Soul Calibur V - More like Street Calibur III Third SliceSoul Calibur V - More like Street Calibur III Third Slice
Soul Calibur has been a big hit as an ongoing weapon based 3D Fighting game series, first stemming from its very first game, Soul Blade/Edge. At first having really cool hidden or bonus features, modes, battles, and all sorts of awesome and unique ideas, the series began to falter after the release of Soul Calibur 4. Upon Soul Calibur 4's release, there were a lack of modes unlike all the previous Soul Calibur games before, the customization was a little better and worse in a way but unique also, and the game much slower when then it's predecessors.
Soul Calibur V I'll start off by saying, is an awkward mixed bag. It tries to be something that it's not, and doesn't really know what it's trying to do with some of the content it has. From my standpoint, either Namco had no clue what audience they were shooting for, or they were trying to go for a hardcore audience but realized because of their choice they lost the majority of casual gamers who were buying the game. Once again as I mentioned, it's an awkward mixed bag and it's hard to say whether the changes are for the better or worse as I literally stand between hardcore and casual gamer.
Depth: 4
Seriously, what are some fighting games coming to nowadays? I mean, seriously, sometimes I get bored of JUST FIGHTING and I want to do some OUT OF THE ORDINARY FIGHTING! If you look at previous fighting games from back then, some of them had little secret menus you can access to mess around with the game in whatever ways the developer would allow, such as Capcom vs. SNK2 allowing you to customize your groove system after really putting in the effort to allow such a feature. So how does this relate to Soul Calibur V? Well, Soul Calibur 1-3 had special and bonus modes that you could play to test yourself against all sorts of difficult or wacky challenges, and experience a new way of playing the game. Soul Calibur V is literally just straight up fighting, not even in the story mode does the game make any sorts of special conditions for your character to fight in.
Soul Calibur V's only gameplay modes are quick match, arcade, versus, legendary souls, story mode, and of course online mode. However, none of these modes do as much as change the flow of combat. They are all just blunt versus matches, no weapon master mode where you can be poisoned or slide all over the stage, no giant god statue battles, no survival mode, no special weapons mode, no choice based adventure, no tactical battle, none of it... it's just straight up battle and customization. It's honestly really sad to have familiar modes disappear off the face of the earth just like that. The game just feels really unfinished, and in fact, it is.
The story mode of the game, being battle after battle with cut scenes in between, centers on Patrokolos and Phyrra, the two new main characters of the game. However, you'd think there'd be more to the story mode than just those two characters and about two missions where you play as Z.W.E.I. another new addition, but no...that's it. According to the story board creators of Soul Calibur V, they actually had stories for all the characters in the game, but they couldn't get to it on time but shortly mentioned they may release it later...though that never happened. Unfortunately, you only get to have one story mode, not multiple, so once again, the game is clearly lacking from unfinished development on features.
Besides story mode, there are the different offline modes aside from your usual versus and arcade. Quick match which came from Soul Calibur Broken Destiny on the PSP, allows the player to match against custom and original characters probably made by the staff...since the developer of the game, Harada, actually makes a cameo appearance with the Devil Jin fighting style from Tekken, one of his other fighting games. Noticeably, the quick match characters will all fight with a certain pattern sometimes or may just play a certain way depending on the difficulty level on their stats. The Legendary Souls mode is basically like a boss rush of sorts where you take on hidden characters of the game at the highest difficulty. Once again, there isn't really much to offer in these modes and are more geared toward hardcore players almost.
While you play offline or online, you get experience to level up and unlock items that you can use in creation mode. This is what actually keeps you playing the game since in creation mode, you only start with a few items and you end up having to unlock a lot more through constantly playing, unlike previous Soul Caliburs where you'd buy the items. The amount of experience you gain though usually rounds out to about 100 points per match and more for completing certain modes. Aside from this feature, there is also the titles feature in which completing certain tasks or fighting characters in quick match unlock titles you can use on your profile to show off online. There isn't really too much to titles though unless you are trying to 100% the game along with reaching level 99 to unlock every single customization feature.
The online mode unlike most online modes in games has one nifty feature known as Global Colloseo to give a new perspective on the online gameplay. By putting you in a large room where you to meet with other players to chat with, create your own battle rooms, or just challenge because you found that person in the room actually feels pretty cool. There is no need to do a room search and fight against people you don't want to, and you can instead search for the opponent you want to challenge and even brand them a rival to compare battle statistics. Tournaments can also be arranged in the room for people to join.
