Soul Calibur VI: General discussion

So is this a good thing or a bad thing that they tweeted about Rock? For Season 1 and 2 they were pretty radio silent about characters that ended up being DLC.....
 
6AA, 6AB, 6AK, WR BA, WR BA, WR BK, 44AA, 44AB, 44AK, 66BA, 66BB, 66BK

See here, example starting at 4:50:
the name of the move has "cancel" in it, so they're trying to replicate 2d animation cancelling in a 3d environment so that samurai shodown fans would feel somewhat not lost.

I'm not a fan of it, but I can see why the developers did this.
 
Yes, they're a quirk of 2D fighting games that eventually birthed the combo systems you see today, KOF14 even has a tutorial dedicated to teaching this technique. Watch this video from 3:15 onward.


EDIT:

For the retro cred, SFEX was one of my favourite games for move cancels back in the day.

Thanks for the insight. I'm not into 2D fighters really, so it seemed so off to me, especially in an otherwise beautifully, fluidly and intricately put together mocap/animation-heavy game like Soulcalibur.
 
Thanks for the insight. I'm not into 2D fighters really, so it seemed so off to me, especially in an otherwise beautifully and intricately put together mocap/animation-heavy game like Soulcalibur.

It was never intentional to start with, but because the developers and players found it so much fun it stuck around ever since. Back then it felt like you were breaking the game to do insane combos, which you're technically doing but it's encouraged. In SFEX there's a challenge mode to do these combo cancels, lots of fun but extremely difficult to complete. I never did, IIRC I was shy of four challenges for completion.

 
Yup, Monty was not just a profoundly gifted artist in his own right: he also was a student of human movement who made a point of observing the subject in every context he could, from practical real world martial arts and dance to just about every form of media which ever made a contribution to the genre of action choreography--from golden era film to classical Hong Kong cinema, to modern wushu epics, to animated hits and contemporary trends in games, he studied it and let it inform his own brilliant work.

As a consequence, his work (especially his early stuff, like Dead Fantasy) is peppered with little split second allusions to some classic works, woven into the captivating flow of his fight sequences: in any given sixty seconds of a Dead Fantasy fight, you're probably going to see a few seconds of material that reference John Woo, Shaw Brothers, Akira Kurosawa, Bruce Lee, Yuem Woo Ping, Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Ninja Gaiden, Kingdom Hearts, Sword of the Stranger--and who knows what else, because very few people indeed were well-versed enough in the field to catch all of his references.

None of which is to suggest that his work was derivative--far from it: as an animator, creative director, and choreographer he was almost in a class of his own in how he synergized the world of fantasy martial arts action into something new and innovative. But he wasn't shy about taking little beats to make homages to past masters of the form. And though I never heard him directly reference Soulcalibur in an interview, I agree that it was clearly a part of his vast array of influences: aside from the couple of flourishes you recognized in Dead Fantasy, his RWBY characters Weiss and Pyhrra clearly borrow heavily from Amy and Sophitia, respectively, both in their quality of movement and character design. Then there's also this: anyone who's played the Japanese versions of Soulcalibur II-IV will instantly recognize that a good portion of the voice assets utilized for punctuation in the first two Dead Fantasy shorts were "borrowed" directly from those games--ikimasu!!

EDIT: But mind you, while I think Monty's DF Tifa is fairly faithful to the character's fight stylization in the broad strokes, I have to imagine that if she were a guest in SCVI that her moveset would be fairly directly sourced from the original FFVII, the remake, Advent Children, and the other Compilations of FFVII works--without much need for any more extrapolation than is necessary to get her to fit into the SC mechanics as a balanced character--as this seems to be the approach preferred by PS for developing most guests, and there's no real shortage of cannon material for them to adapt fairly directly in this respect.
You should have seen me squeal and flail during the original Weiss trailer as I caught the Amy notes right down to the left-handedness!!!
🤣💝🤣💝🤣
 
At least for these Dev's:

• Rock's storyline country of origin isn't that important. My take is that should S3 happen, he won't really have any British traits. This is allows him to take on tropes of other warrior cultures. On the flip side Ivy partially has already embraced the elegant english noblewoman. I hope that Rock won't return as a drunken soccer hooligan.
• Rock's trait as a compassionate father yet untameably wild muscle-dude is core to his identity.

