Adapting to Change

How do feel about the new characters and the old?

  • I prefer the old characters over the new ones.

    Votes: 4 36.4%

  • I prefer the new characters over the old ones.

    Votes: 2 18.2%

  • I like both of them equally.

    Votes: 3 27.3%

  • I don't really care for either of them.

    Votes: 2 18.2%
  • Total voters
    11
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HydroJames

HydroJames

Shining Sea Dragon
I know some of you don't like the direction they are going with Soul Calibur V in terms of game-play and characters. Some felt that SCV suffered from a identity crisis due to having Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike-like mechanics. Some didn't like the new characters as much as the old ones. Do some people just dislike change for the sake of disliking change? What is my take on this game after playing this game for two years?

I personally prefer the mechanics in SCV. I looked at some of the mechanics from the older games and... Well... Let's just review them... I decided that Soul Charge was too impractical to put to good use. Since it takes too long to fully charge, I don't use it often, if at all. To me, using it is like telling your opponent "Here, hit me!". Then SCIV came, Soul Charge was removed, but it introduced the most broken mechanic in the series, Critical Finish. I don't like this mechanic, because it punishes excessive blocking too harshly by letting the victim get offed instantly. Sure, the animations for them look awesome, but it was better to remove them in favor of a simple Guard Burst, which only leaves the opponent open to a free hit.

Game-play wise, SCV was the best I had ever been at a Soul Calibur game. I've learned and am still learning how to play. I will adapt to whatever is given to me.

Now, on to the characters... I know some of you do not like some of new characters, at least not as much as the older ones. But, for the time being, we just have to make the best of what we have now.

Even though I would like to see many veterans return for the sake of variety, I realize that canon-wise it wouldn't make sense to bring most of them back. If they return to the roster, their appearances would have to be non-canon. It's a better idea to just develop the new characters since they've only had one appearance so far. They missed a whole lot of development due the story being cut by three-fourths. Let's hope they don't make the same mistakes with the next installment.

Please, politely explain why you agree or disagree with the changes they made.
 
Into the Hornet's nest...

Yeah, I'm one of those guys who disliked SCV's gameplay direction (even if it's still functional and decent) and hated it's story and lack of offline-replay value or the baffling choices in deciding who'd be in the roster.

But I don't hate these changes for the sake of hating them. Change can be a great enhancement that can make a game series relevant and allow it to survive. Change is inevitable as times march on and expectations are altered. Some characters have to be dropped to make room for future newcomers, pace has to be altered, and new things have to be attempted. It's all just part of the business.

The best changes to a series tend to be one or more of three things: Something that makes sense; Something that is needed; and/or Something that will positively effect it's target series. This can be anything from character focus, to genre tuning, to gameplay mechanics, and so on.

Apart from the increased pace and SCIII's VC, what was wrong with the core gameplay of past SC games? Honestly nothing, at least nothing that ruined the games and that's not to say that they were perfect. But the changes to SCV were simply needless, they just don't belong in the series and were probably only done to appeal to the director's SF love and try and net in more tournament players. This also hampers the overall experience, leaves it fundamentally unbalanced in favor of aggressive/offensive combat with little to no defensive tricks left that are helpful.

If played in a certain way and from a certain point of view, some fun can be salvaged. But it's just not the Soul Calibur experience that myself and many fans petitioned for. Coupled with a poorly coupled together roster, a terrible story mode with an insultingly hate-worthy bastard that's marketed as a "hero", lack of offline-content, no character endings, and nothing worth unlocking...it just made SCV into a bare-bones game.

Back when I was a kid (90s), that wouldn't be too much of a problem as expectations for Fighting games were pretty low. We just wanted to know if we could beat people up and if we had fun doing so. Present day, I'm fairly certain that there's a bit more expected of all games including fighting games to be good in more than just one area. Even with gameplay that others consider good or great, everything is just too poorly put together for SCV to be worth the purchase of a full game. Even taking into account that the game was rushed by Namco and what was stopping PS from putting their foot down and telling Namco how rushing would ruin profits?

