Unused SCV Voice Clips providing some story hints.

xxInfernoxx

[09] Warrior
So it turns out the English dub of SCV has unused voice clips just like the Japanese one. Thanks to "Zirothos" on Sounds Resource, it turns out a whole lot of unused voice clips were actually left in the game files. Of course, it's impossible to know how many were left out of the game. I'd say it's safe to assume these were supposed to be used for the Story Mode, judging by file locations of some of them and the fact that they're in the same order as characters with story related voice clips that were actually used: As in, they're the very last sound clips with actual dialogue that's not used for either battle or that are simply characters saying the name of characters they know, or calling them something.

If you want to listen to them yourself, here you go: https://www.sounds-resource.com/xbox_360/soulcaliburv/

With that said, here are a some interesting things I picked up after listening to them:

Cervantes seems to go up against Ivy in the Story Mode, offering to spare someone, assuming they surrender. "Surrender now, and I won't gut ya!" Backing that idea up more, there's this one: "No one talks back to me, least of all you!" We already know he hates Ivy by the time 5 has started, so it's most likely her he's refering to.

As for Viola, her voiec clip drops a bomb. "I'd prefer this be kept a secret." Not that that matters now since it's since been confirmed that she is indeed Amy, but it seems she regains her memories at some point.

On top of that, Hilde says the following in a voice clip: "Your secret is safe with me."

As for Raphael, he has some very interesting clips as well. He seems rather pissed off at someone, most likely Viola. "You will tell me, willingly or not!" So it seems Raphael does in fact end up meeting her. Lastly, there's a clip where he yells this: "Amy! I'm here!"

Next up is Leixia: She, and most likely Maxi, Natsu and Xiba as well, end up visiting a rather nasty place. I would assume it's Kunpaetku's shrine, but that's just a guess. "Well, that's that... Now let's get out of here, and quick!"

Natsu goes up against someone she initially considers to be evil before changing her mind. "I guess you're not evil after all. So who are you?" Truth is, I have no idea who she could be refering to.

As for Xiba, he either already knows that, or he ends up discovering that, Kilik is in fact his father. He outright refers to Kilik as "Dad." as opposed to his name or calling him something else.

At least one of the Astaroths doesn't seem to be going through some easy stuff. Apparently, something rather painful happens to him ("The agony! Raaawrh!") Also, one of them seems to get a pretty big power-boost. ("Raaaaawr! POWER FLOWS THROUGH ME!" as well as "Against this power, all will crumble!"

Ivy has these two: "You should know your place, little girl." and "I don't think less of you. Your caution was only natural." I have no idea who she's refering to. It imagine it could be either Pyrrha, Natsu or Leixia, but arguably Tira (Which I'll go over shortly.)

Mitsurugi has a voice clip that hints at him going up against Algol and winning. "It isn't about how much power you have, it's how you use it." Not only does this seem kind of like a throwback to his SCIV ending, but Algol seems to have a bit of an ego because of how powerful he considers himself. Mitsurugi also seems to go against Xiba, saying this: "Look kid, this isn't some game." Why Xiba? Well, Mitsurugi refers to Xiba as a kid during battle. ("Kid, this is war!")

Kilik doesn't have anything interesting. Still, he seems to go up against someone pretty tough who he apparently doesn't know. "You're no ordinary fighter..." and he also goes up against Edge Master at least once.

Next up, there's Maxi with a few unused lines. There's this one: "An audience, huh? Guess it's cool!" I'd say he seems to have been to the Conqueror's Coliseum, judging by that line and this one: "Guess I'll be taking the price money! Got a problem with that?" Lastly, there's another one that's not really earth-shattering, but a rather nice clip that should have been used for when Alpha Patroklos fought him: "Been a long time... Krita-Yuga."

Tira, having two personalities, surprisingly only has a few lines. According to Jolly, Tira goes up against someone she sounds rather dissapointed with, most definitely Nightmare. "You just don't look right!" There's also a whole lot of other lines Jolly has: "Now then, let's test the new toy!" and she apparently goes up against someone knowledgeable about something. Well, Ivy has done a whole lot of research in her life so maybe she went up against her?

"You'll tell us everything we want to know!"

"Now, talk, loser. I'm all ears."

As for Gloomy, she has no special lines.

As for Z.W.E.I, he has a voice clip that makes things more interesting: "Where's Viola?! Answer me!" Viola apparently goes missing at some point without him knowing about it, and he apparently thinks she's been kidnapped. This as well as the unused Viola clips and the fact that Viola was listed as an antagonist during the Legendary Souls Rundown would suggest something big happens to her during the story. That and the fact Raphael makes it sound as if he finds Amy at some point just adds more fuel to the fire with the whole Viola = Amy debate.

