The Roasting of SoulCalibur V

Before I kick this off let me just acknowledge that I love SoulCalibur V. I've played a ton of it so far and plan to play a ton more. But I do have a few complaints things I think couldv'e been better.

The SoulCalibur series is one of my favorite series in all of gaming, and has been since the very first game. Leading up to the release of SoulCalibur V, my excitement could not be contained. It wasn't simply because it was a new SoulCalibur, though that was a big part of it, but also because the people behind the series, Project Soul, had been talking about a refocusing on the fighting engine. SoulCalibur II, my favorite in the series, was even mentioned once or twice.
In my opinion the SoulCalibur series peaked, in terms of the fighting engines, with SoulCalibur II. But as a whole, SoulCalibur II was - is - the best in the series. It was the perfect union of SoulBlade and SoulCalibur. SoulCalibur had the perfect fighting engine, and the 8-way run system really revolutionized what a 3D fighter should be. But it lacked a few things that SoulBlade had, most notably the multiple weapons. SoulCalibur II had a better fighting engine than SoulCalibur and had better weapons than SoulBlade. It also had tons of unlockables to keep you playing for a long time.

I love my Soul Games

So when I heard them mention "new fighting engine" and "SoulCalibur II" in the same sentence, I got very excited. And after SoulCalibur V hit, I was so excited to play it that I completely forgot about those earlier statements by the dev team. But now that the new-ness has worn off and I'm able to more clearly judge it's good and bad points, I thought I'd talk about what I think. Don't think of this as a bashing of SoulCalibur V, because it's not, I love this game. Think of it as loving critique that one might receive from a family member.
Guard Impacts/Repels, and Parries
The most disappointing thing about SoulCalibur V for me is the removal of guard impacts/repels and parries. Now I know that the GI's still exist, in a way. The problem with GI's in their new form is that since it takes a small portion of your soul meter, and with the timing required to pull off a GI, I never think to even try it. Ususally I'm waiting on my soul meter to charge enough to pull off a critical edge. I really feel like the removal of GI's and parries really hurts the game. Having that ability to interrupt and enemies advancing attack and turn the tide really made previous games special. I always loved it when I would GI someone, only to have them GI my very next attack. Sometimes you could go back and forth like that several times. It was awesome. I truly hope that Project Soul considers putting them back in for the next game.

Guard impact in SoulCalibur V

Move Sets and Stances
Next is the removal of moves for certain characters. Usually a character's list of attacks grows with a new game, but in SoulCalibur V many have been shrunk. One of the things I've loved about SoulCalibur over the years has been the multiple stances each character has. The ability to link moves together by going from on stance directly into another always gave the games a level of sophistication and a fluidity of combat that was unmatched in my opinion. Characters still have stances, but some have been removed altogether. One example is Mitsurugi's sheathed sword stance. It was completely taken out of the game for whatever reason.
Accessibility
Then there's the simplification of the overall fighting engine. One example being that every character's critical edge is done exactly the same way. It seems to be a popular trend among old school fighting game devs to try and make the fighting "more accessible", but they seem to forget that the majority of their customers have grown up with these games and love them because of their complexities. They kept mentioning SoulCalibur II while the game was in development, but in all honesty SoulCalibur V's fighting engine feels more like the first SoulCalibur than SoulCalibur II. Which isn't a bad thing at all, but not as good as it could be. And it feels really difficult to guard against combos now, which makes me feel like guarding is pointless sometimes.

Spawn in SoulCalibur II

Game Modes and Content
But what really gets me is how bare the game is in terms of content. The Soul series has been known, going all the way back to SoulBlade, for being content rich games. But SoulCalibur V is easily the weakest in the series in terms of content. No Weapon Master/Mission Battle mode. No Survival mode. No Time Attack mode (well, I take that back, Arcade mode is now Time Attack mode). No Team Battle mode. Barely any unlockable characters. Hell, not even a museum mode. I liked the new style and direction of the story mode, but not at the expence of all the other modes that are missing.
Character Roster and Fighting Styles
And lastly, I think the character selection could be much better. The new characters are basically pallet swaps of old characters. The only new characters with new fighting styles are Ezio (Assassin's Creed), Z.W.E.I., Viola, and Patroklos. Natsu is Taki. Xiba is Kilik (even though kilik is in the game as a "use all weapons" character, which is....weird). Leixia is Xianghua. Pyrrha is basically Cassandra or Sophitia, depending on whether you're using Pyhrra Alpha or Pyhrra omega (another odd design decision). Then there's the Devil Jin (from Tekken) fighting style for use in character creation (which is pretty cool), that is new to SoulCalibur. And Patroklos's Omega fighting style is basically Setsuka from previous games.

SoulCalibur V Character selection

There are a lot of characters, and fighting styles, missing from SoulCalibur V. I won't point out the pallet swap characters, but just going off of unique fighting styles we have: Hwang, Rock, Seong Mina, Yun-Seong, Talim, Amy, and Zasalamel. All missing from the game. I don't understand why so many styles would be left out of the game unless they have big plans to release them as DLC. I'm hoping that is the case.
End Rant/
I still love the game and intend to continue playing a ton of it. I absolutely love the creation mode. And going online with friends and seeing everyone's custom characters is a blast. Hopefully they keep a steady stream of DLC creation parts coming in the future as well. The online is much more solid this time around, making playing with friends that much more enjoyable. I like leveling up and unlocking creation parts and patterns, but playing through the arcade mode over and over makes me feel like I'm grinding in an RPG sometimes.
SoulCalibur V is still a great game, but it wasn't able to dethrone SoulCalibur II as my favorite in the series. Maybe the next game in the series will be up to the task.