SoNG-Of-SiLeNCe
Red Lotus
I posted this on Steam and I figure it belongs here as well.
Just my two cents regarding SC6 so far.
Disappointed
NOT ABOUT THE LOSING
As someone who has been playing fighting games for as long as they existed, I'm not one to feel upset about losing. When two sides face off in a competitive setting, one will win and one will lose. Luck has very little to do with it. The character you play, has very little to do with it. Both are a factor to some extent: luck more so in online play and the character more so in offline play, but these are points that would take a much longer discussion and this article isn't about that. Let's just say that the first step towards the right mindset in a game such as this one is accepting that you will lose; and you will lose a LOT.
NOT ABOUT THE WINNING
Winning in competitive games such as this one has everything to do with how well you know your opponent's options, and your own. I have been into martial arts at least as long as I have enjoyed competitive pvp and I can tell you one thing.
The right mindset, that you are ready to lose - or as Mitsurugi says, not being afraid to die - is just one step in the right direction: you have to then overcome the greatest opponent that any cliche karate movie will tell you, and it is true. Yourself.
Defeating your opponents comes about, once you've overcome your own problems such as being pattern-prone, unwilling to act under pressure, considering some moves "too cheap to use" or on the contrary: just randomly mashing buttons, not understanding how to react under pressure, and calling other people cheap.
Or even just being an angry son of a gun and trying to fight like a jerk and becoming more and more predictable, losing more and getting even angrier.
ALL ABOUT THE JOURNEY
Any number of these psychological hurdles will create intrinsic barriers to your progress and bog you down at whatever slice of the truth you have currently attained. You will feel like you aren't progressing on your journey, that you aren't improving anymore.
There is that old cultural appropriation of a proverb that a lot of people use but it seems more like a self-reassurance than something we, in our western consumer culture will ever truly understand.
"It's not the goal that matters but the journey to get there."
I mean, you're fine.
You want to mash buttons, be my guest. Guilty as charged - I've done so before.
You want to let your anger out at the game, sure, why not. Also guilty. I've stomped not one controller into tiny bits before over computer games when life wasn't going well and the game failed to relieve my already high amounts of stress.
You're fine if you want to rage, or just have a laugh.
But if you want to get good, you'll need to forget about emotions, about what your Stats say. And just play. Lose, win, practice, understand, fail, understand more, fail more, and eventually improve at your own pace.
Just remember to have fun while you do it.
Or uninstall the game.
THE HOW
The title of my article is Disappointed, and I'm about to get down to why. I just wanted to make the above mindset clear because we are only human and we tend to blame one another for our own shortcomings, or what's worse, see someone else's and call them out as if we, ourselves, had none.
I have plenty.
I'm impatient, I'm methodically aloof and generally sarcastic. I'm pretty sure more people in life dislike me than like me because I tend to speak up about things that people rather prefer not to bring up, because it's more safe to be in denial than to call things out and work on them.
I feel like there are two distinct groups of people who currently inhabit the virtual scape of Soul Calibur 6's community. The Okayists and the Mehists.
The Okayists are people who say that the game is at least okay, but may even be completely content with it. They are happy that we finally have a Calibur game on PC, or that the game even had a sequel.
The Mehists are people who say the game is at least meh, but may even call it horrible for one reason or another. They have very distinct opinions about what's wrong with the game and potentially even some general ideas what to do to fix it, even if it's something as unavailable as removing that one character they dislike from the game forever, or bringing back something from the older titles that's radically different in this one.
I think you're all wrong, and here is why.
THE WHY
On one hand, Soul Calibur 6 is a very poorly articulated combat game for all the wrong reasons. The #1 reason of course being money: classic characters like Sophitia and Mitsurugi are literally fighting a sword-and-shield battle against opponents like Azwel or 2B who literally cover everywhere you can go and counter everything you can do. It wouldn't be that bad but they touch you once and do three times the damage your "classic" character will do.
You can of course spend a few hours in Practice mode and figure out their moves if you really care, but the game design right now just murders what Soul Calibur really is. Was.
One of the most prevalent reasons of Mehism is that we have these characters; robots and mages that fight samurai and knights and it feels very unrewarding sometimes. For the game's own theme as well as for the general gameplay.
On the other hand Soul Calibur 6 has great potential for game balance. The universal defense mechanisms like GI and RE create a level playing field so that no single character will lag behind in terms of viability - even if some of them can delete most of your healthbar off of a single successful hit.
