Logic's Insight: Soul Calibur V

[Thaeonblade]

Not sure if I'm posting in the right section, but here it goes...

Soul Calibur V is the biggest disappointment since my father.

I really can't think of any other thing in my gamer life that issues more feelings of disappointment, anger and utter betrayal when it comes to games that I play. Hell, it's not even the worst game that I've ever played and that's what makes me irk...

While my father has admitted to his mistakes, tried to made strides to not be a disappointment and I've made my peace with him and how he screwed up my life...Soul Calibur V's damage has forever affected me as a player. Halo 4, Mass Effect 3, Dragon Age, Kingdom Hearts...I can't play any of those games without thinking of the betrayal that was Soul Calibur V. It's like a fly that won't go away, no matter how much I swat it or go to another room. It's a pebble in my shoe and my shoe is stuck on my foot.

And if any of you "awesome-whores" under the age of 20 come up and say that Soul Calibur 3 was the worst game because it had dated graphics, then I suggest you stop reading this review right now before I tell you how much of an idiot you are! It doesn't matter how shiny or pretty it is, a turd is still a turd. Same with a gun, it doesn't matter how clean or shiny it looks, it'll still kill you if you're looking down the barrel when the trigger is pulled.

I just don't understand what happened...even with the obvious, I still don't understand how they screwed it up! It was made by the same team that made the previous games, did they just come into development and forgot about what they've been working on for the past 15 years?

I need to focus...need to focus...need...to...focus....

Okay...

Let's go...

For Context, I've been a fan of the series since Soul Calibur 2. I remember being in a Yugioh Recreational Tournament at the local Toys'R'Us where I would eventually get Tales of Symphonia and across from the same Wal-Mart where my mom got me SC2, a PS2 and SC3 as rewards for good grades in school. Well, at the time, I was an impressionable 13 year old boy and they had a demo for the game in the store. I played a blond with tights and short skirt and had fun. Then I learned that Link from Legend of Zelda was going to be in the game.

I had to have it.

Eventually, I studied and improved my grades as part of a deal that my mom made with me. For every A or every few B's, I would either get money or a video game. Since I could care less about money at the time, I went with video games. Eventually, I earned Soul Calibur 2 and loved every minute of it.

Not just Link even though he was a badass in that game, I also got hooked into it's story, it's lore, the historical background where each of these weapon masters were drawn from, the nearly 200 weapons that I could collect, each with it's own history and stats and it's epic gameplay where my brother managed to pwn me with Kilik even though I played the game more than he did!

That's...kind of what he did...

Even in retrospective, Soul Calibur 2 is well-regarded by mainstream gamers, soul series fans and even critics, it currently holds the second highest critic score in the series after the first Soul Calibur game.

Eventually, my mom bought me a ps2 along with Soul Calibur 3 and I was in love. Sure, Link was gone and the graphics were honestly a step down from 2, but the content was the highest in the series.

We had character customization for the first time with unique fighting styles; we had mini-games including one where we had to fight a stone colossus and another where you got to fight Night Terror; an alternate story mode involving newly made characters; Arcade; Harder Arcade; and a legit story mode that followed each character with input options for different outcomes and you could choose your path in that story.

Not to mention that the overall story of Soul Calibur had it's greatest draw here, it felt like...the Empire Strikes Back of the Soul Series.

No offense Tekken Fans, but this was where Soul Calibur surpassed Tekken as Namco's best fighter franchise.

A little after the 360 and PS3 came out, we had Soul Calibur IV and we were told that it would be the last Soul Series game. We were sad to see Soul Calibur go, but it was for the best and we figured that they would go out on a good foot.

They did and more...

Maybe it's not the best game in the series, but I'd say that it was the most AWESOME! It had heart...it had balls! It took a lot of risks and all of them payed off pretty-well.

Character Customization was updated, allowing people to even customize the look and costumes of the cast. You could even alter the height, weight and muscular tone of your customized character. True, you could only pick styles based on the cast, but you could still customize your character so that it was "your" character.

The Active Matching Battle system which allows players to choose their own team of characters and switch them out during battle allowing for a lot of tactical maneuvering and momentum. Sadly, you could only do this in the Story Mode and the Endurance Tower of Souls mode. With the Story Mode, your teams were pre-chosen based on your chosen character which was still cool because the game still pit some of our favorite characters on the same team.

The most infamous addition to this game's gameplay is the Soul Gauge for two different reasons. One was that it introduced costume damage where parts of your player's outfit would be damaged or destroyed if that part of the body was hit too often and that blocking or getting hit would diminish this gauge. If your gauge was emptied out then your opponent would have a shot at a cool one hit ko attack that would instantly win them the match.

Online Mode was introduced here and despite some hiccups, was very fun. There were two different ways of fighting, either standard or with stats and abilities that you gain through customization.

Lastly, this was the climax of the overall story. We had a lot of drama going on with the cast and it worked. Notable examples being: Sophitia being forced to the dark side to save her daughter, Pyrrha; The strain on Kilik and Xianghua's relationship due Kilik's past and the confrontation to come; Ivy literally dying because most of her soul was eaten by Cervantes (her father!); and the final battle between Siegfried and his demonic alter-ego Nightmare, the battle that would end Siegfried's quest for redemption from his days as Soul Edge's wielder in either victory or defeat, new life or death.

And then Soul Calibur V came along.

You'll probably notice that I've skipped over the series prologue game, Soul Blade and the first game, Soul Calibur.

This was intentional.

In fact, I've tried to find copies of the PS1 version, but I can't find it. Even then, it wouldn't really matter. So much changes between SCI and SB that Soul Blade seems like it's part of a different series. Likely because Namco didn't expect Soul Blade to kick off into it's own mainstream franchise and really treated it as a side-project compared to Tekken. In all honesty, it was a game that was part of a different era of gaming, so it wouldn't be fair for me to compare it to later games.

It would be like trying to compare the first Legend of Zelda game to Skyward Sword, they're both good in their own right and you'd look like a jerk for saying that Skyward Sword is better than the first Legend of Zelda. They're games in different eras of gaming and shouldn't be compared like one's better than the other.

I did however download the first Soul Calibur off of Xbox Live just to see where it all started and I wasn't disappointed. I could see why the people who first played this game in 1999 really liked it. Again, I won't compare it to later versions because it wouldn't be fair, but it would still hold up.

In short, I'd recommend Soul Calibur through SCIV to any fighting game fan and even Soul Blade if you're a vantage collector. Hell, I may end up buying that one just so I can say that I own the entire Soul Series.

But all of this is muddled down by Soul Calibur V...

For context, let me take you back to 2010 and you hear that Daishi Odashima, one of the game designers for SCIII and SCIV and current director of Project Soul, tweets that Soul Calibur is back. I was hyped for a new soul series game, but we didn't hear much else for a while.

Until 2011.

They started releasing pictures and trailers regarding it's gameplay and characters. So you probably heard stuff like this from Soul Series fans:

"Awesome! An older Mitsurugi and an older Siegfried are in this game! This is gonna be cool!"

"Patroklos? Pyrrha? Wait...Sophitia's kids! Neat! They're going to be the successors for their mother and aunt!"

"Hey! Xianghua and Kilik had a daughter-"

"Wait...Xianghua married some random general? Eh...we'll see when the game comes out..."

"Hey Maxi's back! And there's a newer looking Nightmare too!"

"Are those Soul Edge and Soul Calibur? They look epic!"

"Whose the girl with the floating crystal ball? She kind of sounds like Amy...is she Amy?"

"We can actually have fat characters and freely add muscle to different parts of our custom character's bodies? This is gonna be the best Soul Calibur game ever!"

And then we played the game...

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What?

You mean to tell that even while working with another development company that Project Soul couldn't deliver?

Random Fan: But the game was rushed by Namco-

Shut up! I'll get to that later! So what if it was rushed? It doesn't exactly help that Project Soul is leaving this in the dust in the state that it was released in! When you make a mistake, you need to own up to it and make amends! Trying to leave it in the dust and hope that we forget about it won't work...it'll just hurt sales for other games that Namco makes. Like Tekken Tag 2.

It's odd for me to say, but as far as fighting games go, Soul Calibur V is still relatively good. But as far as being a Soul Calibur game is concerned, it really hit the mark for reasons that I can't fathom...

Focus...need to focus...

Okay...

Let's start with the positive things about this game. Half of which are things that don't happen in the game.

1) Mitsurugi wasn't ruined

Now Kilik was ruined by being made into a mimic character and for possibly not being Leixia's father. But this wasn't detrimental to the series, just to the character of Kilik and Xianghua.

However, they didn't do anything like that to Mitsurugi. Mitsurugi is so cool, he's synonymous with Soul Calibur and is one of the most recognizable characters in he entire series.

Fortunately, he's not in the story mode at all. This should be a bad thing, but after going through the story mode, I'm glad that he's not in it. Because I know exactly what would happen if he was...

