I cant remember which gameinformer I read that the japanese games are slowing down a bit while western games have been getting better. its an article in game informer about capcom mostly though.
Edit: it was issue 225 with the southpark cover.

I feel your pain

Some people already go through disk content. So far there is no traces found of any possible future DLC characters.
Weapon icons ripped form the game:
http://i40.tinypic.com/2laet1t.png
http://i44.tinypic.com/m9156o.png
http://oi40.tinypic.com/2j193j9.jpg

The fact that one of Nightmare's weapons is a squid pretty much seals the deal for me. I have to buy this game.

I forgot SCV was already out, shows how much I've been following this game. I might watch the story playthroughs as they appear on Youtube though, I might get it when it price drops.

Yeah, I'm planning to get it when it drops to $40. Seems like a fun game, but I have to focus mostly on MK9, that's why I play a lot of my other games casually.

Viola's joke weapon is the best.

And so are all of her other ones.

I'm insanely disappointed in the single-player offerings in this game.

Maybe I've been spoiled by Mortal Kombat's latest robust offering, but, hot damn, this is the most pathetic single-player content a Soul Calibur game has ever offered players.

The Arcade mode is strangely short. There's barely any story for characters. The Story mode itself seems to believe that nobody wants to play as anyone other than Patroklos (whom I despise). There's so little choice or deviation, so little challenging variables, so little of the meaty offerings that thrived with Soul Calibur II's glory days.

For a comparison, I just put in Soul Blade, the 1996 game on the Playstation... and it is a BIGGER and BETTER game than Soul Calibur V in how much content it offers.

What does Soul Blade have?
-Every character has two fully animated, fully voiced endings that are interactive and you can alter however you please.

-Edge Master mode is a story-driven adventure for every single character that fleshes out their backgrounds, history, and futures, while at the same time tasking players with completing battles under challenging conditions such as being poisoned, fighting in small rings, or demanding players win with ring outs or air attacks.

-Edge Master mode also is a complicated search for unlocking weapon that can and will alter battle statistics. Finding them is just as much a challenge as unlocking them.

-There are tons of characters to unlock under special conditions, some ranging from "play the game for over 24 hours" to "see certain character's specific ending". The characters that are unlocked also play entirely different than other characters; there are no copy-pasted moves or characters.

-There are unlockables ranging from the choice of not just one, not just two, but THREE different soundtracks for every stage in the game. THREE choices of music. You can also sample every character's voice and sound effects.

-Tactical elements that are absent in other games are fully used in this one; your weapons have a breaking point and can shatter if you defend too much. Similarly, weapons can lock mid-combat, requiring a level of skill and luck of rock-paper-scissors button mashing to break the lock and come out on top.

-Lastly, it STILL has the greatest intro of any fighting game in history:
Soul Blade intro
Look at that. That's f***ing beautiful. Every single character gets their turn in the spotlight. In two minutes, you see every character, their fighting style, their background, their history, their motivation, and how they fit into the Soul Edge universe. We see their relationships, we see how they fight, we see what they do in their spare time. In that intro, we get to become familiar with the entire cast; we get to see the vast scale of this adventure and the parts these people play in the grand scheme of things.

In two minutes, without a word of spoken dialogue, the intro to Soul Blade/Edge is superior to the entire stupid Story Mode of Soul Calibur V.

And since Ivy hadn't been created yet, she couldn't dominate the marketing with her obnoxiously trashy cleavage and ass cheeks.

What the hell happened? Where did all the talent go? Where did all the meaty single-player modes and weapon hunting and unlocking secrets disappear to? Where's the franchise that once pushed the envelope of what a fighting game series can and should offer players? Why is it just a safe resell of tired ideas with a few coats of new paint on that thinks that riding the coattails of its better predecessors is enough for customers? This is a game LACKING more features than it introduces. How did that happen?

The Soul Calibur series used to be better than this. I have the 1996 game from over 16 years ago spinning in my Playstation proving it.

^

Well, the simple explanation is that SCV was developed with multiplayer and the competitive community in mind, abandoning the single player experience. If you ask a casual SC player (like myself, and you apparently) that makes it worse, but the competitive players still seem super excited. I've even seen some say they are extremely happy with the game. It seemed like there was a clear focus on actual fighting in this game, more so than content. I'm not disappointed though, I expected this game to be just as sh*tty for single player as SCIV and MK9 were. That is, boring beyond belief. I'm only buying SCV for the character creation and 'cause my nephew really likes it. Also, it's not Ivy's fault she's a whore! ... Just ask Mileena.

All I have to say is that Legendary souls mode is incredibly hard. I only got up to siegfried. The bosses in that mode are much quicker and have really fast recovery times which becomes a pain in the butt. I couldn't even get up after a while.

