Soul Calibur/Soul Series

wander: There wasn't. At the time, ACIII hadn't been announced yet, so the choices were Ezio or Altair, who is 500 years earlier than the 100 Ezio already is. And even if they'd gotten Connor revealed earlier for it, he's almost 200 years too late. Ezio's the closest AC has gotten to 1600.

Eh, I know there wasn't, but still...

Would've been a nice cross-promotion surprise twist to reveal a new assassin.

I'm trying to find the SCIII OST, but the only place I can find it is KH Insider, which I'm not a member of.

I think Guest characters and CAS hurt the series tbh. It really has no Identity anymore.

edited 3rd Aug '14 8:11:04 AM by MikeBreezy92

I don't really know what you are even referring to with that?

I mean, hasn't it always been a 3D fighter where folks from all over the world beat the shit out of each other with weapons and anachronisms set in Renaissance times, with the story focusing on the ongoing battle between two swords? I don't see how that has been "lost".

If anything, Star Wars guests were weird, yeah, but the rest have some vague sense of fitting. Least to me.

edited 3rd Aug '14 8:15:14 AM by Otherarrow

I kinda see what he means. The guests and CAS take away from identifying with the actual story characters, and the game already is ceasing to stand on its own as a story with interesting characters.

Opinions on the plot and cast aside (which I think is fair enough) I don't see how CAS takes away from identifying with the cast. Maybe it's just me, but CAS always seemed like a fun, abit perpetually limited in different ways with each game, extra feature, and more often than not me and most folks I know found ourselves playing with the "real" characters before too long.

Also, the only time CAS has anything resembling story focus was Chronicles of the Sword, which was a crappy RTS mode that didn't feature the canon characters outside of random Bonus Boss cameos anyway. The one time the CAS had an arcade/story mode, they shared three randomly generated endings, all three were unlocked when you beat it with one CAS character. Not really much to detract from the main cast as characters there...

I liked COTS.

Maybe it's a sentiment of "why bother playing with canon characters when you could just make your own person using their moveset, especially when there's no COTS movesets?" I certainly played less of certain canon characters when I used CAS in III.

Ding Ding Ding

People care more about CAS than they do about the characters or the game itself.

I always found CAS way too limited in options to be more than a brief diversion. The only time me and my friends got any use out of them aside from one time showing off was CoTS, which forced you to use them.

Shrug.

Yeah but that's just you. I would like to say a majority of the fan base cares about CAS A LOT if not the same as the regular fanbase.

It probably doesn't help that most people don't really care about the cast in V anyway.

Defintely doesn't help lol

I never found CAS to detract from the series at all. The point about taking focus off the established characters is fair enough (although the newcomers in V suck, so that's hardly an issue), but otherwise, I think CAS helps Soul stand out. Can you name another fighting game with that level of character customization?

Oh, and aside from the difficulty spike in the last three chapters, I loved Chronicles of the Sword. Sure it had some annoying features (like not saving your creations or changes before starting a chapter), but I'd love to see a more refined version of it in a future installment.

edited 3rd Aug '14 10:36:11 AM by RavenKingSage

I still think that all the dumb anime characters in SCIV had potential for a spinoff game: one where popular manga artists contribute a character to the roster.

I think Angol Fear is the only one who is unworkable, since apparently she is blatantly a Sgt Frog character, just grey and slightly curvier, and her story blatantly calls to that.

I wonder what the legal status for those characters are. Does Namco own them? Their creators?

I recall hearing that Fear showed up in Sgt. Frog proper eventually, and Ashlotte was referenced (abit not by name) in Astaroth II's bio.

That's the problem I have with SC. The others not having CAS actually have an identity. they actually have to rely on being a good game and you focus on the characters. Even those games with customizations usually those customs fit that character.

Mortal Kombat tried it, and took it out because nobody liked it (mostly because the Kreate-A-Fatality system that came with it made generic and awful fatalities even for the regular characters).