There would be some stupid scene where that Piss-shit Patroklos finds him and they fight and Patroklos wins. Then Patroklos would act like an ass and kill Mitsurugi for interferring with his duty as a "Holy Warrior." Fortunately, that scene never happens. Mitsurugi is still seated in his seat of badassery alongside Algol.

2) Hilde wasn't raped

Hilde was and oddity in SCIV, not just because she's the first red-head in the series, but because she was the most covered girl in that game. She was donned in full-plate armor while everyone else wore semi-revealing outfits that shouldn't count at all for protection except that the people wearing them are some of the best warriors in the world.

Thankfully, they don't throw this out the window. Hilde is still covered and still kicks ass. They did give her a pair of adorable kids without revealing who the father is...but I'm sure that it's not important. (My money's on Siegfried!)

3) They stopped stripping Ivy

With each game since SC1, the developers had been making Ivy's outfit more and more revealing. By SCIV, she's basically wearing strips of cloth that are magically enhanced so that her huge tracts of land don't slip out and cause this game to get an M rating. I wouldn't say that it was bad, but it did offend some circles of gamers.

So in SCV, they tastefully tone down her sexualization, giving her a primary outfit that covers her up more than any other game, but it's still VERY sexy. In fact, they did this with all of the female characters, covering them up but still making them somewhat sexy. Kind of a "Less Skin is More" approach, but not to conservative levels, it was an even ground.

4) No Ridiculous out-of-place Guest Characters

SC2 was released on different consoles and had some badass guest characters. Heihachi for the PS2, Spawn for the Xbox, and Link for the Gamecube. None of them really fit and their reasons for being in the Soul Calibur universe didn't make too much sense. But they were so awesome that gamers didn't really care.

SC4 also had some cool guest characters, but they really didn't fit and even gamers complained about it. Adding Star Wars characters to a fighting primarily based in the late 16th century is not a good move. I don't care how you explain it, there's something wrong with having a lightsaber get blocked by a steel katana...or giving these jedi/sith characters access to iconic force abilities that include shocking people to death, telekinesis, mental persuasion, and psychic choking.

Thankfully, they change this in SCV. We only have one guest character, Ezio Auditore from Assassin's Creed 2. Sure, he's a hundred years ahead of his actual time period, but he still fits into the time period and he's freaking awesome to boot.

Now the for the good things that are in the game.

5) Character Customization is expanded

Same rules as the customization in IV, only now we can alter body mass for each part of the body as well as height. You can even download costumes from Xbox Live's marketplace including costumes from the good Soul Calibur games.

6) Decent Combat Mechanics

A tutorial would be nice and I didn't like how they made guard impact/just guard more complicated to use. Other than that, the combat is decent. They toned down the special guage and equipment damage from SCIV, however it's not to levels that most will complain about.

That's what I'll do later in this review.

Story-wise and New Character wise, the only things that I liked about this game that's in the game's story were:

7) ZWEI and Pyrrha

While we don't see as much of them as I like and Pyrrha's screwed over for being miscast as the story's "villain", I still like both of them.

True, ZWEI looks like he belongs in a Final Fantasy game. But he's such a blunt badass that I don't care if he's out of place. He was a Sour Knight, a guy who didn't like people or how stupid they could be, but he was still a good guy and a loyal friend if you give him a shot.

Pyrrha's parts in the story really reminded me of Shinji Ikari. She's wimpy and doesn't have a backbone, but that's more because of getting a bad deal in life than it being her own fault. Her struggles with finding happiness were heart-wrenching and despite being cast and led along to being the "tragic villain", I felt like she was relatively more of a heroic figure than her brother, Patroklos.

Yeah...we'll get to him later.

What else did I like about this game? Let's see...I liked it whenever ZWEI beat up Patroklos; I liked it when Patroklos cried like a little wimp; I liked the corny line when Patroklos was called a dog; and even when I'm playing as him, I really love it when another player owns Patroklos.

Yeah, I really hate that little piss-shit.

Want to know why? Stay tuned for part 2.

 

[Thaeonblade]

Part 2...

Intro: Myth Busters

Before I fully begin this review, I want to take some time to debunk a few myths on why this game's story is "good" or why the game in general is the best in the series.

A) Because it's different from previous games.

No. Different isn't always better, the nail that sticks up is the one that's hammered down. Doing things differently only works when the result is as good or better than the previous method. As we can see with SCV, throwing out the traditional character endings backfires because now we have no idea about who we're playing as. We don't even get to choose who we play in the story mode.

B) Those cutscenes have great graphics.

No! Having cool graphics during cutscenes have come to be expected in games. In fact, having good graphics is just something that's part of making a game's environment and feel. There's nothing special about having awesome graphics because everyone has awesome graphics nowadays. Plus, it doesn't matter how pretty your game looks, if its lame then it's just pretty lame.

That's why a lot of people don't like Avatar too much or think that it's overrated. Sure, it has good technology and graphics, but the story is copied and pasted from other movies that told the same story: Trees and Nature=good; Technology, military and cooperations=evil.

Same thing with Final Fantasy XIII. It has the best graphics in the series, but if you judge on basis of content, quests, side-missions, story, plot and exploration potential...it measures out as more of an interactive movie than a video game. In that sense, it's worse than Dirge of Cerberus.

So if you think SCV is better because it has the best graphics, then you've been played my friend.

C) It did away with cliche black and white morality and added some shades of grey to it's dramatic tension.

No! Grey and Grey morality doesn't excuse miscast roles or bad writing. That kind of thing only works when both sides are relatively even in moral complexity and basis. For instance, you could argue that Star Wars has a lot of shades of grey. The Empire can be considered unforgivable for blowing up Alderaan and murdering the Jedi, sure and most Sith aren't exactly sympathetic.

However, you could make an argument about the heroes not being too heroic. Luke blew up a Station filled with millions of people who weren't evil and were just doing their jobs; He tries to bring his father back to the light side, but doesn't give a damn about the hundreds of storm troopers that he kills without a second thought; The jedi are guardians of peace and justice, but they also kidnap and brainwash infants and forged an alliance with Jabba the Hutt, a known and infamous despotic gangster with dynasties in the drug trade, bounty hunting, assassinations, slavery and illegal trafficking.

Adding shades of grey can make an audience think. But you still have to firmly establish which side is "good" and which is "evil" and let the audience choose for themselves based on how the story plays out.

But, this can also backfire if the writers don't think themselves and the good guys will end up being more villainous than the actual villains or the villains will seem more like good guys than the actual good guys.

Here's two examples:

Star Trek: Insurrection.

Regarded as one of the weakest star trek movies and is contentious as the worst start trek movie ever made. One of the reasons that this is the case is because the movie didn't do that great of a job with it's moral aesop.

In the movie, Picard comes across a race of human-like aliens known as the Ba'ku and befriends them. However, Picard comes into conflict with his superiors since they plan to beam the Ba'ku off the planet so that they can freely study it's miraculous regenerative energies that allow people to live hundreds of years without aging.

The story would want you to believe that the Federation is wrong for doing this and therefore, support Picard when he goes out of character and launches an insurrection in the sake of saving the Ba'ku. The problem with this story is that the Ba'ku are squatters on Federation property, they don't own the planet, the Federation does; Picard had taken part in at least two force relocations before but only now has a problem with it; and finally, this regenerative energy could actually help billions since the Federation was in the middle of a climatic war with an Empire called the Dominion.

Avatar

One could make an argument on how Jake Sully is the true villain of the movie and Miles Quaritch is the rough hero whose doing what he must to save humanity. The movie wants you to believe that humans are taking over Pandora because we're greedy monsters who want to destroy everything green and natural. The Na'vi are portrayed as a perfect simple race of noble warriors who are perfectly at peace with nature.

Ignoring the fact that indigenous cultures can be just as brutal to each other as "civilized" cultures can.

However, I actually did some research and have come to two conclusions: One, Sully is a selfish traitor and Two, I should think before rooting for the Na'vi. At this point in human history, Earth's natural resources have been exhausted and regardless of the reason, humanity needs a means to survive. That means is off-planet exportation and the main fuel for that transportation is the unobtainium that Jake was "supposed" to be negotiating for!

With this in mind and considering the events of the movie, Jake Sully has potentially doomed the human race to starve to death because he loves the Na'vi so much. I won't pretend that Quaritch was perfect, but at least he was loyal, at least he was trying to save humanity, and he was even going to fund the surgery that would allow Jake to use his human legs again. He really didn't become vindictive towards Jake until Jake betrayed him.

My point is that Grey and Grey morality works for making the audience think. But if not done smartly, it'll confuse them and you'll end up miscasting your roles in the story.

D) Patroklos was conflicted and more human than previous main characters.

You know what...I'm just going to start this review right here, with the biggest problem with the Story Mode and Soul Calibur V in general.

Problem 1: Patroklos

Before I go any further, I want to show you something.

This is Patroklos' character introduction scene and sums up everything that's wrong with this character!