That is if you aren't completely annoyed by how RE is literally just Rock Paper Scissors. Many competitive gamers despise it and with good reason.
That reason is how Soul Calibur 6 handles its combat pacing currently. The game is heavily ruled by decision making that is more reminiscent of gambling than that of competitive pvp. There is a trope where mixups and setplay are frowned upon in the FGC yet the truth of the matter is that they are too much fun, to a point.
I promised a why, too.
Okayists are wrong because while this is by far the most balanced fighting game in a long time, it's also the most boring, and the gamble has long overstayed its welcome, at least by three years thanks to other games employing similar general strategies in their rosters.
Mehists are wrong because this is simply just the best way that Game Design currently knows to create a level playing field for competitive play.
THE TRUTH
You buy a game plus season pass for nearly a hundred and all the things they promised are either late or factual misconduct.
1. Multiple game modes
2. Extensive Roster
According to an unnamed source who has spoken to developers in person I have secondhand information that the developers actually want some characters to be weak and some to be strong. I don't know what to say if this is indeed true. I don't want to believe it, personally.
I mean, what the hell. When you sell your game promising a wide range of fighters, you can't afford yourself the audacity of such petty nonsense.
There is literally no point having a character in a game if that character will be weaker than everyone else, and it's a dishonourable lie to tell people otherwise.
3. Combat
The game is balanced. But if you want to win without tearing your hair out, pick Groh, Talim, or Seong Mi-Na.
CONCUSION
I'm disappointed. I was in literal romantic love with the original Soul Edge and would spend countless hours on it, often at the cost of my homework. A habit that I grew up out of thankfully. Many years later as a now well-educated person who has luckily done all the homework possible, I can tell you one thing.
Soul Calibur 6 is a good game.
But a disappointing one for all the above reasons.
Thank you for reading.
Just my two cents regarding SC6 so far.
Disappointed
NOT ABOUT THE LOSING
As someone who has been playing fighting games for as long as they existed, I'm not one to feel upset about losing. When two sides face off in a competitive setting, one will win and one will lose. Luck has very little to do with it. The character you play, has very little to do with it. Both are a factor to some extent: luck more so in online play and the character more so in offline play, but these are points that would take a much longer discussion and this article isn't about that. Let's just say that the first step towards the right mindset in a game such as this one is accepting that you will lose; and you will lose a LOT.
NOT ABOUT THE WINNING
Winning in competitive games such as this one has everything to do with how well you know your opponent's options, and your own. I have been into martial arts at least as long as I have enjoyed competitive pvp and I can tell you one thing.
The right mindset, that you are ready to lose - or as Mitsurugi says, not being afraid to die - is just one step in the right direction: you have to then overcome the greatest opponent that any cliche karate movie will tell you, and it is true. Yourself.
Defeating your opponents comes about, once you've overcome your own problems such as being pattern-prone, unwilling to act under pressure, considering some moves "too cheap to use" or on the contrary: just randomly mashing buttons, not understanding how to react under pressure, and calling other people cheap.
Or even just being an angry son of a gun and trying to fight like a jerk and becoming more and more predictable, losing more and getting even angrier.
ALL ABOUT THE JOURNEY
Any number of these psychological hurdles will create intrinsic barriers to your progress and bog you down at whatever slice of the truth you have currently attained. You will feel like you aren't progressing on your journey, that you aren't improving anymore.
There is that old cultural appropriation of a proverb that a lot of people use but it seems more like a self-reassurance than something we, in our western consumer culture will ever truly understand.
"It's not the goal that matters but the journey to get there."
I mean, you're fine.
You want to mash buttons, be my guest. Guilty as charged - I've done so before.
You want to let your anger out at the game, sure, why not. Also guilty. I've stomped not one controller into tiny bits before over computer games when life wasn't going well and the game failed to relieve my already high amounts of stress.
You're fine if you want to rage, or just have a laugh.
But if you want to get good, you'll need to forget about emotions, about what your Stats say. And just play. Lose, win, practice, understand, fail, understand more, fail more, and eventually improve at your own pace.
Just remember to have fun while you do it.
Or uninstall the game.
THE HOW
The title of my article is Disappointed, and I'm about to get down to why. I just wanted to make the above mindset clear because we are only human and we tend to blame one another for our own shortcomings, or what's worse, see someone else's and call them out as if we, ourselves, had none.
I have plenty.
