Soul Calibur V (X-Box 360)
Riv , 2012/06/26 22:01

Publisher:	Atlus
Genre:	Adventure RPG
Players:	1 Player
Rating	Mature
The Good:	Solid fighting game with your standard online features as well making it more than suitable for competitive play.
The Bad:	Lack of viable 1-player/story modes in a series usually known for having a compelling plot.
The Ugly:	That mutated-gimpy arm thing anyone who wields the tainted blade, Soul Edge, gets. Put some Neosporin on that shit!

I think the only selling point of this game might be Ivy’s ass. Look at it. That thing is nice. It could be a playable character on its own.

One of the few fighting game franchises I still tend to feel positive about are the Soul series of games by Namco that took weapon-based combat and made it pretty awesome. It’s not overly complex of a game, so it’s easy for beginners to pick up and has always had quite a bit of depth to the storyline as well as extra modes to keep people entertained. Unfortunately as we’ve progressed further and further into the series these modes seem few and far between.

The children of Sophitia. One looks and acts like Anakin Skywalker, the other looks and acts like the victim of a rape.

The plot of SoulCalibur V takes place 15 years after the events of the previous game and follows the story’s new protagonists Patrolkos and Pyrrha, the twin children of Sophitia. Out of 28 characters 10 are all-new to the Soul series but I’m not sure we can really consider a lot of them as all new characters when they’re basically fighting styles of older characters who aren’t in the game.

A full roster... of bootleg versions of the characters that preceded them. At least when Tekken 3 did this the new characters were interesting.

For example Taki has been replaced by Natsu who has virtually the same move set. Killik has become an Edge Master and can now use multiple fighting styles. He has been replaced by Xiba who primarily fights the exact same way Killik does. Leixia is pretty much a replacement for Xianghua, and the list goes on. This is moderately annoying as there’s no real interest in any of the new characters thanks to the fact the storyline has pretty much went out the window due to time constraints Namco Bandai played on the development team to “just get the game out.” This means there’s no real reason to like any of these jackoffs and without that I often find myself sticking to the series mainstays who are still around such as Siegfriend, Nightmare, Raphael and Cervantes.

As if having one new game every year for the past 4-5 years wasn't enough...

Fans of Assassin’s Creed will be happy to know that Ezio is the guest character in Soul Calibur V - a tradition started way back in Soul Calibur II of having characters from outside the game universe appear. It’s refreshing to see a playable character that’s “new” to the series and not using a re-hashed move set from someone who has been excluded.

Elvis has not left the building (or this game). Maxi hasn't changed in 15 years and never goes out of style.

Unfortunately as a single-player game SCV really fails entirely. The Story Mode is relatively easy to get through, and the Arcade Mode lacks endings for any of the 28 characters in the game. You’ll find a few offline battle modes to wade through for achievements and “player titles” to use online which is basically where this game really shines, but doesn’t present anything new either as everything SCV does was already present in SCIV and in various Capcom online fighting games so SCV really brings virtually nothing new to the table other than some minor tweaks in gameplay and characters that you have to struggle really hard to care about.

You mean the retarded final boss from Soul Calibur IV made it back in this game but the black guy with the scythe didn't? That's racist, Namco.

Gameplay not much has really changed. A few of the guard and parry mechanics have been altered and every character now has an insanely overpowered super-meter that is highly reminiscent of pretty much every Capcom game after 1991. Some of these moves can completely change a losing battle into a winning one in an instant although they come off as somewhat too extreme and cinematic at times for the usually-subdued Soul series. Others are downright ridiculous such as Dampierre who slides under his opponent and stares at their crotch for an awkward amount of time before finishing their assault. The French are a little fucked up, even in this game.

Dampierre... because one pervert (Voldo) just wasn't enough...

Audio and video is just more of the same. The game has really hit the glass ceiling in terms of this. There aren’t as many memorable tracks other than Pyrrha’s and possibly Nightmare’s that stand out in my mind but that’s maybe because Nightmare is one of my favorite characters in the series and Pyrrha has somewhat become fun if only because she acts like a timid girl about to be raped by villains from Isaku in both her quotes and her fighting style. As a two player game SCV is really fun but it’s also really more of the same. Die-hard Soul fans such as myself will probably still find themselves having fun with it, especially the creation mode although Namco-Bandai decided that instead of giving us DLC that we might care about such as storylines and extra characters they’d just give us lots and lots and lots of soundtracks from the older SC titles and create parts we have to pay for. There’s pretty much no reason to download all of these unless you’re really hardcore into character creation and since there’s not much to do in this game other than play it online or with friends since the 1-player modes are so short this becomes rather irrelevant. You see the problem here?

As a huge SC fan, the fifth installment (sixth if you count Soul Edge/Blade) is actually pretty weak. I think the only selling point of this game might be Ivy’s ass. Look at it. That thing is nice. It could be a playable character on its own. I would highly advise ignoring this game until after the price has dropped one or two… or six times. Hopefully a hard lesson is learned by Namco not to rush games just to have them “out by deadline” financially because Soul Calibur V feels like one massive “could have been.” The game pretty much only exists for me to get my ass kicked by @FunTimeHolly over and over again while making really disturbing created characters – and I can’t even do that to my best without spending another $60.00 worth of Microsoft Points in parts. Fuck you, Namco executives. Seriously.

Rest in peace, Sophitia. Your frequent panty shots will be missed. I will now resume creeping on your daughter Pyrrha. Discuss the Soul Calibur series (including thoughts and opinions on this game) on the JasonRivera.com Forums by clicking here!

-- Riv - jasonrivera@jasonrivera.com