Early thoughts from playing a half hour or so yesterday night.

StSpider

[09] Warrior
So yesterday after work I was able to pick up the game, unfortunately I couldn't play after dinner because I had stuff to do but I managed to sneak in an arcade run and check out the creation mode briefly.

Honestly, among the good things, there are many things here and there that disappointed me:

- loading times. I am on PS4 (normal) and it takes too long to load matches. For a fast paced game like SC6 I almost FEEL like I'm spending more time loading than playing the game. There's loading to show the character portrait and another loading for the stage. I know in reality it's only like 20 seconds or so, but it bums me out a lot.

- no arcade ending whatsoever;

- no 2P costumes - I know this was confirmed earlier but I missed it somehow and it bums me out a lot.

- no arcade selection character screen (just a popup window)....WTF?

- it seems like everything - or almost everything - regarding character creation is unlocked from the start. Weapons, items, etc. No sense of progression with unlockings?

- I don't mind that Tira is a day one unlockable but it's ridiculous that you can fight VS the character in the game but not use it unless you pay. THAT is ridiculous.

So far...I'm a bit disappointed really it doesn't feel as polished as I hoped. It's all minor things but still.
 
Most of this doesn't effect the competitive scene, which is what this site is mostly about. Besides, you can create a ring character in CaS. You have the gameplay for her anyways.

Though agree with a lot of your opinion, I think the game itself is more fluid, and solid feeling than other Caliburs in the past. I'd say put in more than just a few hours into the game, and come back with further thoughts.
 
A far as loading times go, I'd upgrade to a PS4 Pro. I know a lot of people don't want to hear that, but I have a regular PS4 in my living room and a Pro in my bedroom. The Pro loads a match in 5-7 seconds, while the vanilla PS4 takes upwards of 15 seconds sometimes. PC is always an option too, but I'd stick to the PS4 version if you're serious about the game or competing in general. Good luck, mate.
 
The only thing that is great is the actual gameplay. Everything else is lackluster and more time spend playing will not change anything. You won't suddenly get 2P costumes, more CaS content, or anything else from playing. You say they are minor but they are things that have been in previous SCs so your stance is understandable. There's a reason why every fighting game is cutting content and not polishing up the game and that is because they can get away with it. If you haven't noticed every fighting game is doing it and its players support it.

SF, Tekken, and now SC people all have said the same thing. "It doesn't affect the gameplay so it doesn't matter". To be blunt, this is how it's going to be from now on so you should expect more of the same if you play fighting games. Every fighting game is doing the same thing regardless.
 
A far as loading times go, I'd upgrade to a PS4 Pro. I know a lot of people don't want to hear that, but I have a regular PS4 in my living room and a Pro in my bedroom. The Pro loads a match in 5-7 seconds, while the vanilla PS4 takes upwards of 15 seconds sometimes. PC is always an option too, but I'd stick to the PS4 version if you're serious about the game or competing in general. Good luck, mate.

The original PS4 is bottle necked with SATA2 hard drive read speeds but I hear that PS4 Pro is proper SATA3 speed which would explain why your PS4 Pro is loading faster.
 
I'm sad to ascertain that they made the same mistakes again. Its an improvement over SCV, but still feels lacking in so many ways. The gameplay its pretty solid, but also was previous installements, and they literally said that the franchise was an step from dying.
And how they proceeded? By doing the same thing again.
"Wow, this game where we focused so much on online that pretty much ignored the single player failed hard, how can we prevent it from happening again?"
"Lets do the same thing again!"
"BRILLANT! what could possibly go wrong?"

I know I'm a filthy casual, I know, and I know that my opinión is invalid because "shut up, what matters is the gameplay, no one cares if arcade has endings or not". But, looking at the current state of the franchise that way of thinking hasn't been very profitable it seems (and is not my opinion but an statement of the producers).
 
I'm sad to ascertain that they made the same mistakes again. Its an improvement over SCV, but still feels lacking in so many ways. The gameplay its pretty solid, but also was previous installements, and they literally said that the franchise was an step from dying.
And how they proceeded? By doing the same thing again.


I know I'm a filthy casual, I know, and I know that my opinión is invalid because "shut up, what matters is the gameplay, no one cares if arcade has endings or not". But, looking at the current state of the franchise that way of thinking hasn't been very profitable it seems (and is not my opinion but an statement of the producers).
They had a limited budget and still had Libra of Souls, Chronicle of Souls (Which is far superior to simply arcade endings) and CaS (Which while limited currently has a robust skeleton which can only improve when more content is added) so how exactly did they ignore us casuals? If anything they gave us more support than any fighter has with the exception of maybe Soulcalibur III. Don't give me this they ignored us crap. With that attitude they certainly will ignore us considering they clearly bent over backwards with their limited budget to include us heavily.

Same thing my ass.

Oh and this is coming from a casual, like you supposedly are.
 
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I'm sad to ascertain that they made the same mistakes again. Its an improvement over SCV, but still feels lacking in so many ways. The gameplay its pretty solid, but also was previous installements, and they literally said that the franchise was an step from dying.
And how they proceeded? By doing the same thing again.


