SoulCalibur is as fast-paced and flashy as ever.Fighting games have come a long way in the last few years. Street Fighter IV (2008) set a new bar for balance and beauty, Mortal Kombat (2011) rebooted with a compelling story, and Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (2011) earned huge acclaim after the franchise’s decade of dormancy. Nowadays, fighting games without big changes are destined to get beaten down.
Fortunately for SoulCalibur V, its developers have indeed made big changes — and not just to bust sizes and swords. Characters have been redesigned, stages reworked, gameplay rebalanced, and the story…well, the story still sucks. SoulCalibur’s “plot” has always revolved around two swords (the embodiment of good and evil) and two characters hitting those swords together; with the swords having been destroyed and implausibly resurrected across seven games already, it was high time to start fresh.
As a guest star, Ezio Auditore fits better than Yoda, the Xbox-exclusive fighter in SoulCalibur IV.Though we’d have preferred a franchise reboot, SoulCalibur V makes the next best choice — it takes place 17 years after the events of SoulCalibur IV. This setup leads to some interesting possibilities, and Namco Bandai has been surprisingly brave in this regard. Many star characters are gone or revamped, including Kilik, Amy, and Sophie, whose two children are now the main protagonists.
Focusing on only two characters should’ve allowed for a cohesive, complex story for once. Unfortunately, SoulCalibur V seems content with a winding, melodramatic, nonsensical story presented through oil paintings and occasional cutscenes. The main characters are unlovable and surprisingly stupid: the lead protagonist, Patroklos, slaughters poor people to rescue his sister because he thinks they’re “malfested” (i.e., evil), while the sister slaughters good guys because she is malfested. Hilarity ensues.
Whereas most fighting games (including earlier SoulCaliburs) give small stories to each character, SoulCalibur V presents only one story spanning 20 stages and only three characters. After the main story, there’s no reason to play as characters you might not like, and there’s no way to understand what some of your favorite characters have been doing for the last 17 years. That’s a shame, as most players won’t, say, know that the new Astaroth is actually the younger brother of old Astaroth. But they will notice he looks entirely different.
The main reason is that every character has been remodeled. Thankfully, female characters look less like strippers and more like warriors this time. You can still edit any character’s appearance (or create a new character) with the insanely robust character-creation suite, but you’ll have to work for it: everything from equipment to stickers and patterns is doled out slowly, meaning you’ll have plenty to unlock long after you’ve gained access to every character.
Even better than the remodels are the characters’ fighting styles, which match their personalities better than ever before. Guest star Ezio Auditore (from the Assassin’s Creed franchise) fits surprisingly well as a fighter, whipping out hidden weapons from beneath his robes in the blink of an eye. He plays fast and ferocious, disdainfully wiping off his blade after particularly powerful attacks — a far cry from innocent Pyrrha’s profuse apologies after sheepishly striking her foes.
SoulCalibur V’s changes aren’t just cosmetic, however. The Soul Gauge has been replaced with a super meter, which can fill up to 200%. Several new moves rely on this super meter — chief of which is the Critical Edge, a cinematic move that’ll suck up a full bar of your meter and inflict major damage on non-blocking foes. There’s also Brave Edge, which absorbs a half-bar but adds a few devastating hits to certain combos, as well as Just Guards. But in the interest of making the game more tournament-friendly, the developers removed quite a few moves as well, like SoulCalibur IV’s Just Impact parries and insta-win “Critical Finishes.”
The robust character-creation tools let you craft anyone from a samurai with cornrows to a hokey Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles knockoff (shown).It’s hard to imagine these balance tweaks will pay off online, where spammers will doubtless capitalize on Ezio’s ranged crossbow attacks and SoulCalibur IV super-boss Algol’s status as a playable character. In a way, that’s good news: it means SoulCalibur will remain the same fast, flashy, lovably button-mashy game it has been for noobies, while also allowing experts to fine-tune their tournament-worthy techniques more than ever before.
For our review of a gold pre-release build, SoulCalibur V’s online lobbies weren’t set up, but if creating matches was any indication, it’ll be standard fare. You can’t tell whom your opponent is choosing, which could put close-range fighters at a strategic disadvantage but also adds a bit of excitement to character selection. We experienced a bit of lag in a few matches, and once we were kicked out of a match entirely, but assuming these early hiccups aren’t in the actual retail game, online fights will be impeccable.
Ultimately, SoulCalibur V feels new without feeling reinvented. It’s not genre-defining and it’s not the complete overhaul probably needed to make SoulCalibur important in tournament-fighting circles, but it’s still flashy enough to keep fans interested and technical enough to convert some series holdouts.
PUBLISHER: Namco Bandai • DEVELOPER: Project Soul • ESRB: Teen • MULTIPLAYER: 2 in versus mode (local or over Xbox Live) • ACHIEVEMENTS: Tough • COST: $60
+ Gorgeous and sensible character remodels.
+ More technical (for fighting-game vets) without a steep learning curve (for newcomers).
– Story is somehow worse than ever.
? Any guesses on which non-franchise character will guest star in SoulCalibur VI? Hitman’s Agent 47?