The creation mode on the other hand is pretty good this time around allowing more than what the previous Soul Calibur games had to offer, but somehow feels like it is missing a little something. In creation mode, you can create your own original character with a fighting style from any
selectable characters in the game or the unique Devil Jin (Tekken) fighting style only available to your custom character. In the previous Soul Calibur games, you had lots of clothes to choose from that were sometimes based on the alternate outfits of characters or were original allowing you to mix and match whatever you like. However, this SCV feels as if it's missing quite a bit, even after unlocking every costume. That's where DLC comes in filling in more outfits for you to mess around with...and it's actually pretty good. Aside from the DLC, it's really sad to see that when customizing you're character's physical appearance regarding hair and faces, the only new things that were added were taken directly from the new characters they added to the game. The creators didn't bother to actually make too much new and original ideas all over the place, but it's still better than before at least.
Creation mode allows you to really customize your characters physical appearance such as body part sizes, muscle mass, hair, eye (the whites of the eye/sclera) and iris color, and more. Providing a few more clothes options such as moveable accessories allows for you to add nifty details to your character, such as being able to control which angle or size you want horns to protrude out the character's head, or even having the horns spike out from their legs. Being able to customize more colors of an outfit allows for more variation in clothes but new to the game is adding patterns to outfits such as a snake skin pattern. Tattoos are also another great addition allowing the player to add shapes, symbols, Chinese/Japanese characters, numbers, and even scars. In short, the customization has been vastly improved but there are a few things still to be desires, however, the creation mode is overall at its best and allows for all sorts of awesome characters to be made. Let your imagination go wild.
The gameplay of Soul Calibur V is perhaps the biggest change ever made to Soul Calibur...and probably the worst as it actually made less sales than Soul Calibur IV which was a slower game! Strangely, the developers decided to go in the direction of a street fighting Soul Calibur, where there'd be super and ex moves, combos that were written in stone and meant to happen under the circumstance, and just guards similar to parries in Street Fighter III. The game feels more like a 2D fighting game than it is a 3D fighting game, not to mention, the whole concept of Soul Calibur no longer feels the same anymore. Before, it was possible to create your own unique style to take on opponents with what your character has to offer, having complete freedom and control to make whatever sorts of combos and juggles you could pull off with skill and sometimes luck. However, Soul Calibur V makes combos only work one way and always work that one way all the time making it impossible for a player to go outside of the box to really get creative with combos that can pretty much never be experienced again at times! The overall change has basically turned a game that can be played by everyone to a game that has to be played a certain way whether one likes it or not, and that alone scared away many consumers who bought previous Soul Calibur games!
Soul Calibur V's new style of gameplay just doesn't feel correct to its series, however, if seen as a different game, it's actually okay and suited more toward hardcore gamers. Unfortunately, this is Soul Calibur, and the idea before was to tactfully defeat your opponent using unique strategies and trading blows to work your way to victory, all the while making good use of guard impact to take the advantage by throwing your opponent off guard. Soul Calibur V's new soul gauge makes the game feel like it is centered entirely around the soul gauge, having to fill it up to using better ex moves know as Brave Edges, or super moves known as Critical Edges, which actually came from Soul Blade/Edge and is not new to the series. Not to mention, guard impacts use up your soul gauge so thing that was used a lot in Soul Calibur is now something to forget about, and now "Just Guards" take the spotlight completely making the game feel almost unbalanced. Naturally, unblockables should be unblockable, but now they are easily blockable with just guards, and so is pretty much everything else in the game. Just Guards also give you a frame advantage quickly pausing the other players attack for a split second to get your own in. SCV has taken on a more combo heavy battle system and the mixture of soul calibur and that just doesn't work. Guard breaks are another annoying part of the game and occur much too fast, when simply you'd just grab the blocking opponent or they'd stop turtling and turn on the offensive mode. Basically, Soul Calibur V is trying to fix what is not broken.
The character changes in the game considering that 17 years passed ended up leading to character removal, character tweaks, and additions of new characters which are the children of previous characters. Unfortunately, some characters that may have been favorites were removed, and useless characters and changes were added to the game also. For instance, Kilik is back in the game, but because there is a new character with a style similar to his but changed heavily, they made Kilik like an edge master who only copies male characters. Why? There is even a female character who mimics female characters only? Why? Isn't that supposed to be edge master's job? The main characters Patrokolos and Phyrra are almost variations of Sophitia and Cassandra, though Patroklos is a little more original, however, they both use sword and shield and it doesn't really bring too much variety to the game...especially when they waste another two character slots on second versions of them, one mimicking more of Sophitia's style, and the other mimicking Setsuka's style. Some characters have become very terrible to play and hardly stand a chance of winning against other characters, and overall, the characters could have been better made and some characters could have been kept.
