Skullgirls is coming to Mobile!

[missingno]

As long as PvP is a level playing field - meaning all RPG elements removed, or at least the option to turn them off for competition - I think it could be a fun side event.

 

[Mike_Z]

>But he's mostly disagreeing with you
>Oh.jpg

Ready to feel like that again? <3

I'm talking about having the ending of the game behind a paywall, not unlike triple A developers who release Day 1 DLC that contains the ending of their actually incomplete game, a game you bought under the thought that you got the whole package.

Right, and to my knowledge that ain't happenin'. BUT, you specifically said

If I ever feel forced to go for an in-app purchase because say, Alex Ahad makes a really good story but the game hits a difficulty spike and I can't see the ending, that would suck.

So I'd like to point out that these are not the same thing. The former is an ending you do not get unless you PAY, the latter is an ending you do not get unless you BEAT SOMETHING for which payment is not required but is a possible a shortcut. In fact I'm not even sure why you mentioned the latter, if the former was what you were talking about.
A difficulty spike is quite different from paid DLC. Just wanna be super clear here, since you said "forced", and a difficulty spike does not force you to pay.
Otherwise, carry on.

I mean I learned the bases in roughly a day. takes time to master but it doesnt take hundreds of hours to learn

It definitely took me hundreds of hours to learn SF2, but this is likely down to what you mean by "learn". I bet I could do a fireball on command from nothing in under five hours, but a DP on command in battle was probably 20 or 30. "Proficiency" in anything is generally defined in thousands of hours...

 

[FastLikeLightning]

A difficulty spike is quite different from paid DLC. Just wanna be super clear here, since you said "forced", and a difficulty spike does not force you to pay.

You must realize that there is a limit to that, though. Like, beating Marie 300%? Completely doable if you put in the time and effort. Beating Marie 300% with a pixel of health? That's something that 99% of the playerbase would be completely unable to do, and even among those who could, I doubt that it would be consistent. There's a point where the difficulty becomes absurd to the extent that the 'anything is possible without paying' starts to break down as an argument.

Let me make one thing very clear: I do not think that Skullgirls Mobile will have that issue. At all. I have full confidence that the dev team making the game will dodge these particularly egregious pitfalls.

 

[Mike_Z]

Beating Marie 300% with a pixel of health? That's something that 99% of the playerbase would be completely unable to do, and even among those who could, I doubt that it would be consistent.

I summon thee, @dragonos451!
You very seriously underestimate what dedication means, Mister-or-Miss Lightning. :^P

Anyway, sure, but I don't look at that as "difficult", I look at that as "generally impossible, but sometimes possible because it's luck-based". Though now you bring up, where is the threshold? I bet it's in a way different place for me than for 99% of players in the first place, since I've been told more times than I can count, "Man, you're still (trying to beat X thing in a game)? It's been hours!" I see that as an okay time investment to count as dedication, personally. I put Marie 300% at the decently-high end of "difficult", which is why she's the hardest thing in SG. Heck, I put the pit climb in Indivisible on the "easy" side because with about 30 minutes of practice I could do it 99% of the time in one shot, and people still complained.

tl;dr I guess my phrase should have been "difficult, rather than unfair". But remember that this qualifies as "unfair" to lots of impatient people anyway.
You made your point! :^)

 

[LUgnutt]

You must realize that there is a limit to that, though. Like, beating Marie 300%? Completely doable if you put in the time and effort. Beating Marie 300% with a pixel of health? That's something that 99% of the playerbase would be completely unable to do, and even among those who could, I doubt that it would be consistent. There's a point where the difficulty becomes absurd to the extent that the 'anything is possible without paying' starts to break down as an argument.

Let me make one thing very clear: I do not think that Skullgirls Mobile will have that issue. At all. I have full confidence that the dev team making the game will dodge these particularly egregious pitfalls.

FLL basically summed it up for me. I don't mean a literal paywall behind the ending, I mean the boss fight is so unbeatably hard to the point where you feel it was specially designed to make you just pay for it and get it over with. If that's the case, to a degree some people will feel forced. They have the skill and time, but it's not doing them any good, as it's a fight that can only be won with payment. A bunch of games actually do this, too.

