Why Crosses/Unisons were no longer used? My Theory -spoilers

**Plantman**

Amazing things I think about when I'm showering. Anyway, A discussion going in the channel about how much canon Battle Chip Challenge was in regards to the 'main' storyline got me thinking about some other 'incongruencies' the games have had in their main storyline and how said incongruencies affected the anime.

For example:
The anime made Gauss into a crossdressing oldman, something that didn't happen in the game as far as I remember.

Gauss and Elec Hakushaku are brothers in the anime, but they aren't related in the game. Edit: Okay, so apparently in a quizz game in EXE2 it's said Gauss has a brother called Jack Electel, but that's it. >_> gee Capcom, how I'm supposed to know he's got a brother?? Just guessing?!

And then we see things such as the transcition from Fireman to Heatman for Hinoken.

And like these there's quite a lot other differences. Now, my 'theory' so to speak is that when Capcom began to 'bring back' characters or a relation with past characters that were affected by the anime plot, the anime writers probably had to sweat it big.

So, when Soul Unisons are introduced in EXE4 we get one big problem: How to come around and give Rockman the Fire Soul if they got rid of Fireman in behalf of Heatman? The solution was to eliminate Heatman and then bring Fireman back. But Capcom probably loves to screw around with the anime and thus:

EXE 6 Minor Spoilers: [spoil:d2e3043519]We get Heatman Back in EXE6 and with a Cross for the Cross system![/spoil:d2e3043519]

Obviously, we saw no hints at all in Beast about Hinoken nor his wereabouts. Much less any possibilities for what's in the spoiler tag.

Let's not forget how Gauss suddenly had a daughter after his 'charming' flamboyand and crossdressing nature made more than one lose a few brain cells at the idea of Gauss reproducing.

Then we have, once more, Capcom screwing their own continuity a little here and there, and we suddenly have the military navi Napalmman get an Operator, and surprise surprise, apparently Netto forgot he ever came across that navi few games back, nevermind he remembers Knightman and Magnetman just fine. (So much for BCC not fitting the 'canon' due to incongruencies with the main storyline, right? XD)

So, the anime is presented with another 'oh god, another navi we killed is back!' Which was solved through making him: Stream Spoilers: [spoil:d2e3043519]An Asteroid Navi that decided to ally to humans'[/spoil:d2e3043519]

From the point of view of the anime makers, the fact Capcom can easily bring back old navis with new characters -like in Tesla's case; probably presented too much of a trouble to bother with. Giving Rockman things like Soul Unisons and crosses that depend on secondary navis, would mean a lot of 'cut/paste/fix' for any little thing the anime has done about the characters since EXE.

I think this could easily be one of the reasons why Crosses and Unisons were deemed inconvenient in the anime and why we haven't seen a new Unison/Cross again cince Gyro Soul.

Of course this is mainly just what -I- think, it's, in no way, me asuming this is how it happened, just that I think these could have been factors that had to do -why- unisons and crosses haven't been used anymore as of now.

Feel free to share your points of view as you deem fitting. Again, I remind you I am not asuming THIS is the one and only way for this decision, just my personal opinion on what factors could have had a hand in the lack of unisons and crosses.
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DrkXFuZion · Posted: Mon May 01, 2006 4:43 pm Post subject:

I always figured Crosses were out because cosmetic-wise, they were just better Soul Unisons and in the anime, a difference couldn't be made to distinguish. In addition, Beast already has Juuka for Rockman, so he already has something to rely on.
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Tachyon360 · Le Croissant Joined: 16 Mar 2005 Posts: 740

Sai-kun · Posted: Mon May 01, 2006 5:00 pm Post subject:

You confused me there, Tachyon. I'd say After-game content. >_> End-game kinda seem to refer to the endings.

But yeah, I'm pretty sure anything that's in an extra area (Undernet in BN1, WWARea in 2, not sure about 3, BlackEarth in 4, and Nebula Area in 5) doesn't count for the storyline.
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Tachyon360 · Le Croissant Joined: 16 Mar 2005 Posts: 740

**Plantman** · Posted: Mon May 01, 2006 6:04 pm Post subject:

So Burnerman doesn't exist because he doesn't appear until after you beat the game the first time? Napalmman still existed and had a certain background, wether he was or not in the main storyline doesn't matter.

