What is Soul Calibur?

Mandritti

Mandritti

[09] Warrior
What is it? What makes Soul Calibur the series that it is and not another game?

Let's keep this concrete, though. The series has iterations, and each iteration, if it be valuable, changes something in more than a superficial way. But we also know, if something is not of the series. For instance, I'm sure that 3D is at the core of Soul series. This is a simple example, but there are more subtle things. Introduce enough characters with ranged combat, and is it the same? Create more complex shielding options, is it the same? And in the fluff: Remove the soul weapons, and is it the same?

Some changes at least possibly can end the series as surely as they may give it rebirth. This is not to say an artistic death would not be the creation of a worthwhile game in itself, but we would know. Can we specify it beforehand?

What is the point past which the game becomes another? What is the core, the root of the game? What is the seed that inspires each instance ? What is the prime cause of the enthusiasm of its existing fans?

If uninterested in such a question or dubious of its groundedness, you can consider it a question about yourself. What is this thing you're playing?

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I believe this is a good first pass at the artistic dimension of this question:

Soul series is a game about the powerful, fighting characters who are drawn to the foreground of history, by the power of a pair of mythic weapons and their inherent destiny.
 
For me, it's the combination of it being weapon-based, 3D, and the amount of options at your disposal. I've dabbled in DOA, Tekken, and VF, but none of them really do it for me. Maybe it's that I want them to be SC, I'm honestly not certain why I don't care for them so much. But I am very much certain I like SC.

The focus on weapons, to me, allows two great things you don't really get in fighters based on conventional hand-to-hand fighting.

First of all is the instant recognition of...everything. You see two hand-to-hand combatants and it takes time for what they're really doing to sink in and understand. See someone with weapons? You know they're going to crush their foes with a warhammer, or stab a lot if they have a dagger or whatever. You have instant recognition and understanding(to some degree) of what this character is going to do. You know Patroklos is going to do all kinds of stupidly flashy things because of how he holds his weapons in his idle stance, you know Astaroth is going to overwhelm you with brute force since his weapon is bigger than anyone you've ever met.

Second is the additional characterization a weapon allows in a fighting style. Pyrrha probably wouldn't be able to do her moemoe routine if she had a kusarigama or a staff, Ivy wouldn't be able to do her dominatrix thing nearly as well with a couple of daggers. It provides more invidiuality for the characters, and I love that.



3D movement is...good. 2D is fine and all, but I like being able to move around and to have a reason to think about how my attack or my enemy's attack makes us move in addition to freedom of movement itself. I really don't think there's any way to expand on that, it's just that simple.



Options are great to have. The way Soulcalibur has always presented lots of options for actions in battle is wonderful, trying to force my opponent into limiting their own options for me feels very rewarding and now in Soulcalibur V we're at the point where(most of us anyways) even if we make the wrong decision, with understanding of our options we can instantly see what we did wrong and think to ourselves "aw, I would've been better off doing this instead that in this situation." I think it's great.
 
The fact that it is a weapon based 3D fighter, and that it uses specific buttons for horizontal and vertical moves. Both of those make it extremely easy to determine what moves have what properties and makes it simple to pick a character to play. You wouldn't pick a character with a thin rapier if you want to do crushing damage, and you wouldn't press the vertical button to catch a stepping opponent (unless you're Mitsurugi), so it makes sense. Other games take more time to determine properties of moves because they use a punch and kick button scheme and moves aren't always clear. Also, for the most part it's not easy to tell what character has what style of gameplay unless you look at size in a fist fighter.

Oh yeah, and ring outs.
 
1. The fighting system is really unique and you really do have to think about what you're going to do, other wise you may lose the round. The game play is beginner friendly and can be easy for anyone to pick up and be decent at the game, yet it has enough depth and complexity for more serious players who would like to get better and be great at this game.

2. The characters in this game are beautiful to look at. They are detailed awesomely and their voice actors/actresses usually do a good job. At first glance they may seem dull and life-less but if you read their stories you will see a brand new view on the character. Suddenly Ivy isn't just a skimpy dressed woman, she's an intelligent alchemist trying to rid the world of an evil sword that is plaguing the world.(while being dressed skimpily)

3. The soundtracks in each of these games is simply gorgeous. I have never really played another fighting game that pays attention to it's soundtrack like Soul Calibur does. Music like "235 Winds and Memories" or "Wings of Sorrow" or even "Sacred Dawn" ( a personal favorite) really shows the effort that Project Soul puts into making the Soul Calibur series stand out.

That's all I have for now...I'll post some more later...maybe.
 
Truth is, I hate fighting games, but I love Soul Calibur.

#1) You don't need to be a GOD in execution to play this game (except for a few characters)

#2) It's 3d and 8wayrun gives complete freedom in movement

#3) The move set styles vary greatly, with a wide range of various ranges. Every character is played distinctly different from anyone else.

#4) The combo/juggling system is very simple and doesn't require years of practice. You can still do over half life combo's in this game, but doesn't require 50 bajillion inputs. This means you won't get blisters on your hands from playing this game.

