Namco Bandai knows what people want from Soulcalibur V, and it’s totally prepared to deliver.
We’re all adults here, right? Good, then let’s just be blunt about it: Soulcalibur V has a whole lot of breasts in it. Comically oversized, physics-defying, spine-wrenching breasts. Anyone who’s followed the series over the years won’t be terribly stunned by this revelation, but it’s only fitting that with the game having reached gold status this morning (and hitting store shelves on February 3), that we commemorate the occasion with the following two tales of just how heavily Namco Bandai is relying on the endowments of its female characters to sell this title.
As Eurogamer reports, when the ESRB recently evaluated the game for sale in the United States, it offered the title a relatively tame “Teen” rating. More interesting than that though are the specific reasons for the rating, as spelled out in descriptive text that would likely go unnoticed by the world at large, if not for gaming journalists who find this kind of thing hilarious.
“Some female fighters wear outfits that reveal large amounts of jiggling cleavage and portions of their buttocks,” the ESRB rating summary reports. “… on the character creation menu, players can augment fighters’ breast sizes and manipulate the camera to zoom in on their bodies,” it adds.
Custom camera angles and poorly planned costume choices are de rigueur titillation for the fighting game genre, but that bit about players being able to handcraft their own ridiculously large, uh … “tracts of land?” That’s classy.
“Nex, you’re being unfair! Namco Bandai is just working with a cast that has always included women with breasts that range from huge to ludicrously huge! The company isn’t specifically using that as a selling point!” I hear you shouting.
Perhaps reader, but that doesn’t account for the recent print ad discovered by Andriasang in Japan’s Nikkan Sports newspaper. It’s got awkward dimensions, and I’d rather not test this site’s content restrictions, but if you click these suddenly colorful words, you’ll be whisked away to a glimpse of what Namco Bandai considers the game’s key selling point. Er, points, I suppose.
Mind you, I’m not condemning the company for any of this. As cool a character as Mitsurugi is, sex sells. Busty dominatrix beats grizzled samurai every time. I just like to point these things out.
As a reward for bearing with me on this, I also present the newly-released opening cinematic for the game. What it lacks in softcore fetishism, it more than makes up for in shiny violence. Enjoy.