If Optional bits didn't 'count', then why Netto does remember Laika if his encounter with him is also 'optional' in the previous game?

Continuity holes aren't something rare in games. Konami certainly knows about that very well.
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Sai-kun · Posted: Mon May 01, 2006 6:36 pm Post subject:

I'm pretty sure 4 was an exception, Planty.
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Midnight · Posted: Mon May 01, 2006 6:38 pm Post subject:

Plant, I suppose EXE4 is an exception.

The reason for that is that the storyline, unlike in the rest of the games, is actually quite fairly randomized. For some players, we will see Burnerman in the first run through, and for others, we will not see him until perhaps the fifth or sixth run. That is quite the continuity problem when it comes to the game's canon.

The way I see it, since it seems that all of the scenes are possible as elements of the storyline, I think of them as all belonging to canon. Inevitably, after sufficient playthroughs, we should see every combination of trios out of the eight stock scenarios for each tournament.

It's a nightmare to continuity, this game. It's probably the primary reason that it was derided in comparison to the previous three games.
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**Plantman** · Posted: Mon May 01, 2006 6:42 pm Post subject:

No exceptions! XD Seriously >.> I count every single beat up as canon, -side story if you want but it still 'happened'. Wasn't Pharaohman also found in 'extra' areas though? And just for that doesn't mean he didn't exist.

Napalmman might not have been part of the main storyline, but he still existed. Randomly making him Nenji's navi negates he existed 'prior' to EXE5.

But we're totally deviating from the main point of this post. The fact that Capcom could so easily bring old characters back despite previous backgrounds (Again, Tesla's example) And how that can easily affect the anime's attempts to go 'somewhat' following the game in terms of characters along with their own changes (See Crossdresser Gauss again).
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DrkXFuZion · Posted: Mon May 01, 2006 9:08 pm Post subject:

Of course...it could have been a different Napalmman. While it hasn't explicitly been shown that navi templates are not unique, it doesn't rule out the possibility.
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Nenji · Posted: Tue May 02, 2006 1:27 am Post subject:

I'm confused...why are we discussing the Video Games in the Anime Forum?

In the Anime, Napalmman was a Navi of the nation opposing Brightland, which was Darkland. In the end he was deleted by Rock using a style change. That's what Planty reffered to in the first post isn't it?

In the Games it's frequently mentioned that backups are kept of Navis. All Nenji had to do was find the ruins of the WWW base, snatch the data for Napalmman and hey presto! He's the the owner of a Napalmman EXE and thus we can ignore the fact that Napalmman got destroyed if we include the secret areas as canon storylines. Besides let's face it, Nenji's not exactly the most saintly of people in the games. Razz

Either way there are ways to explain how that plot issue can be resolved.

The easiest way to explain why the Anime doesn't use Souls anymore is because the producers are being lazy. It's much easy to recycle Cross Fusion for the fourth season, using a design already established in the previous two, than create new ones. That said I'd expected more elements of the games in Beast than were present.

The Anime and games are not linked and until Cross Fusion appears in the games, there's no reason they have to be. The Anime is based off the games, but not related to them.
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**Plantman** · Posted: Tue May 02, 2006 2:31 am Post subject:

We're not supposed to discuss the videogames, the main reason why I mentioned is because the anime pulls a good chunk of characters from the games themselves, and events that happen there -like Style changes and Soul Unisons. Randomly deviated to 'game talk' from someone pointing if Napalmman was or wasn't canon.

I never said it followed the games to the smallest of things, if such was the case they wouldn't have had to explain how Hinoken switches navis like he's switching undies in the anime.

But you'll notice the anime has tried to include at least -once- a good amount of new navis and their operators like in the games -that's why we see Saloma return after vanishing from Japan for some reason, and we see the soul-o-rama, or the fact almost all the EXE5 navis and operators appeared in Stream or how we got a good chunk of the EXE6 Cross navis and operators show up at least once.

