Soul Calibur VI: General discussion

I'd much rather someone like Valeria came back with a huge revamp/redesign etc and in the future we can look forward to her return as a possibility. Not Geralt who will probably never even be seen again.
I do honestly think more than 2 guests (especially from unique franchises) is slightly overkill and unnecessary.

Though I guess this is just me.
If we assumed (which I doubt and most people probably do doubt as well) that the game would have DLC past Season 2 then perhaps more guests are logical if its going to be a very long running supported game. It makes sense in that capacity, but if that does not turn out to be the circumstance then I just think it'd be silly to waste the chance on a guest when we can get a returning character we can actually see again.
We have our guests for now and we should move on to SC characters. I don't think at this point in time guests will push as much and we are looking towards Season 2 earliest if more are coming. I think the momentum for something like that wouldn't be there anymore at that time.
It worked out better for Tekken I assume due to the general attention it has in comparison to Soulcalibur (if I'm not mistaken?)

In a dream land where this game was supported for a long time I would have loved a guest like Count Waltz or Claves from Eternal Sonata, but they're obscure and not very big or popular sadly. That and with Amy's SC6 incarnation they seemed to have already mimicked some animations from these characters already so I suppose it wouldn't happen at all. That game has lovely design design though, I'd love SC to perhaps get a male character with a demeanor akin to Count Waltz. The closest we have is Raphael or Azwel and I'd still say they're rather different. A selfish/vain/sadist male character would make me quite happy, we don't really have it nor do we have a particularly old or young male. (Edge Master/Amy, no older females to my knowledge either?)

I have zero hope that any character will come. That being said, I dread this patch.
Dread is all I feel.

Yeah, I have to say, I still don't follow the reasoning behind your "if they can't come back, they aren't worthwhile" logic: it's a shame that IP restrictions and licensing fees stop Kratos, or Ezio or whoever from showing up again, but I don't think that makes any given moveset less interesting while it features. And even more to the point, no single Soulcalibur game is ever going to have enough spots to accommodate all previous characters, thus "ability to come back" becomes a complete non-issue; there are more legacy characters than there will ever be roster spots for characters in any future game, so....who cares if there are twenty characters who won't be in Soulcalibur VII, half of whom are guests, instead of just ten who are all Soulcalibur originals? Do you follow my meaning?

As to Eternal Sonata characters.....yeeeeeeaaaaaah, I'm gonna say that's a long-shot. ;) Probably Project Soul are not looking to cull any characters from a twelve year old niche RPG based on baroque music with cutesy/kawaii-esque art design and zero marketability. I mean, I'm just going to guess it's not at the top of their list!

As to the patch--it's a little out of nowhere and I can't help but wonder what it's all about, but I think that less than perfect translation is suggesting more drastic changes than are likely to occur.
 

According to my (horrible) Google Translate:

Well, speaking of it! ! !
The next "Sacha e room" is Soul Calibur VI. It is a must-see what character Shikihara plays with which character!
Monday, June 24 22: 54-23: 00.

This is in reply to this:


The e room of sasshi-【I observe the finger field enthusiastic about the game! Play online with Soul Calibur 6]
Fixed point observation of Ayano Shibhara who is passionate about the game! Play online with 3D fighting game "Soul Caliber 6" using weapons! Great graphics! A lot of great skills are excited now!
Broadcast Details
Yoshino Shibhara who keeps active in various genres with the host of the variety program and also the producer of the idol.
Actually, I'm curious about e-sports games! Such fingers play online battles in a game room equipped with multiple unmanned cameras.
We will deliver the picture of the finger base that heats up realistically, such as "become silent", "become muki" and "very excited" as it is. There is a figure of
"Sashii" that we do not know! Please enjoy the "Sachae's e room" where e-sports can be felt more pleasant and familiar, and a new variety of game variety like never before.
I guess June 24 is the date to look out for. I hope so, anyways.
 

According to my (horrible) Google Translate:



This is in reply to this:



I guess June 24 is the date to look out for. I hope so, anyways.

Well as said June would be the right timing if we go by how reveals were made so far, so super good news if it's still the plan.

So they can save Evo for Season 2 reveal :oratleastiFhopeso:

I'm not the biggest Cassandra fan, but god damn i still cannot wait and i'm still super excited for her to be back. I feel she's gonna be a lot of fun.
 

According to my (horrible) Google Translate:



This is in reply to this:



I guess June 24 is the date to look out for. I hope so, anyways.
Is that channel known for showcasing unreleased content in games? I'm thinking the surprise of who she's gonna play could easily be a custom character.

