Here’s the 5th chapter of the Soul Calibur game and of them, Soul Calibur 5 feels like a reboot for the series, so with this in mind i was expecting some changes to how the game plays and the battle system but what i got was less than i was hoping. I’ve been playing this franchise since the arcade days of Soul Edge and it has come quite the ways, with there high marker arguably Soul Calibur 2, the 5th installment just fell slightly short. Here’s what i mean.
Good Points.
Beautiful character models and fluent motion.
Colorful cast and fresh new comers to take over for the old cast.
The battle system is much more fluent from the past Soul Caliburs and allow new and old players to move freely on the battlefield for the upper hand.
Battlefields look great and challenges all players to watch where there going to avoid potential ring outs.
Character Creation system is just great, i don’t know how else i can really put this since like the old system you can outfit your custom character with what you want but this time they added in a lot more for all you creative people to get even more creative.
Story mode is much needed and does tell a lot about the new characters back grounds and what it means to fight, but it’s just to short.
Bad Points.
Short ranged characters have a very big disadvantage against say a mid ranged character.
The Guard Impact was gimped. This was very upsetting for me since i used the guard impact in battles a lot. Before it was just Forward or Back with the Guard button, now they make it so your Soul Gage has to be around 50% and hit Back and A+B+K.
The new characters seems to be slightly underdeveloped from there counter parts. By this i mean it seems they took Soul Calibur 2 move set and used that as a base for there new counterparts then broke there hands as there trying to make them playable then put them in the game thinking that no one will notice.
In hopes to fix some of the problems, they made secondary versions of Patroklos and Pyrrha which basically are the pumped up versions. Where Pyrrha plays similar to her counterpart Patroklos goes from a sword and shield to a quick draw type.
Some of the guard system is broken. When your knocked and tumbling in the air if you hit the guard button you can execute a quick get up, but the NPC (from what i seen) can be tumbling in the air and get there feet close to the ground then be in a guard stance like they were like that all along.
This isn’t really a bad point but must be pointed out. In the story mode you get this art slide show type of story telling when there isn’t a cut scene and the art style reminded me of the original Gundam art style. I mean if take a close look at it Patroklos has a close resemblance to Amuro Ray, and when you up with Dumas he’s wearing a mask just like Char so i couldn’t help but to laugh when i saw this. Not to mention i can’t help but think about how Siegfried and Nightmare remind me of Record of Lodoss War.
I miss the store for the Character Creation. In the old ones it would tell you in if new item were available and if you wanted to save up for something, this version it’s by level and i’m not sure but seems kinda random and don’t know what you get till you look through it all.
Over all the game falls short from being really good but if your a Soul Calibur fan then i’m sure you’ll pick it up to play it since it’s still a fun game. I do recommend picking it up and play it, but if your new to this game then you’ll most probably like it.
I would give this game a 3/5 since it’s not really bad for where it comes from and is worth a rent at the very least to see if it’s your cup of tea.
Tags: fighting, games, Review, SC5, Soul Calibur V
