I came to check this forum to see if my premonition that this game is done for. The decision is to buy TTT2 once I get off work and sell my SCV for a measly $13 on Amazon.
I've been a Tekken and Soul Calibur fan since the series hit the arcades back in the early 1990s. Was competitive locally back in college and early 20s, LOVE Soul Calibur 2, which I think was really ahead of its time. I also remember spending countless hours on SC3. Skipped SC4, and gaming in general in that time period.
I am a bit more fond of Tekken, and I laugh when I read that Tekken is a simpler game, when it is a more deep & technical game, only slightly so in the past but now it's levels above this last installment of Soul Calibur.
Nowadays, I simply have limited time to play one game, let alone sleep enough hours. Work, Family, side business, all that junk. I generally got to play SC5 about 2-3 hours a week at the most, and pretty much just jump online to grab some matches. Which leaves little time to spend in training mode, so it's tough to get significantly good, hence I'm really casual, but my Fighting Game experience in general, including Capcom's 2D fighters, help me understand the system relatively quick.
This past week, after a couple weeks of little to no playing time, I got a chance to put significant time into the game with a few much needed extra days off from work. I've considered making this post before here, to express my viewpoint, but hesitated. Now that I'm done with the game, I might as well leave some feedback.
SC5 change in direction was an obvious attempt to grab the Capcom 2D fighter fans. Let's be serious. BE, meter, JG and CEs are a blatant copy of the Street fighter III/IV mechanics. Now to be fair, I think they were very well executed, but at the end, it's a copycat design, nothing more. This rarely works, as it pisses off the current fans and looks cheesy to the newer ones you are trying to grab. PS was trying to bring that "HYPE" that MvC3 and Street Fighter have, with the crazy damage, crazy offense and comeback factors. It was just unnecessary. That's not Soul Calibur. You might as well make SC x SF at this point. Everytime I play the game, I end up saying to my self "What the fuck were they thinking" about how some characters operate, or how braindead the use of some characters is, to the point where a button mashing mitsurugi can have a 60% W/L and get to B1.
The whole game was simplified, from the movelists, to being overly offensive, there really is not much depth in it. The final crux is JG, which is nothing more than execution training aka repetition aka time aka the reason why SFIII was not well received at first and pushed away anyone who was not hardcore.
I got to actually play around with more than the 5 characters I was using, and to be honest, most of the characters are so dumbed down, they get boring really fast, to the point where I don't even want to use them past training mode. One of them was Astaroth, which was one of my favorites to use and I just find him so simplified. I'm also shocked at what Ivy is now, I mean it's like she is actually the real Ivy's daughter that gets dropped off by the short yellow bus.
The new additions, just kinda lame. ZWEI is cool on the surface, but his gimmick fight style is gimmicky. Patro is an annoying flamewad, a pointless addition and to replace Setsuka with aPat, just what the fuck were they thinking. The much hated Viola, yes, I hate her too, but not because she beats my ass (that's because I don't know how to fight her). I just find her style out of place with the game with that idiotic flying orb. That character is just asking to be hated.
I am not even going to discuss the butchering of the cast in general. Just a bad decision.
The online netcode is, well WAS, the best out there. The last week or so it has been terrible, with constant disconnects and bad connections. It's not just me, everyone was complaining. Global Colosseum is dead except for New York, which in turn is littered with international players who lag each other up. The online playerbase has shrunk, so you're stuck fighting whoever you can, and most of the times, the connection either breaks or is crap. This was 10 times better around release time, when you would think the servers would be overloaded, so I think it's just a confirmation that there is no real support for the game.
As for single player content, who really gives a shit nowadays. That is not an issue anymore, it's all about online. Some players may care, but really, it's all about playing versus someone online. Most FG fans would barely touch single player content in a fighting game.
Bottom line, this game is finished and it failed. The whole series might be at an end. And while bad launch timing can be blamed or the FGC in general, the real problem is the bad direction & design decisions that were made by PS in their attempt to grab the Capcom fighting fans and to bring that HYPE to Soul Calibur. It backfired and rightfully so.
This game had very strong interest at launch, many non-hardcore & casual players actually know of Soul Calibur as that cool weapon fighting game, and people like me with very limited time have great memories of the series. I think the initial sales were very good. But in the end, the casuals just were not intrigued enough and as I can see, the hardcores are not happy with the direction of the game.