It would be about time they announce Cass, though.
 
Really? That's interesting: do you recall where you read/heard that?

It's been mentioned in several interviews with Tetsuya Nomura and Yoshinori Kitase over the years. Here's an incomplete list of them:

⁠— pg. 112-113 in the May 2003 issue of Edge magazine (issue #123):
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Death of a friend
Easily the most infamous and memorable character in FFVII was neither the main lead nor the central antagonist, although both Cloud and Sephiroth are premier examples of excellent design and characterisation, but rather a flower seller who appears for little more than a third of the game.

Tetsuya Nomura, character designer, conceived both the characters of Sephiroth and Aerith. "The main issues of contention for fans worldwide are still Aerith's death and the ending sequence with Sephiroth. With the plot I wanted people to feel something intense, to understand something. Back at the time we were designing the game I was frustrated with the perennial dramatic cliché where the protagonist loves someone very much and so has to sacrifice himself and die in a dramatic fashion in order to express that love. We found this was the case in both games and movies, both eastern and western. But I wanted to say something different, something realistic. I mean is it right to set such an example to people?"

Kitase-san is adamant that cultural art puts too high a value on the dramatically meaningful death. "In the real world things are very different.
You just need to look around you. Nobody wants to die that way. People die of disease and accident. Death comes suddenly and there is no notion of good or bad attached to it. It leaves, not a dramatic feeling but a great emptiness. When you lose someone you loved very much you feel this big empty space and think, 'If I had known this was coming I would have done things differently.' These are the feelings I wanted to arouse in the players with Aerith's death relatively early in the game. Feelings of reality and not Hollywood."
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⁠⁠— pg. 104 in the October 2005 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly (issue #196):
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EGM: We heard that the death of Aerith and the creation of Tifa both originated in a phone call between you two....

Nomura: It's funny, some magazine ran that story, but only the beginning and ending of it. People think that I wanted to kill off Aerith and replace her with Tifa as the main character! [Laughs] The actual conversation between Mr. Kitase and myself was very, very long. Originally, there were only going to be three characters in the entire game: Cloud, Barrett, and Aerith. Can you imagine that? And we knew even in the early concept stage that one character would have to die. But we only had three to choose from. I mean, Cloud's the main character, so you can't really kill him. And Barrett...well, that's maybe too obvious. But we had to pick between Aerith and Barrett. We debated this for a long time, but in the end decided to sacrifice Aerith.

EGM: Did you pick her to increase the drama?

Nomura: In the previous FF games, it became almost a signature theme for one character to sacrifice him or herself, and often it was a similar character type from game to game, kind of a brave, last-man-standing, Barrett-type character. So everyone expected that. And I think that death should be something sudden and unexpected, and Aerith's death seemed more natural and realistic. Now, when I reflect on Final Fantasy VII, the fact that fans were so offended by her sudden death probably means that we were successful with her character. If fans had simply accepted her death, that would have meant she wasn't an effective character.
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⁠⁠— pg. 11-12 of the FFVII 10th Anniversary Ultimania (original and Revised Edition):
(translation by hitoshura)
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Feelings about Aerith, the tragic heroine
You can't talk about FFVII's heroines without talking about the tragedy that befalls Aerith at the Forgotten City. That event was a very memorable scene not only for the FF series, but all RPGs.

Kitase: In the past FFs as well, important characters died and went away. Like Galuf in FFV for example, they followed a pattern where the character would go down after giving it his all in a fight. In this case, often it went that the characters think something like, "They've tried so hard," and just accept the death and overcome it. When creating stories I think that is an option, but in FFVII we were thinking, could we take this a step further? Bring out a sense of loss somehow? What I didn't want to have was the kind of story development where even when a character dies there's no sense of loss; on the contrary it just raises motivation and pushes you forward.

Nojima: Kitase's loss talk has been consistent since back then.

Kitase: And with a lot of stories, before they die there's a lot of dramatic preparations, aren't there? Like a "pre-prepared excitement," or "using this as a step to fight evil further"; those are the kinds of developments I wanted to avoid. In reality, death comes without warning, and you're left feeling dazed at the gravity of the loss ... Rather than wanting to fight evil, you're just overcome by a great sense of loss, like you just want to give up everything. I was in charge of the direction of that scene and I tried to bring out that sort of sense of realism.