Anyway, sure, but I don't look at that as "difficult", I look at that as "generally impossible, but sometimes possible because it's luck-based". Though now you bring up, where is the threshold? I bet it's in a way different place for me than for 99% of players in the first place, since I've been told more times than I can count, "Man, you're still (trying to beat X thing in a game)? It's been hours!" I see that as an okay time investment to count as dedication, personally. I put Marie 300% at the decently-high end of "difficult", which is why she's the hardest thing in SG. Heck, I put the pit climb in Indivisible on the "easy" side because with about 30 minutes of practice I could do it 99% of the time in one shot, and people still complained.

You bring up a very interesting point, but what if you took that scenario, and applied the option to just pay the game instead of putting in the dedication or 30 minutes of practice? And this isn't just a personal thing either, the boss fight itself is intentionally made too difficult to overcome through dedication. While the former does still happen often, it's not really cruel or cheap by any means, it's just difficult. That, to me, is the threshold between "Difficult" and "unfair". Add the fact that developers can sometimes hide things behind this barrier (EG story progression 'what happens next?', unlockable characters/stages/modes etc) to further push you towards taking the money route. I'm in agreement with Lightning, however, in that I'm sure nothing of the sort will happen in Skullgirls Deadly Airport mobile. You said so yourself, after all.

 

[Mike_Z]

How do you move? No one has mentioned this, that I've seen. I saw dash forward/back explained, but how do you walk forward? Can you walk back? Can you jump (outside of combos)? Can you dash without attacking?

You can't dash without attacking, but if that ends up sucking in the Beta, they made a note to try allowing you to cancel it into blocking.
Walking automatically happens if you don't do anything for a period of time. If that ends up sucking in the Beta, they said they'll change it somehow.
Beta beta beta beta beta Beta beta.

FLL basically summed it up for me. I don't mean a literal paywall behind the ending, I mean the boss fight is so unbeatably hard to the point where you feel it was specially designed to make you just pay for it and get it over with. If that's the case, to a degree some people will feel forced. They have the skill and time, but it's not doing them any good, as it's a fight that can only be won with payment. A bunch of games actually do this, too.

So ^ that, and

And this isn't just a personal thing either, the boss fight itself is intentionally made too difficult to overcome through dedication. While the former does still happen often, it's not really cruel or cheap by any means, it's just difficult. That, to me, is the threshold between "Difficult" and "unfair".

this ^ are matters of personal opinion, though. That was my whole point.
If you let the best player in the world play against a boss for a week and they can't beat it, then sure it's "impossible" or at least so random as to be considered impossible. But if you do that and they can clear it after 3 hours of trying, that has no bearing on whether YOU think it's unfair because YOU can't beat it in two whole days of trying, since YOU are not the best player in the world. Do you understand? Something could exist in the game that feels perfectly fair to the developers and makes you, specifically you, decide it's BS and you're being forced to pay. There's no fixed line, there's no average, there are only opinions.

I'm in agreement with Lightning, however, in that I'm sure nothing of the sort will happen in Skullgirls Deadly Airport mobile. You said so yourself, after all.

Remember:

Hidden Variable is making it

I am literally unable to promise anything. Lab Zero ain't makin' the game, yo. Let me emphasize that. I have no power over the dev team - just the ability to annoy people who I disagree with, and the fact that they respect Lab Zero because we built the trust of the fans. I know I don't want to do that kind of crap and would be disgusted with the game if they did, and would say so in public...but that doesn't mean they CAN'T. Hopefully the distinction is clear.

I trust them, but I do not control them.

 

[LUgnutt]

I am literally unable to promise anything. Lab Zero ain't makin' the game, yo. Let me emphasize that. I have no power over the dev team - just the ability to annoy people who I disagree with, and the fact that they respect Lab Zero because we built the trust of the fans. I know I don't want to do that kind of crap and would be disgusted with the game if they did, and would say so in public...but that doesn't mean they CAN'T. Hopefully the distinction is clear.

Misunderstanding, my fault due to poor wording. I'm not taking your word as an absolute promise, as in if the game does end up with a system like this I won't hold you or anybody at Lab Zero responsible or call you liars etc. I meant as in you saying that Hidden Variable seemed focused on making a fun game on mobile instead of opening their pitch with how much money could be made. That seemed like a promising statement, and the point you've been trying to drive home for a while's been that Skullgirls mobile's team has a conscious when it comes to in-game payment. Again, sorry for wording that badly.

