Last Saturday began quite typically for me. I passed most of the day in a park near my apartment, enjoying the mild northern California winter and altogether being excruciatingly wholesome. It was not to last, however. My usual routine of smelling flowers, writing poetry, and being kind to animals was cut short by the arrival of Namco Bandai’s FilthieRich. He approached me, introduced himself, and asked me one fateful question: “Does this rag smell like chloroform to you?”
I awoke hours later in what can only be described as a lair. The space was dark and cramped, its walls and floor adorned with blinking lights, dangling electrodes, whirring machinery. Someone had stolen my shoes. Just as I felt fear couldn’t tighten its grip on my heart any more viciously, Rich appeared once again from the shadows obscuring the far end of my cell. “Hey, wanna play some Soul Calibur 5?” he asked.....
After a great deal of waiting, a fair amount of jealousy, and entirely too much watching and re-watching of grainy videos from across the Pacific, I am thrilled to report that I can finally offer up my direct impressions of SC5. Before I do that, however, allow me to dispense with the usual disclaimers:
1. The build I played was the same one seen at SCR; anything and everything is potentially subject to change in the final version.
2. While I had what felt like a substantial amount of time to play around, I could really only begin to scratch the surface of the characters, the matchups, and so on—these are raw impressions on my end.
3. This review is coming from the perspective of a longtime competitive player, so it will be biased in that direction. My utmost condolences to CaS fans.
That properly established, let’s dive in.
I. Graphics & Sound
The game’s gorgeous. Allow me to echo everyone who previously stated that it’s impossible to get a sense of how good it looks until you actually sit down to play it. Videos really fail to do it justice. The art direction is solid; the characters each possess unique visual styles, and yet, taken as a whole, the game still maintains that overall “Soul Calibur” aesthetic feel which sets it apart from other fighting franchises. The same can be said for the music. We’re once more getting an epic orchestral accompaniment to all our battles.
Just as importantly, if not more so, characters’ moves look visually interesting and viscerally brutal, and they crash, slash, and clash in a highly satisfying manner. It may seem like a little detail, but these sorts of aural and visual rewards go a long way toward enhancing my enjoyment of a game. They draw you in and get you excited about what’s taking place on the screen.
II. Gameplay
Each new SC installment has its own distinct game feel, and this is certainly no exception. The new mechanics—Quickstep, BE moves, Critical Edges, Just Guard, and guard breaking—contribute to this greatly, but it’s equally a product of freer movement, innovative stage ideas, and intelligently tweaked movesets. Many returning characters return with largely familiar moves intact, but their properties are such that they often have very different applications within the new overall game engine, and it feels good. Move lists are shorter overall, but that does not seem to impact the game’s overall depth. The characters I examined mostly lost redundant or “fluff” moves, and the core of what remains is solid and allows for broad-stroke experimentation.
From a competitive standpoint, SC5 rewards activity and punishes passivity, both on offense and defense, and it does so in ways both apparent and subtle. Thanks to guard breaking and chip damage on throw escapes, simply holding block becomes a good way to get oneself in quite a bit of trouble. Instead, the game rewards active commitment to defensive options such as crouching, stepping, jG, evasion, and so on, each of which involves accepting a certain degree of risk.
Similarly, when pressuring an opponent, the most rewarding offensive options also involve committing oneself. Damage on moves like 2A, 2K, and other minor pokes seems greatly reduced and most AA and BB attacks are also underwhelming, damage-wise, rendering them useful primarily in checking an opponent. In order to access major damage, it is usually necessary to make a read and put yourself out there.
III. Pace
Rewarding activity is also a main contributor to what people call the faster pace of the game. Yes, all characters move about much more freely than in SC4, but they don’t zip around like they did in SC2. The game plays much faster than its previous installments, however, because every character seems to be able to do significant combo damage, and every character must gamble on offense or defense lest they lose due to guard breaking.
The general formula I found is this: both players dance around at range for a bit until one makes a critical error and allows the other to pick his spot and begin mounting as furious an offense as possible, rinse, repeat. This leads to round and match resolutions that are quite fast. As more players embrace the new system and come to appreciate the rewards of Quickstep, BE, and CE, I expect this trend to continue.
IV. Balance
This is always a tough call to make based on one day’s worth of practice (case in point, remember how Hilde was “mid-tier” for about eight or nine days after SC4’s release), but I’m actually optimistic. After playing around with and against a number of characters, I can’t really single out any as being bad. There will be tiers, of course, because diversity is the enemy of balance and we’re talking about an ambitiously diverse game, but at the same time characters like Nightmare, who I felt was garbage in SC3 and 4, feel genuinely viable.
