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No, HATE really isn't the right word. It doesn't truly describe how much I despise unlockable content, especially in fighting games. I hate it like I hate the Nazis. I hate it like I hate sexual predators. I hate it like I hate child abusers. It is a true and burning LOATHING.
Now that I have driven this point home, here's how it connects to me and Soul Calibur 4. I bought Soul Calibur 4 pretty much for the Create a Soul mode, because I love building characters from other games and plugging them into my SC game. Seeing Tir McDohl(Suikoden) fighting with Kilik's Bo style in the SC engine is just amazing, and watching Hector(Fire Emblem 7) crushing heads with Astaroth's axe is just a FALCON MASTERPIECE. 
Hector. With Astaroth's throws. You know you want it. So then why, when I paid $60 for my game, am I not allowed to create these characters? Why are all the pieces required to make their likenesses squirreled away in some extra mode that I have to go spend days and days of effort to pull out of the game? If I paid money to enjoy a GAME, why am I having to WORK to get to the fun part? I have to jump through all these arbitrary and oftentimes ludicrous hoops just to get a shirt for my CAS mode so that I can make characters that I want. Or what about the ludicrous notion of having to unlock the very characters themselves? SC4 starts with a whole mess of characters locked away from the player. Some of these are my favorite characters too, like Cervantes, Yun-Seong, and Seong Mi-na. Why am I not allowed to use these characters as soon as I pop in my game disc? I can understand hiding, say, the boss character, Algol. And maybe even the special characters designed by all those anime artists too. OK, whatever, they're super special clone characters. Fine, I'll accept that. But the POINT of a fighting game is that you have all these different neat characters that you can learn how to use and eventually master, and that you can square these characters off against one another in all sorts of epic battles and in matches against your friends. So why are almost half of them unable to be used until I do some arbitrary bullshit other mode to unlock them? And this carries over to other fighting games too. Why do I have to beat Tekken 5 12+ times with different characters just to unlock the character I really want to use? I'm a Baek player, but I have to beat the game as three or four other people before I can even use him! In Neo-Geo Battle Colosseum, Athena and Mars People aren't any different from the normal characters, but they are arbitrarily locked until you complete Arcade and Tag Play mode. Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 had over half of it's cast locked away in the game store, and you had to beat the game over and over with the starting characters to eventually unlock anybody interesting. It's all absolute madness! 
Dude you have been in this series longer than I've been playing it. Why the fuck are you hidden content? Some games, though, have got it down. Arcana Heart, for instance. All the characters, Arcanas, and play options are all available right form the start. The unlockables are cool extras like pictures of characters and artwork from the character designer. Picture and sound galleries for the player to enjoy. This is acceptable locked content. It's not a part of the game, it's something cool and extra for the fans who want to see it, but hiding it doesn't hamper the gameplay itself at all. 
This game did it right. Why is this the exception to the rule? Fighting game companies, please hear my plea! Stop hiding all the actually important and enjoyable parts of your games behind absolute bullshit locks. I'm fine with locking DLC. I'm fine with locking art galleries and music modes. But for crying out loud, don't fucking lock the fun parts of your game and make us suffer through your bullshit extra modes just so we can -eventually- have the thing we actually wanted to begin with. But yeah, besides all that, I'm having a blast making peeps in CAS. I've made almost all the Yggdra Union characters, and a whole mess of Fire Emblem and Suikoden peeps as well. If I can find my camera cable I'll totally upload so you guys can see. They're awesome. *grin*
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Living the dream since March 16, 2006
Living the dream since March 16, 2006
nevermind it's a big deal
I see how it may be frustrating, but you shouldn't pay $60 for a character creator. You just have to keep grinding to get the items for the CC. Consider it motivation.
I can safely say that I would not have enjoyed MVC2 nearly as much if all characters were available from the start. For me, it's almost like fucking Christmas when characters popped out in that game. Nobody had really seen all the characters at the time, I'd heard rumors about who some of the characters were on each side that might be popping up, and all of us at our arcade were excited about the prospect of whomever might be next to show. None of my favorite teams could have been constructed from the original group of characters available, but I cherished that unlock list nonetheless.
Of course, if you really don't like unlockables much, you can always ask them to go the route of GGX2. Leave the game on for 96 hours, every character and alternate of them is unlocked. That simple. :)
How not to do unlockables in a game? F-Zero GX. Nobody should be forced to play Captain Falcon in Story Mode on some ridiculous difficulty to get some of the neatest stuff in the game. If you had several vehicle choices, that'd be fine...but I *HATE* Falcon's vehicle, thus making my work much more of a chore than I'd like.
What if a game prompted the player when the game started up? You're given a choice. "Do you want content locked or unlocked?" Players like me who just want to play the damn game and have fun already can do so, and players who derive enjoyment from unlocking things can go ahead and have it their way too. -I- personally think it would solve a lot of problems.
1. Lengthen the life of the game. The longer it takes to finish everything in the game the more you can boast the games "length"
2. Limiting the player's choices from the get-go forces them play other characters they many not normally try under regular circumstances.