Take a look:

Watch up to 45 seconds and then skip to 3:12 and watch it all the way through.

Watch it again...and again...

Then go back to 3:41 and just pause.

THAT IS OUR HERO LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!

But just to make sure that no one is confused on what a hero is or try to say that Patroklos is supposed to be an anti-hero...let's get a lesson on this from the most credible source on the internet.

Wikipedia.org

"A hero (heroine is always used for females), in Greek mythology and folklore, was originally a demigod, their cult being one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion.

A demigod is the son or daughter from one immortal and one mortal parent, an example would be Heracles, son of the mortal queen Alkema and the god Zeus.

Later, hero (male) and heroine (female) came to refer to characters who, in the face of danger and adversity or from a position of weakness, display courage and the will for self sacrifice—that is, heroism—for some greater good of all humanity. This definition originally referred to martial courage or excellence but extended to more general moral excellence."

In short, a hero in most contexts is a character struggling to achieve a deed for the greater good. Saving a princess from a dragon, Fighting an evil king, Rescuing children from kidnappers, Freeing slaves, Standing up to an Injustice in the System and overall being a generally good person. There are many ways of writing these characters and each type works for it's own story.

Master Chief is a hero and a good guy, but he's emotionally stunted by the methods used to make him into the soldier that he is. This makes it hard for him to connect with the people that he's trying to save.

The X-Men are good guys, but they're outcasts from the society that they protect due that society's own flaws. Despite this unfair treatment, they still protect the ungrateful bastards because they're of a higher moral fiber.

Batman is a good guy and hero who works under a moral code, but he's not nice. He'll beat the bad guys within an inch of their lives, threaten them, intimidate and terrify them, invade people's privacy and even stand in defiance of the law to do what he feels that he needs to do.

And since this is gonna come up, let's talk about Anti-Heroes and why Patroklos doesn't fit the definition of a hero or an anti-hero.

An anti-hero is basically a protagonist with negative and even villainous qualities who still qualify as heroes due to character development that tones down their negative qualities, struggling against an even greater and less morally questionable evil and actually have some profound heroic qualities that balance out the negative ones.

Let's have Kratos from God of War for an example.

Kratos is a blood-thirsty, murderous, vengeful savage whose on a single-minded quest to kill the Greek gods and doesn't care about what he destroys or who he kills to accomplish this. On first glance, the only thing that makes him remotely heroic is that the Greek gods are generally jerks to humanity for their own amusement and that they'd screwed around with his family out of fear of a prophecy that they ironically allowed to be fulfilled.

What balances him out is that he really was a good son, brother, father and husband to his family when they were alive. He defied Spartan tradition to save his daughter from being hurled off a cliff, He was tender and kind to his wife, and really feels remorse for having killed them despite it not being his fault. He wanted peace with his past and the gods lied to him about being able to give that to him. He even forms a father-daughter bond with Pandora during the second and third games, a bond that really exposed his humanity...humanity that was quashed by both his own actions and fate itself.

By the end of God of War 3, he attains his vengeance, but also sees the chaos and destruction that it has caused. To give humanity hope, he sacrifices his own life and to atone for the destruction that he selfishly caused. It's the kind of character that you can sympathize with, but the story doesn't hold his hand and makes him pay for every mistake that he makes.

Patroklos lacks any of this.

There isn't any redeeming or heroic qualities within this character. Even his love for his sister is messed over because of his later actions. When I see Patroklos, I don't see a main character, I see a whiny and pathetic brat that the story wants us to believe is the main hero.

I saw this challenge posted by some guy on Gamefaqs.com and decided to put it here with his permission:

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Describe your most and least favorite characters in the series without saying their names or important details about their storylines. You can use physical features as well, but the important thing is to think of as much as you can to describe the character to someone whose never played or heard of Soul Calibur.

Then, the guy who goes next puts up the answer to your descriptions before they give theirs. Then the guy after that can choose to either guess both previous descriptions, or choose one.

Here was the original topic creator's example:

Favorite Character:

She's been around the block for a while, but she's still as playful as in the beginning of her journey. Her weapon features a lot of kicking, I'm surprised that she hasn't lost a leg yet. At first, she's just in the fight to rebel and prove herself, but she grows up and eventually rejoins the fight out of responsibility rather than selfish ambition.

She also has a cocky streak to add to her determination; fortunately, she gets better as time passes and goes from a arrogant traveler looking for a fight to a slightly-arrogant teacher chiding her stubborn charge.

Hated Character:

He's a short-sighted, bigoted brat. He's disrespectful to friends and allies; Hardly ever thinks for himself; but he's either very handsome or very charismatic because he always ends up getting what wants even if he didn't earn it or deserve it; Has a vengeance complex and will cut down the innocent because of said-complex; Doesn't match the description for his title; and he's very smug and cocky towards others. To be fair, he does grow up, but I don't count it because...it took a Deus Ex Machina for it to happen.

PS: You shouldn't have to guess who my most hated character is...kind of intentional.

PSS: Guest Characters can be used too.

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I'd say that his favorite character was Seong Mina while his least favorite would be Patroklos.

Whenever I think of Patroklos, I only have negative things to think of and say about him. The only thing that's remotely good about him are his combat styles, styles that should go to more deserving and better written characters. But, this piss-shit gets the best of all worlds and I don't see why.

That's because the story is too forced to let him feel any true and unscripted character development. From Point A to Point B, he becomes whatever character that the plot needed him to be without any development to serve as a bridge.

And at each of those points, he's not likable in the least. He starts out as a murderous and vengeful idiot to an ungrateful and heartless jerk and then to a complete and utter tool despite the "character development" that the story wants us to see.

Problem 2: A Bad Story that Excuses itself.

Another thing that makes Patroklos and SCV's story worse is that the plot makes things way too convenient for it's supposed hero. How else could you explain how Soul Calibur chooses Patroklos as it's wielder when he's taken part in at least one massacre of his own free will? Or why it stopped working for Siegfried but chooses Patroklos over the infinite list of more worthy fighters?

Logically speaking, shouldn't Leixia or Talim be Soul Calibur's next wielder? Seeing as that they're both strong-willed and good-hearted characters who aren't tainted by Soul Edge and they don't murder people in cold blood? But since Talim was dropped from the cast for no reason and Leixia barely shows up in the story, I guess Soul Calibur tried to make due with what it had.

Wait a minute...

"Looks up Cassandra and Sophitia's profiles for SCII and SCIII"

Uh..wasn't Patroklos also born with Soul Edge's taint because Sophitia was wounded while fighting Cervantes? And since Sophitia's dead and Cassandra's in the Astral Chaos...that means that Rothion most likely never knew about it. Shouldn't it have festered by now since that kind of energy feeds on negative emotions like anger, vengefulness, selfishness, and cold-blooded murder?

In fact...shouldn't this give Patroklos an ability to distinguish the difference between innocent people and the malfested? In fact, shouldn't he have a really bad feeling whenever he goes around Graf Dumas, whose not only Nightmare in disguise, but he's wielding Soul Edge itself! How come Patroklos isn't sensing any of this stuff? Setsuka's been around since SCIII and would've known something about soul edge, its taint and the malfested, wouldn't she have taught Patroklos some things about it? Things that would keep him from being blatantly strung along and manipulated by a guy who should exude mass amounts of discomfort onto Patroklos?

The reason that I say this is because Soul Calibur character profiles have had various examples of soul edge shards and taints reacting to each other, Soul Calibur, purifying objects or Soul Edge itself.

Sophitia's scars from Soul Blade were aggrevated in SCII and her kids went crazy and started fighting over the shard that Rothion brought home;

Taki infused a shard into one of her knives (Mekki-Maru I believe?) and used it to track down Soul Edge and other shards;

Ivy eventually learned to track down soul edge and it's shards since she was born with soul edge's taint inside of her;

Kilik was infected with the Evil Seed and eventually trained to track and purify similar taints;

Maxi was infused with a shard of Soul Edge and had reacted whenever another shard was nearby (Soul Calibur III)

Pyrrha's malfested arm was a result of various sources of Soul Edge's taint including soul edge itself, the shard in her body, the taint that she was born with, and likely Patroklos' taint reacting to each other;

Tira was also infected by both the Evil Seed and Soul Edge and presumably used it to keep track of Sophitia, Pyrrha, Patroklos (SCIII) and various other characters;

And various characters have held on to soul edge's shards to track other shards or Soul Edge itself.

My point is that the games until know implied that people who had soul edge shards or were somehow affected/tainted by it could sense other people who fit the same criteria. Kind of like how immortals could sense each other in the Highlander Series or fighters sensing each other in Dragon Ball Z. The fact that this can be heavily supported makes this a credible idea.

In fact, what makes someone a malfested?

I don't think that the game really gave us a definition on what makes someone malfested. It can be implied and confirmed that malfested are people corrupted or influenced by soul edge's taint. But doesn't that make Patroklos himself a malfested? Then how come he can still wield Soul Calibur without being burned by it's holy power?

