC: not that they are not together--I really don't give a shit about 'shipping' characters and honestly, at that point, I feel Tifa could do better anyway, but rather that in many ways it is just a more boring, shorter retelling of all the same plot and character arcs of the original game. We catch up with the characters for the first time years after the events of the game and so much seems to have just been switched back to the status quo ante. Now, I agree that sometimes it can add an element of realism to show that people can still get stuc in their same self-destructive habits and that the world at large doesn't necessarily shift to a perfect state after the 'happy ending' you were initially shown, but for much of that movie I found the hand-holding that Cloud was still having to get from everyone in order to move on and begin having some perspective a bit much at that point.

I quite disagree. Cloud's struggles during the time of AC were drastically different from those in the original game. The only shared throughlines are Cloud fighting Sephiroth as the overt conflict while the real struggle for him is something internal. In each case, though, they were drastically different circumstances.

In the original game, he has to learn to accept himself as a weakling and a failure, then move on. In AC, he has to learn to forgive himself of the guilt he's unnecessarily placed upon himself that's keeping him from appreciating the life he gets to have that others who should still be living don't get to have.

Sure, in both stories his greatest foe is himself, and yes, he has to learn to accept his own limitations, but they're two very different manifestations of such a notion.

Rusty said:
I've been told that her character has changed significantly in FFVII:R, so I wonder if maybe you are having some recentism impact here.

Not at all. I've been correcting this description of her for many years.

The remake does lean into her personality more, though, as it does with everyone. I would definitely disagree that her personality has been changed.

Rusted said:
Her weapon was the least lethal of any playable character.

Less than fists? =P

Rusted said:
She would typically offer little to now resistance on the multiple occasions she was abducted ...

She was taken once, and as a deal to ensure the safety of a four year old.

Rusty said:
Her means of making her way in the world was to grow flowers in an old church. Her musical ques are all soft and melodious. Even her presentation suggested a softer and kinder disposition relative to the harsh quasi-steam punk of the rest of the cast.

She was kind, yes, but could also be very harsh and callous herself.

Rusty said:
And of course, when put to the ultimate test, rather than looking to continued violence as a solution to the problems beleaguering her world, she decided instead a different path, which she may well have known would end with her own blood sacrifice.

She died right after casting a giant "vaporize everything bad" spell. =P

Also -- and this is of utmost importance to the meaning baked into the story -- her death was no sacrifice. The developers have been clear for many years that she intended to come back and live a normal life once Sephiroth was dealt with. She didn't realize he had her number from the start.

Even in the original game, Tifa rejects the notion that Aerith thought she was going to die. She knows her friend intended to return to them and see the future she was always talking about.

Rusted said:
Now, would I call her 'innocent' exactly? No, because while there are shades of apparent naivety to her when we first meet here, as the backstory gets more revealed, we learn that she has as much reason as anyone in Midgar to know how dirty and brutal the world can be. Responding to that ugliness with serenity and an dedication to others is simply how she rises to meet it. But I definitely can understand what Fox is driving at there when he uses that descriptor: Aeris has a good heart that has weathered the unkindness that has been shown to her.

That's fair.

Rusty said:
Now, as I understand it, that has been retconned, maybe even to an extreme extent, in the remake. Both of the people who have played the remake whom I have talked to about it have made a point of saying she's even a little bloodthirsty in this one, which if true, would be rather a dramatic re-read on that character, albeit one that can be justified by everything she has been put through by the time the story opens up. I think it was also suggested to me that she seems to know a lot more about her ancestry and what happened to her people this time around? I don't know: I'm reserving judgment until I've played it myself.

You just need to play it. If anything, the remake has made her more endearing than ever before.
 
#Namco Congratulations on the 65th anniversary!
I really like the Nakamura Seisakusho logo, which is the predecessor of namco, and in SC3 I used this logo casually on linen and valeria costumes as a hidden element. Did you notice?
#Soul Calibur #SOULCALIBUR
Thank you!
The artwork is from multiple artists and is presented as a result of the team.
Fans watch Yun Seong as a sibling. The two-sword style is an image drawn by the artist.
 
