Post by Talon Karrde on Aug 1, 2008 9:36:39 GMT -5
This just in from starwars.com:
"A twirling cyclone of energy, Yoda leaps through the air, unleashing a lightsaber attack on Astaroth, a creature that looks to have crawled from the hellish depths of Mustafar. Meanwhile, the Starkiller -- Darth Vader's secret apprentice -- charges towards Taki, a beautiful but deadly ninja. And the Dark Lord himself, Vader, ignites his lightsaber and strides towards Heishiro Mitsurugi, a Samurai warrior, to meet in open combat.
How can such a clash of realities happen? These confrontations and more await gamers in Soulcalibur IV, arriving in stores this week for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. For the uninitiated, the Soulcalibur series has been an immensely popular fighting game where combatants strive toward ultimate power through the control of enchanted weapons, like the Soul Edge and Soulcalibur swords. The series has actually had a rich history of cross-overs and now it's Star Wars' turn. Director Katsutoshi Sasaki fields some questions from StarWars.com:
Can you describe the history of guest characters in Soulcalibur? When did that start, and who has been previously featured? Why was it introduced?
We introduced the idea of the guest character to the series in Soulcalibur II, released in 2003. After finishing the development of the SCII Arcade version in 2002, we developed the idea during concept phase for the console version of Soulcalibur II.
It had been already decided to release Soulcalibur II on all consoles at the time (PlayStation2, Nintendo GameCube, and Xbox) and we didn't want to simply offer the same games for each platform. We wanted to give fans interesting and surprising elements to attract more gamers to the series. The idea of having guest characters was born as a result of a lot of trial and error.
Guest characters on Soulcalibur II included Mishima Heihachi from our TEKKEN fighting series for PS2, Link from the popular Nintendo series The Legend of Zelda for GameCube, and Spawn from comic book creator, Todd McFarlane, for Xbox.
SCII has sold more than 4.5 million units worldwide, which the best the series has seen. I believe the guest character idea helped to attract a wide range of fans outside of the usual fighting game fan.
Why Star Wars? How did the decision to include Star Wars characters come about?
Darth Vader is a very symbolic character in the Star Wars mythos, also popular and appealing to a wide audience. We also felt that Yoda's acrobatic fighting style shown in Episode II and III could be worth trying and very interesting to show in the game. Upon proposing the game to LucasArts, we were introduced to the new Apprentice character. When we saw a concept art of his reverse lightsaber grip, we instantly knew that this character could be awesome and started working on it.
What kind of challenges were faced in getting lightsaber-wielding Force-users to fit in Soulcalibur?
Darth Vader gave us more difficult time than expected because there was not many distinctive battle scenes of him in the movie, which made it difficult for us to get enough references from his fighting style. On the other hand, Yoda didn't give us the same trouble. The difficulty with Yoda laid more in how to correctly depict the difference in physiques with the other Soulcalibur characters. The fans expect to see these familiar guest characters look and move as how they're portrayed in the movies. If the characters weren't true to the source material and what they're anticipating, it would ruin their image of them. Also, if there were no surprising elements to our interpretation of the characters, it would let the audience down as well. To solve this conflict did require a lot of attention and effort, but I believe we finally made it in the end product.
How did you determine what powers, abilities and weaknesses Vader, Yoda and the Secret Apprentice should have?
They formed themselves as we built each character's features. Say, Yoda has his acrobatic and tricky movements as his biggest and strong feature, whereas his guard gets weaker when jumping to attack larger opponents.
Where there any other Star Wars characters you'd like to see in a Soulcalibur game someday?
Hmmm.... That is a tough question as every Star Wars character is attractive. I personally like Chewbacca and would be interested in playing as him, but it must be hard because he doesn't wield a weapon! (laugh)"
For a guide as to what characters will be included in Soulcaliber IV, visit www.starwars.com/games/videogames/news20080729.html
"A twirling cyclone of energy, Yoda leaps through the air, unleashing a lightsaber attack on Astaroth, a creature that looks to have crawled from the hellish depths of Mustafar. Meanwhile, the Starkiller -- Darth Vader's secret apprentice -- charges towards Taki, a beautiful but deadly ninja. And the Dark Lord himself, Vader, ignites his lightsaber and strides towards Heishiro Mitsurugi, a Samurai warrior, to meet in open combat.
How can such a clash of realities happen? These confrontations and more await gamers in Soulcalibur IV, arriving in stores this week for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. For the uninitiated, the Soulcalibur series has been an immensely popular fighting game where combatants strive toward ultimate power through the control of enchanted weapons, like the Soul Edge and Soulcalibur swords. The series has actually had a rich history of cross-overs and now it's Star Wars' turn. Director Katsutoshi Sasaki fields some questions from StarWars.com:
Can you describe the history of guest characters in Soulcalibur? When did that start, and who has been previously featured? Why was it introduced?
We introduced the idea of the guest character to the series in Soulcalibur II, released in 2003. After finishing the development of the SCII Arcade version in 2002, we developed the idea during concept phase for the console version of Soulcalibur II.
It had been already decided to release Soulcalibur II on all consoles at the time (PlayStation2, Nintendo GameCube, and Xbox) and we didn't want to simply offer the same games for each platform. We wanted to give fans interesting and surprising elements to attract more gamers to the series. The idea of having guest characters was born as a result of a lot of trial and error.
Guest characters on Soulcalibur II included Mishima Heihachi from our TEKKEN fighting series for PS2, Link from the popular Nintendo series The Legend of Zelda for GameCube, and Spawn from comic book creator, Todd McFarlane, for Xbox.
SCII has sold more than 4.5 million units worldwide, which the best the series has seen. I believe the guest character idea helped to attract a wide range of fans outside of the usual fighting game fan.
Why Star Wars? How did the decision to include Star Wars characters come about?
Darth Vader is a very symbolic character in the Star Wars mythos, also popular and appealing to a wide audience. We also felt that Yoda's acrobatic fighting style shown in Episode II and III could be worth trying and very interesting to show in the game. Upon proposing the game to LucasArts, we were introduced to the new Apprentice character. When we saw a concept art of his reverse lightsaber grip, we instantly knew that this character could be awesome and started working on it.
What kind of challenges were faced in getting lightsaber-wielding Force-users to fit in Soulcalibur?
Darth Vader gave us more difficult time than expected because there was not many distinctive battle scenes of him in the movie, which made it difficult for us to get enough references from his fighting style. On the other hand, Yoda didn't give us the same trouble. The difficulty with Yoda laid more in how to correctly depict the difference in physiques with the other Soulcalibur characters. The fans expect to see these familiar guest characters look and move as how they're portrayed in the movies. If the characters weren't true to the source material and what they're anticipating, it would ruin their image of them. Also, if there were no surprising elements to our interpretation of the characters, it would let the audience down as well. To solve this conflict did require a lot of attention and effort, but I believe we finally made it in the end product.
How did you determine what powers, abilities and weaknesses Vader, Yoda and the Secret Apprentice should have?
They formed themselves as we built each character's features. Say, Yoda has his acrobatic and tricky movements as his biggest and strong feature, whereas his guard gets weaker when jumping to attack larger opponents.
Where there any other Star Wars characters you'd like to see in a Soulcalibur game someday?
Hmmm.... That is a tough question as every Star Wars character is attractive. I personally like Chewbacca and would be interested in playing as him, but it must be hard because he doesn't wield a weapon! (laugh)"
For a guide as to what characters will be included in Soulcaliber IV, visit www.starwars.com/games/videogames/news20080729.html