I'm impatient, I'm methodically aloof and generally sarcastic. I'm pretty sure more people in life dislike me than like me because I tend to speak up about things that people rather prefer not to bring up, because it's more safe to be in denial than to call things out and work on them.
I feel like there are two distinct groups of people who currently inhabit the virtual scape of Soul Calibur 6's community. The Okayists and the Mehists.
The Okayists are people who say that the game is at least okay, but may even be completely content with it. They are happy that we finally have a Calibur game on PC, or that the game even had a sequel.
The Mehists are people who say the game is at least meh, but may even call it horrible for one reason or another. They have very distinct opinions about what's wrong with the game and potentially even some general ideas what to do to fix it, even if it's something as unavailable as removing that one character they dislike from the game forever, or bringing back something from the older titles that's radically different in this one.
I think you're all wrong, and here is why.
THE WHY
On one hand, Soul Calibur 6 is a very poorly articulated combat game for all the wrong reasons. The #1 reason of course being money: classic characters like Sophitia and Mitsurugi are literally fighting a sword-and-shield battle against opponents like Azwel or 2B who literally cover everywhere you can go and counter everything you can do. It wouldn't be that bad but they touch you once and do three times the damage your "classic" character will do.
You can of course spend a few hours in Practice mode and figure out their moves if you really care, but the game design right now just murders what Soul Calibur really is. Was.
One of the most prevalent reasons of Mehism is that we have these characters; robots and mages that fight samurai and knights and it feels very unrewarding sometimes. For the game's own theme as well as for the general gameplay.
On the other hand Soul Calibur 6 has great potential for game balance. The universal defense mechanisms like GI and RE create a level playing field so that no single character will lag behind in terms of viability - even if some of them can delete most of your healthbar off of a single successful hit.
That is if you aren't completely annoyed by how RE is literally just Rock Paper Scissors. Many competitive gamers despise it and with good reason.
That reason is how Soul Calibur 6 handles its combat pacing currently. The game is heavily ruled by decision making that is more reminiscent of gambling than that of competitive pvp. There is a trope where mixups and setplay are frowned upon in the FGC yet the truth of the matter is that they are too much fun, to a point.
I promised a why, too.
Okayists are wrong because while this is by far the most balanced fighting game in a long time, it's also the most boring, and the gamble has long overstayed its welcome, at least by three years thanks to other games employing similar general strategies in their rosters.
Mehists are wrong because this is simply just the best way that Game Design currently knows to create a level playing field for competitive play.
THE TRUTH
You buy a game plus season pass for nearly a hundred and all the things they promised are either late or factual misconduct.
1. Multiple game modes
- Story mode is bad. The voiceover is sloppy, and instead of proper cinematics you get poorly drawn portraits with horrible dialogue. If you go on Deviant Art you get better art than what this game has for the most part.
- Create A Soul is recycled from previous games. The worst chinese mmorpg has more options for character faces than CaS at this point. There are five faces, ten hairstyles and that's your options. Many clothes don't work together, the game wants you to remove one before you use the other. And essential pieces that existed in all previous titles are missing, potentially not yet released or who knows, maybe never will be.
- Network play is pretty bad across multiple countries. I live in Eastern Europe and people as close as France already lag like crazy, whereas in other fighting games I've played someone from the West Coast of the USA and had very little in the way of lag.
- Training mode is sloppy and poorly executed, with its tutorial modes barely giving you any decent (mostly generic and dumb) advice on how to handle your character.
2. Extensive Roster
According to an unnamed source who has spoken to developers in person I have secondhand information that the developers actually want some characters to be weak and some to be strong. I don't know what to say if this is indeed true. I don't want to believe it, personally.
I mean, what the hell. When you sell your game promising a wide range of fighters, you can't afford yourself the audacity of such petty nonsense.
There is literally no point having a character in a game if that character will be weaker than everyone else, and it's a dishonourable lie to tell people otherwise.
3. Combat
The game is balanced. But if you want to win without tearing your hair out, pick Groh, Talim, or Seong Mi-Na.
CONCUSION
I'm disappointed. I was in literal romantic love with the original Soul Edge and would spend countless hours on it, often at the cost of my homework. A habit that I grew up out of thankfully. Many years later as a now well-educated person who has luckily done all the homework possible, I can tell you one thing.
Soul Calibur 6 is a good game.
But a disappointing one for all the above reasons.
Thank you for reading.