How come everyone in Schwarzwind except ZWEI was totally cool with this heartless murderer being given ownership of Soul Calibur?

Hold on...so Siegfried was deemed to no longer have the will to wield Soul Calibur...despite having broken free of soul edge's overpowering and soul-crushing influence?

Some will say that Soul Calibur's knight templar spirit was controlling Patroklos later in the game...But doesn't that make Patroklos even less of a hero if he doesn't have the willpower to stand by his one primary motivation? So Siegfried's willpower isn't strong enough to wield Soul Calibur, but Patroklos can wield it despite having less willpower and resolve?

How does that make sense?

And no one tell me that it's all explained in the Art Book. An artbook that's only available overseas or available as a smaller version in the Collector's Edition. If you're not going to include the answers in the standard edition of the game, then why should we have to pay money for your mistakes? These are answers that the game should give us so that we can better understand and accept the story that they're trying to tell us.

And no one say that this was overlooked because the game was rushed. Stop bringing up that excuse. Patroklos' and Pyrrha's storylines were given top priority over the other 3/4th's of the story mode which means that this problem is inherent in the game's design. Which means that either the developers didn't do their homework to keep from messing over their own lore or they just didn't care.

Either one is bad.

The whole story just seems too forced so that Patroklos could be the hero. Everything is handed to this brat for other reason than that the plot said so. He didn't earn any of it and what's worse is that he even gets a second combat style that he's still really good with even though he hasn't used it in years.

Then there's that time travel bullshit in Chapter 16, a poorly disguised deus ex machina that came out of nowhere so that Patroklos could learn a lesson without taking responsibility for his mistakes. That was the point where I stopped caring about the story and where it damaged Soul Calibur lore forever.

All of this is made even worse by another problem...

Problem 3: Miscast Character Roles.

I'm more or less speaking in regards to the Alexandra siblings. It really seems like their roles should be reversed and that the only reason they did the way that they did was to be edgy and different.

Betraying their own lore in the process.

Before this game came out, there were certain requirements that characters had to meet to even be considered worthy of the Soul Blades.

Soul Edge was easy. Anyone can grab a hold of it and wield it, but only those with a strong will could use the sword without being controlled or devoured by it and if you can use Soul Edge without being controlled by it, you do whatever you want with it's power.

In his background, Algol used Soul Edge as "The Hero King" and spread peace throughout his kingdom and the adjacent lands. His son was tempted however and stole Soul Edge from his father which lead to a fight where Algol won against his possessed son and fatally wounded him. Remorseful, Algol sacrificed his life to create Soul Calibur after many failed attempts and wasn't revived until Soul Calibur IV.

Generally though, Soul Edge tended to use evil-aligned or malicious characters for it's intentions. People like the following:

Cervantes - A pirate who has committed mass theft, mass murder, at least one act of rape, treason against his country, and nearly murdered his own daughter just to amasss power for himself.

Pre-redemption Siegfried - An armored gangster who stole from caravans, murdered knights of his own country including his own father, betrayed and murdered a noble who had employed him, and selfishly sought after Soul Edge to avoid taking responsibility for killing his own father.

Nightmare - The series' most iconic wielder, at first it was just Siegfried while Soul Edge controlled him. From SCIII onwards though, Nightmare basically becomes the physical shell for Soul Edge's malice and spirit.

Astorath - A giant golem who was created to kill people and loves it, betrayed and murdered his own creator, planned to betray Nightmare and tried to kill Rock just because his model is based on Rock's physique.

Lizardman (Aeon Calcos) - A former human turned lizard who murders and eats everyone in his path in a destructive quest of vengeance against the god that abandoned him.

SC2 Everyone - Yes, in SC2, everyone had access to their own version of Soul Edge's completed form. Good and Bad, which is consistent because like I said earlier, anyone can wield Soul Edge but only the really strong-willed could use it without being controlled by it. So in this game, it's a matter of subjectivity as to who could handle Soul Edge and who couldn't.

For me personally, I'm certain that characters like Kilik, Talim and Link could handle Soul Edge without being tainted. I say this for the latter because he's handled cursed items throughout his home series and it never damaged his heroic heart and spirit. In fact, Kilik and Talim can wield both Soul Edge and Soul Calibur as their ultimate weapons in SCIV.

Then we get to Pyrrha...whose only real qualification is that she was born with Soul Edge's taint and that Sophitia apparently embedded a shard of soul edge inside of her when she was little. So physically she's compatible, but why should it matter if her heart isn't really into it?

In fact, the only reason she ends up wielding Soul Edge is because Tira was manipulating her the whole time. Pyrrha never did anything evil, the townsfolk and villagers that she does kill in the story were trying to kill her for something that she didn't do. Since when is self-defense evil? Apparently, her taint/shard did absorb the souls from those people, but it wasn't something that she intended to do.

Even later when she becomes Pyrrha Omega, she's pretty much a puppet for Tira. It especially doesn't help that our hero rejected her after she just saved his life from Nightmare. All she really wanted was a family that would love and accept her and that little piss-shit rejects her and runs away. Something that Tira had told her would happen and after that, everything she does is a result of either Tira's manipulation or the increasing influence that Soul Edge has over her body and her mind.

Then we get to Patroklos and Soul Calibur.

Despite some details in SCIV, the requirements for wielding Soul Calibur have been the same since the first Soul Calibur. One must be pure of heart, will and intention in order to even touch the sword, much less wield it. It was a homage to Excalibur and other legends about soul-searching swords and it worked.

Let's take a look at some canonical and even potential wielders:

Xianghua - A loyal and spirited warrior who was originally sent to bring Soul Edge to the Ming Emperor. But upon learning the truth, she works to destroy it instead and throughout the series exhibits great care and love for her companions Kilik and Maxi, even when the latter has a soul edge shard in his body and the former is trying to isolate himself from attachment.

Post-redemption Siegfried - During the events of SCI, Siegfried was freed from Soul Edge's influence after Inferno's (Spirit of Soul Edge) defeat at the hands of Xianghua. He contemplated his actions before and while he was Nightmare and took responsibility for all of it. He made a valiant effort at making amends for his sins, but was eventually forcibly possessed by Soul Edge and became Nightmare again. During his fight with Raphael in SC2, Siegfried made another effort at reclaiming his body and Soul Calibur, sensing both his desire to atone for his sins and his change of heart, Soul Calibur revealed itself to Siegfried and Siegfried took the sword and stabbed Soul Edge in it's eye!

Okay...that went on for a longer than I had expected...the point is that Siegfried's intention and will were pure and Soul Calibur was wielded by him from SCIII to SCIV.

SCIV Ivy - At this point, Ivy was dying and still fighting on to destroy all traces of Soul Edge. She was also trying to atone for her misdeeds when she worked under Nightmare and her entire character theme has a sort of "Noble Suicide" thing going on.

SCIV Cassandra - Seems like a disrespectful tomboy at first glance, but she's actually a strong good-aligned character. She loves her family and is determined to make sure that Sophitia makes it home safely. In fact, her SCIV ending has her break Soul Calibur with her bare hands when it starts going Knight Templar on her. She's a strong-willed character who wants to protect the people she loves, what's not good about that?

Talim - Does this need to be explained? Just look at her! She's not only pure-hearted, she's also ridiculously innocent.

SCIV Yoshimitsu - He's Samurai Robin Hood for a reason.

Kilik - Strives for inner peace and seeks to atone for his past mistakes, even the one's that weren't his fault.

SCIV Setsuka - Wishes to uphold the honor of the man who raised and cared for her by defeating Mitsurugi. In fact, by now her motivation isn't even primarily revenge. According to data that I did look up, she even defeated Mitsurugi without killing him and became a tutor in Istanbul for orphaned children. When Patroklos came under her tutorledge, she learned about his desire for vengeance and warned him against pursuing it.

Advice that was ignored.

Then we come to Patroklos...a character whose pure heart can be seen through his numerous deeds:

- Ignorance of an obvious evil when it's staring him in the face.
- Has murdered countless innocent people unprovoked in a quest for misguided vengeance.
- Disrespects friend and foe alike.
- Swears a lot more than a "Holy Warrior" should.
- Rejects his sister even after she saved his life for reasons beyond her control.
- Has an obsession with his sister and mother that contains undertones of incest.
- Displays arrogance and cockiness worthy of Gary Oak.
- Never makes up his own mind on what he wants in his life.
- Is easily led around by anyone and everyone.
- Murders his sister after going through a character arc for the purposes of saving her.
- Selfishlessly abandons the organization that gave him a free sword, training and helped him find his sister.
- Cries like a little pussy when his obvious flaws and mistakes are shoved into his face.

Quite the resume here, right?

In conclusion, it really looks like Patroklos should wield Soul Edge and Pyrrha should wield Soul Calibur. Relatively speaking, Pyrrha is actually more of a heroic character than Patroklos simply because she does greater good despite her physical and plot-related handicaps. The story basically forced these two into their roles just to do it.

