So. Tits.

The first I really saw of Soul Calibur 4 was EGM's preview last month, and the most I saw of that was Ivy's gigantic flesh bags. It wasn't my fault -- they were so ridiculously bulbous that they pushed the words and pictures off the page. The magazine itself bowed out slightly in the middle, as if even the inherent limitations of two dimensions struggled to constrain the heaving mounds that threatened to burst forth from the paper to blot out the sun.

It was a little.. much, but I let them have it. I mean, it's Ivy for God's sake. If she looks like this now, we have to refer to this as her demure and tasteful period:

(This Gamespot blog post has some more direct comparisons of Ivy's changes through the years.)

Now new scans have been released from the most recent Famitsu showing off three more returning characters: Sophitia, Cassandra, and Voldo. Sophitia has been with the series for a long time and has already been undergoing a bit of an evolution. Here we have her in Soul Calibur:

And SC2:

Her thigh-highs shrunk in the wash, but otherwise she kept it pretty classy. Well, comparatively classy anyway. Then for SC3:

Slightly less classy. The metal boob cup seems both impractical and cold. How can they fix this glaring error for Soul Calibur 4...

Yes! Get rid of the damned thing! I told you it was cold, look. You take it off and her rack expands. Also, the heavy grade cloth she was using in SC3 was really wearing her down, so they replaced it entirely with tissue paper.

Focus groups (a Japanese salaryman locked in a broom closet with some hand lotion) responded that Sophitia looked too stand-offish and aggressive in previous installments. So she's been given a slight attitude adjustment, from "I am a warrior!" to "Please don't hit me again daddy! Look, I found a sword."

But Namco is nothing if not thrifty, so if you wonder where Sophitia's old outfits went, just look to her sister Cassandra. Soul Calibur 2:

And 3:

Well this is inexcusable. Somehow she actually gained covering. In fact, the most exposed skin she has is her wrist. I will not stand for this bullshit.

Yes. Don't even bother designing a new outfit, just start hacking chunks off her old ones. Make her tits bigger too, make everyone's tits bigger, give Lizardman some tits and blow those bastards up.

Also make Cassandra a cop?

I don't know where Namco is going with this. I mean, I know where they're going, but I don't understand why. Hasn't the Soul Calibur series been selling well enough without resorting to cheesecake (uh, more cheesecake)? Does any fighting game team seriously look around the market, see Dead or Alive, and think "there's our competition!" Maybe they really are just doing it for the hell of it. I dunno. You can see the scans for yourself below, but as a cleansing exercise, I have made one of the thumbnails an enlarged crop of Voldo's crotch. It's the least I can do.