Hopefully this allows Rock's SC6 S3 return to take on more aesthetics from the North American warrior cultures in the ~late 16th century. I'm not familiar with how the japanese depict it (head band + feather / tasseled clothing / denim clothing / war paint / barechested).
• the stern yet warm-hearted giant T.Hawk from SF (might be closest to Rock's tropes)
• Julia / Michelle chang from Tekken which really are fundamentally east asian martial artist cosplaying and having a love of saving the trees. Has a bevy of brutal pro-wrestling grapples.
• Samurai Shodown's Black Hawk, with his dual hatchet and pre-battle invocation to draw the strength of the earth.
• Wolf Hawkfield from Virtual Fighter: Gentle, yet nature-loving giant muscle man (see where they're going with this) who happens to employ pro-wrestling in his arsenal.

I haven't mentioned the nightwolf / chief thunder as they're not japanese creations. Based on a common japanese perception of the North American warrior cultures, its unlikely that a returning Rock would veer far from the above depictions.

**
Just like how Hwang is a fusion between an accomplished Korean military swordsman + bloodborne secret hunter of evil, maybe Rock can do the fusion design as well!

Maybe Rock can fuse Native warrior tropes + Berserker (his secret SC2 namesake) Viking tropes. Whats in common with these 2 warrior cultures is that they happen to:
• Wear animal hides
• Mystical connection to Ravens / Bears
• War paint
• bare chested
• Attunement with animal totems
• emphasis on brutal strength
• Handy with dual hatchet/tomahawks
• Warhammer/warclub is also very fitting weapon

Main differences (that I can tell)
• clean shaven native warrior vs giant braided beards of the berserkers
• Feather adornments vs horned metal helms

I don't have a lot of confidence with Japanese depictions of scandinavian warriors (look at Groh) but maybe they want to give it another crack.
The thing is, if I recall the lore correctly (I'm the farthest thing from a lore meister, but the topic has come up here before, and its worth noting that SCVI cleaves pretty closely to that traditional lore), Rock never adopts any traditional Native American garb because he is consistently responded to as a threat by every tribe he approaches, until Bangoo, who apparently is Apache--which, even grading on the Soulcalibur curve for nonsense is pretty silly, because regardless of which coast he washed up on (presumably but not necessarily the East/Atlantic, since he is English) he would have had to have wandered a pretty insane distance to end up in Apache territory. Anyway, this lack of tribal affiliation might have, in time, become a reasonable reason for them to dress him in more traditional western "barbarian" historical-fantasy garb (simple animal skins and so forth).

That said, I'm also pretty sure that in the character's earliest conceptualization as he appears in Soul Edge, as designed by Japanese developers in the nineties--a context in which the average cultural sensitivity can be summed up as "Barrett in the original FFVII"--I'm pretty sure the thinking was a lot more simple and I think probably went something like this (either between parties or inside one person's head:

A: So we want a barbarian guy, but it's the 16th century. What was the most "primitive" part of the world at the time?
B: America!
A: Brilliant! So he'll be a Native American?
B: No, he'll still end up being Eurasian somehow.
A: Perfect! Still, we might have to draw some Native Americans for art assets, so let's go watch some circa 1930's westerns for research.

As to how that renders in a SCVI Soul Chronicle, well...I've made no secret of the fact that I find the single player content in this game to be cut-rate, painful to watch, and just a terrible waste of resources, but I also think they are a much more modern, nuanced and capable design team these days, so I think they will at least find a way to render some of these things in a way that makes a little more sense.

But I'm still not sure whether I would expect a huge change in tone for Rock, making him look more 'tribal' (by which I mean adopting traditional garb of any particular known NA culture). I mean, I guess anything is possible, considering the facelifts and reconceptualizations of some of the recent DLC characters. But even if we do see a significant redesign for Rock, I can't imagine it would extend to such a massive overhaul of his moveset as to change the type of axe he uses.

And honestly, we do need another super heavy in this game: especially relative to the roster size now, there is a pitiful selection in this regard. Besides, I'd rather they save that sort of thing for Bangoo if they ever get back to the post-SCIV period of time in the new continuity. It was such a bizarre choice to advance SCV so far along the timeline of events, but then, having made that decision, it was an even more bizzare choice of characters that they left out of the game set in that time period (that is to say, most of the youngest legacy characters and Bangoo, the one lore character begging for inclusion who would be the perfect age).