I'd like to see some community reviews of the game if anybody's keen on doing them.

how many critical finishe's does each character. my question is to people who own the game.

also ign and gamespot give the game a 7.5 i think. it might be an 8.5.

what's with kilik and thge helmet and such he reminds me of Vegard in Kakuto Chojin: Back Alley Brutal for x-box.

if you don't know what i mean check it out.

it looks pretty good. is Ezio an overpowered character.

I bought it yesterday and it certainly has it's problems but, there's some nice improvements a well. I haven't spent enough time with it to feel justified in writing a longer review, maybe down the road a bit.

In Soulcalibur, guest characters are always OP'd *cough* The Apprentice *cough*

From what I've heard around 8WR and such, Ezio seems to be well balanced..

-each character has one critical edge move.

-from the reviews ive seen its around 8.5

-Ezio is pretty balanced, unlike the star wars characters.

-legendary souls is extremely difficult, but beatable. I havent done it yet though.
- the Online is very smooth. it lags once or twice, but you hardly notice it and the lobby is like king of the hill in mk but with a chat box.

-I really like the character creation. its really improved and you unlock more customizations by leveling up and playing the modes.

-there are no specific character endings at the end of arcade mode and no team battle mode.

This baffled me more than anything. I mean, I'll confess... I'm not a hardcore multiplayer fighting person for most games. I don't have good internet or can't afford Xbox Live all year round.

And Soul Calibur has always had FANTASTIC single-player modes and, at one time, the absolute best endings ever.

Soul Blade and Soul Calibur III in particular had phenomenal fully-voiced, animated, choose-your-own endings for every character. They were incredible. Worth the price of the game almost on their own. Say it took 20 minutes (or more) to beat the game with each character, and to see each ending, that meant there was over 12 hours of gameplay in those games to see the characters endings, and motivation to see the ending of their stories.

That is NON-EXISTENT in the new game.

What if I want to know what Hilde's doing? Is Siegfried the father of her children? What if I want to see Taki show up in Natsu's ending? What if I wished Ezio could've had an ending in the game? I mean, friggin' YODA had his own ending in the last game, but nobody does in this game?

That rubs me the wrong way SO much.

how are the Brave Edge attacks. how many are there. is there more for certain characters than others.

anyone using devil jin fighting style in caf. iv'e seen some videos of that style. by the way does he have his charge up punch as an unblockable attack. the one he's used in several tekken games.

is it better than 4 or worse.

i actually like sc2 the best out of the ones iv'e played or own. which is soul blade,soul calibur,sc2,sc3,sc broken destiny.

i still have not played 4,5, legends for the wii.

1. Brave Edge attacks use meter any vary based upon the character. They're more or less like Super attacks with Critical Edge being like Ultras. I haven't looked through each character but they seem pretty evenly dispersed. Brave Edge, Critical Edge, and Guard Impact all pull from the same meter. They also added a Just Guard system that rewards blocking in just frames that's actually better than Guard Impact (it's safe on whif) and is meterless.

2. I beat the Devil Jin Harada NPC but haven't played around with his unlocked style but I seemed to remember his charged up uppercut being an unblockable as well as having a guard break version. The NPC likes to chain the uppercut stuns and launchers with it.

3. Combat wise I like it better than 4. Less modes with heavy emphasis on the online multiplayer. Arcade mode is short and there aren't any individual character endings. Story mode is about 3-5 hours (depending on your speed of completion) and follows the linear story of Patrokolos and his personal journey. Character creator is more in-depth but most of the unlocks are based on earned character level points versus a in-game currency unlock. There's a Quick Battle mode that pits you against random NPC's of varying degree that earn you points/titles. I just unlocked Legendary Souls mode but I haven't played it yet so no comment there.

4. Ezio seems balanced though I've spent the majority of my time in the lab with Natsu so...can't comment to much there either.

So... RedSumac, what makes you think Z.W.E.I and Viola are Yun-Seong and Amy? Please share your source.

I know they both suffer from memory loss... but there is no Arcade Endings to confirm this?!
The only story in the game IS story mode. And it protains to Patroklos and Pyhrra ONLY...
So... pretty much... the rest of the cast got cheated out of any story element at all...

And all the character bios are ONLINE? Why is that?

I really wanted to know why Cervantes was back? I want to know what it was that granted Aeon "Lizardman" his power... I would have wait on this game to get this stuff... Grrr....

Can i assume that there is a sequel in the future? I can only hope... I want answers...

That's impossible. You can't be disappointed in something that doesn't exist.



Whoa. You despise the guy who goes around murdering people just because an increasingly ridiculous string of superiors(?) tell him to? And what about his awesome cribbing of movesets from other characters? Who needs Setsuka and all her motivation and dynamic visuals?