On the other hand, there actually isn't as much variety or at least doesn't feel like it to Soul Calibur V as there are already three sword and shield styles with Patrokolos, Phyrra, and Phyrra's second form. Z.W.E.I. who is an interesting character for being able to summon a spirit wolf to fight, doesn't necessarily have an interesting weapon and could have had something with more variety rather than having a side-arm blade which Talim had two of. There are three Japanese sword fighting styles, two great sword fighting styles, one Rapier sword fighting style, a Sword and Spear fighting style, a Chinese sword fighting style, a short sword and long sword fighting style, and over all, most of it is a lot of sword. There are nunchaku, spear/staff, magic orb and claw, katar, axe, double axe, dual wield kodachi, hidden daggers, and the Devil Jin Tekken style, but the game feels dominated by swords which is understandable. But there are plenty of other different weapons as we have seen with the previous Soul Calibur characters who didn't make the cut, such as Talim's martial arts dual wield tonfa blades, and Zasalamel's Scythe style. Heck, Soul Calibur 3 featured some weapons that have never been seen again such as the fan, knife & bomb, sickle, extending rod, or etc, even if some of these weapons had similarities to other characters, there were plenty of original attacks involved also. Once again, Soul Calibur V is clearly lacking variety. I may be wrong, but then what does that say about previous games? Do they have too much content?
Story : 3
Soul Calibur has always had fine stories for why one might search for Soul Calibur or Soul Edge, or perhaps may just be looking for a certain characters or what they are meant to do in life. It's not always too crazy depending on the character or how important they are, but if you follow from the beginning of Soul Edge/Blade which is followed up on in the Dreamcast Soul Calibur gallery, you grow with the characters who have continuously reappeared and feel a deep connection toward them sometimes.
If you are hoping to follow your favorite character's path down whatever choices they've made through the 17 years that have past to this game's era...stop hoping for it. Soul Calibur V is just a dream crusher when it comes to story mode. It's incomplete which the developers even stated themselves saying that it's 1/4 of what they wanted to do. The game was actually supposed to feature a story for every character in the game. They hinted they may release it later...but it never happened.
This time around, the story focuses on Sophitia's children, Patrokolos and Phyrra who were separated from one another and being manipulated to do wrongdoings, such as killing innocent people who the manipulator claims to be villains. The story followed Patrokolos and Phyrra on the paths the take to gain Soul Calibur and Soul Edge which becomes pretty obvious when you meet them if you have followed all the Soul Calibur games. Both their paths are foggy and they must find their place within the world and their destinies. I won't spoil any more that that as I was already trying to avoid most of the little plots, but otherwise...it's very dull and silly to be honest. Some players actually had a misunderstanding to certain parts of the story and you'll see what if you check it out probably. Maybe the scripting was bad at a few points but I think it was okay. Though aside from that, the fact that the story is incomplete and only features characters who aren't necessarily as loved as many fan favorites just really doesn't do Soul Calibur any justice.
Difficulty: 7
Soul Calibur V has definitely increased in its difficulty from previous Soul Caliburs, being that some of the new content added may be a little difficult for someone who's never been around 2D Fighting games and perhaps never once used a heavy combo in battle. The difficulty of the cpu also has increased considering the game really centers only around normal battles and nothing more which brings challenge an even greater challenge to the table and is welcomed.
Soul Calibur V's controls are normally easy to learn as you only have four commands being horizontal (A), vertical (B), kick (K), and guard (G). Buttons can be combined for different techniques as well as the use of directional input through simultaneous or held input, thus walking and running. Different from the usual Soul Calibur, the A+K command has been removed which mostly served to be a horizontal attack combined with a kick. Newly added was the just guard, critical edge, and brave edge. Utilizing A+B+K which served to be the unique command of the Soul Calibur game itself, A+B+K is used in combination with certain attacks in the move list shown to perform brave edges. Critical Edges are performed by with famous input developed in the Street Fighter series, quarter-circle twice - A+B+K for Soul Calibur. Just Guards are the hardest to pull off being that first you need to be able to tap the guard button once as quick as possible without leaving your finger there for even a half a second, the second thing to do is to do just that before an attack hits you. Even I have trouble pulling off this command in comparison to Street Fighter III where you simply press forward before an attack hits you! My friends who aren't haven't been playing fighting games as long as I have, not to mention never having pulled off a super move in their life couldn't even perform a super move in Soul Calibur V. I'm sure the developers felt people would take some time to got more in depth into the fighting game world to learn such commands, but from the people I've interviewed, that wasn't the case. Not to mention, the fact that they made guard impacts, which were simple to do, not freely usable makes it pretty much as if they are forcing the player to learn very difficult concepts they may never understand because they don't have all the time in the world. In other words, it feels like, "do it my way or no way."
