@onidavin:
Play-testing is not beta-testing. Play-testing is when you go out to meet with REAL players, not programmers or industry, and let them play it and figure out problems in things like that. Soul Calibur 4 at least has play-testing, it has playtesting at Japan EXPO in Japan and Anime EXPO in America, as well as Omega Sektor in the United Kingdom...

Yes, the people who work for custom characters are not the same as the people who work for standard characters... but this isn't a TIME constraint, this is a FUNDING constraint. Every dollar that gets spent on useless stuff, isn't being spend on stuff that is actually important.

Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod

I don't mind the horns, you could grab onto them.
I don't like the feet, the feet can fuck right off.

LemmingX

psssst.... your bow is on backwards

TheGamesta

@Alpha85:

Maybe that's just more fuel to the fire over that Kratos rumor.

anyway,I just want to interject that from squinting hard ( and I mean real hard) at the screen captures fromthe magazine page that she maybe a little more interesting than her drawing suggests.

Posthaus

@Archaotic:
Thats exactly how they were in SC3 as well... However, there is somethign called BODY TYPE differences... Talim is not the same size as Astaroth. Giving a small sized character a large sized character's moveset, or vice versa, creates some completely imbalanced sitations.

You ever play Talim in SC2? She had the move 33A (Wind Cyclone), it was considered one of the best moves in the game, however it had its limitations. If you ever played as Charade in the game and managed to roll into a Talim moveset, suddenly 33A's limitations disappeared. You ended up having Talim with extremely long arms and legs... imbalance.

Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod

@Archaotic: Just as long as they don't screw up weight classes with it again.

Smeesh

@Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod: Literally zero playtesting? Really? Really? I'm surprised the game even booted up then ;)

Who is to say that the dev team responsible for custom characters would even work on gameplay balance? That's a big assumption.

I love balanced fighters, which SC3 was not, but I also loved the shit out of SC3's custom character system.

onidavin

I knew it, the current cast of bewbs couldnt have been the source of the memory shortage and said hdd instalation.

karmakid

@Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod:
Except that in SC4, custom characters use clone versions of existing movesets, effectively making them different models for the pre-existing characters. As long as you turn off weapon effects, they should be perfectly legal.

Archaotic

@Mokai:
Custom fighters is yet another thing that tends to knock down SoulCalibur as a competant competetive fighter. Custom characters will never be legalized for any serious competetive play, and the more time the devs spend on such useless marketting ploys, the less time they have for actualy balancing and testing...

Just look at Soul Calibur 3... the game went through LITERALY, zero play-testing. They banked on strictly useless single player market-catches instead of bothering to make a decent versus player game. The game ended up being terrible and the competetive community for it almost completely disappeared.

Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod

i love women. they make my man parts excited and all tat good stuff. outside of the star wars guests there aren't any new male characters though >.>; hell, the doa male to female ratio is looking higher than this games.

Alpha85

@Sailorcancer: I would say because mainly guys are going to buy this game, but then I remembered all of the women who have played these fighting games a lot, who all beat my ass quite soundly. Anyone else have any ideas?

trogam

@Croixtreize:

Oh dude I really hate you for that, lol. I love the series and the song but it doesn't exactly leave my head very easy. I guarantee I'll be humming that the rest of the night and its all your fault! =)

Sparx

@HarkMammil:
How do I know they are palette swaps? The CaliburForum.com community (former soulcalibur.com community, until namco took our name away) is the home for ALL competetive players of the Soul Calibur series... We have been keeping on top of the game for the past year and many players there have actually played the game in some manner; these bonus characters are just using recycled move sets.

Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod

Is everyone misspelling Soul Calibur as Soul CalibEr doing it on purpose?

kumajoe

@Sailorcancer: Well, at least there's still custom fighters. My only hope is that this time around Namco offers a larger selection of male clothing and accessories; III was very much lacking in that area. :/

Mokai

@Netnavi: No, it's called Soul Calibur.

eugios

Everyone just loooovs to hate. You'd think it was crack. I like it. I say, kick ass. Red-headed club wielding badassery. Oh wait, I mean, "S'not picasso! Fail! LOLZ!"

Nope. Not feeling the hate high.

Garro

@Sam Smith: "god-forsaken Dead of Alive territory*"

Sam Smith

Looks cool, I say the more characters the better, just don't let em in the main story...