Spoiler

I really hope this isn't getting tedious/annoying for you oh jeez I just wanted to talk about how bad in-game payment can be in certain contexts and now it's derailed into an argument over skill vs money. If you feel like I'm getting repetitive or annoying you don't have to keep replying I've felt important enough for this week. ^_^'

 

[dragonos451]

I summon thee, @dragonos451!
You very seriously underestimate what dedication means, Mister-or-Miss Lightning. :^P

My dedication is gone. Some hits randomly don't damage Marie or build meter when the combo counter is 2 or higher, and the characters I was working on have combos hitting too fast to avoid building that counter. That plus the projectiles not applying enough hitstop, killing the painwheel combo (maybe also parasoul's and peacock's, but I'm too afraid of that possibility to even test, I would be pretty depressed if peacock's 64k damage combo wasn't a thing).
Now I'm left with combos that are either super hard, involving short jumps or require absurd amounts of testing to craft, or combos that are fun and somewhat easy but deal random damage. And I need to know exactly how much damage they deal to dodge the shockwave, since not every character has a super that can one-shot marie's 3rd phase like Filia...

Marie is shit.

Bye.

(This was completely off-topic and I don't care)

 

[Zidiane]

You can't dash without attacking, but if that ends up sucking in the Beta, they made a note to try allowing you to cancel it into blocking.
Walking automatically happens if you don't do anything for a period of time. If that ends up sucking in the Beta, they said they'll change it somehow.
Beta beta beta beta beta Beta beta.

Really hope I get in on the beta. But thinking about how it'd feel (and pretending I'm playing on my phone) I feel like slide+tap would work well as a way to dash attack, letting you dash by sliding and add an attack by tapping like normal. It could quickly be done with two fingers, one sliding and the other tapping immediately after. Actually, you could probably just make dash cancel into everything, letting you cancel with tap (attack), block, or grab.

Oh. If you're out of range, will tapping attacks whiff? It also seems like trying to use the charge attack will be hard outside of combos. Would an alternate motion work if sliding down at neutral gave charge attack, and sliding down in the middle of a chain gave slide attack (since it's stated to be a combo ender anyway)? It would also free the controls up to allow the player to walk by holding the left or right side of the screen.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using Tapatalk

 

[missingno]

The difference between Marie 300% and the kinds of difficulty spikes found in pretty much any mobile game is that Marie 300% doesn't involve grinding. You won't find yourself in a situation where even if you play close to perfect you'll still find that no matter what your low level character just can't deal any meaningful amount of damage while even her chip damage is taking off your health bar in an instant. And you don't have to worry the F2P model is going to make it as difficult as possible to even try and grind your way out, whether that's due to limited energy systems or being bottlenecked by currencies or, say, only getting one RNG-based item drop a day.

As much as I like RPGs in other contexts, I get immediately wary when you combine them with F2P because it seems inevitable to me that this will always end up happening somewhere in the game.

 

[Mike_Z]

The difference between Marie 300% and the kinds of difficulty spikes found in pretty much any mobile game is that Marie 300% doesn't involve grinding.

THIS is a good point. Let me ask what leveling or whatnot, even does.
(Look how involved I am with the game! :^P )

[design things]

Please man, no armchair design until you've played it...

 

[Zidiane]

Please man, no armchair design until you've played it...

I'd love to! Hook me up with the beta, then I can make bad but informed design suggestions.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using Tapatalk

 

[Ravidrath]

Here are some impressions from a GAF LZ superfan that got to play it at AX:

Played around with it a bit. I really enjoyed myself, actually. The controls feel very intuitive. It took me like a minute to fully adjust, and it totally clicked from there. Was pretty fun messing around with the grabs, launchers, dashing, etc. Felt... yeah, like Skullgirls. Different, of course, but the pacing of the fights felt right.

Ravid showed me how it looks like on a phone screen. And yeah, if looks really nice.

