Soul Calibur/Soul Series

I assume they thought they'd end up with a Tekken 3 rather than a Street Fighter III... And then it got rushed.

I see it similar to SF 3 (or MVCI) as well: they ended up with a ttechnically sound game... but that only makes select people happy, because the FGC is a Vocal Minority and some people (like me) like character over function.

Its why I play these games to begin with, to fuck around with the awesome characters.

I'm sure plenty of people actually care for these characters, I mean why else would have V flopped?

I don't remember it being a flop? Did I say that before? I remember the reviews being pretty positive when it launched; it was the lack of balance updates and then after that the lack of sponsored tourneys that led to its decline. Seriously, where did it go after that one Evo, I suddenly couldn't find any tourneys running it.

Heh. So I just was reminded of the fact that Patroklos actually killed Pyrrha at one point and then went back in time to prevent it.

So even though the thing with Heihachi is still non canon, both swords have the ability to send things back in time.

I'm really starting to wonder if my Retcon theory might be for real.

Pyrrha gets sent back in time by soul edge and teams up Sophia.

Hey, Soul Charge is back. That's a surprise.

Was Soul Charge ever used in a competitive fashion? I never found much of a use for it in my SCII and III days but I also didn't know competitive Fighting Game tourneys even existed.

My long floated (but voted down, on this thread) idea was to allow for taunting to give an automatic stage 1 soul charge (small buff to the next move).

Hwang found out Soul Edge wasn't the "Sword of Salvation" he knew it was because of its true nature, so he returned to Korea a wiser man and swearing to count on his own strength to defend Korea. As for Li Long, New Legends of Project Soul revealed that he ran into Taki during SC III and she told him Chie, the woman he loved, is alive. He reunited with her and their son Riki and lives with them amongst the Fu-Ma Clan, with Chie as the current leader.

That right there is proof the dignity of the series was lost. In New Legends of Project Soul, it was revealed that during IV's climax, Sophitia realized that if Soul Edge is going to lose to Soul Calibur, Pyrrha would die. So Sophitia removed the Soul Edge shard that had been lodged in her body since Soul Edge/Blade and placed it on Pyrrha, killing herself in the process.

The profile you mentioned is the one for the series' site that got update. There, Sophitia was labelled "missing". Given her appearances in Lost Souls and Unbreakable Soul, as well as the contradiction between New Legends of Project Soul and the site, it's clear this was done to appease the fanboys who didn't like what happened. Then we're getting conspiracy theories that VI will do away with Sophitia getting married. To me, that sounds like a coincidence, now doesn't it?

How exactly is changing unpopular creative decisions losing the dignity of the franchise?

I'd argue that more dignity was lost by the emphasis on fanservice. Hell, the completely out of place Star Wars characters in what was supposedly the series finale was pretty pathetic.

We'll see how the story shapes up, I'm no fan of Sophitia's kids, but I'd prefer if you fixed them rather than just retcon-reboot them out of existence. Just deleting them is lazy storytelling, even if nobody sheds any tears for the characters.

Agreed on the dignity lost to fanservice (both sexual and guest characters).

However, on fixing the Generation Xerox - again, how? Outside of Bleck's idea for Pat last page, most of them are too far gone. SCV painted itself into a corner.

edited 13th Dec '17 8:06:15 AM by wanderlustwarrior

One way to start would be flesh out the left out details of the unfinished story. Show what the characters that had little to no screen time were doing. Most of the new cast never got much of a chance to even make a first impression .

Pat's got a lot of work to do to redeem himself both in universe and out, and it honestly might not even work (especially from the outside).

I wouldn't blame them for just undoing him (though they just need to ensure that version of Pat doesn't come into existence, not undo the marriage and erase him completely, but like I said, overcompensation is afoot).

Inb4 fanfics of Soul Edge making Sophitia infertile and only attracted to people who have wielded one of the blades.

edited 13th Dec '17 9:45:02 AM by wanderlustwarrior

There's no way you were in before that. The fans move at the speed of thought.

It’s been done and that scares me.

It wouldn't really be hard for pat to be better. He would be remembered for killing people that were accused of being monsters in flimsy evidence and hated for it while seeking to atone for his misguided actions. It would make him different from Sigfried who most people in world does not realize he was the azure knight destroying Europe..

Everyone else just needs actual screen time and have their stories play out.

This is true. I mean, maybe Siegfried will even try and help him out since he's got a similarly shady past...but that requires actual effort, and why bother when you can just undo the entire thing.

Yes, it's lazy, and yeah, it's essentially throwing the characters that they created—and poorly—under the bus (and I consider it the writers responsibility to fix that mistake), but between the two choices, I expect them to go with the easy one.

Trying to fix Pat is risky, and these guys want to make money. Just getting rid of him and bringing back the people that the fans like is a more surefire way to get somewhere.

I dislike Xiba.

Stupid people & morons are annoying.

There you go.

New guys out.

It's an opportunity cost thing. Spend time and money trying to make the new cast work which would be an uphill battle, or just go back to the cast people already like? Purely from a business standpoint it just makes more sense to do the latter.

Besides, they admitted the Time Skip was entirely arbitrary anyway and it was a cheap way to get a "new cast".

Then that's even worse for the new guys. We already know most of it came down to Younger and Hipper (all the women except a conveniently immortal Ivy were replaced by daughters and apprentices), but if they didn't need to make such a change, then they shouldn't have.

It's like they were made to fail. They owed it to these characters to make sure they were the best they could be.

While I agree it makes sense to ditch them, I'm not letting Namco off the hook for not even doing the new blood right.

Of course... characters that aren't standard heroes full of great characteristics isn't exactly exclusive to 5. Part of it may be on us as fans being disappointed Xiba (for example) isn't the next Kilik, while he's maybe closer to Voldo or Yunsung (my personal thoughts on the latter aside).