SNK's not even hiding that she's an expy of her, are they? "Sylvie Paula Paula" is so blatant.
But... why? I don't get what's wrong about that type of character? What is it about these types of characters that they don't like?
See, this is the type of thing I don't get. Can you tell me what you dislike about this character?
Honestly, the first strike against someone like Sylvie is that, even before you get to what makes HER a unique character, people see "This is everything that's wrong with Modern Japanaese... EVERYTHING!"
Kyary is 23 years old. Yet people see a character like her in a game, and they'll still call the character a "Loli". The see an exposed midriff, and no matter how covered the rest of her is, this is oddly sexual for a "loli".
Any "cute" Japanese female voice is instantly "annoying". She might not even be the most high pitched, but's the very idea of the mannerism and sounds that Japan finds cute (even in live action! even in serious TV shows!) is an instant turn off, exasperated by self-defined expectations.
Not to mention the "moe" ideals have been overused and cheapened now, too. It's more like "anything cute or tryhard that makes me facepalm" than a term for a specific character archetype.
I don't follow Tekken too hard, but even I don't like what I saw of Lucky Chloe. I've often felt like Tekken has bad realization on many of it's designs though, and Chloe felt like she's all image, but the substance was lacking. This might be less true once I get to know the character, or it might be that Tekken's style still feels lacking to me, but yeah.
Sylvie here, however, feels like someone is actually a fan of the culture that surrounds weird modern acts like Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, and wanted to get all the goofy mannerisms, the speech style, overly-busy accessories, and general wackiness through. This is legit something that designer is probably interested in, and this is their way of expressing it.
It's REALLY common for SNK to do this. Gai Tendo is basically Grappler Baki. Robert Garcia is a fun take on Steven Segal. Ralf is Rambo. Leona's a love letter to Kamen Rider, complimented by May Lee and her Tokosatsu Henshin antics. Tung Fue Roshi is... wait.
I think one of the best things about working with SNKP seems to be the fact that they let their designers run wild with their games. Shin'ichi Morioka basically got to remake Cool and Harry Ness when he moved from "The Fallen Angels" into working with KoF, and thus we got K' and Maxima. Falcon got characters HE LIKED from SNK into Maximum Impact not because they made sense... but because he loves Hanzo, for instance. And he got to design alts for every character in the game, even though that heavily clashed with their established personalities.
They really seem to let a designer put their own personal stamp SOMEWHERE on the character list, rather than just remaking their established characters over and over. I actually find that really cool about them, as a company. It makes odd inclusions seem less like pandering to fan bases, and more like... letting the fanbase play around in your world.