Next up is Nightmare. He has two very intriguing clips where he sounds rather respectful and almost like a mentor, despite being in Nightmare Mode. "Fight, with all of your soul." and another one where he says this: "You fought bravely... for the mere babe that you are." I swear, it feels like he's refering to Viola in these voice clips. Based on this and the voice lines Z.W.E.I and Viola have for when they fight each other, I'm 100% certain that the planned story was to have Viola defect to Raphael/Nightmare. Which makes sense when you remember how the SC Facebook Page refered to Viola as a villain once.

So, go ahead and speculate if you want. I have to say it's quite a shame that with the confirmed timeline reboot in 6, it's likely the complete story of SC5 will never be revealed.
 
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The game was original supposed to take place after 5 in the timeline but things shifted gears and it became a reboot. All you're seeing are the remnants of that.
 
The game was original supposed to take place after 5 in the timeline but things shifted gears and it became a reboot. All you're seeing are the remnants of that.

Nah, he said these come from SCV. These are remnants of the unfinished SCV developpement.

If only the devs had more time, SC5 would've been a great entry, regarding the aspect of a story mode...oh well, on we go to the new timeline.

Definitely agree. Wish they made small priced DLC to complete it.
 
Nah, he said these come from SCV. These are remnants of the unfinished SCV developpement.



Definitely agree. Wish they made small priced DLC to complete it.
Truth is, I think most people would have been mad at having to pay money for what should have been there to begin with. I wouldn't mind Project Soul putting the complete story out there somehow, not necessarily with a game. A man can dream.
 
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If only the devs had more time, SC5 would've been a great entry, regarding the aspect of a story mode...oh well, on we go to the new timeline.

I agree on that. I love SC5 but the game was clearly rushed and the story wasn't up to par. That said I don't mind what they did with SC6. Sometimes you got to start fresh when things tend to go wrong the more you keep going.
 
All of this practically confirms a lot of what was already speculated by me (Z.W.E.I. and Raphael surviving being thrown off the cliff then searching for the missing Viola/Amy, seeing the exploits of Maxi, Natsu, Xiba, Leixia, finding out what was going on with everyone else), and with Viola = Amy confirmed now (as if it was really necessary), yeah, SoulCalibur V could have been great if it was finished. But we may still yet see these things come to fruition, since the timeline is still not necessarily new / the original discarded, history may indeed repeat itself.

Not sure how I missed this thread before, kinda sad that I did.
 
All of this practically confirms a lot of what was already speculated by me (Z.W.E.I. and Raphael surviving being thrown off the cliff then searching for the missing Viola/Amy, seeing the exploits of Maxi, Natsu, Xiba, Leixia, finding out what was going on with everyone else), and with Viola = Amy confirmed now (as if it was really necessary), yeah, SoulCalibur V could have been great if it was finished. But we may still yet see these things come to fruition, since the timeline is still not necessarily new / the original discarded, history may indeed repeat itself.

Not sure how I missed this thread before, kinda sad that I did.
It was actually the first SC game that tried to tell story through quality cutscenes. It's really a pity that they didn't had time/budget or both to properly finish it.
Hoping that any future installments won't have to repeat it's storytelling through portraits and text boxes...
 
It was actually the first SC game that tried to tell story through quality cutscenes. It's really a pity that they didn't had time/budget or both to properly finish it.
Hoping that any future installments won't have to repeat it's storytelling through portraits and text boxes...
I have to agree; people often talk about SCV as an example of feeling short-changed in terms of the story and my immediate response is "Are you kidding me?" Now, don't get me wrong, Shakespeare SCV was not, but in comparison to the balls to wall crazy-ass, inconsistent, low production value, silly, low stakes storytelling that had defined the previous five games, it was pretty much a step forward. There's even a couple of interesting plot beats here and there, and some actual emotional quasi-resolution of the story, spurned on by the game actually -gasp- allowing for the concept of death to actually mean something for the first time in the franchise history. There's actually more spoken dialogue in that game than any other in the series by an epic mile, even with the game being clearly incomplete---at least from the perspective that the devs intended to do more but were either given too tight a timeline and budget or tried to do change too much too fast (and of course, we now know more than enough about the production of this game to safely say it was more than a bit of both). And that's before we even get to the heavier utilization of more involved cutscenes.

But again, even what we did get was so much more meatier in terms of both the type of content, the amount of it, and the quality of storytelling (which remained ultra camp, but at least was struggling towards something more truly compelling for the first time in franchise history). Indeed, I would suggest that SCVI is a step backwards in terms of storytelling. We did get a much larger budget and much more content as regards the story mode in SCVI, but it's never felt like more inconsequential fair than in this entry, and that's really saying something. The dialogue is tin-eared goblidigook that veers between poorly/campily delivered melodrama (which is arguably on the nose for a game which is meant to recapture the tone of earlier games) and hours and hours inane blather between tertiary cookie-cutter stock characters like Bandit A and Pirate #4; the overall plotting is just a tediously packed checklist of the lore of the earlier games, combined with a new (and ill-fitting) generic fantasy threat in a plotline populated by emo-anime-fantasy hybrids with cringe-worthy designs and narratives; and the delivery system for this voluminous non-story has been reduced in production quality down to visual novel talking heads, to the complete exclusions of cutscenes and even an opening video, previously a staple of every mainline game in the series. Sure, by pure volume and a check-the-box approach, there is somewhat more "story" in SCVI, but I think we can also say that it all amounts to much less.