And the game that had it was smack in the middle of a Dork Age. It was followed by a T-rated crossover with DC Comics, and then a reboot that Won Back The Crowd.

edited 3rd Aug '14 11:12:04 AM by BadWolf21

I still don't get how SCIII, IV, and V don't have an "identity".

I mean, OK, I get it, you didn't like where those games took the mechanics, story, and characters, V in particular, but I fail to see how CAS contributes to that (especially with how limiting the CAS is. It's like, for everything they improve, they remove or otherwise fail to deliver on two other things. It's weird!).

Personally, I rather liked how they handled IV's plot and characters. I always figured it was intended less to be a full story like III's and more the final climax to end the arc. Also, it was really fun to play.

edited 3rd Aug '14 11:20:45 AM by Otherarrow

Sophitia, Zasalamel, and Talim all had amazing individual stories in IV. Emphasis on Sophitia's being amazing.

I liked III and V(pre-patch). 4 is the only one I really don't like.

My thing with Soul Calibur is that it has a lot of fairweather fans. I felt if it hadn't have to worry about shit like CAS(which I like ironically) & Guest characters(cardinal Sin being SCII as great as that game was) and put more focus on the characters and game, we'd be better off.

3 had identity. It was building up to everything coming together, and laid promise for a big climax. 4 was... "Soul Calibur, only Hotter and Sexier and with Star Wars". 5 was "A bunch of pricks we're not even going to pretend to make you care about fighting in an arbitrary continuation. Oh, and Ezio."

I am glad to see a poster saying Zas and Talim had good stories in IV (Sophitia I saw coming, due to 3). Damn shame they weren't in 5, despite making more sense than almost anyone else to be back after a 17 year delay.

edited 3rd Aug '14 11:44:12 AM by wanderlustwarrior

You know I'm talking about gameplay and not plot stuff right? lol

I always got the impression that the Guest Characters were all late additions (for better or for worse, in terms of balance). If they didn't implement them, they'd have time to work on other things, yeah, but I do think that perfecting the rest of the cast was a higher priority than implementing the guests.

Likewise, I am pretty sure the game where the most development time went into CAS was III and it's different styles. Not that IV and V didn't take a while due to all the costumes and parts and making them fit together and yadda yadda, but when you can just slap on the moveset of one of the preexisting fighters, I'd think it'd cut down development time on it a fair bit.

I dunno what IV you played. The IV I played had tons of identity. It was set to be the climax, it was where everyone's plots came together around the final threat of Nightmare and Algol and at least attempted to reach resolution. It wasn't as story heavy as III was, true, but for what it set out to do, it did so wonderfully and we still managed to get some good character moments out of it.

edited 3rd Aug '14 11:50:21 AM by Otherarrow

As shallow as this sounds, aesthetic and presentation is the first thing that makes me stay for a fighting game. I don't care how deep or intricate the combat in a game is. If I don't like how the game flows on a visual level or if I don't like the guys I'm playing as or beating up, I won't play it (case in point Marvel Vs Capcom, as I can't fathom the two universes as compatable, and combat late in the series looks like the Geddan Dance)

So, once Soul Calibur V gave us all douchebag one dimensional anime archetypes, all my interest in it died. So what if it's one of the more balanced games in the series? I'm still just playing as some blond bimbo dumbass mcninja that's a poor predecessor of a character I freaking loved playing as.

I thought you were referring to Pat and got confused.

But yeah, I personally think V's lopsided and poorly written story mode killed a lot of the mood. Just going by their versus quotes, I think most of V's cast at least had potential to be likeable and interesting characters...and just weren't due to muddy writing for Pat and Pyrrha and a lack of focus toward everyone else. Such a shame really.

Then again, folks liked II and it had as much characterization as V had. Shrug. I guess II gets a free pass because it was before III established the more story heavy direction? It had Arcade endings?

edited 3rd Aug '14 11:55:37 AM by Otherarrow