By Pminton

OK. I’m a Soul Calibur fan (despite the fact that The Chad Pwn’d me with his eyes closed). I’m also a huge Star Wars fan. What I’m not sure about is this trailer for Soul Calibur IV featuring Darth Vader and Yoda as playable fighters.

I’ll also refer you to today’s Penny Arcade strip for it portrays my initial reaction better than I can write here. I have gone from Gabe’s wide-eyed, conspiracy-theorist diagrams to Tycho’s scathing skepticism. I am both sides. On one hand I’ve always wanted to see Star Wars characters in a fighter (aside form the completely terrible Masters of Teras Kasi) but, on the other, Soul Calibur has always been a more story-driven fighter than most. How in the name of the seven gaming hells are they going to explain this? Alternate universes? Space-time rifts? It’s all inside an autistic gamer’s snow-globe?

For some reason this is unsettling. At first I thought it was because they were using the Star Wars characters in a way that made no sense. Then I thought about Episodes I - III. It’s already been done. So, why am I so wary of this crossover? I think it’s the scene where we see a lightsaber being blocked by a metal sword. A lightsaber. By definition it can cut through nearly everything (I’m pretty sure that dude’s sword isn’t made of cortosis). It made me realize that a full-fledged Jedi (or Sith) could take any Soul Calibur fighter apart without even igniting their saber. So, they have to be dumbed down to fit the physics of the game. Doesn’t that just make them regular SC characters with a different skin? I know that games don’t have to make sense and I’m trying desperately to keep this post from turning into a fanboy argu-rant so I’ll just leave it at that.

Except that everyone knows that a (dark) Jedi would win. Every time.