#5) Long and extensive move lists, most of which have their own unique niche that they fill. There are very few "useless" moves (at least in sc5).

#6) Greater emphasis on spacing/zoning that any other fighter I've ever seen. It's like SC has a whole layer of depth that other fighters lack completely.

#7) Back and forth ping pong style combat. This is simply a matter of preference for me.

That's all for now
 
Oh great, an enthusiastic response in just one day!
I wonder if additional input will agree or add to what is here so far. I see a few patterns emerging in the responses. My belief is that all these reasons are truth - you can't argue that these are not reasons - but is there a point when all the reasons have been given? And if so, is there a way to simplify that understanding of the list? Or broaden (the understanding of) it?

There are two flavours of response: Single highlighted reason, and joint or combined reasons. I wonder , from damn-I-suck, and from Pyrrhus, if all the elements of a joint reason for SC being SC really are deal-breakers. Are those qualities things which make the game great or better, or are they the things that make it SC?

On the other hand, a standard of quality can be critical to what makes a certain game element what it is - or it could be critical to a FG connoisseur giving a crap about the rest of the soup. The "character back story", must in fact be deep enough that it is actually experienced by the player as a back story, and not just a joke and a half backdrop, for instance. Or the zoning elements of the game must be 'just so' in order for that to come out in game play with inventive players.

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I did not know SC was the only one with an 8wayrunning system. The free movement is definitely important. Including both the diagonals, and the "running" versus sidestep movement. Almost surely , VincentRayne gives one of the necessary qualities. But is it enough? If you swapped the other stuff, would you still swallow it with "Soul" on the cover?

I also agree that the inputs somehow are unique - and I like this as an example of a subtle thing. You could have the same moves available in a weak-strong-fierce arrangement... but it changes the game , more than in easiness, more than in intuitiveness. It partly shapes how the game is played, and how the game is experienced as you learn it. "This button -always- misses step (lololol mitsurugi lol)". As well, the :K: button contributes to highlighting the weapons over the body.
 
It just sort of... feels right, I guess? The game itself is just more fun for me to play than other fighters..

Beyond that, the characters are actually interesting. Okay, that's not entirely fair. I like most of BlazBlue's characters too, but for most other fighters I only like a handful of the cast. In Soulcalibur, everyone has their charm (in my opinion). The setting is also more interesting, fantasy meets history ftw!

And of course, it's a weapon-based fighter. That just kinda makes it more badass.
 
nice thread, for me its two things: depth and style
1. because the way you push the buttons is different for many of the characters the game is deep and complex (for me anyway). playing hilde for instance is a very different experience than playing maxi and both of those are very different from ivy and voldo and so on. so in SC if you get bored with one style you can just move on to another and discovering how to master a SC style is way fun.
2. its not just about winning, its about how you win. style is a big part of SC. the game can be beautiful. the movelist is still plenty large enough to express yourself stylistically. playing against friends is all about showing off
 
However you felt about Soulcalibur IV, you have to give it credit for its own sense of style and identity. I can safely say there was no other fighting game quite like Soulcalibur IV. I can say no such thing about Soulcalibur V. Because there are, in fact, several other fighting games quite like it, most of them recently published by Capcom.
To me Soul calibur is a medieval 3D fighter game that emphasizes its use on weapon based combat while presenting it with pseudo-realistic asethetic design themed with fictional elements based on historic cultures over fantasy. Telling a story about various characters from all over the world on an indipendant jounery searching for the two magical swords that were said to be able to change their lives largely playing off of the old story with King Arthur and the Excaliber tale.
The story often explored the age of war time within different countries but brought in the concept of the having the end all be all weapon that dictated power to anyone that could harness it. Like in the real world having the race to hold the most nuclear weapons. Progressed through
an unofficial world tournament themed setting they all fight for personal morals and self-gain or the bettering of society wether it for their families or for themselves outside of cliche objective allegories. It features villains from vast supernatural backgrounds all spawned from the evil of the sword and are all looking for people to die for their souls to power it exploring the darkest of gothic tones. The characters use their bladed weapons for both offense and defence but they themselves don't hold any fantastic augmentations in comparison to other weapon based stories such as Bleach as the characters are presented to be the best of their culture and rely on their skills alone learned and trained before setting out on adventure to overwhelm their opponents.I used to love SC because it was like looking into history for me. Though it was fantasy it wasn't World of War Craft Western fantasy. It was Medieval Fiction using supernatural elements in the themes of the time alone. Magical Swords taking over the lives of a violent age; living armour and religion.