The reason that I say that Pyrrha was more heroic was because she acted less evil despite having more of a handicap. She not only had the taint but also had the shard that Sophitia embedded inside of her, but everything evil that she does is a result of Soul Edge's overpowering influence or Tira's manipulation. Patroklos on the other hand with a less powerful or controlling taint...just refer to the list.

Hell, they even added a bullshit power to Soul Calibur just so that it could say that Patroklos is the strongest willed character to ever wield or potentially wield a Soul Blade.

Right...

This should be all, but I'm not even halfway through yet...which sucks cause I'm tired of talking about this stupid game.

Continued in Part 3.....

 

[Thaeonblade]

Part 3...

Problem 4: Time Skips and Denial of Important Need To Know Information

Because the developers wanted to do something "different", they threw in a 17 year time skip.

Which was pointless.

Nothing's really changed over 17 years, most returning characters either haven't aged at all (Ivy, Tira, Kilik, reportedly Taki whose absent from the game, and Raphael) or they look exactly the same as they did years ago (Algol, Hilde, Dampierre and Voldo). Others are supposedly completely different characters but they just took on the same name and style as the character that they're "replacing." (Nightmare, Astaroth and Yoshimitsu)

The only characters that actually have legitimately changed are Siegfried, Mitsurugi, Cervantes and Lizardman.

I'm not even really sure why they had a time skip of this many years? Couldn't they have just did 10 years?

I have a feeling that they choose 17 years so that the new game could star Sophitia's children as the new protagonist and antagonist of the new story. It would also be a good excuse to write out characters like Sophitia, Rock, Taki, Xianghua, Relevant Kilik and other characters who have been around for "too long".

Yet...this seems really sexist and racist because we still have four characters from the main cast of Soul Blade and all of them are male and three of them being western characters. Why do all of them still have to be here? Not that I hate them, but I say retire all of them and give them legitimate replacements.

Why not? Siegfried's character arc has been concluded with his successful victory over Nightmare and his earned redemption; Cervantes was killed by Ivy and his reason for returning screams of bullshit and Voldo is getting really close to 70, by all accounts, he really shouldn't be as agile in this game.

This game was supposed to have a mix of new and old characters right? Then how come I only count 7 new characters and 17 old characters? That doesn't look like a mix now does it? The ratio should be balanced with half being new and half being old.

This would be my ideal cast:

Siegfried successor - son of Hilde and Siegfried
Sophitia successor - Pyrrha
Rock successor - Bangoo with twin hammers
Yunseong
Maxi
Seong Min successor - daughter of Hwang and Mina
Cassandra
Talim
Raphael
Setsuka
Zasalamel
Algol
Xianghua successor - Leixia
Kilik successor - Xiba
Taki successor - Natsu
Edgemaster successor/mimic character - Someone other than Kilik
Nightmare - The real Nightmare
Astaroth - The real Astaroth
Cervantes successor - random pirate being influenced by Cervantes' soul
Hilde
Lizardman
Mitsurugi
Voldo successor - Mute warrior brainwashed and trained by elderly Voldo
Ivy
One to Three completely new and original fighting styles

The above would be a much more balanced ratio between old and new characters and all without throwing out anyone's movelist or weapon style. At least it would be better than SCV which throws out too much and gives little in return for no real reason.

Where's all of the Korean characters and weapon styles? Where's Talim and Zasalamel? How come Setsuka couldn't come back for this game? Where's Cassandra? Where's Rock and his style?

Again, don't bring up the Artbook, an artbook that doesn't even help even it were cited. Don't even try to say something like, "Korea isn't at war with Japan anymore so their fighters don't need to look for Soul Edge." That's just an excuse for lazy development and execution. I wouldn't be too upset if they were replaced with newer characters, but they're just completely gone and that's a slap in the face of their fans.

And speaking of history, the setting of the Story Mode doesn't make much sense.

It takes place in Hungary during 1607, but...at the time most of Hungary was either a tributary or a directly controlled province of the Ottoman Empire. SCV Nightmare's profile mentions that he's a "Graf" of Hungary, which I guess is a word for lord and is good with Emperor Rudolph's court. But we're never given an exact location regarding where in Hungary Graf Dumas operates.

Is he in the part that's controlled by the Holy Roman Emperor? Is he part of a tributary that owes tax to the Ottomans? Is he playing both sides for more souls? It's gets more confusing when some dialogue indicates him as the ruler of Hungary...what?

Even take aside the historical aspect, once again the setting of the story is in Europe. GO SOMEWHERE NEW! Why can't this take place in Palestine, Egypt, the Middle East, Istanbul, or somewhere other than some castle or area in Europe? Europe has been the epicenter of Soul Calibur's events since Soul Blade, let's do something new.

Or if you didn't want to do something new, then why throw in this huge time span?

Maybe there's some info in the in-game profiles...wait...where are those in-game profiles? The hell? They're just gone? Why? NO CHARACTER ENDINGS EITHER!

And before you even mention that the game was rushed, let me beat you to it.

Problem 5: Rushing Ruins Retail

I don't need to spend too much time here because I think we all know that rushing out games is bad.

This is the reason why EA has been getting a lot of flack due to how it's damaging the quality and reputation of developing companies that they own. The Ultima Series betrayed its fans in the last two games directly due to EA's rushed deadline, Dragon Age 2 suffered from EA's desire to cash in on the popularity of Dragon Age: Origins, The Old Republic was released with various bugs and problems because EA didn't let up and Mass Effect 3's Ending sparked nerdrage of epic proportions because Bioware was only given so much time.

Good games take time to make, you can't rush art or it comes out as crap. For some reason, Namco forgot about this and Soul Calibur V was rushed out the door. As confirmed in an interview with Dashi, this resulted in 3/4ths of the story getting slashed in order to make the deadline.

But here's the thing, a rushed game isn't an excuse for a bad game.

It ruins execution, but if the design is flawed then nothing can save it.

That's why some could make an argument on why Dragon Age 2 is a good game that was ruined by rushed development. Sure it's Third Act is weak, it's equipment is streamlined and it reuses environments for every quest. However, it did have a good combat system that made you think, it's story was mostly strong, it had an epic and dramatic feel and it had a lot of memorable characters like Varric, Merrill, the Arishok and Hawke himself.

I couldn't say the same for Soul Calibur V.

In that same interview, Dashi says that his team focused on Patroklos' and Pyrrha's storylines as priority. Which means that Patroklos murdering people in cold blood was already planned, the miscast roles was planned, overlooking it's own lore was planned, Patroklos getting Soul Calibur was planned and so was the Deus Ex Bullshit that I'll get to later.

In short, the game would have the same problems that I've mentioned up to this point even if it wasn't rushed. The difference is that some fans would find it easier to swallow than others and no one would try to bring up rushed development as an excuse.

Let's take a look at a major design flaw in this game.

Problem 6: Aiming at the Wrong Target and Overlooking Your Actual Target

Honestly, this game doesn't feel like a Soul Calibur game.

Sure it has Soul Edge and Soul Calibur in it and a few iconic characters like Ivy, Mitsurugi, Siegfried, and Nightmare. So it certainly looks like a Soul Calibur game.

But it's not.

This may seem odd since I did say that this game had a decent combat system. While that's true, it's just that it doesn't feel unique. Everything about this combat system is either a watered down version of a mechanic from IV or something from an entirely different game. It just doesn't stand out as it's own game apart from how people are swinging swords at each other.

That's because the developers mostly focused on appealing to the competitive gaming crowd. Since I've never really cared about this type of gamer, I did a little homework to make sure that I was talking about the right group of people. I found a link on Kotaku that gave out a theory on eight fundamental types of gamers.

Scientists- Gamers who like to try new things and then remember the results.

Politicians- Gamers who adapt to the crowd that they're interacting with.

Socialites- People like to use games as a medium for getting to know people.

Habitualists- Probably what most casual gamers are, they just play because it's a habit.

Strategists- Gamers who think and strategize to adapt to different circumstances.

Competitors- Gamers who like winning and beating other gamers.

Collectivists- Gamers who like to unlock and collect characters, items, weapons and achievements.

Soloists- Gamers who prefer to do things on their own terms, aka no multi-player.

I'll put the link to the page in my author's notes, but the point is that I feel like Soul Calibur V was too heavily geared towards Competitive Gamers.

The truth is, is that all gamers are competitive to a degree it's in human nature. We feel vindicated through victory, remember that feeling of triumph you got when you beat Ocarina of Time? Or any Halo game? Or Skyrim? It felt awesome didn't it? There's nothing wrong with gaining satisfaction from your hard work and diligence.

Thing is and I'm not trying to offend when I say this...but competitive gamers are addicted to this feeling. While they're related to Strategists, competitive gamers are really just people who want to win and that's all that they want to do. Win at any cost.

In whatever way possible, no matter how cheap or dishonorable.