I had the gacha/monetization stuff explained to me a bit, too. You earn crates (relics is the nomenclature, technically) that contain some random loot - special moves for your characters, new versions of characters (?), and such - and if you get duplicates, those convert into skill points for the character that special/palette was associated with. You spend the skill points in the progression tree those characters have. They'll have daily events (on a rotation? I wasn't sure) where you're guaranteed a crate for that character's drops. And then you can buy in-game currency to buy these crates yourself if you want. No stamina stuff, either.

But that all doesn't matter because what really matters is that Charley gave me a quick glimpse at the story menu and I see that one of the chapters reaaaaally looks like it concerns Black Dahlia. All I need from this story, really.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=209077950&postcount=82

 

[Kai]

I want you to think about adding a pay-for-more-power option to any classic RPG we loved (FF, Chrono, Mana, etc). Nothing else would change, just sell EXP packs for 99 cents. No, "obstruction," just boosts.

Do that, and then when you look at that game from then on, all you will see is unnecessary grinding. All the grinding we just accepted as the way to raise stats, that will now appear manipulative. Why would you spend 2 hours in the mystical forest battling the same enemies over and over again, if you could just pay 1.99 for an EXP+ pack? They must be trying to get us to buy their goddamn microtransactions!

Not sure where I'm going with this train of thought. I think pay mechanics can cause people to get upset at a game they would have otherwise been perfectly fine with. I don't know. I admit that I don't play many mobile games specifically because I feel like pay mechanics make for an un-fun gaming experience.

 

[The Dave]

Not sure where I'm going with this train of thought.

Suplex City, next stop?

Why would you spend 2 hours in the mystical forest battling the same enemies over and over again, if you could just pay 1.99 for an EXP+ pack?

Because I stumbled onto invisible Behemoth monsters that counter everything with Meteor but I read somewhere I can kill them anyway by draining all their MP and I want to see if I can...

 

[Mike_Z]

I want you to think about adding a pay-for-more-power option to any classic RPG we loved (FF, Chrono, Mana, etc). Nothing else would change, just sell EXP packs for 99 cents. No, "obstruction," just boosts.

This is a great post! I just want to say that.

It does also highlight that excessive grinding in some places was not-great-game-design in those games, either. We may be used to it, but few people would call it "fun".

...quite honestly if I could pay a dollar to raise the drop rate for last-weapon-orbs in the Mana Fortress to even 50%, I'd probably do it. Even if that were only possible after getting at least one the hard way, which is probably the compromise I would require if I were designing it.
(Color me surprised at realizing I thought that after reading your post! But I think I'm still against pay-for-XP. Pay-for-no-effort bothers me a lot more than pay-for-less-effort-but-still-effort.)

Spoiler

And if I could pay to be able to cheat at Roulette in Alundra I'd be ALL OVER THAT. I have done it the hard way enough times. Hell, I set up an emulator just to get through that bit during Alundrathons so we aren't stuck there for RNG% hours.

 

[TechPowah]

Just wondering, is it too early to ask if any variation of Band will still have the Noise Cancel?
with how the controls are I am not smart enough to see how you could have all the universal controls and still have his parry
beta beta beta etc but I figured I go ahead and ask

 

[Mike_Z]

Just wondering, is it too early to ask if any variation of Band will still have the Noise Cancel?

Yes. :^P Even if so it wouldn't be the way it is in SG.

 

[Cellsai]

I want you to think about adding a pay-for-more-power option to any classic RPG we loved. Nothing else would change, just sell EXP packs for 99 cents. No, "obstruction," just boosts.

Do that, and then when you look at that game from then on, all you will see is unnecessary grinding. ... They must be trying to get us to buy their goddamn microtransactions!

Dang. I never thought of this before. Excellent post!

Side note, I can't believe how many times we have to go through "wait until the game releases (in beta even) before complaining about balance", but hey, welcome back everybody!

 

[zzMedVeDzz]

I'am w8ting it :)

 

[Magma442]

Out of curiosity when the closed beta does get released how will we be able to report bugs in the game? Will there be a system where we can send reports to hidden variable or would a thread be needed for it even though lab zero is not working on it.

