SoulCalibur V

By Stephen Pastic

Ah Soul Calibur.  Namco Bandai's weapon based fighter with a bizarre tradition of odd character crossovers returns with this newest installment. 

Being only vaguely  familar with prior entries Soul Calibur II and IV, I was looking forward to see how this current incarnation compares to other heavyweights of the fighting genre. Does Soul Calibur V come out swinging, or does this entry in the revered series get knocked out by its competition?

For the unenlightened, Soul Calibur V is a 3D fighting game which is immediately distinguished from many of its contemporaries by most characters having their own unique weapons, which impact their respective play styles. 

The combat system is built off buttons assigned to horizontal and vertical strikes, kicking and blocking - as opposed to the common "high/low punch/kick" set up.  Players can strafe toward and away from the screen as well as score victory by knocking their opponent out of the arena in addition to just simply knocking them out. 

The series is also somewhat known for including guest characters from other franchises - this time, it is Ezio Auditore (of Assassin's Creed fame) who joins the ranks of characters such as Link, Spawn, Kratos, Darth Vader and Yoda who have all weirdly been absorbed into the Soul Calibur canon at some point in time. 

The fighting itself is quite solid in this iteration, with a sense of pace and movement slightly faster than i recall the older games having.  Still much 'heavier' in its feel than something like, say Street Fighter IV, Soul Calibur V is definitely a game where a good player will annihilate a button masher every time. 

Whilst a novice player can quite easily work out a core set of moves that will allow them to progress without too much trouble, there is quite a decent level of depth to the fighting system, even before one considers the added offensive and defensive options made available via mechanics such as Guard Impact and Critical Edge attacks. 

It should also be noted that the character animation is quite impressive throughout, save for isolated exceptions - while nowhere near as stylised as something like Marvel Vs Capcom 3, Soul Calibur V looks rather good.  Worth pointing out too, is that Ezio seems to fit in with the roster of fighters rather well and is not nearly as jarring as Darth Vader/Yoda in Soul Calibur IV.

As opposed to prior games, Soul Calibur V's story mode features only a handful of playable characters as the narrative heavily focuses on Patroklos and Pyrrha, both children of series stalwart Sophitia. 

Whilst one doesn't exactly expect wonders from the narrative of a fighting game, I can't help but feel the story mode falls a bit flat.  On top of the fact that it's simply just not terribly engaging outside of the actual fighting, for some reason most of the exposition is delivered via comic panel style vignettes - which are nowhere near as visually appealing as the game itself while in motion. This essentially amounts to a series of versus matches punctuated by some mediocre voice-overs in between.  

Another issue which was somewhat puzzling is that throughout the story mode, the player will encounter and fight several enemies more than once.  Whilst not a huge problem in itself, it occurred to me upon finishing that some characters did not even show up at all in this portion of the game, and yet there was still more than a few repeat encounters. 

Unfamiliar to me was Legendary Souls mode, where the player is thrust into a six chapter arcade experience with highly skilled opposition.  Novice players will not easily progress far here, as the A.I. will make short work of anyone who hasn't well and truly learned what they are doing.  In fact, i was initially struggling to even get up on my feet after being hit once, let alone landing any kind of damage myself. Definitely one for the hardcore crowd. 

A customisable training mode is also included to help bring new players up to speed, as well as allow players to aquaint themselves with different characters.  Though it all functions well enough,  it would have been nice to see a bit more thought given to beginners, as Soul Calibur V is not the most forthcoming game when it comes to explaining its mechanics to virgins of the series.

Progression through single player modes awards points which go towards unlocking more options for Soul Calibur V's character creator. Whilst there are a lot of options available (and more than enough to make plenty of ludicrous looking fighters), it does seem somewhat limited compared to what other games have managed to squeeze into their creation modes. 

Another thing to note is that any creation will essentially be only cosmetically different to the existing roster of characters, as move sets, weapons, etc. are tied to the relevant base character's fighting style.

When all is said and done, Soul Calibur V gets the important thing - the fighting - right for the most part.  It is just a shame that a few things less central to the game (i'm looking at you, Story Mode) seem to have been put together in a rather rushed or careless manner. 

At the end of the day, Soul Calibur V has its own identity to seperate it from the competition, and as far as fighters go, you could do a lot worse than this.

Note: Owing to a temporary inability to connect to PSN on the reviewer's end of things, this review does not account for the online component of the game. 

Game: SoulCalibur V
System: Sony Playstation 3, XBox 360
Developer/Co-Developer: Project Soul
Publisher: Namco Bandai Games

Rating: 70%

(Ratings Key/Explanation)