I’m acutely interested, actually, in how the overall tier sentiment will progress as SC5 evolves and people become more on-point with meter use, jG, and the like. For now, though, most everyone feels pretty good, though some are certainly easier to pick up and play (Astaroth, Xiba, et al) than others (Zwei, Viola).
V. Tournament Viability
SC5 will make for exciting tournament play because it forces you to constantly make active decisions in order to maximize your chance at victory. Combined with the fast round resolution discussed above, I think it will have a rather unique feel for we players. Moreover, it’s fun to watch, and the overall pace should prevent tournament matches from grinding on for ages, thereby making things easier on tournament organizers. Again, I can’t wait to see how it all looks by the time EVO rolls around.
VI. What We’ve Seen Thus Far/Learning Curve
As I mentioned on last night’s iPlayWinner stream, I feel like I topped out the usefulness of my legacy skill-set within the first twenty or so games that I played. After that point, I really felt as though I had to embrace the new system in order to continue improving. Squaring off against Rich, I believe, is what pushed me to that point so quickly. Most of the gameplay we have seen from various streams is fairly rudimentary stuff; barring a handful of major exceptions, it mostly resembles SC4 game-play with better graphics, because that’s all we as players have to draw upon right now. Rich’s use of Quickstep, BE, and CE attacks made it quite plain to me that application of those techniques is the key for veterans who want to improve quickly.
What does this mean for newer players? Well, if this is your first SC game, or the first time you considered playing competitively, now is a perfect opportunity to get involved. Everyone will need to learn and master a lot of new techniques, so the gap between veterans and newcomers won’t be so enormous. SC5 has a very powerful training mode, to boot, so there are no excuses. Get on it!
I awoke hours later in what can only be described as a lair. The space was dark and cramped, its walls and floor adorned with blinking lights, dangling electrodes, whirring machinery. Someone had stolen my shoes. Just as I felt fear couldn’t tighten its grip on my heart any more viciously, Rich appeared once again from the shadows obscuring the far end of my cell. “Hey, wanna play some Soul Calibur 5?” he asked.....
After a great deal of waiting, a fair amount of jealousy, and entirely too much watching and re-watching of grainy videos from across the Pacific, I am thrilled to report that I can finally offer up my direct impressions of SC5. Before I do that, however, allow me to dispense with the usual disclaimers:
1. The build I played was the same one seen at SCR; anything and everything is potentially subject to change in the final version.
2. While I had what felt like a substantial amount of time to play around, I could really only begin to scratch the surface of the characters, the matchups, and so on—these are raw impressions on my end.
3. This review is coming from the perspective of a longtime competitive player, so it will be biased in that direction. My utmost condolences to CaS fans.
Special Condolences to this guy for not testing to see if this completely heinous error was fixed.*
That properly established, let’s dive in.
I. Graphics & Sound
The game’s gorgeous. Allow me to echo everyone who previously stated that it’s impossible to get a sense of how good it looks until you actually sit down to play it. Videos really fail to do it justice. The art direction is solid; the characters each possess unique visual styles, and yet, taken as a whole, the game still maintains that overall “Soul Calibur” aesthetic feel which sets it apart from other fighting franchises. The same can be said for the music. We’re once more getting an epic orchestral accompaniment to all our battles.
Just as importantly, if not more so, characters’ moves look visually interesting and viscerally brutal, and they crash, slash, and clash in a highly satisfying manner. It may seem like a little detail, but these sorts of aural and visual rewards go a long way toward enhancing my enjoyment of a game. They draw you in and get you excited about what’s taking place on the screen.
Speaking of excited, this marketing campaign stimulates me too. Genius.*
II. Gameplay
Each new SC installment has its own distinct game feel, and this is certainly no exception. The new mechanics—Quickstep, BE moves, Critical Edges, Just Guard, and guard breaking—contribute to this greatly, but it’s equally a product of freer movement, innovative stage ideas, and intelligently tweaked movesets. Many returning characters return with largely familiar moves intact, but their properties are such that they often have very different applications within the new overall game engine, and it feels good. Move lists are shorter overall, but that does not seem to impact the game’s overall depth. The characters I examined mostly lost redundant or “fluff” moves, and the core of what remains is solid and allows for broad-stroke experimentation.
From a competitive standpoint, SC5 rewards activity and punishes passivity, both on offense and defense, and it does so in ways both apparent and subtle. Thanks to guard breaking and chip damage on throw escapes, simply holding block becomes a good way to get oneself in quite a bit of trouble. Instead, the game rewards active commitment to defensive options such as crouching, stepping, jG, evasion, and so on, each of which involves accepting a certain degree of risk.
