Groh and the whole Awal Organisation with their secret society shtick were invented specifically as a lore-friendly supporting cast to CaS-centric story modes, so I believe Grow will indeed stick as a franchise regular for as long as people continue to like CaS, so basically until the end of times.
Yes, I agree--although I wouldn't say it's so much about CaS; the truth of the matter is that, with the exception of the SCV exclusives and guest characters, pretty much anybody who makes it on to the main roster returns on occasion in a later game. Necrid is the one exception to date, and even there, we can't be certain how much of that was about how poorly he was received and how much was that he was part of the bizarre licensing arrangement to get Spawn into SCII.
But you've identified something there which I think has gone largely unremarked upon: Azwel and Groh are, as you say, the supporting cast to the custom character based mode (Libra of Soul), and this is only the second time we've seen such a mode in the series: the last time was in SCII:CE with Chronicles of the Sword. In many respects the way the story is handled for both is similar: each seems to tell an almost self-contained story that
technically you can make jive with the other story-fixated modes in the game in a rough sort of way (if you're not to picky about continuity), but which almost seems to be taking place in its own separate world. 14 of the 17 "bonus" characters in SCIII come from Chronicles of the Soul and those 14 are the ones that were never seen in a game before and never heard from again (well, with their styles anyway; some of them show up sporadically as CaS opponents sporting someone else's style in story modes for later games, but they are notably the bonus characters that didn't even make the cut for SCIII:AE, whereas the three bonus characters who did--Amy, Li Long, an Hwang--were already established in the series lore).
In some respects, Azwel and Groh function like those 14 characters--they are oddball fits in terms of aesthetics and they are the stars of that one mode but feel tacked on to the main story / modes. But in other respects they are much more like standard characters: they have full movesets and their own narratives in the game's more conventional story mode (Soul Chronicle) and they are selectable from their own cells in the roster menu in all modes, as opposed to being identified as bonus characters and being selectable from a pulldown menu in just some modes. All of which is to say I don't expect they will serve in a CaS mode in the next game (if there even is one; those tend to be a rarity across the franchise) but I think we still will see them return to the main roster in at least some future games.
The problem with a big heavy shield character is that realistically they should perform autoGIs by just staying in neutral against most moves, otherwise what's the damn point if you simply allow enemy attacks to clip right through a big giant shield? Sophitia and other Greeks only work because their shields are tiny, so it is believable for people to accept they have to block each individual attack by moving their shields in a proper blocking position manually every time. Big shields are supposed to be wielded in a defensive position by default at all times, covering 90% of front attacks. Big shield wielders are also supposed to be able to attack while blocking. Frankly I have no idea how to make all those things possible in a SoulCalibur game while maintaining any kind of realism.
Someone previously suggested to make it a retractable big shield for it to make sense, but at that point we are back into anime territory, so again, what's the point? Azwel already has a big retractable shield that aGIs attacks left and right whenever deployed. I doubt Azwel is what pro-realism people want.
Agreed here as well: you've identified some obvious problems that make any kind of particularly large shield problematic in terms of the Soul Calibur formula. However, there are middle ground options. I believe that Ciruxxx might have been imagining something as large as a
scutum (the particularly tall square shields capable of protecting much of the body employed by Roman legionaries) or at least something similarly shaped and only a bit smaller. However, these shields would have been rarely used in personal combat at any point in history, being far too unwieldy for that purpose (they were meant to be used in formation to form shield walls). There is a kind of hybrid of this style and a shield more suited to personal fighting--the
kite shield. It was about 50-70% of the height of a man at the era in which it arose (early-to-mid Middle Ages), but had a rounded top and tapered bottom; it was meant as a compromise on something that would be effective for both formation fighting and a chaotic melee. However, I think the best fit would be a
heater shield, which realistically is the only shield that would be used with a mace anyway, in terms of when they were employed and the range of motion that is required for the mace to be effective. Also, to whatever small extent one cares about the armaments not being too anachronistic to the era that SC is said to take place in, the heater shield is the only option that would have seen at least a little bit of usage by the seventeenth century.
With a heater shield and mace, one could get just give a couple more auto-GI moves than typically exist for sword and shield characters and otherwise animate around clipping issues--I think? It's still an issue, but feasible, I expect. Mind you, this is Ciruxxx's "historical style I'd like to see" more so than mine, but deconstructing it, I think it's viable in terms of basic mechanics. The reason I suspect it would never happen is that it's just not quick enough; the SC devs have moved more and more towards faster and flashier play, and a character emphasizing knightly / medieval-ish combat techniques is just not a perfect fit. Though given what the devs have figured out with a wide variety of anachronistic weapons, I wouldn't say impossible to find a a sweet spot between this style and Soul Calibur mechanics. I'd certainly take it over anyone who levitates, teleports, summons weapons from mid-air, and throws magical projectiles at this point.