3. Not presenting the player with an overwhelming ammount of options.
4. Value over each option. The age old "What you worked for means more to you than what you didn't"
An example for no.3 , on a larger scale, was when a friend of mine was player AoC and ended up in a massive city where meter or two of walking led to a bunch more quests to the point where my friend ended up with so many choices he had no idea where to start. I told him to limit himself and work through it progressively. Since then hes made alot of progress.
really now....WOULD you pay 60 bucks just to create favorite characters and play them for about I unno...2 days then put the game away? Granted everything's unlocked from the get go? Kinda destroys the purpose of spending 60 bucks on the game. You'd be better off rentin it off Gamefly or somethin.
Also most of the characters can be bought after what...2-3 story mode plays if that? It's not like Tekken or Past SC games where Soul Calibur 2 made you go through the awfully horrible revamped Edge Master Mode to get majority of the hidden characters.
Of course that was back in the day when we didnt get so much information about games before they came out. Now we know everything about a game before it comes out, which reduces the excitement for unlocking stuff; you know what youre gonna get.
But then i agree with Gantz's point number 2 - it forces you to play the whole game. I mean, i would anyway, but its nice to get something for doing it.
Your idea for optional unlocks is not a bad one, though.
Shin Oni: I bought the game -mostly- for the CAS mode. I actually do like the game plenty, it's just I have a lot more fun dicking around with the CAS. Which is why I don't want to have to spend time doing random bullshit objectives in the Tower of Lost Souls just so I can get the right shirt to make Hugo from Suikoden 3.
Ajaxander: I don't want to play the whole game. I don't want to go through Tower of Lost Souls. I want to play Versus and dick around in the CAS. Think of it like this: You buy Super Mario Galaxy, but only 2 Galaxies are open at the start. To open all the others, you have to get highscores in a Tetris mini-game that they included for the hell of it. You didn't buy SMG to play Tetris, you bought it to play Mario. But now you've got to grind scores out in Tetris to play Mario.
I shouldn't have to play their random bullshit extra mode just to properly enjoy the Versus and CAS modes.
I agree that if they're gonna use the CAS mode as a marketing tool, it should've been open from the start, but most games do unlockables well.
Geese, it's not like its anything ridiculously unreasonable. Not to mention the fact that this just seems like some poor attempt at a straw man. If I'm not misreading things here, you seem frustrated because they locked some pink shirt you wanted for your guy.
That and there is a purpose to a lot of the locked equipment, they convey bonuses to your character that help you progress in tower mode. Gradually increasing your individuals stats to help you get through the ramp of in difficulty as you go up(or down) floors. It's important to remember that this is most certainly not a dress up simulation, though it seems most of your anger lies in your notion going in that it was indeed, just that.
Really, this just seems like a big whine fest to me masquerading as a relevant issue. Nevertheless, I'm sorry the issue is causing you frustration, but the system does have its purposes and could be a LOT more arbitrary than it currently is.
I don't give a flying fuck about my characters stats. Adjusting character stats based on equipment is the most retarded thing ever. It's a carry over from Korean free MMORPG's, where you have to pay physical money for better equipment and stats. It has absolutely no place in a retail game, and a retail FIGHTER for damn sure. Fighting games are about skill and precision, not dicking around with equipment to get the best stats.
Seriously though, I could understand if your upset with the fact that you have to pay to unlock some content that was already on the disc but i think your being a little silly about complaining about the extra equiptment you earn to playing the game.
I reallllly like playing it through and i recommend you give it a shot because it's worth your time, mr sad face.
How is that even close to what I am saying? I bought Soul Calibur 4 to play Vs. mode and to use the CAS. Why should I have to grind in the Tower of Lost Souls to do those two things? It doesn't make any sense.
Anyway, you only have to buy the 15 characters locked at the start anyway. So you start with 20,000, finishing story gets at least 10,000 each time, so that's only 4 play throughs of story mode to unlock all the characters. Hell first thing I did when I got that game was go straight to character creator and unlock Talim. Just so my SC4 version of myself could use her style.
These are the kinds of unlockables I am ok with. I am not ok with them sealing game modes and normal playable characters, even if some of them are easy to unlock(BTW, some of the CAS parts in this game are ludicrously hard to unlock. If they're going to do that at least give us a secondary timer option to unlock them or SOMETHING.)
Now Tower mode on the other hand angers the fuck out of me. The last stage I beat took near two hours of effort, and I've spent about that much time on the current one. Having to fight through eleven enemies in a row with a single character with no health boosts just so that I can get some fancier pants in Character Creation mode is downright ludicrous. I'm not even in the final few stages, I'm just past halfway.
You probaly should pick up soume crash bandicoot titles, nice and easy, your probaly given everything from the start all warpped up in a nice little basket for ya.
I think the Tower of souls option is great, its seems the people that cant get far are the ones complaining. Perfect your character and it aint a prob otherwise i dont want you going online and quitting early cos your ass is getting kicked. Most of the items are easy and dont require to win, jump out of the ring, simple as.
Also the character creation adds a great strategic element to the game which other fighting games dont have. Should i use items that can take health off the other player or should i maximise my health and attack.
Shame on you for knocking marvel vs capcom 2, if you found playing that game over and over again boring, you must have a serious problem. Top fightinggame around and still is :)