Similarly, when pressuring an opponent, the most rewarding offensive options also involve committing oneself. Damage on moves like 2A, 2K, and other minor pokes seems greatly reduced and most AA and BB attacks are also underwhelming, damage-wise, rendering them useful primarily in checking an opponent. In order to access major damage, it is usually necessary to make a read and put yourself out there.
I-told-you-so bold (tm) in the above section courtesy of a bitter old man. So bitter.
III. Pace
Rewarding activity is also a main contributor to what people call the faster pace of the game. Yes, all characters move about much more freely than in SC4, but they don’t zip around like they did in SC2. The game plays much faster than its previous installments, however, because every character seems to be able to do significant combo damage, and every character must gamble on offense or defense lest they lose due to guard breaking.
The general formula I found is this: both players dance around at range for a bit until one makes a critical error and allows the other to pick his spot and begin mounting as furious an offense as possible, rinse, repeat. This leads to round and match resolutions that are quite fast. As more players embrace the new system and come to appreciate the rewards of Quickstep, BE, and CE, I expect this trend to continue.
IV. Balance
This is always a tough call to make based on one day’s worth of practice (case in point, remember how Hilde was “mid-tier” for about eight or nine days after SC4’s release), but I’m actually optimistic. After playing around with and against a number of characters, I can’t really single out any as being bad. There will be tiers, of course, because diversity is the enemy of balance and we’re talking about an ambitiously diverse game, but at the same time characters like Nightmare, who I felt was garbage in SC3 and 4, feel genuinely viable.
I’m acutely interested, actually, in how the overall tier sentiment will progress as SC5 evolves and people become more on-point with meter use, jG, and the like. For now, though, most everyone feels pretty good, though some are certainly easier to pick up and play (Astaroth, Xiba, et al) than others (Zwei, Viola).
Also, the game has handy charts to help us avoid Tier Debates. They will never happen again!*
V. Tournament Viability
SC5 will make for exciting tournament play because it forces you to constantly make active decisions in order to maximize your chance at victory. Combined with the fast round resolution discussed above, I think it will have a rather unique feel for we players. Moreover, it’s fun to watch, and the overall pace should prevent tournament matches from grinding on for ages, thereby making things easier on tournament organizers. Again, I can’t wait to see how it all looks by the time EVO rolls around.
VI. What We’ve Seen Thus Far/Learning Curve
As I mentioned on last night’s iPlayWinner stream, I feel like I topped out the usefulness of my legacy skill-set within the first twenty or so games that I played. After that point, I really felt as though I had to embrace the new system in order to continue improving. Squaring off against Rich, I believe, is what pushed me to that point so quickly. Most of the gameplay we have seen from various streams is fairly rudimentary stuff; barring a handful of major exceptions, it mostly resembles SC4 game-play with better graphics, because that’s all we as players have to draw upon right now. Rich’s use of Quickstep, BE, and CE attacks made it quite plain to me that application of those techniques is the key for veterans who want to improve quickly.
What does this mean for newer players? Well, if this is your first SC game, or the first time you considered playing competitively, now is a perfect opportunity to get involved. Everyone will need to learn and master a lot of new techniques, so the gap between veterans and newcomers won’t be so enormous. SC5 has a very powerful training mode, to boot, so there are no excuses. Get on it!
Tekken players, don't worry. We have the cure for what ails you. Just come on over, brothers*.
VII. The Grand Philosophical Question: Is It Fun?
Hell yes.
As of right now, the game’s a breath of fresh air. It looks great, it sounds great, and it certainly appears to have a lot of potential for deep, nuanced play. We never truly know what we’re dealing with until everyone has had a few months to really dig into things, but as of right now I have exceedingly high hopes.
Homework:
I was pretty broad here, so hit me up about specifics if you’re curious. If you played the game, let me know if your assessment matches mine. Also, as always, share questions and concerns, and try like hell to pick an online fight with a stranger. It makes us all stronger people. Lastly, I’m on Twitter now (@Original_Hater) so follow me if you care to. I’ll update about the column, events I attend, etc. It also lets you bother me basically 24/7, which should be reward enough in itself.
*Special thanks to the 8WayRun forum community for helping this last minute article out with some comic spice. Mage, Ring and the guy who posted that video, you are awesome. Also special thanks to Shauno for bringing the outrage on TZ.
Edit 2: Nightmare impressions thread.