Anyway, I've kind of had my fill of the gimickiness of recent DLC characters: I get that Rock will need to be rethought to a significant extent, both because the movelists are larger than ever and the mechanics significantly more feature rich than when he last appeared in SCIV--and on top of that, some of his classic moves have been given to Asta. But I really would like to see a Rock who plays significantly like he used to, but balanced to be more competitive than he was in his last two outings.


You should have seen me squeal and flail during the original Weiss trailer as I caught the Amy notes right down to the left-handedness!!!
🤣💝🤣💝🤣
Haha, yeah, it's a particularly obvious homage in that trailer, from the several nearly-identical-to-Amy moves scattered throughout, to the vaguely gothic doll outfit to the over-wrought isolated girl of privilege vibe. Hell, Weiss' epee-de-cour even shares a rather idiosyncratic morphology for the hilt with one of Amy's SCIV weapons. It's probably the most obvious of all of Monty's character design references--and if that title doesn't go to Weiss as she appears in the earliest RWBY content, it's Melanie or Miltia (I forget which is which) in Yang's trailer, channeling Valeria!
 
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I would love to see Rock return for Season 3.
I want Rock's Minotaur/Buffaloo mask back.

SC1 Rock's P1 costume was great. The Mammoth, Fossil, Bear and Rhino were ok.

I didn't like SC3 Barbarian P1 costume. I liked the SC4 Triple H barbarian costume.

But most of all, I want the JF PT back, his ground throw loops, Broken Destiny's huge damage for Rock and I like the ax, as he is the original ax character. The Warhammer is ok but I like Ax Rock mujch more.
 
I know I'm repeating myself lol, but I think Acht will be part of Season 3.
Okay I know, it says she cannot really fights, but I won't be surprised if they change what they said about her. All can be rewroted in her Story Chronicle and that she can fight in her own way and style..
For her gameplay, why not make her a shapeshifting character like MK Shang Tsung ? She'll have her own moves, but can transform sometimes as a SC character and having the character's attacks.
 
I know I'm repeating myself lol, but I think Acht will be part of Season 3.
Okay I know, it says she cannot really fights, but I won't be surprised if they change what they said about her. All can be rewroted in her Story Chronicle and that she can fight in her own way and style..
For her gameplay, why not make her a shapeshifting character like MK Shang Tsung ? She'll have her own moves, but can transform sometimes as a SC character and having the character's attacks.
That seems more like a change to her character that would be made in a future game rather than the one she's introduced as a noncombatant in. I mean, what would be the point of introducing her as such in Season 2 and then changing it in Season 3?
 
That seems more like a change to her character that would be made in a future game rather than the one she's introduced as a noncombatant in. I mean, what would be the point of introducing her as such in Season 2 and then changing it in Season 3?
And really, that's just the tip of the iceberg for why there is essentially no reason this is going to happen. I honestly don't know why people trip all over themselves insisting this or that Soul Chronicle talking head could, should, or will appear as a season pass character, but there's very little chance of it: n the decades-long history of the franchise, there is precisely one background lore character (Amy) who made a cursory appearance in an earlier game as a character in the story and became a playable character in subsequent games. At least, unless I am forgetting someone, and I don't think I am. I guess there is nothing technically preventing this, but it does not match with PS's modus operandum, but I am always perplexed by the hopefully grasping pretty much every time there is a release: "Lucious needs to be a character!" No, wait: "Salia will be in Season Two, I bet you!" "Whilhelm!, Wilhelm!"

Personally these characters (like everything else in SCVI's lackluster single-player experience) feel two-dimensional and underwhelming to me, and I can't quite understand what inspires these calls for bootstrapping them into main roster characters. But even putting that subjective assessment aside, there are some major practical reasons to be fairly confident nothing like this is going to happen: we still have legacy characters who both 1) have latent potential as fan pleasers (in a game that is very close to bringing the entire classic era playable cast together), and 2) have significant advantages for devs working on extremely budgeted time, who can not only utilize many old assets as a design and production starting point, but also a good idea of where this character should sit in terms of game balance--although clearly, if we have learned anything from Season Two, it's that they are actually looking to experiment with these presumptions a bit when they rebuild the legacy characters. Still, for a team working on a budget and schedule (and with what must be an increasingly small continuing support team), I can't see them throwing over beloved classic characters that come to the design table somewhat complete for a background character.