Nomura: It's related to "life," one of the themes of FFVII, so it's not portrayed as a "death for excitement's sake," but expresses a realistic pain. Death comes suddenly, so I think the emotion there wasn't excitement or anything, but sadness.
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Rusted said:
If that was their goal, it wasn't well realized.

Going to have to altogether disagree.
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Rusted said:
I mean almost any meaningful sacrifice in a story is avoidable to some extent, if you just backed up from a certain point of time. But Aerith is killed making an attempt to counter Sephiroth (an attempt he couldn't allow if his plans were to succeed), so I don't see how her opposing him was and dying in the effort was framed as pointless as a story matter, particularly in that her original plan almost worked and her death ultimately put her in a position to stop mitigate the meteor disaster.

Yes, her death ultimately proved fortuitous in the sense that she was able to rally the Lifestream to assist in repelling Meteor. However, that only became necessary in the first place because Holy had been hindered for too long, until Meteor was already bearing down on the planet. Were Aerith alive during the events that immediately followed the City of the Ancients, alternate courses of events may have played out. Among them, it's feasible that Cloud may not have had the breakdown that saw him willingly hand over the Black Materia and allow Sephiroth to cast Meteor in the first place.

Rusted said:
And if her death was meaningless, its worth noting that it happened largely because she didn't wait for everyone to come along with her to watch her back, so that's...kind of weird message to send/ point to emphasize if the pointlessness of her death was intentional.
Cloud had just beat the crap out of her under Sephiroth's control, so she very well couldn't bring him. =P And bringing any of the others seemingly wouldn't accomplish anything but guarantee bringing them into Sephiroth's crosshairs as well.

She was, truth be told, the most capable in terms of addressing the specific threat they were up against. The others would at best be a momentary distraction for someone who was always watching them anyway -- someone whose capabilities include phasing through solid matter, flying, altering their appearance and voice to that of anyone else, conjuring illusions, etc. Really, he could have firebombed their hotel room at any point along the journey had he wanted to, or tried shanking them in the street while disguised as a random pedestrian. He didn't want to yet, though.

So it makes plenty enough sense that she went alone. It really made no appreciable difference in terms of safety. In light of Sephiroth's abilities, she was in no greater or lesser danger with or without company -- and for that matter, in light of Seph's intention to wait until Cloud caught up with her so he could force him to kill her, it really made no difference in the end.

Rusted said:
Of course, that whole cluster of plot points depends on awkward timing and plot conveniences, so it's hard to keep the emotional tone in tact if you look at it too closely--it was mostly a tear-jerker because you weren't used to seeing the main female protagonist go out like that and...well, because we were a lot younger and less exposed to well-told stories, frankly! :D And of course, very forgiving of the limitations of the media at the time. That and Squaresoft just had a real talent back then for making genuinely likeable protagonists that you really cared about, no matter what was happening in their crazy-ass fantasy world.

Yeah, pretty much this whole paragraph is valid.

Rusted said:
Ehh, the thing is...survivor's guilt is a real and relatable psychological condition here in the real world when someone is dead and just gone as a person. Less so, when you consider that Cloud saw that Aerith is still alive in some sense in the lifestream.

That's little comfort to the people who no longer get to have her in their lives, nor possibly even to her given that she didn't get to live out a fulfilling life. Especially if you blame yourself for it.

Rusted said:
Alive and kinda-sorta godlike, and still acting to protect the world she loved. I'd have more appreciation for that aspect of Cloud's story in AC, if it weren't for the fact that we saw him battle those emotions throughout the last act of the original game, only to have that triumphant moment at the end where the lifestream saves the whole world and its heavily implied that Aerith is a part of it. Watching him reset to square one for AC seems artificial and forced; so much of AC feels like they couldn't figure out what to do to move these characters forward, so they just had them re-live the last disc of FFVII, complete with a showdown against the same exact villain.

Again, where did Cloud deal with any of this in the original game? He only even remembered Zack in the last third to quarter of the original. As gone over in the "Case of Tifa" installment of "On the Way to a Smile," it wasn't until things slowed down and Cloud had time to revisit places associated with his painful past that he began slipping from stable confidence into depression. During the original game, he never really had time to deal with the consequences of remembering how Zack died, nor the circumstances of Aerith's death.

It became harder still to deal with all that when he realized he had geostigma and thus, probably couldn't keep his promise to Zack to live out a full life in place of the guy who died protecting him.

And again, this was all new territory for Cloud both psychologically and emotionally. None of this was in the original game.

