Gameitall Fighters have made a comeback within the last few years, you could look at the proof of that in games like Street Fighter IV, Marvel Vs Capcom 3 and Mortal Kombat. What made these games popular though is that they went back to their roots, while adding more content. The genre is waiting for one game to turn everything upside, changing the way we will look at the genre forever.
But is SoulCalibur V the game that will changes genre… No, far from it.
SoulCalibur V story take place 15 years after the events of SoulCalibur IV, some characters are either dead or not returning for the upcoming battle, which is surprisingly very few characters when one of the main selling point of the game was a new roster.
Of the new modes included into Soulcalibur V is the Story mode, where you take the role of the game’s resident douchebag Patroklos, who fans of the series would recognize as Sophita son, searching for his sister Pyrra, who was kidnapped at the end of Soulcalibur IV by Tira. The story is presented in a confusing way, with beautiful rendered cutscenes (being far and between badly drawn animatics.) The story does not give any information in terms of furthering the Soulcalibur story or even teaching you how to play the game.
Arcade mode plays out as it always has, fighting 6 other characters until the final battle, this is the bread and butter of the game, it plays well with one major exception…
You see I am a sucker for fighting games with ENDINGS. Playing the games arcade mode and beating it does not give you this, nor does any playable mode in the game. There has been no fighting game I’ve ever played that does this, usually after my hard work of beating all these characters I would like to be rewarded.
But Soulcalibur V isn’t all that bad, Graphics are gorgeous, and the controls are spot on perfect, it hasn’t been that good since Soulcalibur II, multiplayer is spot on using some mechanics that Namco learned from Mortal Kombat’s lobby system making it much more better to find fights.
Soulcalibur V is the series taking 3 steps forward and two jumps back. It’s fun while playing with company, and tries to do something different to bring it up-to-date by following Mortal Kombat with an actual story mode, but it falls short on it’s presentation and story. It is still an improvement over the last game, but not by much.
Soulcalibur V – 6 out of 10
Pros – Great Graphics, Fun Multiplayer, Character Creation tool is top notch.
Cons – Shallow and quick story mode that ends in 3 hours, shallow arcade mode and characters, high difficulty curve might turn away new comers to the series.