 

[Mike_Z]

Just wondering, is it too early to ask if any variation of Band will still have the Noise Cancel?
with how the controls are I am not smart enough to see how you could have all the universal controls and still have his parry
beta beta beta etc but I figured I go ahead and ask

I asked. Noise Cancel is a Gold level (I guess that means rare?) ability that you can get and can equip on any Big Band. So it's one of those icons you have on the side that you tap to use it, and it has cooldown after the attempt. I suppose a successful parry leaves them open...I wonder if you can tap it during superflashes or post-superflash.

Out of curiosity when the closed beta does get released how will we be able to report bugs in the game? Will there be a system where we can send reports to hidden variable or would a thread be needed for it even though lab zero is not working on it.

I would assume Hidden Variable will have a system to report things, because I'll bet money they don't want to comb through a thread on some forum.
::cries to himself::

 

[LUgnutt]

"wait until the game releases (in beta even) before complaining about balance", but hey, welcome back everybody!

Actually this is my first time here but thanks!

Do that, and then when you look at that game from then on, all you will see is unnecessary grinding. All the grinding we just accepted as the way to raise stats, that will now appear manipulative. Why would you spend 2 hours in the mystical forest battling the same enemies over and over again, if you could just pay 1.99 for an EXP+ pack? They must be trying to get us to buy their goddamn microtransactions!

While there definitely isn't a discreet way of implementing in-game payment for perks such as advantages and content, I think we as people just reject Micropayment options when they present themselves as something we feel we can accomplish by ourselves, but at the same time we hate things that can only be unlocked by microtransactions.

It's contradictory, yeah, but it's true. I'm tempted to say it's mostly traditional gamers who share this mindset, as it goes against what they've been raised to expect in Video games.

Unrelated question: In response to Big Band's parry coming back, will Beowulf's hype mechanic be of any importance in this version of the game? I'm curious as to how it would work.

 

[superj3]

Will tablets be supported? My tablet BTW is a Samsung galaxy note pro with a 13' screen will it a have proper screen resolution?

 

[Ninja]

does your Tablet run Android?

 

[superj3]

Yes why? My concern is that it won't be the proper resolution for my screen. Angry birds plants vs zombies are all blown up to fit my screen and it doesn't look as sharp and crisp as it should be.

 

[Ninja]

oh... uh... I think it should work... I mean mobile is running with the decompressed graphics so it could be blown up to 720p on a 13 inch screen so I think there will be no problem there.

 

[missingno]

Angry birds plants vs zombies are all blown up to fit my screen and it doesn't look as sharp and crisp as it should be.

Those are old games from the early days of Android when most phones had 480p screens, so many games didn't bother including assets for resolutions any higher than that. Nowadays it's standard for phones and tablets to have much higher resolution screens, bigger than most TVs and monitors even. Your Galaxy Note Pro for example is a whopping 1600p. That's a 3.33x magnification for 480p sprites, and that's especially bad since it's not an integer multiple. I also don't think most of these older games bothered to implement any sort of filtering to try and smooth out upscaled legacy graphics.

Remember, they're already working off of 720p assets from the original game, and SG's hand drawn art style also just manages to still look good when scaled up. 1440p screens are most common right now and that'll be perfect since it's an integer multiple. Though again, maybe it won't be as good on your 1600p screen, 2.22x is an even funnier scaling factor. But at least there'll probably be some filtering to help with that?

Actually, since SG's animations were originally drawn at 1440p before being scaled down for release, maybe they'll even try to go back and assemble the 1440p sprite pack this time? I remember that was something L0 wanted to try and include as DLC for the PC version, but ended up getting shelved because of Reasons™. Might seem like overkill for most 5-6 inch phones, but if SG Mobile is supposed to be bridging the gap for SG2 on the big screen eventually it may be useful to put that together now so that can be reused when they get to SG2.

 

[Mike_Z]

maybe they'll even try to go back and assemble the 1440p sprite pack this time?

Can confirm they will not. Decompression is a major CPU bottleneck on mobile devices, and decompressing 1440p assets can be up to 4x as expensive as decompressing 720p assets. Not to mention taking up 4x the memory when decompressed and ~3x the hard drive space.

@superj3
It does upscale nicely, though. They played it on iPads at Anime Expo.

 

[DukeMagus]

So... Mike, can lab Zero actually veto anything or they can just hear you, send you all to hell. And end up with a cheap match 3 with SG mugshots if they want?


