The Soulcalibur series has always been my favorite fighter, perhaps my favorite videogame since its inception. I played Soul Edge in the arcades and enjoyed Soul Blade on the original playstation, but the Dreamcast version of Soulcalibur was the one that really made me realize that it was the game to end all games, at least for me.
I loved SCII just as much, and while SCIII was a little disappointing, I still thought it was a very worthwhile sequel. I loved SCIV, too, despite the inclusion of Star Wars characters that I thought were completely out of place. This brings us to Soulcalibur V. I’m going to start this review with the very negative, initial reaction I had with the game, but believe me, the good will outweigh the bad.
SC V takes place 17 years after the events of SCIV, so there have been a lot of changes to the roster. About 50% of the original characters made it back in and most of the characters that didn’t have some sort of a successor. For example, Xianghua is gone, but her nearly identical-looking daughter is there to take her place. However, a few fighting styles have been completely omitted from the game, including one of my favorite characters in the series: Seong Mina. Other omissions include: Talim, Zasalamel, Yun Seong, and Rock. If any of these characters were your favorite, you’ll be outraged.
Adding insult to injury is the complete lack of single player content. Story mode is short, and in my opinion, a complete waste of time. It revolves around the two new sword and shield users Patrokolos and Pyrrah. A few other characters make brief appearances, but the fact that you can’t run through story mode with any character is criminal. Even worse is Legendary Souls mode where you try to fight against an insanely sadistic level of difficulty where the computer reads your button presses to punish and humiliate you. The only way to win is to resort to the absolute cheapest tactics that you learned from playing against the AI in Mortal Kombat.
I was floored when I found out that I couldn’t increase the time limit or my health gauge. These were very basic features that I’ve used in all the previous Soulcaliburs. And finally, the move lists have been shortened. Needless to say, my first few days with the game weren’t very pleasant.
Eventually, my opinion on the game started to move in a positive direction when I realized what was going on. This is a tournament game. Development time was spent making this a great competitive experience. One of the first things to surprise me was the online play. When I play online with my friends there’s virtually no lag whatsoever, and when I get into a crowded room, it’s still very playable.
Characters are really balanced, to the point where it wouldn’t matter to me if they ever did a balance patch. Move lists are shorter because they seemed to have gotten rid of a lot of the broken/useless moves. Matches are more exciting and the newly implemented meter system changes the way I play Soulcalibur, separating it from previous games, making it feel new to me. I don’t know why it wasn’t talked about much before, but Quick Battle is actually a pretty meaty single player experience where you fight 240 different created characters of varying difficulty. It took me around 50 hours to defeat everyone and I still go back for more. It doesn't bother me anymore that I can’t turn off the timer or change the life meters because I’m playing the game the way it was meant to be played.
The game improves on SCIV with better graphics, music, and a much more robust character creation mode. If you love Soulcalibur, or just fighters in general, you should check it out.
Assassin's Creed's Ezio and The Witcher's Geralt have been excellent guest characters in the Soul Calibur series.
Soulcalibur official Twitter: "Valiant Warriors - Soul Calibur V is taking its final curtain call on the stage of history and will be sunset on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on June 19, 2023. The base game and all associated DLC will no longer be available for purchase. Thank you for your continued support."
This is why guest characters shouldn't be on the base roster. Im sure Ezio and the whole Assassin's Creed stuff license expired and that is why it is being removed. The same thing is probably going to happen to Soul Calibur 6 in 10 years.
I doubt a lot of people still played the worst SC game over 10 years after its release on dead consoles.
Right whoever wanted the game would've had it by now. Also physical is usually the better option
I've been mainly gaming on PC for 12 years now. I don't think there was ever a game that was actually taken away from me.
Even the multiplayer-focused games, with their servers typically being taken down, you can still host your own.
Not sure why People are so against digital. You still need online infrastructure just to update your games or to patch them. You're stuck to online/digital one way or another.
Most games play just fine without an internet connection. There are also other reason aside from preservation, digital games are often more expensive (at least the one I'm buying) than what you can find through deals in stores. But most of all I just like to be able to actually own the games as physical objects, being able to lend them out etc. And be assured that I can still play them in the future. Sure you can probably emulate them, but I prefer to play on console and I'd rather play an actual copy than an emulation anyway.
I'm not against digital in itself, I just don't want to be forced to go digital because the physical option is taken away. Just give people the option to either get it physically or digitally, that way everyone is happy and it's also the best way to preserve games for the future.
Bandai Namco's other premier fighting game series, Soulcalibur, has been around for over 25 years, but what game is the best?
Really loved Soulcalibur on Dreamcast. Truly blew all competition away back then when it came to graphics and fluidity, and I liked the roster and arenas.
Haven’t bothered with the newest release because sadly fighting games these days have become too expensive. They’ll release a base-game, then add all the interesting characters through expensive season passes, so unless there’s a Complete Edition released (and if I’m still interested in the game by then), I’m better off just shrugging my shoulders and skipping it completely.
The direction the fighting game genre has picked for itself means it will now only appeal and sell to the hardcore fans of the genre, while the mainstream gamers will spend their money elsewhere.
I played Soul Calibur 2 on the PS2, it was great and I got pretty good at it, decimated most of my friends at that game. I recently got VI on the PS4 and it just doesn't have the same magic, plus it seems to have stuffed some extra mechanics in there that just complicate it too much for me, although I really do agree they're too expensive, I've always wanted to get all the DLC characters for Central Fiction, but it's way too expensive.
I prefer SC VI to the SC III. SC II had a really fast pace for a fighting game, when new SC III bursted into the scene it felt sluggish when compared to the second one. On SC VI they brought back the quicker pace of the game, but not as much on SC II, though I think it was a good decision. I wish they would go the MK11 route with their games, but we all know that Bandai Namco is not interested, they hardly gave the devs time and money to support SC VI.
Its basicly Soul Calibur IV with some changes in structure.
But its a better game than Soul Calibur IV that´s what matters anyways.
SCIV is a more complete and polished game, looks better and plays better , character design in V is really ugly and unispired, same for most stages.
horrendous new characters, annoying versions of old characters, 3 mimics, network errors... the only decent thing it has is the customization wich has the same items of SCIV and adds some ridiculous items so you can make the most stupid character possible but its quite nice with the new options.
music was remarkably better in SCIV too IMO
overall, SCV is a mess compared to IV, a much better game