And even then, even judging matters in absolute terms, SCV still did more than any previous Soulcalibur game in terms of active story, except possibly SCIII:CE--you know, the game that stands as the industry cautionary tale about what happens if you obsess too much over your single player experience?? And even if SCV's production had been treated with the respect due a main entry Soulcalibur title, they could not have continued to follow the trend of trying to give every character equal face time; that's not just realistic within the constraints of trying to develope a meaningful story. Which is either an argument for not stressing over the story in a fighter period, if you truly want to emphasize an ensemble theme, or else not worrying over every character being given a chance to shine, if you really want to advance a more detail story, even in a product that isn't first and foremost about story--take your pick.

Anyway, I had as many complaints about SCV when it was released as anyone, and while it has grown on me somewhat with time, I still think there's room for criticism, but the story being weak is just not a reasonable one, in my opinion; from almost any reasonable comparative critical assessment of the story presentation across the franchise, its one of the stronger entries. Granted, that's not exactly the highest boast the industry has to offer, but again, looking at it from a relative perspective regarding what came before and what has come since...
 
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I have to agree; people often talk about SCV as an example of feeling short-changed in terms of the story and my immediate response is "Are you kidding me?" No, don't get me wrong, Shakespeare SCV was not, but in comparison to the balls to wall crazy-ass, inconsistent, low production value, silly, low stakes storytelling that had defined the previous five games, it was pretty much a step forward. There's even a couple of interesting plot beats here and there, and some actual emotional quasi-resolution of the story, spurned on by the game actually -gasp- allowing for the concept of death to actually mean something for the first time in the franchise history. There's actually more spoken dialogue in that game than any other in the series by an epic mile--even with the game being clearly incomplete at least from the perspective that the devs intended to do more but were either given too tight a timeline and budget or tried to do change too much too fast (and of course, we now know more than enough about the production of this game to safely say it was more than a bit of both). And that's before we even get to the heavier utilization of more involved cutscenes.
I would agree with this, except SoulCalibur III exists. Yes, a lot of it is shameless copy-and-paste, but the Tales of Souls mode with its branching paths, interactions, and ending possibilities was the deepest story mode before SoulCalibur VI, not SoulCalibur V. It's what got me to start taking the lore of SoulCalibur seriously, since SoulBlade was pretty bare (though a similar format to SoulCalibur III in Edge Master Mode, SoulBlade vs. SoulCalibur and beyond has a fair number of inconsistencies for various reasons), SoulCalibur was just standard arcade fare, and SoulCalibur II is about on par with SoulCalibur IV with having very little if any story per character, and almost all of it non-canon power fantasy nonsense (not that SoulCalibur III didn't have some of this). Still, SoulCalibur IIi was a leap forward, a lot of things had to be read instead of shown in cinematics, but it was where they were taking things relatively seriously, it set the bar before SoulCalibur V tried and SoulCalibur VI succeeded to rise above it.

But again, even what we did get was so much more meatier in terms of both the type of content, the amount of it, and the quality of storytelling, which remained ultra camp, but at least was struggling towards something truly compelling for the first time in franchise history. Indeed, I would suggest that SCVI is a step backwards in terms of storytelling. It did get a much larger budget and much more content in SCVI, but it's never felt like more inconsequential fair than in this entry, and that's really saying something. The dialogue is tin-eared goblidigook that veers between poorly/campily delivered melodrama (which is arguably on the nose for a game which is meant to recapture the tone of earlier games) and hours and hours inane blather between tertiary cookie-cutter stock characters; the overall plotting is just a tedious packed checklist of the lore of the earlier games, combined with a generic fantasy threat in a plotline populated by emo-anime-fantasy hybrids with cringe-worthy designs and narratives; and the delivery system for this voluminous non-story has been reduced in production quality down to visual novel talking heads. Sure, by pure volume and a check-the-box approach, there is much more in SCVI, but I think we can also say that it all amounts to much less.
Judging SoulCalibur VI's story by its own merits, its delivery could be better, sure, but it's also working with what it's got, which is the existing story before SoulCalibur II, with a few elements that were introduced in SoulCalibur III-V, foreshadowing them, it's not got a great foundation to build itself on, since they were hellbent on keeping true to the original story, which is why I'm myself so adamant about there being no such thing as a "new timeline" in the conceptual basis. I withhold my final judgment until we see what happens in SoulCalibur VII with regards to Zasalamel and Cassandra, but for now, everything in SoulCalibur VI is as it originally was, and with that in mind, it can't really and truly reach new heights in storytelling, because the stories, as they were, were quite basic, tropey, and cliché. It is what it is, and it wasn't trying to be anything more. That being said, SoulCalibur VI concatenated the story of the original SoulCalibur far better than the original SoulCalibur did, and it adequately set up the events to come in SoulCalibur II and beyond with capable foreshadowing. It has still succeeded in my eyes.