Rusted said:
Likewise, Cloud's terminal disease is just disposed of, deus ex mechanima style, for that picture perfect ending, so it's hard to feel like he was ever in any real danger.

I've always felt it could have been handled better too-- but that's neither here nor there.
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On a related tangent, while going over some of Sephiroth's abilities above, I thought about what you said here in another recent post:

The problem with Sephiroth (and to a large extent this applies to Cloud as well) is that they don't fit the mold for SC guests, whose abilities have to scale to the realities of Soulcalibur's game mechanics. At this point of his representation in his "native" universe, Sephiroth can fly like superman and each swipe of his ten foot sword hits with the force of about 10,000 kilonewtons--if he's not really putting much muscle behind it. That means one of two things happens if you put him (or Cloud, who is two up on him in personal combat at this point) in a Soulcalibur game: either he looks like he is fighting at one one-thousandth of his usual capabilities (which will make him look silly, particularly to fans) or he completely annihilates everything in his path, given nobody native to SC has anything approach his strength and capabilities.

You make valid observations, but fighting at much less than his full capability -- and then losing because the situation gets to a point where it's too late to come back from it -- is kind of what Sephiroth is known for. That's what he did in both the original game and "Advent Children."

Silly it may be, but that sort of behavior is properly characteristic of him.
 
They need to keep her "ururu" voice, it maybe a super unpopular opinion but i always seen it as a core part of the character lol

Of course i'm talking about Cassandra.
 
Much as the hyper-fan in me would like to see every style return eventually, I have to say that not all of those styles are ripe for return. Arthur I feel is the character who most deserves a full moveset in a forthcoming game; of the four bonus characters in SCIII who had existed in the plot previously, only Arthur didn't get a full moveset for SCIII:AE. I've always felt that was a shame, as I think SC could accommodate another katana moveset. So he goes to the top of my list. After that, if we put Arthur, Amy, Hwang, and Li Long to the side, there were really only a few movesets that showed real potential, if you consider weapons that weren't too terribly goofy or redundant on those of other characters: Valeria, Miser, and Greed. I think Abelia, Luna, Aurelia, and Strife have some great moves and potential over-all, but they are pretty redundant on weapon/moveset themes that already have multiple characters representing them in most entries. Hualin and Giradot, on the flip side, have interesting qualities and unique weapons to say the least, but their moves are just too gimmicky and I don't see them translating well to a full moveset in a contemporary SC game. And I could give or take the remaining four bonus characters: Chester, Demuth, Revenant, and Lynette.

After giving much thought, well, yeah not all of them deserve to return. However I feel that Valeria, Giradot, Aurelia, Miser, Luna and the last ones you mention styles should at least make it back.

I do feel the Demuth and Aurelia's weapons need an extreme makeover and these characters don't have to come back exactly; just their styles. I would like their weapons be used on Asian characters personally.

There are a few- Valeria and Luna to be specific- to come back as characters with improved fighting styles because I love them.

For the others like Strife and Abelia their moves can be given to base characters like Siegfried and Sophitia.
 
I'd much rather someone like Valeria came back with a huge revamp/redesign etc and in the future we can look forward to her return as a possibility. Not Geralt who will probably never even be seen again.
I do honestly think more than 2 guests (especially from unique franchises) is slightly overkill and unnecessary.

Though I guess this is just me.
If we assumed (which I doubt and most people probably do doubt as well) that the game would have DLC past Season 2 then perhaps more guests are logical if its going to be a very long running supported game. It makes sense in that capacity, but if that does not turn out to be the circumstance then I just think it'd be silly to waste the chance on a guest when we can get a returning character we can actually see again.
We have our guests for now and we should move on to SC characters. I don't think at this point in time guests will push as much and we are looking towards Season 2 earliest if more are coming. I think the momentum for something like that wouldn't be there anymore at that time.
It worked out better for Tekken I assume due to the general attention it has in comparison to Soulcalibur (if I'm not mistaken?)

In a dream land where this game was supported for a long time I would have loved a guest like Count Waltz or Claves from Eternal Sonata, but they're obscure and not very big or popular sadly. That and with Amy's SC6 incarnation they seemed to have already mimicked some animations from these characters already so I suppose it wouldn't happen at all. That game has lovely design design though, I'd love SC to perhaps get a male character with a demeanor akin to Count Waltz. The closest we have is Raphael or Azwel and I'd still say they're rather different. A selfish/vain/sadist male character would make me quite happy, we don't really have it nor do we have a particularly old or young male. (Edge Master/Amy, no older females to my knowledge either?)