I know I'm a filthy casual, I know, and I know that my opinión is invalid because "shut up, what matters is the gameplay, no one cares if arcade has endings or not". But, looking at the current state of the franchise that way of thinking hasn't been very profitable it seems (and is not my opinion but an statement of the producers).

This can't be further from the truth. I believe online was ignored in favor of single player content. Matchmaking sucks and will match you against literally anyone. The casual match search UI is confusing and I haven't even figured out how to sort it yet. The only nice thing about the online play is the net code. Though I'm sure they took a few hints from tekken on that respect.

Meanwhile, the CaS and libra of souls is the best content in the game and the best the CaS has been in the franchise. But everyone is losing their shit saying it sucks. Yes there are less options but the options that are there are high quality. I have seen very little clipping issues compared to the CaS in other games. I would rather have a few good options over a lot of bad options. Everyone's CaS that I've seen online has been unique and you can tell which people actually put the time into designing their characters.
 
They had a limited budget and still had Libra of Souls, Chronicle of Souls (Which is far superior to simply arcade endings)

No it's not. It's not satisfactory at all. If I play an arcade run I'd like to see something for my effort. I will play arcade over and over again but once I clear CoS I will never play a chapter ever again. Most of the stories don't even have a boss, just CaS characters.

"far superior", not at all.
 
No it's not. It's not satisfactory at all. If I play an arcade run I'd like to see something for my effort. I will play arcade over and over again but once I clear CoS I will never play a chapter ever again. Most of the stories don't even have a boss, just CaS characters.

"far superior", not at all.
Sounds to me like your needs are overly specific and simplistic. We've got libra of souls to play. Battles with actual context. If all you want is to spam arcade all day then yeah guess it's lacking. Sounds boring to me, arcade endings or no. Personally I'm thrilled to have a break from the arcade spam redundancy of pretty much every fighter myself.

This game did a bit of everything to apeal to lots of playstyles. None of us got one hundred percent of what we wanted by a long shot. We all sacrificed a bit for each other. You still have arcade, I have a stunted CaS and Libra and online play exists for the online community.

So they did their best by all of us with the budget they had. So what you're really saying isn't that they screwed over casuals so much as they didn't tailor it to your tastes and your tastes alone. Cause casuals come in many forms and clearly you don't represent all of us as Arcade spamming is the most boring thing my casual ass can think of.
 
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Sounds to me like your needs are overly specific and simplistic.
So what you're really saying isn't that they screwed over casuals so much as they didn't tailor it to your tastes and your tastes alone.

Except Arcade ending - specifically arcade endings with input based choices - is a staple of the serie ever since Soul Edge. So it does not come down to pandering my tastes, it comes down to give a loyal playerbase what they've come to expect after 20 years of buying this serie.

Besides, if every game offers a decent Arcade experience it's all the more reason for SOul Calibur to offer it too. I don't play other fighting games, I only really play SC and there's nothing quite like it.
 
My impressions:

The nice things
Libra of Souls is indeed awesome.
Story mode has lot of dialogues and nice artwork.
Its fast.

The bad things:
CE were already bad in scV but RE is even worse… i still think that scIV guard break finish were instead a nice idea.
I suspect the budget cuts hit balance and testing mostly, it could be the most unbalanced game of the series and i suspect problems rooted in the new system. I bet no more than 6-8 characters are tournament worthy at this point.
no 2p Costumes
Graphic seems a beta
Network glicthes
Season PASS for a budget game sold at the price of an AAA....
Training is terrible. No frames and stuff.

In general for the first time in an SC game, i am bored after few days…..
I still think this will be the worst of the series, yet they will make another when they need more moneys for tekken.
 
I'd like to know exactly how VI manages to be worse than IV or V, tbh. What good did those games have that this one doesn't. Miss me with the 2p costume thing.
 
I'd like to know exactly how VI manages to be worse than IV or V, tbh. What good did those games have that this one doesn't. Miss me with the 2p costume thing.

1) Balance … (yep it was bad in scV its ridiculous in scVI imho)
2) graphic
3) training
4) CaS (not that i care).

5) Honorable mention: Season pass
 
1) Balance … (yep it was bad in scV its ridiculous in scVI imho)
2) graphic
3) training
4) CaS (not that i care).

5) Honorable mention: Season pass

1) First of all, it's honestly still a bit too early to judge this to the fullest extent possible, though I understand what you mean according to all the study on the game I've done so far. However, as long as they pay attention and listen, this can be improved upon (if it ends up needing to be) with patches.
2) Sorry, I can't be nice, but this is a ridiculous criticism
3) Agree. Needs more options.
4) Agree to an extent. CaS isn't super important to me either but I do enjoy it - it definitely needs more options, but I'd argue, as I've seen someone else say here, it currently has a robust base that can be decently built upon with more waves of extra content.

5) Admittedly, they haven't handled it well. Main criticism is how they've handled Tira in general, and we also should know who the other 3 characters are before we buy. I acknowledge this is a problem.