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I think she is in another franchise..
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I don't know what game this is but every week Michinori Ozawa puts these girls in my tl ~cries in Talim~
 
Did you ever read "Episode:Tifa" of the "On the Way to A Smile" novellas (the AC prologues)? It's clear enough without any extra-textual commentary.
No, I'm afraid my enthusiasm for the subfranchise does have limits and that sort of thing is just to the other side: though as I recall, sections of those are summarized in some kind of music video or some much that was packaged with AC's original release? And as I recall, that CGI short staring Denzel is as also called "On The Way to a Smile", so presumably that was an adaptation of one of those chapters. Anyway, I tend to classify that sort of 'extended universe' content as quasi-cannon, even if it is set up as official content: one should not have reading assignments in the form of up-jumped fan-fiction in order to have a reasonable understanding of what is going on in the story as told in the main mediums. I mean, I would never argue with someone saying (as here) that this is factually a part of the story, but I still conceptualize the narrative in terms of how it is represented in the broad appeal entries and I think SE really needs to get a handle on how they approach multimedia content in this regard. All a bit of an aside though, clearly.

Sure, in both stories his greatest foe is himself, and yes, he has to learn to accept his own limitations, but they're two very different manifestations of such a notion.
Well, clearly a case of 'your mileage will vary'; for me, I found the specific differences in context pretty trivial when compared to the overall thematic undertones. I just found it quite reduplicative on the whole: the characters, their relationships, their travails, the nature of the overarching threat and how it interacts with the world conceptual ecosystem. Only a couple of characters (for example, Rufus of all people) seem to have significantly grown since the events of the original game. Everyone else is pretty much a carbon copy of who they are and where they were previously, and facing the same basic challenges.

And that's before one observes that half the characters show up as little more than cameos to tick all of the boxes for fan expectations, but otherwise have next to no impact on the plot, no character development, and really little more than a couple of lines. I guess that works for the type of story this is: not enough time to allow them growth, but it's a semi-fanserivce movie anyway, so you gotta get the band back together. Still, kind of a lazy effort, in my opinion, when it comes to the over-arching story. But superb on an action and art design level, it must be said.

Less than fists? =P
If it's Aeris' staff vs. Tifa's fists we're talking about, you better believe it! ;)

She was kind, yes, but could also be very harsh and callous herself.
Hmmm, that's just not the way I recall it, but it's been a looooong time since I played the game. Can you provide some examples of where you thought the character came off as callous, and enough so that it significantly balanced out against her over-all heartfelt/caring vibe? About the only time I can remember her being even brusque is post-Lost Temple, just before she leaves the party. I mean, one interesting thing that I think never gets addressed in the original game (and which I will be interested to see how they treat it in the remake) is that she might not have known initially that Cloud's Zack-like attributes were anything more than coincidence. And she might not have known for sure that Zack was dead until about the same time as the truth about Cloud's altered personality comes to light. One of the reasons she leaves to take her own approach to the meteor problem may not just be selflessness: she might have been genuinely upset with Cloud that he not only stole the identity of the man she loved, but also failed to even tell her that he was dead: even if she knew that was not Cloud's fault and owed much to his own abuse at Shinra's hands, it might have left her with some conflicted feelings about their friendship.

She died right after casting a giant "vaporize everything bad" spell. =P
No, I have to take a hard exception to that part, though I suspect you know much of what I am about to say. The 'Holy' spell was never meant to vaporize anyhting except for 'Meteor'; had it been resolved as planned, it would have destroyed that alien force of destruction long before it got to the planet. Unfortunately, Sephiroth blocked its effect from his position where he had a strangle-hold on the lifestream and the planet's collective consciousness. By the time that the protagonists defeat his reincarnation and then cloud expunges Sephiroth's essence from the lifestream itself, Meteor is already making contact with the world. It's not clear if Holy's release at this point is an automatic thing or if the planet is willing to sacrifice Midgar for the sake of saving the world, but it is clear that Aeris never meant for its power to be unleashed in this fashion; she had attempted the most direct means of stopping Meteor available to her, that's all.

