Kayane's Hands-on Impressions of SC5

Namco graciously invited Kayane to come to GamesCom to try out the build of Soul Calibur 5 that they brought with them, but was unable to share her impressions of the game until August 30th because of a media embargo that was in place. Now that the embargo is over, Kayane stayed up until 6AM her local time in France just to share with the community her impressions of the game.

Check Kayane's blog for the full details, and leave a comment with any questions that you may have for her.

 

To everyone: talk about making molehills to mountains -- wasn't the majority, if not all, members of this board sending glowing tweets of praise and confidence to Odashima-san all before yesterday? Didn't Odashima-san AND Tago-san both emphasize that SC5 would be 'a new beginning' for the series (thus implying that there would be some new gameplay elements)?

It's one thing to be concerned, and there's nothing wrong with that-- but, it's totally different when some people make scathing accusations, such as the team not learning lessons from the past (they have already emphasized the opposite dozens of times already), and that the game is going the wrong direction. ESPECIALLY if you haven't played it or seen a build in person.

Please stop with the 'pitchfork and torches' mentality, and exercise that faith we ourselves said to Odashima-san that we had in the new Project Soul.

You all oughta be ashamed of yourselves! :P

 

O ive been faithfull, since soul edge, im out of faith, guees ive watched to much Zeitgeist lol, i want good results, people are preventing a sc3 sc4 scene.

lol @ zeitgeist! :D

 

The most funny thing about all this complaining is the lack of perspective - this is one of the few fighting game series I can think of that has gone through drastic changes with almost every iteration. SC1 - > SC2 was probably the most conservative step this series has had, and that's saying something.

Soulcalibur fans should be used to this by now.

 

The most funny thing about all this complaining is the lack of perspective - this is one of the few fighting game series I can think of that has gone through drastic changes with almost every iteration. SC1 - > SC2 was probably the most conservative step this series has had, and that's saying something.

Soulcalibur fans should be used to this by now.

lol, so true

 

On the CE's- I'm not too worried about that stuff right now- Character balance is much, much easier to fix then system problems. If you get the system right, a good game will come from it. It's very hard to make a good game from a bad system.

I'm also not worried about the team not learning from the past, it's obvious that they have. My concern is that they're making new mistakes. That doesn't mean you don't try new things, I'm glad they are, but I'm also glad they can hear our feedback if things seem wrong.

Also, I'm trying to think of worst case scenarios and stuff I'd try to theorize if I wanted to cheese people out. I figure if I can think of it, better players will think of better. I know I'm not a particuarly good player- I'm a pot monster, I'll admit it, I've only won like 2-3 local tournies in my life, but I'm not a dumb player.

My real criticism of JG isn't so much that I think it's a gamebreaking mechanic right now, but that it's an unneeded mechanic, that will add an execution barrier and hurt online play. I can't think of too many situations that will require JG's, that can't be solved by intelligent movelist design. I'm willing to listen to counterarguments though.

That BB JG the 2nd hit- I believe that come 3-6 months into this game's tourney life, that folks will be expected to do this, and it won't be easy for many people to do, and may require grinding away in practice mode. It's going to make it harder for new blood to get into the community, and could become a turnoff for folks.

Hopefully Daishi can explain away some of my worries tomorrow.

90% of fighters don't meet my standards. I want this game to be in the 10% that does.

 

you cant force people to behave as you want them to, and definitely cant tell people to be ashamed to voice their opinion.. you're not in position to do so..

you can ask or persuade people, but not badmouthing them if they dont do as you please.. they have right even to make accusations.. and why does anyone think that daishi needs to be protected?

okay so trashing scv to daishi isn't a right/polite thing to do, but daishi should've known that it's inevitable that some people (despite being hardcore fans or maybe just trolls) would do that..

the JG haters have just as much (if not more) reasons to hate JG as/than the 'change-embracer' people.. the JG haters can voice their opinion and so are JG lovers..

JG lovers stated that "cmon, it's not final.. it's just a demo.. we dont know how the JG works in actuallity, only kayane has played the game.. bla bla bla" and expect JG haters to wait until they get their hands on the game... this is fail logic.. if the JG haters got their hands on the game and didn't like it by then.. what can they do?

can people respect each other opinions and let other people voice their opinions in ANY way they want? after all, if daishi's bothered by some spammers or some sort, he could always block them...