Overall, I don't see how such flaws make it worse than 4 or 5, though. Disregarding balance for a second, 6 is much smoother and faster than both 4 and 5, and movement is actually fluid and viable again. This alone is enough to elevate it above those two for me, personally. The roster is also far better than 5's. Libra of Souls and Soul Chronicles are also very good single player modes that are far and above any single player options offered in 4 and 5, imo, yes even Tower of Lost Souls (I think that's what it was called?) Overall, most of these flaws cannot be called flaws just yet or can be fixed as long as they pay attention and patch efficiently. Way too early to give up on this game if these are your reasons, I think. You do you though.
 
1) First of all, it's honestly still a bit too early to judge this to the fullest extent possible, though I understand what you mean according to all the study on the game I've done so far. However, as long as they pay attention and listen, this can be improved upon (if it ends up needing to be) with patches.
Its not.
We start getting framelists and they reflect most early thoughts.
As i said first tournaments will be another proof. (but as for scV people will say its too early until the game dies).

2) Sorry, I can't be nice, but this is a ridiculous criticism
What? A parameter used in most reviews since forever now its ridiculous? didn t you look at how stages are?


5) Admittedly, they haven't handled it well. Main criticism is how they've handled Tira in general, and we also should know who the other 3 characters are before we buy. I acknowledge this is a problem.
For the price+Season Pass they should have sold an AAA game or they should have reduced price.


6 is much smoother and faster than both 4 and 5, and movement is actually fluid and viable again.
...


This alone is enough to elevate it above those two for me,
This is a rather personal way to judge a game.


The roster is also far better than 5's.
If for Roster you mean Nightmare maybe.

Libra of Souls and Soul Chronicles are also very good single player modes that are far and above any single player options offered in 4 and 5, imo, yes even Tower of Lost Souls (I think that's what it was called?) Overall, most of these flaws cannot be called flaws just yet or can be fixed as long as they pay attention and patch efficiently. Way too early to give up on this game if these are your reasons, I think. You do you though.
Ok if you judge scVI as a single player game it might be better than both scIv and scV.

Most of those flaws COULD be fixed….unfortunately i remember what Harada said on their concept of balance (after a huge uproar in scV) and i can bet anything that they won't be touched.
They want OP and useless character… in the perfect MMOrpg philosophy (something that western players hate), but even worse they do not want to rotate power of said characters.


I could add something else.
Removing hit confirm from many moves is a step backwards 10 years in fighting games and in videogames in general.
 
For balance, I read that Namco hired at least 2 Japanese pro Soul Calibur players for SC6 (Shining Decopon and a Maxi player, maybe Oosaka?) so it's possible that the characters are balanced based on Japanese playing styles.

I do wish they fixed some of the laggy stages.
 
Here's my thoughts:

1) The balance is kind of a hot mess right now. Ivy is ridiculous, groh is ridiculous, azwell is ridiculous. One thing they did right though, is give all characters more moves, more stance options, and everyone has a better step game than before. SC and RE are sort of like equalizers but it's just a band aid to fix balance. Astaroth and Talim both seem weak to me. Patches will fix this hopefully, or worst case scenario they 'fix' a character into broken status. Pre-patch viola in scv wasn't broken. What I'm worried about is a balance patch that actually makes it worse, not better. I want the game to be out for at least 6 months before they even think about doing this.

2) Online. This is 2018. I want an online experience that is damn near as good as offline. I have the best internet you can get from spectrum in my area, and it's still unplayable for me. I played one match yesterday, I did win it, but I couldn't combo or block lows. Not acceptable.

3) The AI legendary is quite good, much better than 5's. I'm having fun in arcade/battle mode. It actually uses proper combos, wall combo's, tech traps, mix-ups and mindgames. Still inhuman reactions but it feels much more like a human player than before.

4) single player modes are ass. Libia of souls is terrible. I have to skip through endless pages of dialogue IN TEXT with pictures? What the hell is this shit? The AI in this mode just stands there and gets hit for the most part too. Soul chronicle is OK, but again the AI doesn't do much.

5) Mechanics. Too much cinematic stuff going on. Too much time is spent waiting for animations to finish. I was slightly annoyed with it in v, but all we had were supers in that game. I prefer Brave edges over SC any day, you still get those extra moves without the pushback and cinematic. I'm not crazy about RE either, more cinematics, only it's worse with RE because people can through it out for free any time they want. What makes matters worse is that some characters attacks lead into RE, like Cervy's bb for example. I'm old school. I don't want/need all these flashy colors on screen it's kind of an eye strain, or maybe I'm just getting old.

6) graphics. I was pretty disappointed. the hair textures look last gen, the aliasing sucks (ps4). Something about it looks sort of cartoonish, can't put my finger on why. This is probably where the budget cuts got hit.

7) DLC's. Buying the season pass and not knowing what you're getting is pretty lame sauce. Tira should have been in the base game already. Cassandra should have made the base roster but right now no one knows if she's gonna make it at all. Same with Hilde.

I do like this game overall though. It's not without flaws unfortunately.
 
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