And even to the extent that Holy does add to the destruction in and around Midgar (and it's unclear if it does any more damage than Meteor would be doing on its own, by that point), it is clearly the lesser of two evils if the alternative is the death of the entire planet and Sephiroth riding its corpse around the universe spreading JENOVA willy-nilly. And it's highly implied that it is Aeris' will is at least a part of what brings the life force to bear on the situation and keeps the combined effects of Meteor and Holy from annihilating anyone within a hundred miles of Midgar. This is all pretty much expressly said within the game itself, and reiterated in follow-up games. Holy was a defense mechanism that may or may not have been adding to the destructive force in that final scene, but was certainly not invoked by Aeris as a scorched earth tactic.

Also -- and this is of utmost importance to the meaning baked into the story -- her death was no sacrifice. The developers have been clear for many years that she intended to come back and live a normal life once Sephiroth was dealt with. She didn't realize he had her number from the start.

Even in the original game, Tifa rejects the notion that Aerith thought she was going to die. She knows her friend intended to return to them and see the future she was always talking about.
I'm not sure that we can say with any degree of certainty whether she went into that situation knowing what the ultimate cost would be, but I do think we can safely presume she knew she was putting a target on her back. The stakes and the players are all pretty expressly realized by the end of the Lost Temple segment and she had to know that Sephiroth might anticipate her plan and intercept her at the Lost City. In fact, as best I can recall, it is pretty heavily implied that this is the main reason why she separates from her friends: she knows that it has every chance of being a suicide mission and that even collectively they are no match for Sephiroth, so she decides to take the risk alone.

You just need to play it. If anything, the remake has made her more endearing than ever before.
It's on the shortlist! :) But alas, for everything going on right now, I for one am not left with an abundance of extra free time. I suspect I may not get to it for another few months at the earliest.
 
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Hmmm, that's just not the way I recall it, but it's been a looooong time since I played the game. Can you provide some examples of where you thought the character came off as callous, and enough so that it significantly balanced out against her over-all heartfelt/caring vibe?

Off the top of my head:

- Her insistence on going to enjoy the sights and thrills of the Gold Saucer, which Barret had just recounted was built atop the scorched remains of his hometown; he was none too surprisingly pissed off about that

- Her harsh words to Tseng as he lay (seemingly) dying at the Temple of the Ancients; granted, she's also sad about it and steps away to hide her tears from him a moment later

Rusted said:
No, I have to take a hard exception to that part, though I suspect you know much of what I am about to say. The 'Holy' spell was never meant to vaporize anyhting except for 'Meteor'; had it been resolved as planned, it would have destroyed that alien force of destruction long before it got to the planet.

She cast the spell before Meteor was ever summoned, hoping it would eliminate Sephiroth. However, the spell isn't like most, where the one to invoke it gets to decide on the target. Instead, the (child-like, reactive) planet gets to decide, and will level Holy at anything it thinks is a threat to it. Thus, the question hanging over the last quarter of the game of whether the planet would decide to keep humans around.

This is all explained in-game:

Cloud and the others take Bugenhagen into the City of the Ancients and to one of the chambers.

Cloud
Are you getting something?

Bugenhagen
Yes...... exactly...
...give me a moment.

Bugenhagen floats up to the structure in the center of the room. Cloud joins him.

Bugenhagen
The knowledge of the Ancients swirling around here is telling me one thing.
The planet's in a crisis...
A crisis beyond human power or endless time.
It says, when the time comes, we must search for 'Holy'.

Cloud
Holy?

Bugenhagen
Holy... the ultimate White Magic. Magic that might stand against Meteor. Perhaps our last hope to save the planet from Meteor.
If a soul seeking Holy reaches the planet, it will appear.
Ho Ho Hooo.
Meteor, Weapon, everything will disappear.
Perhaps, even ourselves.

Cloud
Even us!?

Bugenhagen
It is up to the planet to decide.
What is best for the planet. What is bad for the planet.
All that is bad will disappear. That is all.
Ho Ho Hooo.
I wonder which we humans are?

