EGMi Cover Story for Soul Calibur V

When Japanese developers make affirmative value claims regarding skewed character balance, I think we interpret them way too simplistically. I don't think these responses do the philosophy justice.

Are 5/5 matchups across the board really what everyone wants in a fighting game (assuming this is possible in a game with character variance)? Sounds fancifully democratic but I don't know.
 
maybe they should just have 50% returning chars and the other half new chars with a balanced system. since there will be like 11 to 15 new chars the gameplay will seem new but still familar to former players and it wont be boring becuase of the new character styles. I have a feeling that since the game will be balanced they will focus mainly on each chars style of play and make it more......ummmm "defined".
 
i can see the reasoning behind the 'wabi-sabi' thing, but just about every game has implemented it incorrectly (or too much to the extreme, rather) to be considered a good philosophy

anybody who references ANY SF4 iteration as a 'good' example of it is flat-out wrong (even if Odashima himself said it). With SF4, all you saw in tournaments were 1 million ryus and sagats. it was rediculous, as well as annoying! which was the whole reasoning behind the re-balancing for SSF4. It fixed alot of the problems with balance of SF4, and many considered it to be superior because of it. I mean, there were twice as many characters, and the vast majority of them were competitive. It still has its share of issues, specifically with the extremes of the tier-lists. Now that AE is out, it's getting more like the old SF4, but this time, instead of DP-trading-to-ultra ryu and sagat, now you have the twins. because of that, there are rumors that there will be (YET ANOTHER) rebalancing in the works

Also, the whole, overpowered-Jin-in-T4 thing is in fact the 'wabi-sabi' philosophy (being that he was created to be stronger than others), but taken too far, as I'm sure that the developers didn't anticipate that he'd be THAT strong. No developer anticipates that on purpose, I'm sure, but it almost always ends up that way. This leads to fighting games where you have useless characters, which is always bad design in my eyes -- if you put in a character who doesn't have enough tools to realistically compete with other normal (non-boss) characters, not only did you disappoint and needlessly frustrate fans of that character (at worst, possibly drawing them away from the game), but surprise!, you just wasted months and thousands of dollars of development resources that could have been used to make your game more fun
 
SF4 was the more interesting game....SSF4 was more balanced but was really boring to me.
SSF4AE is just a troll release for capcom's next SSFAE4S.

wabi sabi in fighting games translates exactly to why people say, "a balanced game is boring."

However, I trust in Odaishima

We pretty much both want the same thing, so any times he opens his mouth about the game it's music to my ears. I just want more details.
 
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