SolidOni

@sir_carrot: Yes I did play Soul Blade, but I feel SC1 is where the series really found its stride. My problems with the series at present stem from the fact that, to me, it seems to be verging ever closer to god-forsaken Dead of Alive character, with its spam-friendly gameplay and questionably proportioned female characters. As a fighting game fan born and bred on Street Fighter, I will never be the biggest Soul Caliber fan, but I at least picked up the previous games, whereas I have no plans to get this one. Tekken remains my 3D-fighter of choice.

Sam Smith

@Sailorcancer: It's all by popular anime designers, what can ya expect? I agree though. We need some testosterone to offset all the new jiggling.

onidavin

The club makes me think Dokoro-chan.

+ Watch video

Croixtreize

Anyone else sick of all the new female fighters? Why can't you get some more male ones in? We only got like 1 new male.

Sailorcancer

inafter Bawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww at the new female character.

GranzonTotoro

they heard my prayers

shichi

@sir_carrot: You forget the primary purpose of the Internet: To complain incessantly about everything that ever was or ever will be.

Also porn.

onidavin

@Sam Smith: Started with Soul Blade on PS? Been playing since then, and I've been satisfied with each entry (the Wiitastrophe isn't core, doesn't count).

I don't understand why everyone rags on this game so much, and has been so long before release - it seems to be the same proven gameplay as the others, but prettier and with some random-ass fighters. Sounds good to me.

If it ain't broke...

sir_carrot

The roster is fulling up nicely. Hopefully all these additions won't screw up the story too much.

gr8asianman

I like the weapon, but the character looks pretty meh.

Strangelove

Wow, she has a funky weapon.
But I've heard complaints about these new characters, that they are just copies of other characters and have no individual depth.

Zeouterlimits

cute chic but she's got horns

Orionsaint

God everyone stop saying the new guest characters are useless. It's more characters to play even if they are just clones that look different you can think of them as Character creation mode examples. There is nothing bad about new characters at all.

Reibooi

@Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod:
How do you know they are palette swaps?

HarkMammil

Why is everyone complaining about the surplus of characters?

As long as they aren't "palette swaps" or don't have recycled move lists, the more the merrier!

HarkMammil

Maybe its just me but with the hair color, outfit design and that giant rack of Pearls she could pass as the female counterpart of SF's Akuma...

Sparx

Don't over-react, these are all guest characters. As in, not in the main storyline, not in the main game, most likely not going to be used in tournaments. They're just for fun, take them as such.

Smeesh

Enough with the useless bonus characters... they are just palette swaps anyways!

There is only ONE new character for SC4: Hildegarde... Algol doesn't count cause he's the boss.

Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod

I loved the original Soul Caliber, really. But I couldn't care less about this game. The series has only gone downhill. Street Fighter 4 and Tekken 6 will keep me fighting game-happy this year.

Sam Smith

super smash br...err Soul Caliber. Yes? Yes it's called Soul Caliber. Oh well. As long as the core gameplay is true to the series then I'm all for it. I'll just think all these characters came in because a wizard did it.

Netnavi

Yeah, if we're going to stick with that theme, can we get Range Murata to design someone cool?

tk.

Girl needs to trim her toenails, Jesus.

Aethyr

Or, I guess what I was really thinking -

Sweet. New hentai material.

Creepy toenails though.

sir_carrot

Can't wait for this game.

LowerHouseMember

She looks alot like Mikoto from My Hime which is no surprise considering the artist who created her also did My Hime and My Otome.

Reibooi

She looks cute....if you squint.

ReignFury

@Jedi924: agreed

smuckersisgood

O-Kay. They sure are out pumping out a helluva a lot of characters there. Personally I don't see the need. 15 or so unique fighters and I would be happy.

As long as Mitsuguri and Kilik are in I'm happy. I'm happy.

Krondonian

Please no more stupid fighters...PLEASE!!! NAMCO STOP ALREADY!!!

TheRubin

Sweet. The more new/guest characters, the better.

sir_carrot

I think she looks kind of interesting. Everyone loves a Tetsubo (that club). It's rare to get a little girl with a heavy weapon like that, they usually do "hi I am the super huge guy" for those.

onidavin

Wow, that's not even mildly appealing.

Jedi924

@Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod:
Well, let's wait and see. SC3 may not have been balanced, but it was still a fun game when playing against other people. As long as you don't play against GI-spammers, I mean.

Hopefully SC4 took a lot of the community's complaints about 3 to heart, and improved. That's all I ask for.

Archaotic

@Archaotic:
Except that Namco has stated in the past that they have no desire to be patching Soul Calibur 4, unless its to fix some major gamebreaking bug. Most likely this means that there will be little to no balance patches, just bug fixes.

Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod

Thought i was looking at guilty gear's concept art for a moment

ittekimasu

@eugios: Doh! *smacks forehead* lol

Netnavi

I was hoping she was using a ripped of traffic sign, oh well

odinmagick

i think she looks interesting. if anything she doesn't have DD's like half the guest characters (not that i mind but it's nice to have some variety :p )

im assuming the reason there are pretty much all female guest characters is because either A) they told the artists to do what they want without trying to restrict them, or B) they figured between vader, yoda, and V's apprentice there were 3 males anyways so there was no reason to force any male characters on the design. and honestly i'd rather they didnt make any type of restrictions on the guest artists and just let them do their own thing, they tend to make a better product than they would have otherwise.

*shrug* whatever, they sold me on this game a long time ago, they could reveal a character that is litterally an ass and a pair of tits at this point and it wouldn't matter to me.

demonknightinuyasha

@Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod:
Except that now we live in an age where downloadable content and patches are common. Namco could very well upkeep the game's balance post release with patches and updates.

Don't hate on the game until you've played it. Their marketing may be asinine and stupid, but the game in motion looks like classic Soul Calibur to me, and that's not a bad thing.

Besides, who's to say balance and Star Wars can't coexist?

Archaotic

she looks like someones spicy side

zakky venom

SC3 had way more characters than so far announced for SC4 <_<

These Anime Characters are way more obnoxious than the SWS characters IMO.

Especially the ones like Angol Fear which are from ACTUAL Anime universes.

Terance!

@Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod: Is it a mistake, though? How much of sales/success are driven by the hardcore crowd? It's an interesting balancing act that is driving a lot of industry choices.

onidavin

@onidavin:
Thats what I'm saying... Namco doesn't care about the hardcore players, and they haven't in many years. Electronic Arts used to be like this, but they have since learned from their mistakes; I dont see anything that shows how Namco has... Tekken has always been their "hardcore" game, and even the hardcore are hating on Tekken 6.

Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod

Damn, I was hoping to hear Kentaro Miura. *Sigh* This character is alright, I guess, especially for the guy who did the designs for the My-HiME anime. Pretty random choice for a guest artist if you ask me. Heh, her weapon reminds of that crazy little angel from that violent anime.

Anyway, I hope they aren't adding anything this close to release and are just getting around to announcing this character. Less rush equates to a better game.

KeroseneClimax

Thing about it... spend a $million on balancing the game... a long and arduous process that may actually prove futile and something that 99% of the buyers for fighting games don't actually care about (look at how popular unbalanced fighting games are)... Balance wont increase market reach by any sort of reasonable margin...

Or, spend a $million on acquiring Lucas' Star Wars licensed characters... something quick and easy that guarantees at least another million copies sold; even to non-fighting game players. Even if the competetive players stop playing after a month because of the imbalance, like they did with SC3, Namco will still have earned their money.

Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod

@Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod: And yet, you have to consider how many casual fans enjoy the character creation mode and the revenue that adds to the available pool. You're committing the hardcore player folly, that the game only exists to satisfy hardcore players. Hardcore players, however, are the minority. The vocal, shouting minority.

onidavin

Pearl Necklace.... classy in a Wilma Flintstone sort of way

Helioz

@Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod: Even if what you say about custom characters is true, I wouldn't really go so far to call it a "useless marketing ploy". I've played the series for several years now but have never really fallen into the competitive playing scene; Soul Calibur is just a really fun series that I love playing on my own and with friends. Even if custom characters are prohibited in tournaments there's still a lot of fun to be had by players like myself.

If a create-a-character feature isn't your cup of tea that's perfectly fine, though there's no reason to nix it for the people who enjoy it. :)

Mokai

@syp:
Hwang is no longer in the game.

Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod

Why is her ribbon knot in the front? I thought that was only for prostitutes. The knot should always be in the back.

I like the Akuma-ish vibe with the beads, the demon horns, the torn sleeve and hand wraps.

As for having more female characters, I like it.

Fighting games have in the past always been a majority of male characters.

the new SC looks like a 50/50 or whatnot. Why is everyone complaining when they havent REMOVED any old characters?

syp

@TheCleaningGuy: That's cool, thanks for the link! I love that guy's characters.

tk.

@Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod:
Everything I've heard is saying the same thing about 4. They tried to bring it back to the ways of SC2, and nerfed a lot of the overpowered characters to bring everyone closer to a more manageable level. I really hope it's true.

Archaotic

@tk.: I agree.
Range Murata in Soul Calibur? Do want.
He's already done a couple of fighters, so you know he'd be good!