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I have zero hope that any character will come. That being said, I dread this patch.
Dread is all I feel.
I haven’t played that game in years. Ah, all those memories of basically infinite comboing an enemy with Falsetto.

As for ages, Edge Master is the oldest male character at older than Algol and the youngest is Yun-seong at 18 (excluding Astaroth). The easiest way to potentially add in a younger male character would be to make Bangoo playable since Rock’s SC ending shows him to be pretty young in the first panel.
 
I haven’t played that game in years. Ah, all those memories of basically infinite comboing an enemy with Falsetto.

As for ages, Edge Master is the oldest male character at older than Algol and the youngest is Yun-seong at 18 (excluding Astaroth). The easiest way to potentially add in a younger male character would be to make Bangoo playable since Rock’s SC ending shows him to be pretty young in the first panel.
He’s also older than Voldo and Cervantes (former being 67 years of age by SCV and the latter being chronologically 72 years of age).
 
Yeah, I have to say, I still don't follow the reasoning behind your "if they can't come back, they aren't worthwhile" logic: it's a shame that IP restrictions and licensing fees stop Kratos, or Ezio or whoever from showing up again, but I don't think that makes any given moveset less interesting while it features.
I don't quite follow. I'm far from just trying to simply say "guests = bad" Them not coming back is a completely valid point, you're not going to see 2B again, she's not beneficial to the future of the franchise in a very literal sense at least. People wont get to have her moveset again.
Yes whilst they are there that I certainly agree with them adding, but we could have a character with a real chance of coming back and can be come memorable throughout the franchise. We could have had someone like 2B instead.
Yet again if we don't like the developers own characters we should expect them to actually good characters not bad ones, pretty basic.
Though I suppose you me and me view this very differently in all fairness.

And even more to the point, no single Soulcalibur game is ever going to have enough spots to accommodate all previous characters, thus "ability to come back" becomes a complete non-issue;
Tell that to Soulcalibur 4 and hell 3. Its not a "non-issue" at all. We're even experiencing this in SCVI, we get back Amy and her fighting style because she's a real character not a one time thing. She has chances of returning. Its not even about having everyone all at once, its their potential which has a lot more value than them disappearing forever. I don't see that potential in guests, which so far its been the case.

As to Eternal Sonata characters.....yeeeeeeaaaaaah, I'm gonna say that's a long-shot.
It most certainly is, that and Amy already has influences from this game so yeah, I don't expect it myself. It would be pleasant later down the line, but it was never popular enough.

As to the patch--it's a little out of nowhere and I can't help but wonder what it's all about, but I think that less than perfect translation is suggesting more drastic changes than are likely to occur.
Perhaps! I hope its not an evil patch.
 
Do we have the 411 on the Patch that was released (19th June).
SC6 patches genuinely make me nervous now especially after 1.30 guard impact disaster.

Also I don’t mind guest characters but I really think it’s such a bad idea to add more of them now.

ADD NEW CHARACTERS not guests, bring a new player base in... permanently!
The Link and Star Wars fans have long left us Vets behind.
 
Also I don’t mind guest characters but I really think it’s such a bad idea to add more of them now.
ADD NEW CHARACTERS not guests, bring a new player base in... permanently!
Exactly. I do think the momentum and ideal timing for it is gone by now, the game would have to facilitate longer term support for this come back up I'd say.

I would take Viola from Eternal Sonata for a brawler with a bow!
She would be a very interesting take, she uses her bow ranged and punches and kicks with the bow in hand, she could certainly make for a very interesting fighter I think if we take those ideas from Eternal Sonata. Quite frankly I'd be willing to see anyone from there as a guest, they all have lovely designs and interesting fighting styles.

I haven’t played that game in years. Ah, all those memories of basically infinite comboing an enemy with Falsetto.

As for ages, Edge Master is the oldest male character at older than Algol and the youngest is Yun-seong at 18 (excluding Astaroth). The easiest way to potentially add in a younger male character would be to make Bangoo playable since Rock’s SC ending shows him to be pretty young in the first panel.
Great times indeed, she was absurdly good in battle, definitely always worth using.
Bangoo seems like a very good choice however! I'd be pretty interested in that. It just appears we have Amy and Talim who are quite young and we seem to be missing a male, not that he has to be the same as them but young one in a similar manner could be something new and worthwhile.
Edge master returning with a true fighting style is a fascinating prospect.
 
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