Which doesn't work out well for a game like Soul Calibur V. Now games like Call of Duty, Halo, Gears of War, Mass Effect 3 and other shooter-type games kind of encourage gaining victory at any cost. But the problem with Soul Calibur V is that they watered down or took out any feature that would require genuine skill to use well. They even nerfed several characters for the sake of "balance".

Okay...then how come some super moves can be canceled but others can't?

Up until now, the Soul Calibur series was mainly for Collectivists, Scientists, and Strategists with some niches for everyone else. The games had you battle your favorite exotic weapon master against another character in one of many modes. They featured a battle system that was simple, but also had a few tricks hidden for us to find. It also had a actual tutorial that would help us understand this system and know how to get better.

Then we play and win for a while in one of the many modes getting better as we go along. As a reward, you would either unlock a character, a costume or a new weapon for your character to use. The latter two rewards are honestly aesthetic and don't change the gameplay, but they were tokens of your growing skill. If someone else wanted to play, they'd just plug in and you'd test your skill against each other.

When they introduced online play to Soul Calibur IV, they did do a few things to draw in more of the Competitive Gamers, but those changes weren't made to the detriment of the previous main crowd. In fact, most of the complaints about SCIV were actually centered around the online mode and they did improve that for SCV.

But little else.

Soul Calibur V looks like it'll appeal to the previous main crowd, but truthfully only appeals to Competitive Gamers and Socialites. Which isn't bad in itself, it's just deceptive about how they did it which is bad. For example, this game seems like it still appeals to Collectivists, Scientists and Strategists, but it actually either penalizes them for doing what they do or it just outright mocks them.

The collectibles in abundance are just a bunch of useless titles and color schemes for character creation mode. Even some costume items are messed up because they "conflict" with other items. Not to mention that most of the unlockable characters are just alternate forms of another already present character (Alpha Patroklos and Pyrrha Omega) or are just mimic characters (Elysium, Edgemaster and Kilik) with the one genuine unlockable character (Algol) being unaccessible in Character Creation.

Strategists and Scientists like to try different things and experiment with their gameplay to find new ways of playing. But they're left unable to thrive in SCV's combat system because it's too heavily geared towards offensive play. So if you're a strategist who likes to start out defensive and then go offensive after screwing with your opponent for a while, you're out of luck. Or if your a scientist who wants to explore ways of winning that don't require some super move, too bad, get in line and conform to the competitive gamers!

For instance, they took away the accessibility of the guard impact. In previous games, it was just a timed block that would let your character parry your opponent and gain an edge in the fight. If they see your counterattack coming, then your opponent can do it too and it becomes a duel of wit and timing that could determine the course of the entire battle. Now they've made it more complicated to pull off and in actuality, worthless.

What's worse is that the game doesn't include a means of teaching you the mechanics of the game. Like it assumes that you have access to the internet and will find the answers out on your own.

In SCV, winning now has less to do with actual skill and practice and more to do with how quickly you can spam your enemy with your strongest super move. There's a gauge that only goes up with each hit that you lay on your opponent and after you fill it up enough, you can launch this super move that damages your opponent a lot. But...this doesn't feel like something that belongs in a Soul Calibur game, this oughta be in Street Fighter or something.

So if you're a recent generation gamer who says that previous games were worse because of balance issues or because those battles could drag out for too long...you're missing the point.

In those games, victory was about this:

Not this:

It required this:

Not this:

It was more about this:

And less about this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=376-lmwsaOM

And you'll probably try to tell me that SCV's combat style was better than SCIV's because it doesn't have a 1 hit KO attack and just has a super move that takes out half of your life instead. While the Soul Gauge's finisher could be exploited to cheap effect, it's still balanced out by the principle point of why it's there. Here, the Super Move is just another means of punishing defensive players for no real reason!

Pure Offense doesn't work for everyone, you don't bum-rush a fortified fortress when you have less men than the people defending it; you don't charge a professional boxer when you're just an amateur brawler; and you don't launch a frontal assault on a guy with a gun when you only have a knife. Forcing players down one path of gameplay just serves as a disconnect and it ruins the fun.

That's not the Soul Calibur that I grew up with.

There was a deeper yet simpler meaning to things aside from winning.

Come to think of it, that meaning's disappearing from a lot games these days isn't it?

Continued in Part 4...

 

[Hot Rod Dave]

seriously?

there have to be tons of threads and posts like this. Flip through the forum. Im sorry you are dissapointed in this game, and you certainly have a right to your opinion. But this is a dead horse that has been whipped over and over again. If you dont like the game. Dont play it. Its pretty simple.

You really expect people to read that holy crap wall o text.....LOL

 

[Thaeonblade]

Part 4...

Problem 7: Unbalanced Cultural Representation

Something else that I noticed about V and I'm not sure if it's intentional...

It's too dominated by Western Styles. There are only 6 characters from the East who represent Eastern Culture or have eastern styles. Everyone else is mostly western and this is kind of a step backwards for a series whose core staple is having warriors from AROUND THE WORLD battle each other for Soul Edge. Did they decide to shave Africa, South-East Asia (present-day Phillipines), Korea, and the Americas off of the map?

For context, let me explain:

When Soul Blade came out, the ratio was relatively balanced. Mitsurugi, Taki, Li-Long, Seong-Mina and Hwang from Eastern Cultures; Sophitia, Siegfried, Cervantes, and Voldo from Western Cultures; and Rock from Native American Culture.

In SCI, we had some cast changes (like Li-Long assumably being killed by Cervantes), but nothing that upset the balance. Xianghua, Kilik, Maxi and Yoshimitsu from Eastern Cultures (and Arthur if you want to count him); Ivy, Astaroth, Lizardman, and Nightmare from Western Cultures.

Then SCII came out with Rock and Hwang semi-dropped, but again the balance was still kept. Talim and Yunseong for the East; Cassandra and Raphael for the West.

SCIII comes along and with the return of a few characters like Hwang, Li-Long and Rock, we also had three new characters. Tira for the West; Setsuka for the East and Zasalamel for Africa (Yes, he's probably from all over the place because of his reincarnation, but his current life is african so let's go with it). The balance is kept and we have some interesting characters to kill each other with.

SCIV makes several changes but the balance is still relatively kept. We only have 2 new characters, Hilde for the West and Algol for the Ancient World. In this game we now have Sophitia, Siegfried, Cervantes, Cassandra, Raphael, Amy, Nightmare, Ivy, Astaroth, Hilde, Tira, Lizardman and Voldo from Western Cultures; Xianghua, Seong-Mina, Mitsurugi, Taki, Kilik, Maxi, Yunseong, Talim, Setsuka and Yoshimitsu from Eastern Cultures; Rock from Native America; Zasalamel from Africa; and Algol from the Ancient World. So not counting guest or mimic characters, the cultural ratio is now 13/10/3

Then here comes SCV with a blatantly unbalanced ratio of 16/6/1. Patroklos, Pyrrha, Siegfried, Cervantes, Raphael, Viola/Amy, Nightmare, Dampierre, ZWEI, Ivy, Astaroth, Hilde, Tira, Lizardman and Voldo from Western Cultures; Leixia, Xiba, Natsu, Maxi, Kilik and Yoshimitsu from Eastern Cultures; and Algol in his own class of badassery. You're probably wondering why I'm not counting the Alexandria sibling's alternative forms. That's because giving a character an alternative form/style doesn't change their cultural background or who they are. In fact, I barely count Kilik as an Eastern Character since they made the stupid mistake of making him into a half-way mimic character.

Either way, this balance is pretty messed up. Where are the Korean characters? Where's Talim? Where's Rock and Zasalamel? Where's Setsuka and Taki? How come we haven't had a Middle-Eastern character or someone from Siberia/Russia?

It's kind of uncomfortable when you think about it. Why blatantly skew the cultural representation in favor of Western Culture? Especially when games have done a decent job of keeping this balanced? What changed? Historically, most of the European Empires won't enter their peaks for at least another hundred years, Europe hasn't become the dominant world power yet, so let's scratch that out.

I am thinking of a word though...

Wanna guess what it is? It starts with an R and it has an I and an A.

I'll let you think on it...

......

.........

..............

................

...................

Ready? Here's the word:

Rabias,

Which is French for third rate and cheap.

That's really what I think of about this cast, it's like the developers weren't thinking about which characters to keep or about the styles that the fans knew and loved.

They practically erased the styles of Rock, Seong Mina, Kilik, Hwang/Yunseong, Talim, and Zassalamel and what do they give us in return? ZWEI and Viola's styles as completely new fighting styles...wow...trade 6 and get 2 huh?

There's also the infuriating fact that this game's fighting styles contains THREE different variations on the sword and shield style and THREE MIMIC CHARACTERS! THREE PEOPLE!

