Mason Sklar

I’m going to preface this by saying I don’t know what this is or why I’m doing it.

I really like Soulcalibur (and I like spelling it as one word!). It’s my favorite fighting game series. I love the convoluted and repetitive story (hey, they say it in the intro, ETERNALLY RETOLD), the mostly ridiculous characters, the creation mode and of course, the increasingly senile narrator man.
The latest game in the series was pretty good. They added a more traditional “Super” bar, replacing the terrible Soul Crush mechanic or whatever the hell that was. It was so bad that in about 2 years of owning and frequently playing Soul Calibur 4, I have never once performed a soul crush. The new super system is a lot more like Mortal Kombat’s. A combination between that and Street Fighter.
The character creation, which I am unashamed to say is most of the reason I got the game, is great. Vast improvement over 4. Changing different body parts is nice, and the special equipment and patterns add a whole new dimension of customization.

The story mode, though, is disappointingly empty and bland. There are 20 chapters. That’s 60 fights for the whole story mode. I might be doing my math wrong or forgetting a number, but that comes out to AND HOUR of gameplay time for the whole story. I wouldn’t be complaining if it wasn’t the only story, though. Unlike previous Soulcaliburs where each character had a storyline, there’s only one story mode where you switch off between mostly two characters, I think you play as 4 at the absolute most. So those two characters, Patroklos and Pyrrha, are pretty well fleshed out, if a bit flat, but not more than any other Soulcalibur character.
The thing is, there was a MASSIVE roster change between the last 2 games and most of the characters in V are brand new. So I want to know more about them. I was hoping to learn more about them in the story, but aside from the handful of playable characters that are in the story mode, nothing is revealed about what happens to almost any of the other characters. It gets confusing at times. Yoshimitsu sure sounds like Yoshimitsu and has the wooden arm, but talks about how he’s the second Yoshimitsu. Where the hell is Mitsurugi? Why does Lizardman suddenly have a name again and also wings?
I understand that Namco probably wanted to tell a story other than “a bunch of people want a sword” like they usually do, and the story was alright, if a little vague. I think they missed out on a giant opportunity to make me care about these new characters. Especially for Xiba and Leixia, the Kilik and Xianghua replacements, respectively. They show up in like part of one chapter of the story. Xiba complains about food a lot, which is one of the worst affectations in ever, Leixia is a different Xianghua who was pretty annoying.
Not only is there barely a story mode, but there’s no cool alternate mode. I don’t remember what II had, III had a really interesting fighter/RTS crossover with a whole separate story that showed off the creation mode really well, IV had a sort of “puzzle” mode that relied on the various weapon and armor effects absent in V. They added a bit of replay value.
And, and of course, they haven’t brought back the awesome team battle from II
Another good thing though, Ezio isn’t terrible like most Soulcalibur guests are. Link was overpowered, Spawn was a Necrid clone (I liked Necrid…) and Heihachi did not fit into the Soulcalibur universe AT ALL. IV was worse, shoehorning Star Wars characters in somehow and the apprentice would show up in every arcade playthrough and fuck your shit up because he was crazy overpowered. Ezio is much more subdued and actually fits in to the time period of this game.
Most of the value is just in character creation, vs mode, and online play.

But it’s a fine game and I like it.