Well, SoulCalibur V came out Tuesday. I was so hyped for this game and so far it hasn't let me down. I picked up the Collector's Edition, which was a first for a SC game, but well worth it. I also got a cool little bobble head Ivy as a preorder bonus from Gamestop. The Collector's Edition comes in a very cool box made to look like an old school hard back book, complete with red ribbon bookmark and all. Inside was a "making of" DVD, an artbook with a soundtrack CD, and of course, the game.
When I started the game I dove right into the story mode. I was pleasently surprised to see that project Soul had taken a page out of Netherrealm's playbook and given SCV a real story mode. So instead of picking a fighter from the available selection and pounding through all the characters while reading some text in between fights, you play the characters the game tells you too as they fit into the story. There are even in-engine cutscenes accompanied by drawn storyboards. I'll be honest though, I would have preferred all the cut scenes have been in-engine and them just leave the storyboards out.
The story follows the journey of Patroklos Alexandra, son of Sophitia Alexandra, as he searches for his long lost sister, Pyrrha. Apparently Sophitia was killed by Tira at some point and Tira kidnapped Pyrrha. Along Patroklos's journey he will meet and fight or befriend other members of the SC cast. The story mode, while not as long as Mortal Kombat's, is still quite long, and easliy trumps previous Soul Calibur story modes. Overall I really enjoyed the story mode and the tale that was told.
Graphically the game looks similar to SoulCalibur IV, but also noticeably better. There's much more going on in the background of the stages now, and some stages are multitiered. The lighting appears to be better than before as do the clothe physics. The characters also seem more detailed than before. Overall the game is very easy on the eyes.
As far as the actual fighting goes, it doesn't feel much different from SCIV. I want to say it feels slightly faster than SCIV, but without doing a side-by-side comparison it's really hard to say. As always the fighting mechanics feel superb. I did notice that Mitsurugi, who's been my main since '99, feels almost identical to his Dreamcast counterpart. The main reason I noticed this is because 1) I played the original Dreamcast SC back in the day more than any other SC to date, and 2) because of the recent release of the iOS version of the original SC, I've been using him in that game a lot lately, so the move set is fresh on my mind.
Nightmare feels too fast. Back in the day Nightmare and Siegfried, who were basically pallet swap characters, were both somewhat slow. Not Asteroth or Rock slow, but slower than most of the other characters. And with good reason, their giant swords dealt a lot of damage and their range was great, so had they been too fast they would have been vastly overpowered. But Nightmare has been seemingly getting faster with each game since SCIII. Now, in SCV, he's very fast, but still has the range and power of the SoulEdge. He's not unbeatable, but in the right hands he could be damn near it. We'll see how it pans out in the months ahead.
Out of the new characters that I've played, I like Viola the most. You can really get a good flow going with her and her Freddy Krueger claws are cool looking too. I'm still not sure what that orb thing is supposed to be, but I don't guess it's that important. Z.W.E.I. is also a pretty cool character, what with his half-wherewolf on a blade constantly teleporting into the fight and all. He has good speed and tends to be one of those hard to predict characters because of his wherewolf ally. I've yet to use Ezio, so I'm not sure how he is, but I've heard nothing but good things about him so I'm assuming he fits in well.
I spent a good while training with Natsu, who is Taki's apprentice, and basically has Taki's same move set. I'm making an effort to get back into using the Taki character simply because even though I've used Mits for 12 years, Taki was my first love in the series. She was main when I played SoulEdge in the arcade and all the time I played SoulBlade on PS1. Although now I wish Taki herself was a playable character instead of her apprentice. I know it's nipicking, but maybe they'll release her through DLC. I'd buy that.
I think it's interesting how there are essentially two versions of Patroklos and Pyrrha. They both have a short sword and shield version like what their mother, Sophitia used. But then Patroklos has a version with a single sword that uses the style of Setsuka from the last two games, while Pyrrha has a malfested, SoulEdge version in which she has a monster arm like Nightmare.
The offline modes include an Arcade mode where you fight through six characters ending in a bout with Nightmare. Then there is Quick Battle which allows you to pick from four custom characters, each with a different ranking. If you win you get that character's playercard title. Which is another new feature. Playercards are basically the same thing you'll find in games like Call of Duty, Street Fighter IV, and Marvel vs Capcom 3. There is also a ranking system with a letter followed by a number. I believe the lower the letter and number the better the player, but I'm not 100% sure. There is also a number rank for your character that increases as you acquire points. Points are obtained by pretty much everything you do in the game and allow you to unlock other characters, stages, custom character parts, etc.
There is also a new "Legendary Souls" mode, which is apparently a much harder version of Arcade mode. I've only played one ranked online match, so I can't speak to all the finer details of online play, but the one match I did play was very smooth. So hopefully that turns out to be the rule and not the exception. Lastly we have the custom character creation mode, which has turned into one of my favorite features of SC. Additions to creation mode include the ability to adjust the mass of each individual body part. You are also given greater freedom on the voice of the character. There are now custom pieces that can be manipulated and put anywhere on the character, and different patterns can be applied to armor and clothing, as well as manipulating the size and angle of the pattern. Things like the color of the slash of your sword can even be customized too. After you're done with your character you can pick a pose, a background, an effect, a back border and a front border for your new character's player card.
So far the armor pieces seem to be a lot of the stuff from SCIV, but I've yet to unlock everything too so hopefully there is much more to dabble in. I'll be looking forward to DLC in that department as well. Overall I'm loving the hell out of SoulCalibur V right now and look forward to playing it with all my peeps on Monday Night.
Oh, and just because, here's a video of Kristy getting whooped up on by Kilik in the Legendary Souls mode while using Ms. Mojanglin, lol.
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