Aside from the new techniques trying to dominate Soul Calibur, the difficulty feels as if it has increased slightly, or maybe it's just because of all the super moves and just guards this game seems harder. The computer definitely does play a smart game, especially on legendary Souls mode, and it makes the battles pretty interesting when it becomes a game of question and answer. The computer seems to know exactly how to react to plenty of your attacks so trying to exploit patterns and what not at least brings flavor to fighting computers. However, aside from fighting computers, the characters in general also make the game difficult. Some characters actually dominate over every other character because of simple attacks that are repeatable and spammable for only having a very limited amount of time to react. Such moves can be avoided with enough practice, but when you first play, it'll feel pretty evil and cheap at first. Overall, the super moves feel like they ruin the flow of combat and can make the game very difficult for casual gamers who just want to have fun, though it's not as difficult as Dead or Alive or Virtua Fighter can be at least.
Addictiveness: 6
The game isn't necessarily as addicting as most other fighting games I played. I find that because of the lack of appeal and interest to any of the modes except customization, I'd take a least a month or more before actually coming back to it. What made previous Soul Caliburs 1-3 addicting to me was that there was not just plenty of things to come back to, but the modes were so interesting and had little features that made you have to come back just to see what more the game has to offer, such as all the extra challenges to Soul Calibur II, or playing as different characters in story mode of Soul Calibur III to see all the different endings. Soul Calibur V only kept me coming back to unlock more items to customize my character with since that was basically the whole point to leveling up unless you are trying to beat your friend at everything he does in the game.
Graphics: 8
The graphics in Soul Calibur V are actually very good. The characters stand out in appealing ways and always have more life to them than previous Soul Caliburs before. The settings are also well done and graphically believable in a few ways. For anyone who has followed the Soul Calibur series, surely they'd be impressed too at how much the game has improved. Soul Calibur on the Dreamcast already started out as one of the nicer looking 3D games that even stood up to the PS2 for awhile.
However, Soul Calibur V has its main flaw to lack in what it has to offer. Funny enough, now it might be safe to assume, the work done for the game was also very lazy regarding the stages. Some of the stages are actually recycled from previous Soul Calibur games and looking at the similarities, it's really sad to see they couldn't come up with all new original stages, especially considering that the story line takes place 17 years from the past Soul Calibur.
The new characters are more or less interesting. Some characters just didn't feel right in a way the way they were designed, while some fit in well enough. It's really hard to say, but in short, they just feel slightly average and no too special to the series. Some of the character redesigns were nice while other's not so much. Once again, it's all a matter of preference and I don't feel in any way to crazed out about the character design.
Sound: 6
The music in the Soul Calibur series always had really nice, memorable pieces. However, with Soul Calibur V, this isn't necessarily the case. They are somewhat good pieces...but they don't have that memorable and capturing effect that the previous games did. If you heard a certain song from Soul Calibur 1, such as The New Legend, you'd recognize it and remember how much of a big impact Soul Calibur had on you when you played it the first time when you got your Dreamcast. Soul Calibur V's music feels as if it's hardly noticeable and just fades away as you battle. If the music is meant to have such an impact, it should still be noticed while you play a fighting game , or then Guile's theme would have NEVER been famous. Overall, a bit of it sounds generic.
The voice acting of the game in both Japanese and English are well done. Some of the voice actors of the game are also recognizable and have been known for other works they've done. For me, I really don't think it's that bad if there really are a few mediocre voice actors in the game. At least I can actually appreciate some of the voice actors who have done a great job.
One interesting feature in Soul Calibur V regarding sound effects is the option to change the effects to sound more" Realistic" or" Exaggerated." Basically, the slashing of the blades or blunt hits will sound different from one another. It's hard to say whether the sound effects are realistic or not, but at least you have the option. Unlockable customization hit effects also have their own sound effects too.
Overall: 6.8
This game feels like the developers were working towards something that might have been excellent, and they had the true Soul Calibur many had been looking for still in the works, but then ran out of time for the other project, so decided to add the start of their Soul Calibur works to it and slap the Soul Calibur title on it. For many, this Soul Calibur won't be the one you have adored for many years, or at least, not entirely. The gameplay and new mechanics have most certainly changed the flow of combat and placed their interest in a different audience rather than the one they already had. The change certainly had its effects and just felt out of place and unnecessary , if not, it could have been done better. The creation mode is the only actual different mode than just all the straight up versus matches that are provided, and luckily, that is the best feature and most improved yet since previous Soul Calibur games. However, even that mode takes a blow from having more to desire and DLC that should have just came with the game in the first place. The lack of many modes that were home to Soul Calibur just leaves nothing to do besides battle and battle endlessly, and has almost no variety and any special replay value. The story leaves even plenty more to desire for due to lack of time in development. However, the graphics certainly have improved with time, but the music has aged and lost its touch for the magic it once had, or in other words isn't really connecting the same way it did before. Still, it's pretty obvious what Soul Calibur has lost and there is no hiding it. This latest installment could have been so much better polished had the time been given, but some concepts in the game were just not meant to be. Fixing what wasn't broken was far from the being the best decision that could have been made for the series.
Graphics
8 Sound
6 Addictive
6 Depth
4 Story
3 Difficulty
7
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