I don't know. V's endless stream of crude drawings is pretty rad.



Greater than Seigfried and Nightmare's anti-showdown? That's unpossible.



It's funny. I enjoy a little cheesecake as much as the next man, but this new "Look at my tuxedo / swimwear combo" was just the breaking point. It's Madonna levels of sad and desperate.



No mystery. It was a rush job. It's Namco realizing that SC is one of a tiny, tiny number of their franchises that has international appeal and opting to shit one out and hope for the best.

My guess is to why there isn't that much offline stuff is becuase they either wanted to focus on the online or that they didn't have enough time. unlike mortal kombat, project soul and namco bandai dont have the luxury of time. Warner brothers has tv show, movies, and other stuff to bring in cash so they can afford to let mk take all the time it needs to make a great game.

But the last game came out THREE YEARS ago... and it still uses the exact same engine as the last game. They even have 90% of the old character's fighting styles copy-and-pasted with minor tweaks.

Now, granted I know MK had WB backing them last go-around, but nearly everything was built from scratch (apart from using the Unreal Engine). New moves for every character in a 2D perspective. New unique animations for every attack, fatality, X-ray. The entire Story Mode was animated and lip-synced.

Soul Calibur V isn't as "new" as you'd think it could be. It's still very, very similar to the last game... just with a few new faces and with a lot of their old modes stripped away.

As a game designer myself, my teams believed fully in the doctrine of Shigeru Miyamoto's game design philosophy, "A delayed game can become great; a rushed game will be mediocre forever." An example was he delayed Kirby's Dream Land a MONTH before it was released and had them work on it for a few more months... and Kirby's Dream Land was a huge hit, created a successful franchise, and everyone loved it. It was originally going to be far less impressive, but the extra work and time paid off in spades.

I get a "Marvel vs. Capcom 3" vibe from Soul Calibur V. It seems lacking. Modes are gone. Endings are gone. Yeah, the actual fighting is pretty good... but I agree with the critic Angry Joe; good fighting is the BARE ESSENTIALS of a good fighting game. In today's competitive market, with everything fighting games have done, our standards can and should be higher. We demand and expect more features, for all manner of fighting game fans.

Soul Blade through Soul Calibur III didn't have the luxury of online and had to compensate with some of the greatest offline fighting game modes ever invented. Why they threw all that out is baffling to me; they had a foundation and a large audience that liked these that they intentionally chose wasn't worth the effort.

Just to say: Soul Edge / Blade is one of my favorite fighting games of all time. I've completed it in the past year and I must say that, graphics aside it's very very impressive. Practically I liked everything about this game and of all Soul series that I've played (I played Soul Calibur 1 and SC3) I think it's best game in this series. Also, I must add that it's intro is one of the best intros I've seen.

I am buffled with the lack of personal endings in the arcade mode. Even worst MK games had something - MKA had narration and MK/DC had drawings. I am hardly to believe that it was very hard for PS write endings and draw some pictures for them. I am not an online player, so single player modes are my favorite treat when it comes to fighting games. And essentially aside from the story mode (that I most likely will complete only once) and LSM there is nothing for me to do. Like at all. Endings were always one of my favorite parts in fighting games, because they allowed to look more into individual characters and sometimes, into universe as a whole. I am not really interested in playing the arcade mode, just to open new details for the CAS. Especially since arcade mode deson't even have normal boss (I don't count mimic as a normal boss or anything special if it comes to this).


So, Human-Sub-Zero-4-ever, for whatever random reason you decided that I was the author of those spoilers and that they supposed to be true?
I am not sure how about my knowledge of English language, but your certainly is lacking, since I wrote "possible spoilers". Like in "they maybe true or maybe not, trust on your own risk". I hoped people will pay attention to this little word, but it seems someone need to hone their observation skills.
The source was someones statement at Shoryuken.com as far as I remember.
Have a nice day.

In general it looks like Namco indeed rushed what otherwise could be a great game. So far the were no found any traces of any possible future DLC characters on disk, aside from Dampierre. There were found some traces of second guest character, but it look like it was heavily unfinished. I believe there would some serious DLC in the future ot "Super Edition". And as much as I despise "rerelease Capcom tactics" I'd say I probably wait until this hypothetic "Super Edition", since as of now SC5 looks not very interesting to me.

I like Ivy's tits.

I do not care that Soul Calibur has become an anime because all Japanese games seem to be doing that now.

I dont care about cameo characters.

You know what I miss?

You have been poisoned. You need to kill 20 lizardmen to win. GO!

or

The edges are boobytrapped. The opponent will push you towards the edge. Also he can break your guard. GO!


Weapon/Edge Master mode was boss.

Do a new one of those and all is forgiven.