Its gameplay is unique among most other fighters for it having its own block button as opposed to moving backward and provides a 3D plain fully mounted with directional mobility designed to make use of all areas of the 360 digrees around the field. Unique among most other fighters while sharing the psuedo-realistic design and properties is that it doesn't have a Super Meteor, projectiles and/or a Come Back system commonly commercialized as the signature staple of Street fighter and 2D games alike. However due to the extensive range of moveset options and a plathora of functions soul calibur encourages players to pick through the lengthy movelists to discover the best combinations of moves. Unlike most other fighters it doesn't encourage or force the player to aim solely on juggling opponents continously because of that 3D range of movement making all areas on the opponent vulnerable to attack if timed and linked together. But for the most part, the fighting in Soulcalibur V preserves its own sense of identity, with full use of 3D space and an emphasis on learning isolated moves rather than having to chain together combos. It’s still a mostly accessible system, and now it’s got a bit of extra flash where those inscrutable soulcrushes used to be. The gameplay encourages players to find their own strategy forcing them to understand who they play as and requiring the characters limitations or advantages within balance of the 3D arena. Now again, Soul Calibur was never that realistic, but most the weapons were based on something real or something you could at least imagine being real or displaying weapons based on real life old world occupations and warrior classes.

It was also the only fighting game that actually emphasized the characters having a unique story and involvement in the reason why they fight for the plot device unlike other fighting games that cater solely to the competition. Soul calibur always had something for everyone to enjoy as it catered to casuals, enthusists and pure competitive players. I loved how much care PS would invest into the series always trying to bring quality over quantity despite the stereotypes gamers put on Fighting games encouraging the laziness of parellel companies to play tough love on their audiences only catering to one division. If it wasn't for the Content SC always offered around the gameplay I would never have been able to jump into the series. SF and Tekken are hard to get into if you aren't a veteran arcade player and often specialized in complicated and unrealistic movement combinations just to bring challenge to basic mechanics. Soul calibur never had anything that required the player to specifically master. All characters were accessable to anyone and were easy to switch between on the fly however the depth came into who the player liked playing with and what character suited their playing style thus making it essential to understand the characters the player used for efficiency over force by complication. It’s still a mostly accessible system, and now it’s got a bit of extra flash where those inscrutable soulcrushes used to be. Thus fans never had to hop onto so-and-so because of advantages.
 
For me what made SC a SC (until now) was the "1player options", from mission mode in first SE to tales of the sword.
Since SC4 lost it, now to tell the truth I don't think it really stands from other 3D fighting games except by the fact that unlike other 3d games it's with swords.
 
probably as far back as 2003, Sc2 caught my attention immediately. It was fast, 3D, and it had weapons!

The other part that drew me to this series was the fairly simple moveset commands, yet at the same time having an extensive amount of them (perhaps the game had too many moves, as the old argument goes).

I was never very proficient with FG's in general. I never bothered to take the time to learn moves, combo's etc. SC changed all that. It was interesting enough that it inspired me to learn how the game works. I now have a deeper respect for all FG's because of it.

So I started off with NM in sc2. He looked like a badass knight, plus he had a massive sword with massive damage. I never even bothered looking at his movelist TBH, I got away with this because he was a stance heavy character , and I experimented by pushing buttons and eventually learned the majority of his moves that way. NM just "felt" natural to me. His moves made sense and were very intuitive (at least to me they were).

SC's major success in my eyes lies in it's accessibility. A scrub like me could pick the game up, experiment with random buttons, and figure out many of the moves without even looking at the damn move list! What makes this game so great is the old saying: "easy to pick up, hard to master". It's not terribly overwhelming for a new player to pick up a simple character, but to truly master the game, you need valuable experience. It still has loads of depth despite it's accessibility.

Now, one can argue that SC5 is not as beginner friendly as prior games, due to meter management and JG mostly. But hey, at least they got rid of shakeable stuns! SC must continue to be accessible for newcomers, yet I feel as if Sc5 is right on that fine line between accessibility and entry barriers.
 
Nightmare was super iconic.

Back when 2D fighters and even the 3D fighters all had ryu japanese karate types as the poster boy (which was boring as fuck) you have this possessed knight swinging a giant sword that looked at you! He screamed like link (not his deeper demon voice in the later versions) so you knew he was clearly batshit insane as well.

Plus, SC's animations were slower and more drawn out so you can really savour those 2-3 hit combos from nightmare and go Wow! rather than having to suffer through 30 hit combos ending in hypercombos like in the marvel series.
 
To me, Soul Calibur is a lot of things. It's a fighting game series that just draws you in with its unique style and gameplay. It also has a storyline that is complex and makes you explore and invest much into the characters you are either have mained or not, not to mention not having a storyline, in which fighters have to compete in a tournament held by some secret organization *looks at Street Fighter, Tekken, Virtua Fighter, Dead Or Alive, King of Fighters, and Mortal Kombat*, instead it's two cataclysmic mystic swords everyone is fighting over. Although there have been weapons based games in the past like Samurai Shodown and the easily forgettable Mace: The Dark Age, Soul Calibur just tends to stick out on its own for the connection the fighters have to historical figures and timeframe around from they are from. Ever since I've purchased SC2, I was hooked on the series but before that I remember seeing Soul Blade/Edge back in the arcades, and seeing someone play as Cervantes. At first, I didn't know what to make of this but later on, it just caught on. Soul Calibur will always have a special place in my heart (among other things) which is why I love the series.
 
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