TheCleaningGuy

@Archaotic:
GI was useless in the game when you had things like the VC glitch. And honestly, it wasn't fun, by removing the long buffer (yet, for some reason keeping in the scrub buffer, they should have removed the scrub buffer and left in the long buffer), the game felt like you were trudging in water. Like there was a ball and chain tied to their ankles...

Thankfully, people are saying SC4 players more like SC2; which if you ask me, was the best game in the series. Yes, even better than SC1.

Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod

hey at least namco is trying and they arent crapping these characters out as dlc that u hafta pay for u ingrates

maraxusofk

AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! ANOTHER FEMALE?! Dude, just call this fucking Dead or Alive: Calibur and be done with it.....

neojames82

@Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod:
Well, he might be, who knows. He might just end up being a Bonus Character like this girl and Shura et al are, a clone of Yunsung's moveset as opposed to an entirely new character.

Or they could save him for DLC, considering how popular to the series at large he seems to be.

Archaotic

@d2cmp: I'm tempted to agree; out of all of the bonus characters presented thus far she seems to fit the universe the best. Looking at her kinda makes me wish she was a story character, the Soul Calibur story still has room for the "lifeless doll learning what it means to be human" archtype. :P

Mokai

SC IV is going to be soooooo sweet, I agree with Zanch the more characters the better!!!

W-Force4

Maybe no one is steeped enough in Japanese culture, but she looks like a 'traditional' female oni that I see in a lot of manga. Huge club, clawed feet, horns.

Revenge_of_Nekojin

Nightmare is way hotter.

Shizmait

ashlotte is still the best of the guests

d2cmp

And...how exactly is more characters a bad thing? You people need to lighten up.

Zanch

Sweet, SCIV is in 3D

She looks more like a Samurai Showdown character in my eyes.

wolfeditor

dear japan, : men can fight too you know, really , we do it all the time.

rianfrost

Looks fugly, that's what I say...

IntelSilver

Anime girl with big sword.
Shit that looks deadly :O

Last time I played a SC game was SC2, and the fighting styles were awesome. With all these new characters, I hope they manage to fit in a bunch of different styles to suit everyone (I'm looking at you, Vader)

aR-Tard

@Revenge_of_Nekojin: Finally someone gets it.
If any of you want a bit of culture so you have an idea of what some of you are fapping to, [en.wikipedia.org]

hapidan

@Archaotic: Now I'm imagining Necrid wearing Ashlotte's dress. Help! Dx

Mokai

With all these new characters, do they have time to , you know, make the game fun to play?

Mecharine

@Mokai:
I don't think she'd appreciate that statement.

Archaotic

@Archaotic: Ah. So she's basically Necrid.

Mokai

@Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod:

Neither is Long. Id much prefer him over Maxi.

But both Hwang and Long have their style equivalences in Yun seong and Maxi.

And the moveset could possibly be hidden in the game like Assassin is in SC2 or bonus create a char in SC3.

syp

@Mokai:
Well, Ashlotte is technically a story character, just not a real major one. Supposedly she's related to Astaroth somehow.

Archaotic

@Placentasaurus: Agreed on Yoshitaka Amano. I'd also like to see a character designed by Tony Taka (Shining Tears/Wind, T2 Art Works) in the game. I think it would fit quite nicely among the new charaters.

psycoking

looks good to me...

60Hz

She is naked above the knee! A witch!

Zero_Beat

While they're at it with the manga artists, they should get Ayami Kojima (Castlevania), Shigenori Soejima (Persona 3), Hiromu Arakawa (Fullmetal Alchemist), and Yoshitaka Amano (Final Fantasy 1-9) in there too. If they did that, any delays it would cause would definitely be worth it.

@Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod: Most people don't give too much of a crap about balance, since most people aren't the type to memorize an entire moveset and the number of frames each move takes. Namco will balance the game as much as possible (in fact, they probably already did), and then add in most of the extra stuff afterwards (or have a different team do it at the same time. Honestly character creation is fun, and anyways, it's just a game, not a matter of life and death. I'd be more worried about data killing glitches like the ones in SoulCalibur 3. Also, just because they just now announced the character, it doesn't mean that they just now added her in. It's too late in development for that.

Placentasaurus

@Mecharine: You *do* know it is possible to do two tasks in game development at the same time, right?

You're also making the vast assumption that these characters haven't been in the game since several months ago and are just getting revealed now.

Nirolak

Just looks like an Inyuyasha character to me, which is not a good thing. Not a good thing at all.

