Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please. It is our greatest pleasure to present the reinvented, ground-breaking cast of Soul Calibur 5.
Give a big hand to... Siegfried! Now with volumised hair and mood-enhancing facial scar! Ivy! Now 10% saggier, 41% more respectably dressed and thus 32% less likely to be burned in effigy by fundamentalist mobs! Pyrra, Sophitia's daughter! A lot like Sophitia, only not quite so bloody self-righteous! Natsu! Basically Taki with a splash of Rikku from Final Fantasy X! Patroklos, Sophitia's son! Secretly Lizardman disguised as late '90s Haley Joe Osment! Zwei ! "The original one"! Welcome back to the stage of history... where, it seems, remarkably little has changed.
That's a hands-off impression, admittedly, but it's one we'd challenge Namco to dispel. In theory, Soul Calibur 5 is set 17 years after the events of Soul Calibur 4; in practice, it could be set the following week.
Ivy should have severe back complaints and the beginnings of a mustache by now, but time has left her with nothing more crippling than a slightly archaic taste in jackets. Siegfried still wears full plate armour to the office, and for all his grey hairs, Mitsurugi can still perform aerial flips without inducing multiple hernias. Those characters (like mini-skirted dervish Sophitia) who've had the bad grace to age properly have helpfully spawned younger versions of themselves.
Newcomers, indeed, may find that this is the right time to discover the series, thanks to (reportedly) more generous input windows. Lessons have been learned from Street Fighter IV in the form of a two-tier Critical Edge system, feeding into scripted super-moves once you've taken enough of a beating. Critical Edge bars can also be sacrificed to power up standard moves, both offensive and defensive, for more nuanced expert play.
The younger characters look fun but don't appear to add much. Equipped with a one-handed version of the famed Soul Calibur blade, Patroklos is all about shield bashes, kicks and fearsome over-arm back-hands. Zwei, who visually resembles Maxi after one too many trips on the crystal meth, seems to be modelled on Ivy with a spoonful of Necrid: he can summon a floating metal wolf-demon to bolster otherwise functional short-ranged sword attacks. Natsu ports over her ninja mistress's propeller kicks, savage stabs, evasive flips and fiery uppercuts.
8 comments so far...
CunningSmile on 15 Aug '11 said:
That's a bit harsh Ed, especially considering that some fighters (looking at you Street Fighter) release 9 gazillion versions of each update all of which look identical to me apart from adding a character. SC has released 6 games total for home consoles, and barely ever released two on the same generation. I just think people are being harsh on SC because they are honest and number the sequels rather then just adding the word Super or Alpha.
Plus there was someone on this very forum complaining a couple of weeks back that Soul Calibur hasn't got any iconic characters, and here you are complaining they are are bringing back the two most iconic in Ivy and Seigfried. What would SF be without Ryu and Ken?
OXM ETboy on 15 Aug '11 said:
Oh, I'm certainly not trying to say that Soul Calibur's the only guilty party - Capcom has elevated this sort of thing to a high art. But precisely because it's been such a long time since the last one on Xbox 360, I was hoping for something a bit more... drastic. The issue isn't returning characters as such, it's that they seem to handle exactly the same.
I'm a big Soul nut so I'm sure I'll buy it anyway, mind
msbhvn on 15 Aug '11 said:
I hope there'll be some substantial single-player content in SCV, like they had in SCII. I did like the character creation and randomised characters in SCIV, so those can be improved on.
A great single-player experience would be a lot better than a multiplayer mode that would have a tiny window of opportunity to be successful. That said, the fighter genre isn't exactly over-subscribed for decent multiplayer like with FPS.
Oh, and no ridiculous Star Wars crossover for this version, please, Namco.
OXM ETboy on 15 Aug '11 said:
They've got a few guest characters planned. Any thoughts on who?
CoughEnslavedcough.
Decent_Jam on 15 Aug '11 said:
SCIV was enjoyable, but II on the Gamecube was probably my favourite, but that's because I Kilik-ed it up a notch and so annoyed pretty much everyone.
Repeated move styles irritates me to be honest, it cant be that difficult to come up with a different move set for each character, even if there are some similarities.
Beat em ups aren't really my bad, require too much time thinking about blocking and learning moves, unlike something like Super Smash Bros, which I adore to this day.
In terms of guest characters, I would hope someone fun, since it's not an exclusive or anything they would have to be reasonably neutral characters I suppose (though watching Master Chief trying to kick ass would be quite amusing), so maybe Batman or something?
By the way loving the 10% saggier comment just for sheer cringiness alone.
ridinglikesatan on 15 Aug '11 said:
And yet your rolling over at the 0% change in MW3 graphics and ideas stolen from other games?
OXM ETboy on 15 Aug '11 said:
There's insufficient info floating around right now to say just how much Modern Warfare has changed, but no, I'm not turning a blind eye to the things that haven't
http://www.oxm.co.uk/28405/blog/why-im- ... warfare-3/
CunningSmile on 16 Aug '11 said:
SC2 was by far the best I agree simply because the SP was more then just the "fight 5 guys and repeat" that SC4 had. The random assortment of arenas with ice, quick sand, minefields etc made each fight unique. Cube version was the best as Link is still in my opinion the only guest that seemed to fit, even if he was Sophitia reskinned.