When you add to this the market considerations which strongly suggest PS will continue to reserve a spot for a guest in each season (which factors have been discussed here ad nauseum, including in recent pages of this thread, so I will not belabor them now), the likelihood of some minor character (let alone the one we are specifically told does not get her hands dirty with fighting!) getting promoted to the main roster is, I think, pretty close to zero.

For her gameplay, why not make her a shapeshifting character like MK Shang Tsung ? She'll have her own moves, but can transform sometimes as a SC character and having the character's attacks.
Technically, that would be completely unfeasible for this game: it would require loading massive amounts of assets into every match that such a character would be participating in. You couldn't do with with any modern 3D fighter, I wouldn't think, without massive headaches--and certainly not with a game as poorly optimized as SCVI.
 
And really, that's just the tip of the iceberg for why there is essentially no reason this is going to happen. I honestly don't know why people trip all over themselves insisting this or that Soul Chronicle talking head could, should, or will appear as a season pass character, but there's very little chance of it: n the decades-long history of the franchise, there is precisely one background lore character (Amy) who made a cursory appearance in an earlier game as a character in the story and became a playable character in subsequent games. At least, unless I am forgetting someone, and I don't think I am. I guess there is nothing technically preventing this, but it does not match with PS's modus operandum, but I am always perplexed by the hopefully grasping pretty much every time there is a release: "Lucious needs to be a character!" No, wait: "Salia will be in Season Two, I bet you!" "Whilhelm!, Wilhelm!"

Personally these characters (like everything else in SCVI's lackluster single-player experience) feel two-dimensional and underwhelming to me, and I can't quite understand what inspires these calls for bootstrapping them into main roster characters. But even putting that subjective assessment aside, there are some major practical reasons to be fairly confident nothing like this is going to happen: we still have legacy characters who both 1) have latent potential as fan pleasers (in a game that is very close to bringing the entire classic era playable cast together), and 2) have significant advantages for devs working on extremely budgeted time, who can not only utilize many old assets as a design and production starting point, but also a good idea of where this character should sit in terms of game balance--although clearly, if we have learned anything from Season Two, it's that they are actually looking to experiment with these presumptions a bit when they rebuild the legacy characters. Still, for a team working on a budget and schedule (and with what must be an increasingly small continuing support team), I can't see them throwing over beloved classic characters that come to the design table somewhat complete for a background character.

When you add to this the market considerations which strongly suggest PS will continue to reserve a spot for a guest in each season (which factors have been discussed here ad nauseum, including in recent pages of this thread, so I will not belabor them now), the likelihood of some minor character (let alone the one we are specifically told does not get her hands dirty with fighting!) getting promoted to the main roster is, I think, pretty close to zero.


Technically, that would be completely unfeasible for this game: it would require loading massive amounts of assets into every match that such a character would be participating in. You couldn't do with with any modern 3D fighter, I wouldn't think, without massive headaches--and certainly not with a game as poorly optimized as SCVI.
The characters mentioned in story that got introduced in later games are Amy, Cassandra, Pyrrha, and Pat.

No other lore characters have made it into main roster from what I’m aware.
 
I'm perplexed by people who believe that Arthur will be playable in Season 3, even if he is just a Mitsurugi CaS in Libra of Soul.
 
I'm perplexed by people who believe that Arthur will be playable in Season 3, even if he is just a Mitsurugi CaS in Libra of Soul.
More's the pity there, because I always felt Arthur has long been ripe for inclusion in the main roster. The "bonus" playable characters in in SCIII fall into two groups really--those who were prexisting characters of the main SC canon, and those who were Chronicles of the Sword personalities. Of the four characters in the former group (Hwang, Li Long, Amy and Arthur), it was only Arthur who did not come back for SCIII: AE with a fully fleshed-out moveset--and he's never appeared as anything but a CaSified single player mode extra ever since. Just feels like he got the short end of the stick there--especially considering he was (albeit in a very narrow technical sense by virtue of localization efforts) a playable character early in the series. But with SCVII likely overlapping more with SCIII's timeline, and Haohmaru presumably not returning for that game, maybe that will finally be his moment to finally be brought into the fold as a mainroster character with a fully realized independent moveset.
 
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