And it's easy to asume they were lazy, but also, each stock henshin costs money, so I wouldn't say they are skipping them for the sake of being lazy. Why would they skip designs already made by Capcom and instead had to come up with new designs of their own for several new cross fusions, that's a lot more work there than simply using crosses/souls that were already designed. Let's not mention Beast Outs for almost every Zoanoroid.

Even if many CF designs are similar to the original navis, designing the slightiest of changes to make them look like a fusion of the human and their navis -can- be very problematic and requires more work than just animating the capcom designs.

Took me several hours to come up with my fan-beast outs and my fan Cross Fusions, and trust me, it's not the way of the lazy.
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CnCBoy · Net Savior Joined: 13 Apr 2005 Posts: 102 Location: France

R-Tomakawk man is the perfect exemple of lazyness. It is exactly Tomahawk man with an ugly facemask. The other are original and require work but this one is just a badly recolored thing.

They design other CF but they were put in a slide show action, they only begin to really move in Beast 23 and 25. Before it was slide shows. And they use the henshin too much for cover the lack of plot and works.(Remember the 5 min of henshin during every episode). Stream was butchered.

But Beast feacture a lot of works. They were lazy for Stream but it seem they are back to work now.

It is stupid to skip Crosses because they are an interresting part of the game. People choose their version with the Croses inside. Axess must have help some of them to choose their version.
Stream didn't help me.
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Nenji · Posted: Tue May 02, 2006 6:12 am Post subject:

Cross Fusions:

Rockman, Blues and Search are basically all the basic designs with slight modifications.

Tomahawk, Gyro, Colonel and Shadow are also just slight variations on the Navi.

Napalm is a bulkier version of Napalm Soul.

Needle, Magnets and Knight are the truly unique ones as the Navis wouldn't fit well to the body shapes.

That's what I was saying was lazy when I said it. Also Cross Fusion require less plot working to use now and is a quick way out of fight scenes. This is also what I meant by laziness.

Think of the Style Changes from Season Two, they weren't much better implemented but there was at least a little more variety then just "Cross Fusion, Cross Fusion, Cross Fusion...x13".
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**Plantman** · Posted: Tue May 02, 2006 10:40 am Post subject:

Even those slight modifications imply work in designing said modifications. Which is still more work than just copy designs already made by capcom for the soul unisons. Again, if you have never designed anything like that, I invite you to try following the parameters. >_> Falzer Roll took hours to design to my liking and when put down to basics, she's just a slight modification of Roll.
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Sasuke.EXE V2 · Posted: Tue May 02, 2006 2:15 pm Post subject:

I'll agree that the artists have it hard, I don't want to be the one to come up with some excuse as to why only certain crosses work with certain Juuka styles or something like that. In Stream they would also have to explain how Rockman could chaos unison but then they would also have to come up with why chaos unison wouldn't work with any of the old souls because those did make an appearence in the beginning of Stream
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QuickMan · Posted: Tue May 02, 2006 10:51 pm Post subject:

Very nice theories.... but i think that, especially with Stream, that they overdid cross fusion. crosses/soul unsions are more important in my eyes.

Azureman.EXE · Posted: Wed May 03, 2006 9:06 am Post subject:

Although I mostly think it was more the cosmetic theory previously stated, I have to admit that you bring up a good point there, Plant. Having to restock characters that have been killed off would surely make ME want to rid myself of something like Unison/Cross... In fact, one could say that Beastouts are something of a godsend for the anime crew... :puku:
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Gray17 · Net Savior Joined: 30 May 2005 Posts: 137 Location: USA

Pretty reasonable theory. I can imagine the writers getting tired of changing things around to feature a particular character just for a soul unison. Especially when there's so many. You go to all that effort to write a good episode for a unison to occur, then only use it a couple of times because there are so many other unisons afterwards. And meanwhile you're trying to keep your own plot lines and character representations together around this.

They probably started Stream, then when they realized a lot of their efforts would be divided to make the movie at the same time, just threw up their hands, and gave up on the souls in favor of the CFs. After all, not having a CF later on down the line is easy to explain by virtue of "they aren't around." As opposed to trying to come up with a reason why Netto isn't using earlier Soul Unisons any more every season.

Mansako · Posted: Thu May 04, 2006 1:13 pm Post subject: