Soul Series: Difference between revisions

** Taken to a more extreme and utterly ''cruel'' angle in ''IV'' when Sophitia's daughter [[Meaningful Name|Pyrrha]] {{spoiler|''is'' '''possessed''' by Soul Edge, forcing Sophitia to kill anyone trying to destroy it.}}

** Hilde, as of ''V''.

* [[AI Breaker]]: Anti AI moves in the third game, and Astaroth's Discus Breaker (1AB in community notation) in Soul Calibur IV. Also, lying down facing the edge when fighting Algol on Floor 60. See [[Artificial Stupidity]].

* [[Alien Geometries]]: ''V'' has a few infinitely large stages. You can see scenery in the distance, but you can never get any closer to it no matter how far you move.

*** Well, story maybe, but time period, most certainly not; ''V'' takes place over a century after the ''Assassin's Creed'' games (specifically ''II'' and ''Brotherhood'', which star Ezio, who is in about his 30's there; ergo, he should already be dead by the time the game's story rolled by).

* [[Crystal Prison]]: Soul Calibur likes to pull this as of ''IV'' whenever it trumps Soul Edge in certain character endings.

* [[Darker and Edgier]]: ''IV'' has many formerly-good characters -- not to mention the pure Soul Calibur -- take a swing into the dark side. These include Sophitia (forced to protect Soul Edge, with deadly force if necessary, to save her daughter's life), Maxi (driven to wield Soul Edge to destroy Astaroth by Tira), Taki ({{spoiler|her ending has her murder Siegfried to prevent his attempt to create a utopia going horribly wrong}}), and Siegfried himself (his own storyline presents him as becoming increasingly suicidal, and his ending implies that Soul Calibur may have frozen the entire human population in crystal stasis, not to mention killing him).

** ''V'' deals with the massacre and persecution of those who are and are accused of being 'Malfested'.

** Aeon Calcos (Lizardman), as of ''V'', duel-wields axes.

* [[Dummied Out]]: Daishi Odashima, the game's director, [http://train2game-news.co.uk/2012/03/26/train2game-news-soulcalibur-v-story-mode-one-fourth-of-planned-size-each-character-was-to-have-own-story/ reported] that ''SCV's'' Story Mode was supposed to be ''4 times bigger'' than that of the released product, and each character would have its own chronicle instead of just focusing on Patrokolos and Pyrrha; time constraints and lack of staff made the plan go down under. They even had full voiced lines ready for the extensive Story Mode that, in the end, weren't used.

* [[Early Installment Weirdness]]: ''Soul Edge'' features concepts like the Weapon Break meter and the [[Limit Break|Critical Edge]] combo, stuff that was never revisited in later installments of the series. It also lacked the 8-way Run movement system that would become the trademark of the later games and as a whole, was slower and played closer to ''[[Tekken]] 2''.

** A move called the [[Finishing Move|Critical Finish]] showed up in ''IV'', but seems to be unrelated. The Critical Edge itself returns in ''V''.

** It's been there since the beginning. In ''Soul Edge'', Sophitia appears naked in the opening (censored overseas, of course) and Taki has [[Jiggle Physics]]. On the original [[Play Station]]. Which is hilarious.

* [[Finishing Move]]: The Critical Finish in ''IV''. Don't expect to pull this one off all the time; it's mostly there to keep people from spamming guard the whole match. The fanciness is lost on Yoda though, who is too short for most of the animations, and thus Critical Finishes on him are simply the character performing an unblockable attack on him.

* [[Flynning]]: Can be seen in the attract mode for ''III''.

* [[Fragile Speedster]]: Taki and Maxi.

** [[Product Placement]]: Adding the Apprentice from ''[[Star Wars]]: [[The Force Unleashed]]'', a game that was going to come out a month after ''IV'', was totally this.

** Also, a bunch of anime/manga designers were hired to create an original character -- and by "original character" we mean "they look different". Each of their individual fighting styles are copied from another character. They don't even have their own voice sets (using the ones from Create-a-Character mode instead).

** Xianghua [[Wendee Lee|is]] [[Suzumiya Haruhi|Haruhi]].

** Some out there may be wondering why Siegfried doesn't have an attack called [[Code Geass|Storm]] [[Crispin Freeman|of Loyalty]] in ''III''.

*** Despite this Rock isn't even all that big, Standing at only 175 cm and weighing 85 kg. Cervantes in SCV is both taller and heavier.

** Arthur as well: an orphan who ended up in the care of a Japanese merchant and was raised in Japan. He was despised by his peers, which made him the prefered target for projectiles in the battlefield.

* [[Mismatched Eyes]]: Zasalamel's golden eye.

