Painwheel Revealed

Once a normal schoolgirl named Carol, Painwheel was kidnapped by Valentine and delivered to the Anti-Skullgirls Labs’ secretive Lab Zero. There she was implanted with the synthetic Buer Drive and Gae Bolga parasites and infused with experimental Skullgirl blood, transforming her into the monster she is today. Violent and unstable as a result of these experiments, as a precaution she’s mentally controlled by Lab Zero’s powerful psychic director, Brain Drain.

Fueled by rage, she draws her power from her pain and fury. Despite that, the soul of that scared young girl still lives on inside this monstrous body, desperately fighting off the onslaught of voices that would control her.

Painwheel is sort of an “aerial dominance” character, and can fly using the Buer Drive blade in her back. Being full of rage, a lot of her normal attacks can be charged up, and damage she receives while charging them will be added to the attack when the button is released. Since she is in constant pain, she has a lot of brutal-looking moves, such as attacking with spikes that painfully erupt from her body or contorting herself in inhuman ways.

What an awesome character design!
now i can't decide who to main, all i know is Peacock and Painwheel are definitely on my team, gonna wait for gameplay vids but she'll probably still be on my team either way

Skullgirls – Valentine Unveiled

Valentine, the deadly ninja/nurse hybrid, launches her attacks with a variety of medical equipment, including but not limited to bonesaws and defibrillators, with human corpses thrown into the mix for good measure. In addition to the new info, a nice set of artwork was released for the character as well, but no video exists of her gameplay as of yet. Keep your eyes peeled for more details regarding Valentine in the near future.

In addition, Ravidrath (Peter Bartholow) from Reverge confirmed here on the SRK forums that Squigly and Umbrella would be cut from initial game roster, but would still appear as early DLC.

This wasn’t an easy decision: the game’s budget couldn’t cover 10 characters, we needed bosses, and neither of these characters have a particularly prominent role in the first arc of the story. On top of that, Squigly’s gameplay concept is pretty out there, and couldn’t be accomplished with our existing tech.

Skullgirls Friday Night Fights 12/09/11 – Cerebella/Filia/Peacock vs. Filia/Painwheel

http://shoryuken.com/2011/12/09/skullgirls-friday-night-fights-120911-cerebellafiliapeacock-vs-filiapainwheel/

"THIS IS TUNA WITH BACON LETS ROCK"
hahaha fight intro is awesome

Skullgirls Creator Alex Ahad Responds to Sexism Accusations

http://shoryuken.com/2011/12/13/skullgirls-creator-alex-ahad-responds-to-sexism-accusations/

There has been a lot of buzz about Skullgirls floating around the net recently, unfortunately for all the wrong reasons. A recent interview with Eurogamer has been quoted time and time again in debates on whether or not the game’s characters and art style are sexist. This has been the hot topic of the day rather than the game’s newest revealed character Valentine, Mike Z’s recent revelation of how the infinite prevention system works, or even the most recent gameplay demonstration.

Well to finally put this discussion to rest, Alex Ahad, the creator of the Skullgirls world and characters, has decided to chime in on the debate on his DeviantArt page. He very maturely described his point of view on the characters he has created.

It’s also important to point out the difference between something being sexy and being sexist. I think the role of a character plays more of a defining element than what they look like. People complain about hour-glass figured female characters, but rarely do they complain about muscular/ perfectly fit male characters. Both of these are completely fine and acceptable in my opinion. The real issue comes from what their role and actions are. If a character is a sideline character and their sole purpose is to be a sex object, then it is sexist. If the character is a competent contributor to the story, then it is not sexist, even if they look sexy. Looking at a screenshot by itself, or judging by the artwork alone is extremely short-sighted. People who make knee-jerk reactionary judgments should have never been acknowledged.

He said that he understands his art style is not for everyone, and he does not expect it to be. However, he primarily drew things that were appealing to him.

Ultimately, the things you see in Skullgirls are there because it just happens to be stuff that I wanted to do. There are elements in the world that are just here because it’s cool and was fun to make. I enjoy drawing girls and monsters. I particularly enjoy drawing monster-girls. There is something more exciting about a design that is both twisted and cute at the same time. It’s more interesting than just an overly aggressive monster, or something totally saccharine. I also must admit that I have a preference to play female protagonists in a game. Whether the character is sexy or not, I think there is just something more fun and intriguing about a competent female lead character.

Finally he wanted to shed a bit of light on the “our lead animator is a woman” comment that has been quoted from the Eurogamer interview so many times.

Our quote was taken out of context and shouldn’t have been taken as an actual, serious argument against sexism. It’s rather disrespectful to both Kinuko and her work, as well as the company as a whole. If you read the whole article, you will see that there is an anecdote that demonstrates the absurdity of this female-animator argument. I wish it was made more clear that we don’t support the female-animator argument as a valid point against sexism at all. It has an incredibly misleading tone since the very first quote is “our lead animator is a woman.” It’s also in poor taste to call out another game/character by name as an example… I feel like these quotes all came from a conversation, rather than an actual interview.

suprised none of this ever happened with AH3

Probably because AH is so incredibly Japanese, so it's expected

can't get over how awesome the character designs are in this game, don't like the artstyle but still the characters are pretty original

Wow... just wow...



X) X) X)

damn game looks great, i think its running at a billion frames per second 0_0

and that "astral finish" was awesome

I never even noticed that this was a digital release game? March 30th can't come soon enough, really looking polished.

Double Revealed as Final Skullgirls Launch Character

Gametrailers TV on Spike just revealed the final character for Skulgirls initial launch lineup. Double, a monstrous boss character that mimics the moves of other characters, will round out the eight-fighter roster that will be available when the game launches later this year. She seems to be as deadly as she is terrifying, and even busts out some moves that were left on the cutting room floor. We’ll have some more in-depth gameplay soon when the videos hit Gametrailers. If you didn’t happen to catch the short segment, believe me when I say her animation is crazier than even this small piece of concept art would make you think.

Double moves around the field as a quivering eldritch horror, and transforms into other characters for most attacks

While Double may use frames of animation from other characters, many of the attacks are “remixes” of the moves she’s copying

Even though she transforms into other characters for them, some of the moves are exclusive to Double: several moves that didn’t make the cut on the original character made it into Double.

Some gameplay for Double and Valentine, definitely going to be maining valentine, reminds me a bit of Ibuki

this is coming out today!
can't wait to finally play it!