I actually don't mind having new characters in the roster. It's just that the game thought that focusing on the least likable character was a great idea. And it wasn't. I also didn't like that a lot of relatively new characters (those who entered in SCII or later) are all missing for either stupid or unexplained reasons when there was room for them to become the next veterans challenging and/or training the newbies. Also, why do most of the SB/SC males get to come back, yet all but one female (Ivy) were replaced because of age? So my problems with the poorly cobbled roster have less to do with the new characters and more to do with PS's choices on the overall cast.

But anyway. After two years, I think that we can all agree that SCV was good in some areas, but mostly disappointing and just move on. I actually made peace with the game a while go and while I still don't like it, what's done is done.

PS will likely make several if not a lot of changes to SCVI's gameplay, roster and etc. Some will be well-liked, others hated, but we won't know for certain until it happens. Just as long as those changes enhance the series (retool the gameplay with a compromise between SCV and previous games), are something that are needed (Retcon Alpha Patroklos and most of SCV's story out of existence), or just make natural sense (An old character retires/dies and a newcomer succeeds them), I welcome those changes.
 
Ohhhhh my god will you people stop bringing this topic up already? Jeez, it's been two years, get over it and play SCII.
 
Thaeonblade said:
Apart from the increased pace and SCIII's VC, what was wrong with the core gameplay of past SC games?
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Kilik could punish any move in the game

Step G, Post GI options are blockable, and other fun glitches like this

 
Marginal said:
Bruce Lee vs Brock Lesnar must be discussed.

Personally I think Brock would ROFLstomp Bruce Lee simply due to his size.

Also Jimbo, 20 Brocks could coordinate. The Bears wouldn't so they'd lose due to stupidity.
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To play devil's advocate of course Lee would win, he has the speed and more explosive power
 
MightyOmega said:
Or stop coming to the site if all you are going to do is whine about the exact same thing every day.
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The thread asked a question and I gave a mature and honest answer. Is that against site rules? I think not. No one's forcing you to discuss this or answer the OP's question. So don't whine or troll when other people do so. It gives other folk who like SCV a bad name.

Also, I'm putting my money on Bruce Lee.
 
Thaeonblade said:
The thread asked a question and I gave a mature and honest answer. Is that against site rules? I think not. No one's forcing you to discuss this or answer the OP's question. So don't whine or troll when other people do so. It gives other folk who like SCV a bad name.

Also, I'm putting my money on Bruce Lee.
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The irony of you telling someone else not to whine. Past SC's suck. SCV is the best inthe series, ill be expecting another thread by you in about two weeks complaining about how bad you suck at SCV and how you miss SC2
 
MightyOmega said:
The irony of you telling someone else not to whine. Past SC's suck. SCV is the best inthe series, ill be expecting another thread by you in about two weeks complaining about how bad you suck at SCV and how you miss SC2
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See this is the exact type of bratty "elitist" crap that's giving Hardcore gamers a bad reputation. I'm not going to get dragged into an off-topic and pointless argument about SCV vs previous SC games. History and the Majority have already spoken, the resignation of V's producer and director also spoke, and that statement was clearly false troll bait. Keep it.

Irony would be correct as it sounds like you're the one whining about someone else "whining". If you read my post, you'd see that I'm basically okay with SCV for what it is. I was just answering the Thread's question. If that's whining to you, then you're clearly unable to have a coherent conversation with someone if you calling differing opinions=whining.

Party Wolf said:
http://8wayrun.com/threads/welcome-new-members-read-this-first.7284/#post-582464
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As I said, I'm answering the thread's question. If you don't want honest answers from folks, then don't leave the thread open for people to speak their minds and then get blasted for doing so. If slandering means that I can't point out anything obviously bad about the game (that even most folk with common sense can agree on was lackluster), then clearly someone needs to look up the definition of slander.
 
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