* [[Morph Weapon]]: Soul Edge and Soul Calibur. Normally, they take the shape of a [[BFS|really big sword]] and a jian, respectively, but they can morph to fit just about any weapon shape. In ''II'', three characters (Xianghua, Nightmare, and Talim) could use Soul Calibur, and ''every'' character had a Soul Edge version of their weapon (Nightmare had ''three'': Soul Edge, Soul Edge [Growth], and Soul Edge [Complete]). By ''III'', Siegfried has Soul Calibur, and it too becomes a [[BFS]].

* [[Series Continuity Error]]: During a flashback in ''V'' of Tira kidnapping Pyrrha, Pyrrha is shown as a baby when she should have been three years old.

* [[Ship Sinking]]: When Leixia's profile was released, many a Kilik/Xianghua fan panicked that Project Soul was doing this, due to the news that Xianghua had married a general of the Ming Empire and had two children with him. Possibly averted by later information which implied that she was forced into the marriage and that she still loved Kilik; {{spoiler|later, it was truthfuly averted with the Japanese official artbook, which revealed Xiba as being their son, so by proxy Kilik and Xianghua had upgraded their relationship, even for a bried moment}}.

* [[Shockwave Stomp]]: Night Terror when he stabs the ground. A few other characters have ground stabbing moves that make one, and Xianghua has an actual stomp.

* [[Shoo the Dog]]: Kilik tries several times to keep Xianghua from following him, because he doesn't plan for his quest to end well. This is also the case for Hwang in ''Soul Edge'' and the first ''Calibur'', who keeps sending Seong Mina home when she follows him out.

** The ''Just Guard'' system, however, is more or less the ''Just Defend'' system from ''[[Fatal Fury|Garou: Mark of the Wolves]]''.

** Several characters in ''II'' have costumes that reference characters from other video games:

*** Mitsurugi's 2P costume makes him strongly resemble [[Samurai Shodown|Haohmaru]].

*** Ivy's bonus costume is a shout-out to [[Tekken|Anna Williams]].

*** Raphael's ''IV'' 1P costume resembles [[Castlevania|Alucard]].

** In ''V'', there's a Quick Battle opponent named Diego Umeharez, as in Daigo Umehara.

*** More specifically, it's the screen name used by a Daigo impersonator.

* [[Unreliable Narrator]]: When confronting Tira in ''V'''s Story Mode as Patroklos, the narrator refers to her as {{spoiler|"your mother's murderer"}} seemingly confirming that Tira {{spoiler|killed Sophitia}}. This was later disproven in the [[All There in the Manual|official sourcebook]].

* [[Unusual Ears]]: ''IV'' bonus characters Kamikirimusi and Scheherazade.

* [[Virtual Paper Doll]]

* [[Walking the Earth]]: Every characters travels all over Europe and Asia in search of the Soul Edge for their personal reasons.

** [[Knife Nut]]: Taki, Chester, Natsu

** [[Laser Blade]]: Darth Vader, Yoda and the Apprentice [[Star Wars|(for obvious reasons)]].

** [[Parasol of Pain]]: Setsuka

** [[Rings of Death]]: Tira

* [[Boss Dissonance]]: The Chronicles of The Sword mode in ''III'' is a Kirby Type.

* [[Defeat Means Friendship]]: How do you get your old friends back from {{spoiler|Soul Edge induced mind control}} post time skip in Chronicles of the Sword? [[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha|Befriend]] [[Memetic Mutation|them]].

* [[Dual Boss]]: Lanbardy and Hobb at the end of the Underground Juno.

* [[Five-Bad Band]]: In Weapon Master we have...

* [[Lethal Joke Character]]: The Dancer class in Chronicles of the Sword fights with a pair of tambourines as its first weapon. Did we mention the most basic attack from these tambourines utterly breaks the AI? Or that their fast attack rate is paired with a weapon that regenerates health with every swing? Swordmaster using tambourines is better because of much higher stats, but impossible to unlikely to use for a first playthough.

* [[Louis Cypher]]: Wonder what Demuth Beel Zebus Halteese could mean...

** Merope Monastery's bonus mission in Weapon Master is dependent entirely on if the AI moves the right way, as you have ~15 seconds to defeat each of the 6 foes, only truly possible with a ring out while over 3/4 of the stage is wall.

* [[Manipulative Bastard]]: Chester {{spoiler|has three out of the four kingdoms under his strings}} around the end of the first half, part of his [[Evil Plan]] to {{spoiler|become king himself}}.

* [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast]]: Lanbardy, Marauder of Slaughter

** Weapon Master Mode has [[Playable Epilogue|special chapters]] unlocked after defeating the [[Big Bad]], which offered a [[Sidequest]] set after the plot's end.

* [[Nominal Importance]]: Averted in Chronicles of the Sword; most named characters are merely elite mooks (opposed to the [[Red Shirt|Red Shirts]] who are named for their affiliation).