Using Holy is much like using The Moment in the setting of "Doctor Who."

Rusty said:
I'm not sure that we can say with any degree of certainty whether she went into that situation knowing what the ultimate cost would be ...

Well, again, even if we disregard Tifa's insight about her friend, we have many comments from the developers over the years telling us Aerith's death was meant to be the opposite of the popularized sacrificial chess move; that nobody wants to die like that, and that they wanted to depict something more in line with how people are taken from us in real life -- suddenly and without a sense of purpose to it.

I can pull up specific quotations if you need. I am an admin of TheLifestream.net after all. =P

Rusty said:
It's on the shortlist! :) But alas, for everything going on right now, I for one am not left with an abundance of extra free time.
Same here. I've chosen to sacrifice sleep more than a couple of nights here recently after my son was in bed to get to play it a meaningful portion. Worth it. Totally worth it.
 
Let's not forget that her solution to the Don situation is by far the most brutal...

Cloud: I'll chop them off.
Tifa: I'll smash them.
Aerith: I'LL RIP THEM OFF!

Granted, none of these situations seem particularly... pleasant... for the recipient, I have to imagine that Aerith's would be the worst outcome.
 
Let's not forget that her solution to the Don situation is by far the most brutal...

Cloud: I'll chop them off.
Tifa: I'll smash them.
Aerith: I'LL RIP THEM OFF!

Granted, none of these situations seem particularly... pleasant... for the recipient, I have to imagine that Aerith's would be the worst outcome.
Aerith is a true c*ck-destroyer
 
Thanks guys for hiding away SC-unrelated FF stuff behind spoilers. Those can be especially tedious to skim through when looking for SC-related information/opinion, even more so with a certain text length.

Maybe an FF thread could solve my (and others'?) issue with this without taking away your granted enthusiasm. ^^°
 

I stumbled upon this page. It seems to indicate the IDs for characters like Edgemaster and Arthur from SC1.

Like 0x0A = Arthur and 0x10 = Edgemaster. These numbers werent in the pastebin which is odd. https://pastebin.com/raw/7NatdyQV

It also notes that 0x21 is probably for Edgardo. I'm a bit sad now that it seems he was almost in the game. I suppose if Algol is essentially him then it doesn't matter....

Apparently Yun-Seong's Egyptian stage was for Edgardo. I wonder what Yun-Seong's stage would have been in that scenario...
 
That's a really interesting find. I knew that 010 was Edge Master, but I was a but surprised to see Arthur being listed before any of the other SC1 newcomers. I imagined that he'd be much further down the list considering how he's pretty insignificant compared to the rest of the cast.
[/SPOILER]
I guess at the time of development they knew they couldn't use Mitsurugi in Korea super early on, so they got the palette swap done to get that out of the way first.
 
That's a really interesting find. I knew that 010 was Edge Master, but I was a but surprised to see Arthur being listed before any of the other SC1 newcomers. I imagined that he'd be much further down the list considering how he's pretty insignificant compared to the rest of the cast.

Also, because I'm overly curious about anything Soulcalibur-related, this inspired me to look at the Dreamcast version of SC1's files to see if Arthur is mentioned in the port at all. (Disclaimer: I don't really know what I'm doing most of the time) I found that he is, and also, there's a weird thing in the game's text.
There's a single line of text meant for the game's Attract Mode that might imply an unused character. At the very end of the string, listed after Cervantes' info, there's a line that just says "NUNCHAKUS" with no character name or origin. Something that's worth mentioning here is that Cervantes is listed after the other Soul Edge characters in this list and the IDs, most likely because he was absent from the arcade version of SC1 and reintroduced in the home port. That info, along with the weapon listed in the text itself, makes me think that Li Long may have been planned for the home release of SC1 alongside Cervantes.

View attachment 75714

That, or the developers forgot to clean up a line meant for Maxi. But I still think it's the former.

I think there’s a possibility that NUNCHAKUS could be something maxi related. Remember how Maxi has two weapon demos. One that’s standard and one that is two numchakus
 
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