 

yeah man string canceling is so offensive

 

snip.

I hear ya. :) Much respect to you, because your concerns are reasonable and understandable. My small counter-arguments would be that I think JG (potentially) IS a needed mechanic, as it stops people from mindlessly stringing moves together and forces them to think about the pros and cons of what they intend to do.

JG sounds VFish to me, thinking of it like that (even though VF has no similar mechanic). That's probably where the 'n00b deterent' concern may be, though, in my humbly small insignificant opinion

 

The most funny thing about all this complaining is the lack of perspective - this is one of the few fighting game series I can think of that has gone through drastic changes with almost every iteration. SC1 - > SC2 was probably the most conservative step this series has had, and that's saying something.

Soulcalibur fans should be used to this by now.

It ended up being the favored game in the series by a wide margin. That said, people were really vocal about not wanting bound or rage in Tekken and it didn't make a damn bit of difference. Just Guard is in and that's the way it is. The best we can hope for is Daishi/Tago/Project Soul see our concerns and pay extra attention to the mechanic.

King Ace did make a good point, however. As we know, the penalty for late JG is getting hit. But the penalty for being early is Guard Gauge damage. Depending on how quickly it can be broken, this can be a stiff penalty in and of itself.

 

I hear ya. :) Much respect to you, because your concerns are reasonable and understandable. My small counter-arguments would be that I think JG (potentially) IS a needed mechanic, as it stops people from mindlessly stringing moves together and forces them to think about the pros and cons of what they intend to do.

JG sounds VFish to me, thinking of it like that (even though VF has no similar mechanic). That's probably where the 'n00b deterent' concern may be, though, in my humbly small insignificant opinion

I felt like I was coming on a bit too strong with some of my comments, especially on Twitter. It's hard to convey things in 140 characters, especially without kanji.

I do agree with you entirely that mindlessly stringing moves together should be punished easily. I just think we already have all the tools we need to do this, and now we have a meter system on top of that (which is looking pretty interesting), and Quick Step (which I like).

I thought about that myself, and I know you're a VF-head, I talked to Slide some about SC4 once. We both came to the conclusion that the best way to handle this is to design strings so that the last hits are either disadvantage on block, or somehow avoidable (like highs, evadable, etc). If you design the game that way, JG wouldn't be necessary.

If people are mindlessly spamming strings, they'll start attacking at disadvantage, then you make them pay for it.

To me, JG felt "anti-VF" ish. My vibe was more MOTW/3S. I'm not really a fan of either game.

It ended up being the favored game in the series by a wide margin. That said, people were really vocal about not wanting bound or rage in Tekken and it didn't make a damn bit of difference. Just Guard is in and that's the way it is. The best we can hope for is Daishi/Tago/Project Soul see our concerns and pay extra attention to the mechanic.

King Ace did make a good point, however. As we know, the penalty for late JG is getting hit. But the penalty for being early is Guard Gauge damage. Depending on how quickly it can be broken, this can be a stiff penalty in and of itself.

Now, this gave me a good idea as an idea instead of JG. Maybe holding G could increase guard gauge damage when you block stuff.

 

I felt like I was coming on a bit too strong with some of my comments, especially on Twitter. It's hard to convey things in 140 characters, especially without kanji.

I do agree with you entirely that mindlessly stringing moves together should be punished easily. I just think we already have all the tools we need to do this, and now we have a meter system on top of that (which is looking pretty interesting), and Quick Step (which I like).

I thought about that myself, and I know you're a VF-head, I talked to Slide some about SC4 once. We both came to the conclusion that the best way to handle this is to design strings so that the last hits are either disadvantage on block, or somehow avoidable (like highs, evadable, etc). If you design the game that way, JG wouldn't be necessary.

If people are mindlessly spamming strings, they'll start attacking at disadvantage, then you make them pay for it.

To me, JG felt "anti-VF" ish. My vibe was more MOTW/3S. I'm not really a fan of either game.

Now, this gave me a good idea as an idea instead of JG. Maybe holding G could increase guard gauge damage when you block stuff.

Another VFer. You are totally awesome. :)

Honestly, I see JG functioning the same way as Evade in VF. Somebody's insistent on spamming PPPK? Evade or duck the second or 3rd P and punish for their brainless spam. I guess it's because you can evade and duck in blockstun in VF (might be wrong).

