Soul Calibur officially jumps the shark

[Wrestlevania]

Fucking what?!

There's a cock-fest of a trailer available too. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

[Nappi]

Ehh...

Maybe they simply like the Star Wars fans more than the fans of the previous games ?

[werd123]

I think they jumped the shark when the memory card glitch occured in III, never has a game company broke a track record of glitch-free, "Finished" games in a shitty way.

[Wrestlevania]

What's worse is that Namco have yet again decided to split up the thematic add-on characters to one per platform; Vader for PS3, Yoda on Xbox. "Matches the branding, you see..." Mother-fuckers!

So you won't even be able to recreate one of the most epic Star Wars sword fights anyway, and thus entirely missing what should have been the point of including these additional characters in the first place! Aaaargh!!!

Utter, utter cock!

[Roderick]

Hahahaha, this is fantastic and hilarious, and completely in tune with how these characters have already been sold out and gangraped into the ground canonically. Any integrity was already gone; what's left is just enjoying the madness. It took me three prequels to get that.

The only shitty thing is that I won't be able to play with Vader on the Xbox 360 I don't yet have, as soon as I won't buy the game when it arrives this summer.

[Ben]

So you won't even be able to recreate one of the most epic Star Wars sword fights anyway, and thus entirely missing what should have been the point of including these additional characters in the first place! Aaaargh!!!

Although it's academic at this point... How could you re-create something that never happened? (Darth Vader and Yoda never have a sword fight in the films.)

[eljay]

In fact you can recreate what actually happened between them with stunning accuracy.

Once Darth Vader came into existence I think it's probable that they were never even on the same planet.

[Nick]

Do we not think that you will be able to purchase the other character? Meaning that Micosoft will make tons more money because everyone wants Vader.

[eljay]

That was my immediate presumption also.

[Wrestlevania]

Although it's academic at this point... How could you re-create something that never happened? (Darth Vader and Yoda never have a sword fight in the films.)

OK, fair point. I'm forgetting my canon whilst in the depths of rage.

I expect it quite possibly would have been epic though...

Do we not think that you will be able to purchase the other character? Meaning that Micosoft will make tons more money because everyone wants Vader.

Not sure how Sony would feel about this, so I'm leaning towards <luke>"Never!"</luke> at this point.

[vimes]

I don't find the idea of enabling the user to play as Vader or Yoda ridiculous at all (after all, it worked well with Link in SC2), but trying to integrate them into the universe as the trailer did is.

[DanJW]

Hahah I was going to post this also. It is fairly ridiculous. As Vimes says, they can work as crazy bonus unlockable characters, but playing as vader in story mode would be... odd. Also the trailer shows vader locking blades with Mitsirugi... I never would have guessed that katanas were made with cortosis.

[eljay]

No problem with them locking blades really, I mean how many magical weapons are in Soul Calibur?

[DanJW]

Anyway, Vader isn't as cool as he used to be, now that there is a whiney emo brat underneath the mask.

[elmuerte]

Terrible idea, you can simply combine different universes. (well, you shouldn't).

Alien and Predator works because they have compatible worlds. But there is no way that Darth Vader could appear on "earth". Star Wars was a long long time ago, in a galaxy far far away.

[n0wak]

Terrible idea, you can simply combine different universes. (well, you shouldn't).

http://www.smashbros.com/

[elmuerte]

That's less terrible, because smash bros. started out as a franchise/universe cluster fuck. It's not like it started out as a pure mario bros game.

[Roderick]

Elmuerte, you really don't live on this planet at all, do you?

[Marek]

I've only casually played Soul Calibur II a bunch of times. Can someone explain why people are concerned about the integrity of the Soul Calibur 'universe'? Is there some kind of story that people care about a lot? I'm just curious how this works for fighting games.

As for the trailer with Yoda and Vader, when I played it at work one of our programmers watched along over my shoulder and got multiple nerdgasms, but it's not doing anything for me. Can Star Wars please be erased from pop culture for a while? It's gotten way out of hand. (Sadly there's that easy to overlook LucasFilm division called Lucas Licensing...)

[vimes]

From playing SC2, it seems to me that the universe is really NOT something special, but it takes itself very seriously so its integrity is pretty much the only thing that makes it slightly meaningful to the player.

[DanJW]

I guess that might be it. It likes to think of itself as historically consistant (if not accurate). More likely is that it's a major break from the aesthetics of the game (at least Link and Spawn were worked so they looked like they fitted in).

I don't think Vader and Yoda will part of the story mode anyway. If they are, then it will just be daft. More so than usual.

[Nachimir]

I've only casually played Soul Calibur II a bunch of times. Can someone explain why people are concerned about the integrity of the Soul Calibur 'universe'? Is there some kind of story that people care about a lot? I'm just curious how this works for fighting games.

It seems there is.

I've not encountered that with Soul Calibur, as among my beat-em-up playing friends it's always come third behind Tekken and King of Fighters. Tekken has some long running, melodramatic story arcs threaded through the entire series, and the degree to which a few of my mates care about it is a bit much on occasion. Still, even they point and laugh at fanboys who take it to much bigger extremes.

There's huge concern about universe integrity among fanboys, and like you and Vimes I feel quite surprised that that's often attached to pretty weak universes and characters. The Halo games strike me as similar, and I suspect rabid fanboy loyalty in general has more to do with the peers who share it than the apparent focus.

[elmuerte]

Elmuerte, you really don't live on this planet at all, do you?

and what planet is that?

I'm not concerned about the soul callibur universe, or even star wars universe for that matter. It's just that I feel like they are wasting resources with these franchise mixing. They should have spend that on creating something new/different.

[lobotomy42]

and what planet is that?

I'm not concerned about the soul callibur universe, or even star wars universe for that matter. It's just that I feel like they are wasting resources with these franchise mixing. They should have spend that on creating something new/different.

Well, I agree that new, original characters might have been preferable to Vader and Yoda.

On the other hand, as someone who still likes Star Wars, and mostly likes Soulcalibur, I don't really *mind* their presence. As I understood it, the plot of Soulcalibur was always basically "All these people from different times and places come together to fight over a sword." Which still works for Star Wars, honestly. Anyone who's gotten at all deep into the "Expanded Universe" of Star Wars realizes that it gets pretty ridiculous pretty fast, so it's not at all implausible that Yoda and Vader decided to take a space/time machine into the land of Soulcalibur to fight over a weapon.

And universe mixing, honestly, is mostly a good thing. "Universes" usually suck - bringing them together and taking them that much less seriously can only be a good thing.

[Nachimir]

It is a bit shocking and car-crash-like to see stuff like this, but overall I'm with the "It's funny" camp.

http://www.videosift.com/video/Robot-Chicken-Luke-Learns-the-Truth