I'm not sure what to think about these guest artists (Starwars included). While it is cool that they add something fresh to the mix, it reaaaally ruins the game's unified art direction. To put it simply, this game's characters do not fit with each other whatsoever. That is one of many things I love about Ivalice games (FFTA excluded), Okami, and Shadow of the Colossus.

Lord Thayer

She kind of reminds me of Karurauatsuurei from Utawarerumono but that's probably just due to the similarity in the weapons or possibly the anime-ish style of the character.

tom1000

@Aethyr:

Umm did you by any chance notice that she is not human.

Bluejuan85

@KeroseneClimax:
Agreed. I was happily awaiting getting to read that name in the info but it never happened. Oh well, there is still time -right? right???

HellSap

Geez people... it's up all over the page and other sites, as well as the freakin' covers.

Soul Calibur.

Bardiel18

Maxi pwns!

as for the new chick, nice, a month before release and they're still announcing new characters.

Enyeez

Holy crap, I can't see her cleavage or crotch in the art! Someone at Namco Bandai must have snapped. Odd how more anime styled characters are showing up. I guess once you go star wars, no limits are left.

Ryodestined

@Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod: Hmmm, didn't know that. That's too bad. I just haven't followed that series too much since SC2. Playing online just hasn't been the same as kicking someone's butt in an arcade. I miss that.
I'm a child of the 90's fighters; VF, SF, Tekken, etc. So I can understand how lame palette swaps are. At least the designs are cool.
Best fighters ever:
SFII turbo CE,
VF2
Tekken 3
SC2
Honorable mention: MK2
What am I missing? I know there is something.

HarkMammil

The character looks pretty generic.. Why can't they add a creepy female character? Like the female equivalent of Voldo. Oh well, these characters probably will never be in another game again.

CurryZombie

Wow, Jaxel is here. This guy needs mad props. Pretty big name in the SC community, you know. Just Youtube him. I'd pay attention to his comments, since he probably has more competitive experience than the rest of us combined.

Anyways, palette swaps or not, all bonus characters are typically banned in competitive play. If they're not in the arcade, they're banned.

With that said, it's cool and all that they're adding more characters and all these features, but I'd much rather they actually spend some time testing the game and all. I don't want another "adventure" mode to crunch hours and hours into just so I can get some crappy items.

Providence

Yes, she's got a giant pearl-necklace all over her chest and neck. Classy.

GogolGants

Why does it say "THE WORLD" behind her?
Reference to Jojo's bizarre adventure?

?_?

TheLAG

Uuh Oni chick. Well what do you expect from the guy who made Mai HiME? (except constant "pantsu" exposure:)

surft

The more bouncing jubblies...the better......let's hope they didn't forget the digital camel toe as well.

dirtypanda

@Sparx: I was thinking the same thing! She does look like a female Akuma, doesn't she? :P

Recoil

Too many weird women characters, seriously thinking of passing this game up.

nitram100

eww, look at the toenails... and what the hell is up with that anime picture in the top left corner that looks like something from bleach?

eskimo-bob

At least she doesn't have gigantic, exposed tits.

WarlordPayne

Sweet, the more the merrier. Love the weapon.

Humpski

@eskimo-bob: The toenails look cool lol. Sure it's not sexy but it's cool in my opinion cos it makes her look more vicious and feral.

Maybe that's because it was an anime artist that made the character.

Llost

It's only an extra really so if you don't want to use her then don't but I'm glad they keep adding characters. The more we get the more likely there is going to be a few you like. Even if you don't like them it'll give more variety in the fighting when you go through survival and arcade modes etc.

Llost

Why would anyone want to play a generic anime chick, named "Long-Horned Beetle"?

Deuce

@Croixtreize: They should have just put Dokuro-chan in in the first place. I mean, come on, who wouldn't want to beat down Vader as a perky/psychotic/almost loli angel wielding a giant spiked bat named Excalibolg.

cholinms

We'll be working for weeks to unlock all these characters x_x.

Jilkon

@cholinms:

Custom character creator tool is this way.

Dunno about a gloria but wings are certainly in it (there were in SC3, albeit crappy-looking ones).

On a side note.

For a site named Kotaku, there sure are a lot that seems to straight-out hate anything resembling anime. What the heck is it that you dislike in what you call an "anime-style"?Putting all japanese artists in one group is like comparing Bambi with Spawn. Mai-HiME rocks, and it's in my opinion far from generic with a story that begins light, and then turns very dark (exactly my cup of tea), great music and art. If you are going to disagree, then watch it first.

I am going to love this game. Sucks that Europe doesn't seem to be getting a premium version. Anyone have any details on this?

The guiding blue