(hypothetical example, but you got the idea: if they do something you're completely against, be it a battle where no skill could help you if you don't spend cash to buff yourself up or spend hundreds of hours grinding for stats instead of improving as a player. Or maybe a storyline going in a way Alex completely disagree...

Could you veto it?)

 

[Mike_Z]

You want real answers, you got 'em.

So... Mike, can lab Zero actually veto anything or they can just hear you, send you all to hell. And end up with a cheap match 3 with SG mugshots if they want?

They could do that if they wanted to, yep. Autumn owns the IP, we do not.
It has become "basically ours" in terms of the fact that people associate SG with us, but that doesn't mean it is actually legally ours.

(hypothetical example, but you got the idea: if they do something you're completely against, be it a battle where no skill could help you if you don't spend cash to buff yourself up or spend hundreds of hours grinding for stats instead of improving as a player. Or maybe a storyline going in a way Alex completely disagree...
Could you veto it?)

Nope. We can argue, and they know I'd say something in public if they went against something we disagreed with and someone asked me about it, but we do not have the power to make final decisions on SG Mobile.
However, given that the entire brand was built by us and has followed our decisions thus far, they'd be really dumb not to listen if we had a strong objection to something, because we also don't make frivolous objections. Autumn could have made an SG-match-3 already, there were certainly enough groups that pitched versions of that. But they didn't, they waited for something that seemed more genuine and was deemed acceptable by us.

tl;dr
Thus far it has gone fine and I don't see any real chance of problems like that happening in the future. But yes, remember the IP is not ours.

 

[Ninja]

when will you get the SkullGirls IP?

for some reason part of my brain thinks that Autumn Games can only own the IP for a set period of years.

because I want to see you guys to make SG2 with the IP all to yourselves.

 

[Magma442]

I think that's a whole legal reason they may not be able to discuss.

...though Im not lab zero so dont listen to me.

 

[chillbean]

I'm sure that Mike/Lab0 have explained the IP situation multiple times. I can't remember if they even implied that the rights for it would return after a certain period of time tho. It would be interesting if its similar to the Fantastic 4 and X-Men situation between Fox and Marvel, where they have to produce films within a certain amount of time or else the rights revert to the creators.

Anyway, just a couple of interesting (I thought) points after rewatching the announcement trailer:

The only characters shown in game where: Cerebella, Filia, Eliza, Parasoul, Val, Peacock, Big Band and Painwheel. This means characters that weren't shown off in the trailer were: Ms Fortune, Double, Squigly, Beowulf, Robo Fortune and Fukua. Don't think I've missed anyone there.
It could be that those were the only characters that were in a finished state at the time of making the trailer. OR, the game could launch with that initial roster, and the remaining characters are introduced in content updates. The game's story was said to act as a prequel, specifically mentioned somewhere I cant remember that it was before Nadia had been dismembered, which explains her not being present. It also explains Squigly's absence, since she's not active until the Marie's attack on Medici tower.
Squigly's an interesting case, since unless future story content takes place during Marie's crusade, it woulndt make sense for her to be around, and she also shouldnt be around after the skullgirl is defeated. Maybe she'd be one of the last chars to get added to the roster in this case.
It will be interesting to see how the game treats the term 'prequel' since every story section in the full game is its own 'what if' scenario. Filia and Painwheel meet for the first time in Filia's story mode, so a prequel should rule them out of interacting with each other.

Other characters seen during dialogue sections are: Molly, Minette and Brain Drain.

There's a shot at the start showing lots of the game's landmarks squished together such as the River King Casino, Little Innsmouth, Bastet's Den and Maplecrest, plus what could be the wrestling ring arena. Also of to the far side is a building shining a spotlight into the sky like the BatSymbol, except its a number 8. This is probably lab 8 since its next to a bridge. Is the spotlight like a call to action for Peacock or Big Band lol? A couple of fights take place in Gehenna too, so presumably Double is still around, if not playable straight away.

 

[Kai]

The only characters shown in game where: Cerebella, Filia, Eliza, Parasoul, Val, Peacock, Big Band and Painwheel. This means characters that weren't shown off in the trailer were: Ms Fortune, Double, Squigly, Beowulf, Robo Fortune and Fukua. Don't think I've missed anyone there.

