Final Fantasy's Cloud was almost the Soul Calibur 2 guest character on PlayStation 2
Replaced with Heihachi at the last minute
Bandai Namco's 2002 hit fighting game Soul Calibur 2 could have had a very interesting guest character enter the fray.
Nao Higo, the localization producer on the game, joined in on a recent episode of the 8-4 Play podcast to discuss some of his past experience in the industry. When speaking on his time working at Namco, Higo revealed that the PlayStation 2 guest character for Soul Calibur 2 was actually supposed to be Cloud Strife from the Final Fantasy series.
According to Higo, a deal fell through at the last minute, which led to Tekken's Heihachi taking the guest character slot.
"A deal fell through on that one -- it was supposed to be someone else," Higo explained. "So, apparently they were working out a deal with Cloud. It would have been incredible, [but] at the last minute it got canned."
Soul Calibur 2 was released on PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube, and Xbox. and each console featured a unique guest character. GameCube had The Legend of Zelda's Link, Xbox added Spawn, and PS2 included Heihachi.
Though Cloud didn't make it into Soul Calibur, we did eventually see him join the Super Smash Bros. series. Not only is he a playable DLC character in Smash 4, but Cloud is considered one of the strongest characters in the game.
Source: 8-4 Play. Via Flying Wonkey. Sent in by AriesWarlock.