As for SC4, I *think* you can duck in blockstun, but of course, not step. I think that's why BB strings, like Soph and Voldo's are strong, and AA's less so (since A's are duckable and B's are usually not). With B strings, there are no deterents if the first B connects (reminds me of Ramon in SummerJam and why his Soph's BB were so imposing that players like MTFighter had to respect it).

Instead of making Step/Quickstep an option in blockstun (I guess to keep Calibur from being like VF?), they took the MOTW approach and made JG. I personally love both MOTW and 3rd Strike, but whether you like em or not, it's easy to see that both parry and just defense were highly specific defense mechanisms, that were effective, but only in certain situations.

You look at any decent level match, and people block exponentially more than parry/just defense, and only use it for obvious stuff like repeated jump-ins, spammed specials, and telegraphed supers. Random parries, at least, get punished pretty badly, and just defense (I assume) merely leaves you with nothing gained. At the end of the day, evade, just guard, whatever, they accomplish the exact same thing in different ways.

That's why people are overreacting to JGs, I think. There's not enough reward when it comes to attempting to spam it (in my mind, at least).

Oh, and BTW, Slide was the first player to really get me thinking at a higher level about fighting games. He was kind enough to destroy me in VF (a couple of years ago), and then literally spend like 3-4 hours on AIM showing me how high level players think. He probably doesn't even remember, but I'll never forget that. I have so much respect for that guy, plz tell him that

 

It's like we're married to SoulCalibur. For better or worse, we're still going to play the game but some will divorse it. Some will stay and make it work no matter the changes.

 

The best thing to do is ask for more information, because JG works in conjuction with other mechanics in the game.

One being frames like I have said previously. The other being Soul Gauge damage.

We don't know if Soul Gauge damage works similar to SC4's were moves have varying degrees of SG damage. What if in SCv every move does the same amount of damage? What if there's a universal count of a set number of stuff you can block before getting guard crushed into CEs?

And again JG is essentially block punishment. People complain about BB getting punished by an AA. That happens for some characters in SC4 and you only need to block...not time out any thing.

JG has a lot of potential for high level play. I haven't really read any convincing arguments against it...and that's the problem I have with the skeptics. You guys seem to be jumping the gun without any deep thought or consideration.

 

So after 2 pages of nothing more or less, the issue remains the same:

Alarmist positions are given fuel due to a lack of concrete understanding of the mechanics which leads to speculation. The lack of concrete information is because of Namco's lack of clarification. If they want feedback, they need to give us real information with which to make these judgements. Hopefully, Daishi's clarification tomorrow will have actual "crunchy" info we can work with: numbers and explanations, and not just vague statements.

For clarification; my concern with JG is the encouragement of more gameplay MINIMALISM, not the pitbull/turtle dichotomies. I can see how it can both encourage and discourage minimalism based on the information I have now.

-Idle

 

lol wtf. Why is blackstar84 talking like a spokesperson. if u can't beat me in a cage match ur opinion is invalid. omega, carry on.

 

lol wtf. Why is blackstar84 talking like a spokesperson. if u can't beat me in a cage match ur opinion is invalid. omega, carry on.

Vints imma try to make it up to the next Toronto thing. We should have a cage match! Or just chill, either or; because I am terrible at this game. On a side note, it's strange to find us on the same side of "the line" on a position.

-Idle

 

lol wtf. Why is blackstar84 talking like a spokesperson. if u can't beat me in a cage match ur opinion is invalid. omega, carry on.

have I played you? :P I excel in cage matches. :D

and you might not like my opinion (or the fact that I'm the one saying it at least), but at least tell me why I'm wrong XD.

Because, you know.....I'm not. *goes back to playing Deus Ex*

 

I'm one of those old school traditional values person. In fact, I only play on CRT. I explained in one of the posts last night. Anyway, we can cage match if you come to Devastation.

Be a man. Don't support Street Fighter Calibur V!

 

Be a man. Don't support Street Fighter Calibur V!

I think you mean Mortal Street Kalibur 5.

 

I just want them to explain, how the mechanics work and also explain how this new mechanics is better that the GI, thats all i want, if it makes since then ill accept it, if not ill keep complaining