The Official Super Smash Bros. Brawl Thread - See you in March!!

[A Black Falcon]

You're right. I have missed the deep, spiritual meaning behind the opus tale that is Wario Ware. I can only pray I can ever play it again without weeping at what could have been.

Hey, those songs were really cool! It was just incredibly frustrating that the only way I could understand their meaning (and this DOES matter; they provide a bit of information on some of the characters...) was by going to Game FAQs and looking up an FAQ that had song translations. What the heck? That's not good.

Lunacy.

A translation mode for the 20 or so people like you who must know the songs meanings to enjoy the game is fine. Having it ON SCREEN during a FAST PACED FIGHTING GAME. How does the very idea not make you itch?

Why are you so repelled by this idea? It's like you think it'd ruin the game or something... I don't get it. It's a perfectly fine suggestion...

Um, they never said that the game was historically accurate. In fact I'm pretty sure that's what you call "historical fantasy". I recently got this game, Jeanne D'arc. It is INSPIRED by history but that's about it. You begin to notice something amiss when the lead lady has to kill orcs, and that's Soul Calibur. I mean there's a giant enchanted devil sword in the game.

I'm all for historical accuracy when the developer has stated in advance they are going for realism. However, SC NEVER STATED THAT. The world is a total fiction. It is INTENDED that you consider it a completely seperate reality from the "real world", with quite possibly a totally different future. When there are wild lizard men running around and alien inferno creatures, it isn't our world any more. It isn't supposed to be "set" in our past. Rather, elements FROM our past are "set" in that world instead. They aren't "adding to" history. They are adding some history TO their own story. Taking cool stuff from our world and sticking it in their own imagined one. And really, that is a KIND of story to tell, and you can't just say "don't do that kind of story". There's a place for historical fantasy and I actually like it.

Ah, that's not my point, really. My point is that even in a fantasy world there should be a goal of creating a world that it is believable in some way... that you can say "that could happen" to for the most part (stuff like a high abundance of improbable coincidences and lots of battles traveling between locations can't be helped, which is why I say 'for the most part').

Soul Calibur does a lot of things right -- it has a plot, it provides historical background for the characters, the setting is mostly consistent with the historical time period the game is set in (the 1500's, in this case), etc... in these things Soul Calibur does a much better job than most games like it. However, my point is that those facts are what make the ones that are NOT believable stand out more. Perhaps you simply say "I don't mind, close enough" (like how in the JRPGs thread you said that it's believable for there to be a society with modern-inspired societies, an Enlighenment/Victorian/Medieval(/Classical/Feudal Japanese)-mix technology levels, and no guns to speak of...) but to me... I just can't quite reconcile that. Soul Calibur does better than usual on the guns issue, acknowledging that they exist and that they are the dominant weapon of the day. Of course all of the characters still use edged weapons anyway, because it's a edged-weapon fighting game, but... well, guns wouldn't exactly be fair, so that's okay. They couldn't set the game before the 1500s really, because in a Medieval setting having the characters travel all over like they do would be even less believable than it is (at least by that point it HAPPENED), after all.

Anyway... yes, fiction is just fine. I just want them to justify their fiction -- provide an explanation that tells me why this world can exist in this way. Why, in 1500s Europe, is anyone in Greece worshipping the Olympian Gods when their worship died out completely in the 300s-500s?

Oh yes, and why are there absolutely no Middle Eastern or African characters in the game until the fourth game in the series... and then the one they add is evil.

The most obvious complaints are in the ones you see the most often when Soul Calibur comes up, though -- character and costume design. If you want to see what I mean by that point, just look at this thread, as it makes this point quite well... you'll quickly see what I mean.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.p...ul+Calibur


And yes, the Soul Calibur games are great games. A few issues and some absurd character designs and ridiculous costumes doesn't ruin a game when the core game is great... but on the other hand, that doesn't mean that the issue isn't worth raising. It is.