It's too bad, but goodbye SC. TTT2, here I come.
I've been a Tekken and Soul Calibur fan since the series hit the arcades back in the early 1990s. Was competitive locally back in college and early 20s, LOVE Soul Calibur 2, which I think was really ahead of its time. I also remember spending countless hours on SC3. Skipped SC4, and gaming in general in that time period.
I am a bit more fond of Tekken, and I laugh when I read that Tekken is a simpler game, when it is a more deep & technical game, only slightly so in the past but now it's levels above this last installment of Soul Calibur.
Nowadays, I simply have limited time to play one game, let alone sleep enough hours. Work, Family, side business, all that junk. I generally got to play SC5 about 2-3 hours a week at the most, and pretty much just jump online to grab some matches. Which leaves little time to spend in training mode, so it's tough to get significantly good, hence I'm really casual, but my Fighting Game experience in general, including Capcom's 2D fighters, help me understand the system relatively quick.
This past week, after a couple weeks of little to no playing time, I got a chance to put significant time into the game with a few much needed extra days off from work. I've considered making this post before here, to express my viewpoint, but hesitated. Now that I'm done with the game, I might as well leave some feedback.
SC5 change in direction was an obvious attempt to grab the Capcom 2D fighter fans. Let's be serious. BE, meter, JG and CEs are a blatant copy of the Street fighter III/IV mechanics. Now to be fair, I think they were very well executed, but at the end, it's a copycat design, nothing more. This rarely works, as it pisses off the current fans and looks cheesy to the newer ones you are trying to grab. PS was trying to bring that "HYPE" that MvC3 and Street Fighter have, with the crazy damage, crazy offense and comeback factors. It was just unnecessary. That's not Soul Calibur. You might as well make SC x SF at this point. Everytime I play the game, I end up saying to my self "What the fuck were they thinking" about how some characters operate, or how braindead the use of some characters is, to the point where a button mashing mitsurugi can have a 60% W/L and get to B1.
The whole game was simplified, from the movelists, to being overly offensive, there really is not much depth in it. The final crux is JG, which is nothing more than execution training aka repetition aka time aka the reason why SFIII was not well received at first and pushed away anyone who was not hardcore.
I got to actually play around with more than the 5 characters I was using, and to be honest, most of the characters are so dumbed down, they get boring really fast, to the point where I don't even want to use them past training mode. One of them was Astaroth, which was one of my favorites to use and I just find him so simplified. I'm also shocked at what Ivy is now, I mean it's like she is actually the real Ivy's daughter that gets dropped off by the short yellow bus.
The new additions, just kinda lame. ZWEI is cool on the surface, but his gimmick fight style is gimmicky. Patro is an annoying flamewad, a pointless addition and to replace Setsuka with aPat, just what the fuck were they thinking. The much hated Viola, yes, I hate her too, but not because she beats my ass (that's because I don't know how to fight her). I just find her style out of place with the game with that idiotic flying orb. That character is just asking to be hated.
I am not even going to discuss the butchering of the cast in general. Just a bad decision.
The online netcode is, well WAS, the best out there. The last week or so it has been terrible, with constant disconnects and bad connections. It's not just me, everyone was complaining. Global Colosseum is dead except for New York, which in turn is littered with international players who lag each other up. The online playerbase has shrunk, so you're stuck fighting whoever you can, and most of the times, the connection either breaks or is crap. This was 10 times better around release time, when you would think the servers would be overloaded, so I think it's just a confirmation that there is no real support for the game.
As for single player content, who really gives a shit nowadays. That is not an issue anymore, it's all about online. Some players may care, but really, it's all about playing versus someone online. Most FG fans would barely touch single player content in a fighting game.
Bottom line, this game is finished and it failed. The whole series might be at an end. And while bad launch timing can be blamed or the FGC in general, the real problem is the bad direction & design decisions that were made by PS in their attempt to grab the Capcom fighting fans and to bring that HYPE to Soul Calibur. It backfired and rightfully so.
This game had very strong interest at launch, many non-hardcore & casual players actually know of Soul Calibur as that cool weapon fighting game, and people like me with very limited time have great memories of the series. I think the initial sales were very good. But in the end, the casuals just were not intrigued enough and as I can see, the hardcores are not happy with the direction of the game.
It's too bad, but goodbye SC. TTT2, here I come.
