Soulcalibur V

Over 15 years since Namco brought Soul Edge to arcades, comes SoulCalibur V. In the same fashion of previous games, you play in the style of any one of 30 fighters, all brandishing some form of sword, axe or other significant lump of metal. SoulCalibur V demonstrates all of the elements that the series has become associated with; the eight-way run is still here, along with guards; high, medium, and low attacks as well as a deep combo and grab system for more experienced players.

One minor change has been made to the fighting system, an ultra bar, (Critical Gauge) - which fills when attacks hit - powering special moves known as 'Critical Edges' and 'Brave Edges'(as seen in the original Soul Blade). This system was put in to allow new players to feel as though they're pulling off a powerful attack with minimal skill. If these attacks hit they do pack a fair punch, though, especially seen when using a 'Critical Edge', is far to easy to dodge or parry using 'Just Guards', which protects your fighter against pretty much anything, regardless of timing, at the expense of part of your 'Soul Gauge'.

Degradable armor has also been added, though just like the 'Soul Gauge', 'Critical Edge', and 'Brave Edge' it doesn't effect combat in a meaningful way, if you're a veteran of the series. Sure, you may get a few less perfects but you'll still consistently come up on top, unless your opponent gets a flukey 'Ring Out'.

There's several reasons why veteran players will dominate in SoulCalibur V, in addition to pure skill. Due to the arcade and more importantly story mode being short (the arcade mode only features 6 fights and the story mode can be finished in under two hours) , as well as lacking any guidance (other than the training mode), and only focusing on three characters (story mode), their sole purpose is lost, being to guide players, so that they're competent and have the basics down for when they decide to compete against non-AI.

AI, not only fights in a style that would be completely ineffective if used in multiplayer, being entirely too easy (to the point where most fighters can be defeated with a single move, repeated till their bar's depleted) or maddeningly hard, lazy and cheap. This is most clearly seen when facing off against the featured Tekken style in Quick Battle - Devil Jin - who just mashes upper-cut combos so rapidly that he's undefeatable unless using a similarly broken strategy in response, there's no middle ground, either push-over or evil-button-masher.

This imbalance, and lack of a middle ground, means that the story mode - which focuses on a tale of a brother's (Patroklos), love for his sister (Pyrrha), with writing that screams 'made for TV matinée drama' combined with some truly painful voice acting - is a casual walk in the park till chapter 18 of 20, at which point, eight failed attempts later, the difficulty spirals. It's almost as if the game's developers, (Project Soul) presume that without a tutorial and with constant switching of characters, it's possible for an average gamer to pick up the controls and have a mastery of several characters, all with vastly different play-styles within an hour!

SoulCalbur V's final single player mode, 'Quick Battle', is the only part of the single player experience that'll extend for a reasonable length of time (other than the heartbreakingly difficult Legendary Souls mode), as you collect 'titles' - that have absolutely no effect on gameplay - the ranking of each of the 240 fighters is displayed next to each, making it clear when they'll jump from easy to infuriating (at least displaying this information is a step up from arcade and story modes).

There is one section where advances have been made, character creation, though even that has it's flaws. Visually there are thousands, possibly tens of thousands of combinations, some of which can be as titillating as Ivy or as perverse as Voldo, though you'll be confined to one of the fighting styles designed for the main set of 29 fighters (Ezio Auditore's style can not be used for licensing reasons). It's understandable that there's a risk of characters being made that would unbalance online play, though, when Nightmare with his massive Soul Blade and fast stride, or Ezio with his pistol and crossbow are selectable characters, that point of view becomes null and void.

Animation, art and sound design makes every blow feel weighty, you'll know about it when you're floored by Nightmare's Soul Blade or Sigfried's Requim. Fluid animation as well as well designed characters and stages are expected from the 'Soul Series' at this point, and in many ways that's the games greatest fault. It only does what's expected. If you want to learn a character's move set to death and fight tactically online or in versus mode then you'll get a much greater experience from SoulCalibur V. If you want combat to stay pretty much to the style of the previous SoulCalibur games then you'll be right at home and may even consider SoulCalibur V to be one of the better games in the series. The few additional touches may only make a small difference, though additional moves and systems don't impair the game either, overall SoulCalibur V for those willing to invest the time and effort can be a great experience, though even for veteran fighters, the addition of a boost to your opponents stats if you're winning can considerably turn battles inexplicably from clear victories, to massive defeats. Though, if you're looking for a complete package with multi and single player components that work together, combined with a a method to ease new characters into your repertoire, then you'll find many other fighters which do that so much better, including previous entryies in the 'Soul Series'.