And even then, even in absolute terms, SCV still did more than any previous Soulcalibur game in terms of active story, except possibly SCIII:CE--you know, the game that stands as the industry cautionary tale about what happens if you obsess too much over your single player experience?? And even if SCV's production had been treated with the respect due a main entry Soulcalibur title, they could not have continued to follow the trend of trying to give every character equal face time; that's not just realistic within the constraints of trying to keep a meaningful story. Which is either an argument for not stressing over the story in a fighter period, if you truly want to emphasize an ensemble theme, or else not worrying over every character being given a chance to shine, if you really want to advance a more detail story, even in a product that isn't first and foremost about story--take your pick.
I disagree with your assessment on SoulCalibur III. It's the cautionary tale about what happens when you don't playtest your fighting game for balance before releasing it. They didn't put it in arcades, and clearly didn't give it enough QA love. Whether or not they could have done the testing in-house with time crunch and budgetary restrictions aside, the problem is that the testing and balancing was not done. If they had put the game out in arcades first, then it's likely we would have had the same game we had on PS2, but with the balance and polished movesets from the arcade edition.

That being said, SoulCalibur V wasn't going to give every character equal face time, I don't believe. It seemed rather focused on single-point perspective narration, with the side characters being side characters, much like the main story in Soul Chronicle for SoulCalibur VI. If it was finished, we'd have seen the journey of Xiba and the gang, likely through the eyes of Xiba, with side episodes for Leixia and Natsu. We'd have seen the post-Nightmare journey of Raphael and Z.W.E.I., exploring the truth behind Viola/Amy. We'd have seen more details about the Astral Chaos and how it plays into the grand scheme of things, perhaps even getting some Cassandra story to better understand how exactly she planned to / managed to send herself into the past to save Sophitia. That's my perspective, anyhow, with respects to the findings in this topic.

Maybe they did want to give everyone some facetime, much like the side stories in SoulCalibur VI's Soul Chronicle, and that's where we would have seen stories like Cervantes, Algol, Ivy, Mitsurugi, Siegfried, etc., but I don't get the impression that they were going to have center stage like the new characters.

Anyway, I had as many complaints about SCV when it was released as anyone, and while it has grown on me somewhat with time, I still think there's room for criticism, but the story being weak is just not a reasonable one, in my opinion; from almost any reasonable comparative critical assessment of the story presentation across the franchise, its one of the stronger entries in the franchise. Granted, that's not the highest boast in the industry, but still, relatively speaking...
I don't have a specific comment to address this, but the rest of my post more or less does, we agree but also disagree on some finer points.
 
I would agree with this, except SoulCalibur III exists. . . . It's what got me to start taking the lore of SoulCalibur seriously...
Well, amiga, I have to say, that's about as dubious a choice of a story to take seriously as I think can exist, barring the involvement of a power ranger, a pokemon, or Doctor Who. :)

I disagree with your assessment on SoulCalibur III. It's the cautionary tale about what happens when you don't playtest your fighting game for balance before releasing it. They didn't put it in arcades, and clearly didn't give it enough QA love. Whether or not they could have done the testing in-house with time crunch and budgetary restrictions aside, the problem is that the testing and balancing was not done. If they had put the game out in arcades first, then it's likely we would have had the same game we had on PS2, but with the balance and polished movesets from the arcade edition.
Yes, of course the decision to release on console first influenced the quality of the final console product, but that only further emphasizes the original point, because that choice was part and parcel with the design decision to focus on and foreground the single player content in that game. We've had this conversation many times, so I'll just reiterate the same final comment as before: it is unrealistic to believe that a decision to devote a huge amount of resources to one aspect of a game (in significant excess to the level of attention that aspect got in previous games) will not have an impact on the rest of the product. It's just simple math: companies do not have unlimited resources in terms of budget, manpower and time. The decision to pack the console release with content (which to be fair, doesn't just include the single player modes but also the huge cast), to the detriment of the overall quality of the core mechanics of the game, definitely played a massive role in the tanking of that entry, which itself started a downward trend for the franchise that it is only just recently beginning to crawl out from under, fourteen years later. The fact that SCIII:AE is considered a far superior fighter despite having a smaller roster and virtually none of the single player cruft speaks for itself.
 
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