You already touched on a few of these, but I'll add my thoughts, too:

• Ms Fortune could be in a prequel story, because the exact timeline of her original, "death," is not known. The initial SG stories treated her immortality as a nebulously recent development, though.
  
• Double works at the behest of the Trinity, so any story that doesn't deal with them makes it a lot less likely that she'd show up.
• Squigly's in the ground. A prequel can't involve her.
• Beowulf is retired & laying on the couch, not to mention that his overall importance to the main story is next to zero. Low likelihood of showing up in a prequel.
• Robo is non-canon.
• Fukua is non-canon.

Based on all that, I think it makes perfect sense why those characters aren't present for the initial release, if a prequel is truly what they're going for.

 

[Magma442]

Will there be any plans for new music? Though I suppose that's probably asking a bit too much.

 

[chillbean]

The only one I'm surprised at is Eliza, since her priority up until the Medici try twisting her arm is to keep her parasite a secret.
I'm going to guess that most of the plot will be driven by Nadia stealing the Life Gem and throwing the Medici's into chaos looking for it as well as perhaps a brand spanking new and pretty much 100% compliant Painwheel being unleashed on new Meridian. Plus as I mentioned, since Gehenna is in the trailer, I think Double will play some role, probably spreading early rumours about the Skullgirl, since thats what Parasoul and Molly are discussing. It would be great if we saw her in another disguise along the lines of Zane and the woman from Squigly's story.
I'm also fine with the clone characters not being involved. It would be cool to see Beowulf show up, just because he's so entertaining, but as Kai mentioned, he's not got much of a reason to be clashing with anybody in a prequel.

Another thing I noticed is that now all the alternate palette for characters have been assigned names, most of the ones that directly reference other characters or things are named accordingly. Some clever ones:

Val's Silent Hill nurse palette is called Silent Kill.
Bella's Harley Quinn is called Harlequin.
Val's Mai Shiranui pallette is called Oh Mai!
Val's Christmas is called Last Hope.
Parasoul's Poison Ivy colours are called Ivy League.
Skullgirl Valentine is called Graveyard Shift.
I'm seriously impressed how they managed to reference both the palette and the actual character, while still being puns!

Eliza's canon colours are called In Denial, canon Peacock is called Rerun and Parasoul's seems to be called Sheltered.

 

[Zidiane]

• Ms Fortune could be in a prequel story, because the exact timeline of her original, "death," is not known. The initial SG stories treated her immortality as a nebulously recent development, though.
  
• Double works at the behest of the Trinity, so any story that doesn't deal with them makes it a lot less likely that she'd show up.
• Squigly's in the ground. A prequel can't involve her.
• Beowulf is retired & laying on the couch, not to mention that his overall importance to the main story is next to zero. Low likelihood of showing up in a prequel.

I feel like I read somewhere that this story is before fortune got chopped up.

As far as Double goes, she was working with Marie for a while before SG started, so her showing up seems possible. I believe the sequence of events was Double finds Marie, Painwheel is created to kill her, Valentine is beaten by Double and Marie, Painwheel activates, then the story starts. Depending on how much of a prequel it is, Double (and Squigly, actually) could show up reasonably. If it takes place right after Marie becomes the Skullgirls, since there's an indefinite amount of time between that and the story starting, story bits including Double could happen. Squigly could also make her way in as a mindless corpse under Marie's control with Leviathan just trying to wake her up.

I can imagine Beowulf having matches on set. He could totally fight someone on the stage of his show and think it's a staged event or something.

 

[Magma442]

Well heres the thing how far back are we talking prequel? because if its too far back then a lot of characters would be out such as Fillia. because Filia got samson shortly before the events of SG so what im thinking is it wouldnt be too far back. like maybe Fillia wakes up for the first time with Samson but we still don't know her past. As for Marie it could be her starting as a brand new Skullgirl.

 

[chillbean]

I feel like I read somewhere that this story is before fortune got chopped up.

Yep, I'm watching the anime expo panel now and one of the Hidden Variable devs just mentioned it.

They also said the story is being split up into seasons, and the first season is going to be the prequel. So I guess future seasons could take place at varying different timepoints, with Squigly having something to do during the main story, and maybe Beowulf in season three set after his story sort of wraps up.