The latter really ticks me off more than the first one because there's always going to be variations on a weapon style. But I'll say this about the sword and shield thing, they shouldn't be exclusive to Patroklos and Pyrrha. In all honesty, just have Patroklos use a variation of Setsuka's style as his main style while Pyrrha gets a defensive sword and shield style while Cassandra has a momentum-based offensive sword and shield style.

Which is what they did, except they wasted character space by splitting the Alexandra siblings so that each takes up two character slots...why? Why can't they do it like they did in Super Smash Bros Brawl where Zelda could switch between being herself and Sheik before or during battle? Why do it at all?

The mimic character thing is just lazy. I have a feeling that they just threw in three just to fill in the character slots. One mimic character is fine because it allows you to experiment with multiple weapon styles during battle until you find the one that suits you. But three is just redundant. The other two characters are just half-assed mimics anyway, they could easily be substituted for someone else like Talim or Zasalamel.

Some of you may have been thinking of racism earlier and I wouldn't blame you if you did. I was thinking of it too for a while, but on further inspection, it just seems more like stupidity than planned discrimination. If this series was racist, you'd think that we'd have seen something in earlier games. This is the only game in the series with such a horribly skewed representation.

It just makes it seem less like Soul Calibur and more like generic European Fighter.

Problem 8: Lack of Familiar Atmosphere

As I mentioned in Part 3, Soul Calibur V really doesn't feel like a Soul Calibur game because it wasn't designed for it's long-time fans and more designed to appeal to competitive gamers and social gamers to our detriment.

They also changed a lot about the game's design too.

You'll notice how most of the veteran females are absent, the only ones who are left are Ivy, Tira and Hilde with everyone else either dying (Sophitia), retiring (Taki and Xianghua) or vanishing off the face of the earth (Cassandra, Seong Mina, Talim, and Setsuka). Apparently there's a sexist situation going on where Project Soul thought that some characters would be too old around this point.

So 40 year old Seong Mina and 32 year old Talim is bad, but 50 something Mitsurugi and late 60s Voldos is okay?

In fact, Ivy and Tira didn't even age because of something that had to do with Soul Edge. Hilde aged and became a mother, but she doesn't look any different which is odd since it's been 17 years since SCIV! But, older women aren't appealing to most gamers who happen to be male so they had to come up with an excuse to keep them young and pretty or give them the boot.

It's just an obvious double standard that baffles many gamers. Couldn't they have just had it so that the women aged slower or aged well due to the mystical energies of the swords of ultimate power that they're fighting each other over?

Another thing that they did was strip away most of the single-player content. They want us to go online and get achievements, but I don't want achievements, I want to unlock things and develop my skill-

Oh...there's only this cheap and ultra-hard Legendary Mode? Come on! Quick Battle isn't really interesting...I'm kind of bored, let's go to the museum and look at my character's profiles and pictures-

It's not there! What the Fu-

Then let's take a look at these new characters.

ZWEI is designed to appeal to Final Fantasy fans because he's broody and edgy and summons things from out of nowhere;

Viola appeals to the renaissance/sophisticated perverts because she's mysterious and dresses in a ornate but sexy dress with a garter belt;

Natsu is a shout-out to Naruto because she's a blond haired ninja that wears a bright-red jumpsuit and has a nine-tailed demon sealed inside of her;

Xiba is yet another homage to the Monkey King and Shonen heroes who just want to beat people up and eat;

Leixia to the fans of Ling Xiaoyu from Tekken;

Elysium is made to quiet down the Sophitia fans and as another character for perverts to have wet fantasies about;

Pyrrha's character was made shy, feminine and insecure for the japanese crowd who like that kind of thing for some reason;

And Patroklos was designed specifically as a middle-finger to any player who has ever been invested in Soul Calibur's characters or story.

But..where's the character that appeals to us old-schoolers?

It's too different, this doesn't even seem like the game that fans specifically petitioned for. If you weren't going to give us that game, then why didn't you just say no and not lie to us about this false Soul Calibur?

But that's not even my biggest problem with this game.

Problem 9: Deus Ex Bullshit

You may think that I meant deus ex machina, but I don't.

Most sources define a deus ex machina (Latin: "god from the machine"; plural: dei ex machina) as a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability, or object.

"It can be roughly translated as "God made it happen," with no further explanation, and, depending on usage, is primarily used to move the story forward when the writer has "painted himself into a corner" and sees no other way out. However, in other cases, it is used to surprise the audience, or, commonly influenced by editors and/or publishers, to bring a happy ending into the tale."

This is a plot device that people other like or hate.

Personally, I'm neutral.

As long as it makes relative sense and wasn't pulled from the writer's ass because they couldn't think of anything else, then I'm okay with it.

Though, it does leave some valid questions.

For instance, at the end of Lord of the Rings, Frodo and Sam succeed in their question and as Sauron's realm falls, they're rescued by some giant eagles that pick them up and fly them to safety. Like me, many fans of both the books and the movies asked a question. Hell, back in the old days, book fans mailed this question to JRR Tolkien himself.

"Why didn't they just use the eagles to get to Mordor?"

It's a joke that makes many people and ticks off other LOTR fans. However you feel about it though, it is a valid question.

When you bring up something to solve a problem towards the end, you'll inevitably have fans asking why the writer didn't bring it up earlier?

Like instead of waiting until everyone was dead or raped, what was stopping the Skull Knight from saving everyone during the traumatic Eclipse sequence in Berserk?

Why does the Dragonborn have to climb all the way to the top of the mountain, when there's a dragon that senses him at the top of it?

Why did Han wait until almost all of Luke's squadmates were dead to help him during the Death Star run?

How come when Darth Maul had the High Ground in the Phantom Menace it didn't matter, but in Revenge of the Sith, the High Ground helps Obi-Wan defeat Anakin?

Competent writing will subside this though. Like for the last question, maybe Obi-Wan learned from Darth Maul that when you have the high ground over someone and they try to jump over you anyway...don't stand there, swing up at them.

Tolkien even answered his fans with, "The eagles are not Middle-Earth's taxi service." Which basically means that the eagles were they're own force that came and went as they pleased and weren't under the command of elves, men, dwarves or wizards.

SCV does not have competent writing.

As I've already mentioned, Chaptr 16 is this game's crowning moment of suck. Why? Because it's an utterly epic fail on Patroklos' part, on the Story's part and on the part of Project Soul.

I can't...describe it...

Here's the chapter in it's entirety:

Just watch it all the way through to the ending and yes, it came straight out from the game's cinematic sequences.

Project Soul agreed to write this into the story.

Dashi approved of it.

People were paid to animate and develop that scene.

Here's the link again:

And for those who can't believe what you're watching, no you're not going crazy, it's actually happening.

Patroklos kills Pyrrha, his single biggest motivation for doing everything that he did. Beats her in combat and then stabs her through the chest...after that, he's encased in crystal and floats around in the Astral Chaos. Edgemaster gives off some speech about only those with strong wills can escape this realm and then...

Patroklos...unlocks Soul Calibur's time travel ability and goes back in time to before his fight with Pyrrha.

How? Because his will is so strong and his desire so great that Soul Calibur heard him and reversed time and space itself to give Patroklos his wish.

DO I NEED TO EXPLAIN THIS!

Sophitia...the loving and dedicated mother that she was...turned to the dark side and served Soul Edge because it had tainted 3 year old Pyrrha. So when it was destroyed, Pyrrha would somehow die with it. In SCIV, Sophitia has turned her back on everyone that she stood for and worked for, out of love for her daughter. Then, she sacrifices her life by taking out the last shard of soul edge in her body and gives it to Pyrrha to keep her from dying when Soul Edge was defeated. That last shard was so close to her heart that removing it caused her death.

And how...OH HOW...DOES OUR HERO HONOR HIS MOTHER'S SACRIFICE?

BY MURDERING HIS SISTER!

Especially since he basically became a puppet for the now Knight Templar Soul Calibur even though his character development was intended so that he'd start walking his own path! All of that "development" and training just resulted in him ending up worst than when he started out.

But wait! He's the hero and the hero still needs a happy ending! So lets add a bullshit ability to Soul Calibur that had never been seen or alluded to before! Resurrecting the dead? Nah...too strong of a christian undertone...Sacrifice his own life to revive Pyrrha? Nah...we don't want the "hero" to die...Time travel? Perfect!

That's it...

Soul Calibur is dead!

It was all a waste of time!

It was all for nothing! Everyone whose fought, everyone whose stuggled, everyone whose suffered and died...it was all for nothing! It's all invalidated because no one's will was as "strong as Patroklos'".

So...you mean to tell that to break the cycle of his reincarnation...Zasalamel just had WISH VERY HARD ON SOUL CALIBUR TO TRAVEL BACK TO BEFORE HE STARTED THE CYCLE!?

And since Soul Edge is Soul Calibur's equal and opposite twin, I guess that means Soul Edge has this ability too. Yet no one has ever been able to unlock either abilities until we came to Patroklos!

What about Algol? Whose so far the only character to use Soul Edge without being controlled by it at all. What? He wasn't strong-willed enough to unlock time travel when his son died?

What about Cervantes? Who was the series' first wielder of soul edge? Well, I guess he didn't love his father enough to unlock time travel.

How would this pan out for Sophitia? Whose lived with a shard of soul edge in her very heart and is so determined to saving her daughter that she betrayed everything that she'd previously stood for to protect her and eventually sacrifices her life so that her daughter can live? Guess she wasn't strong at all, was she? Not that it matters...SHE DIED!

What about Siegfried? A character who has undergone the most character evolution in the entire series and wielded Soul Calibur at it's strongest during SCIV? So...he's strong willed enough to not be a puppet for Soul Edge and accomplished what he set out to do, but not strong enough to time travel and prevent himself from KILLING HIS OWN FATHER!?

What about Xianghua whose the series first Soul Calibur wielder and the most familiar with it's properties and abilities? What? She didn't love Kilik enough to travel back in time and STOP HIM FROM MURDERING HIS FELLOW MONKS INCLUDING XIANGHUA'S OLDER SISTER?!

Whatever...guess that's what happens when you're only in it for the money...

Yet another part of my nerdhood ruined by Deus Ex Bullshit.

In most genres or fandoms, one can point out a situation, scene or sentence that ruins the entire picture.

The Ultima Series has Ultima 9 with, "What's a Paladin?"

Spiderman's would be the infamous comic issue, "One More Day"

Highlander's is the scene in Highlander 2 where it's revealed that immortals are aliens from the Planet Zeist and/or everything about Highlander: The Source.

Mass Effect 3's ending was the last straw for many Bioware fans after EA bought Bioware, DA 2's problems, the Old Republic and other issues about ME3

For Atari's game console it was the ET Video Game.

Many fans including myself point to Nia's death as the point where Gurren Lagann's ending starts to suck and betray everything about the series.

And Soul Calibur having time travel powers is about the point where I stop caring about Soul Calibur V or the series in general.

So what should we do about it my friends?

Concluded in Part 5...

 

[Thaeonblade]

Part 5...

Problem 10: This Game Shouldn't Have Happened

Honestly, if this how they were going to do this game then they shouldn't have made it at all.

I know a lot of fans petitioned for this game to be made because they love Soul Calibur so much, but fan petitions are denied all the time. Also, there comes a time when all things need to end.

Soul Calibur IV was meant to the final game in the Soul Series and it was meant to end the series with a bang. Say what you will about some of it's oddities, but the team really put a lot of effort into that game, it's mechanics and the stories of the characters involved. Everything had a higher stake, character arcs were nearing their close and the developers made a lot of calculated risks with gameplay, aesthetics, content and balance.

Whether or not you liked IV, you have to admit that at least the developers thought about what they were doing.

I don't see that here.

Soul Calibur V was just a shallow fighting game that was designed to look like Soul Calibur in order for Namco to cash in on the series' popularity and milk it's fans for money.

Maybe it's developers went in with the best intentions. Maybe Dashi wanted to make a really good game, but was sabotaged by Namco and/or CyberConnect, the other development company that worked on this game. Maybe Dashi couldn't get everyone from the previous team together and the problems of SCV emerged from a lack of focus and communication.

Whatever happened, it just proves that this game shouldn't have happened.

Dashi should've just told us no, Soul Calibur is done. Some of us would be upset, but what's done would be done. They could've released a cgi movie that would explain what happened at the end of SCIV and what happened to the characters that we grew to care for and admire. Kind of like Square-Enix did for Final Fantasy VII with the Advent Children movie.

But Dashi gave into peer pressure and went ahead with making this game despite every sign telling him not to. This resulted in a terrible installment in the Soul Series that might as well be it's coffin. Because I have a feeling that this game has thrown the Soul Series into a shallow grave. But it hasn't died with dignity like it would've with IV, it'll die an agonizing painful death.

Thanks Patroklos.

Problem 11: In Hindsight

I'm guessing that I may have annoyed someone with my ranting. They probably think that I don't know what goes on in game development and want to know what I'd do differently.

Okay, I'll take you on that bet.

First, let me re-post my previous idea cast for this game.

This would be my ideal cast:

Siegfried successor - son of Hilde and Siegfried
Sophitia successor - Pyrrha
Rock successor - Bangoo with twin hammers
Yunseong
Maxi
Seong Mina successor - daughter of Hwang and Mina
Cassandra
Talim
Raphael
Setsuka
Zasalamel
Algol
Xianghua successor - Leixia
Kilik successor - Xiba
Taki successor - Natsu
Edgemaster successor/mimic character - Someone other than Kilik
Nightmare - The real Nightmare
Astaroth - The real Astaroth
Cervantes successor - random pirate being influenced by Cervantes' soul
Hilde
Lizardman
Mitsurugi
Ivy
Two to Five completely new and original Characters/fighting styles

There you go and notice how I only have one mimic character and the cultural ratio isn't horribly skewed for no reason what so ever. This leaves the cast unique and creative without sacrificing any styles or sacrificing the Soul Calibur feel.

Modes? How about...An SCIII-styled Story Mode with cutscenes, intros and endings for each character, Arcade, Training with an actual Tutorial so that players could learn the mechanics, Chronicles of the Sword, Team Battle Mode (similar to arcade, but with teams of up to 8 characters and without cutscenes or endings), Time Attack (fight against the clock to gain records), Survival Battle, Online Versions of all of the above, and Museum mode so that I can buy/unlock pictures of my favorite characters. I can also look up data and history about the weapons that I collect.

Features? Lets just transfer over the stuff from SCIV including an Active Matching Battle thing that you could use for more than one or two modes. Enhance Character Creation Mode, but also allow us to fully customize original characters and even switch their styles to be more unpredictable when we go online. In fact, let's add in half or all of the original styles from SCIII just for kicks.

And...that's about it! The above is my idea soul calibur game, it still builds on what previous games did and still adds something new to the table.

Doesn't that sound like a more exciting Soul Calibur game?

Well too bad! It's not going to happen.

Instead of owning up to what they did wrong with this game, Namco has adopted a "Torch and Burn" mentality and cut off all future dlc support for this game. Which also means that we'll never see the parts of the game that were cut to make Namco's deadline. Which means that any chance for an acceptable Soul Calibur V is now done.

Why though? The game still made money? It still sold very well, in fact I hear that it's still selling better than Tekken Tag Tournament 2. So what happened? Did they think that having DLC support for an unfinished game would damage sales for their precious Tekken series?

And that doesn't mean that I hate Tekken. I just hate that Namco screwed over Soul Calibur in favor of Tekken.

Guess that's what happens when you're primarily in it for the money.

Problem 12: Now what?

It all depends on what you want to happen.

You could just decide not to play Soul Calibur V and then boycott all future Namco games in protest like I'm going to do. Apparently, big companies like Namco only care about making money so if you do something that legally decreases how much money they get then it'll get their attention. They'll start wondering what happened to their money and then start thinking of ways to get that money back.

That will lead them to us pissed-off fans who are boycotting their stuff. Best Case scenario from there would be for Namco to deliver on a quality non-rushed Soul Calibur game that is so good that it'll make us forget about V and then we'll happily demand for Namco to take away our money in exchange for this game.

Another action would be to demand that Namco fix the game that we have now.

There are some fans who are demanding change from Namco and have made a petition that they're trying to build support for to fix some of the damage that the game has made.

Here's the petition's link if you're interested: https://www.facebook.com/DlcsSoulCaliburV

I hope the best for them, but it'll have to be one hell of a fix patch/dlc to renew my gamer spirit as far as this game is concerned. As I just showed you, it's problems extend beyond simply excluding characters or even weapon styles. This game is fundamentally designed as something other than Soul Calibur.

Adding a fix here or there won't change anything because it won't change how it was designed to play out.

Hate to sound pessimistic, but it's the truth. Namco and Project Soul really don't give a damn about the love and loyalty that we've given the series since 1996 with Soul Blade. They just see us as a way of making more money.

So if they're not going to respect their customer then how do they expect sales in return?

And that's really what all of this comes down to:

RESPECT.

Respect your customer and they'll respect your product. Respect their wants and loyalty and you'll be rewarded with praise and money. Respect the characters and lore that you've created and your fans will respect you for it. Respect the group who have been with you since the beginning and they'll respect you for not forgetting about them. Respect what your game is about and you won't be led astray in the pursuit for exclusive profit. Then people will respect you because you have focus and integrity.

I don't get any of this from Soul Calibur V.

If we can learn anything, it's that respect is a pivotal feature in development and fan relations.

When you take out Respect from your development process...it changes your end product into something that your customers won't like.

In short, it'll suck.

THE END


PS: Thanks for reading everyone, hope you enjoyed the review and that it was educational in some way. Later.

 

[Heaton]

Soul Calibur V is the biggest disappointment since my father.

I'm sure the feeling is mutual.

 

[UnseenWombat]

You obviously have some sort of problem man.