Developer:Project Soul
Publisher:Namco Bandai Games
Release Date:Jan. 31
Grade:B
Great fighting games nowadays follow a simple formula: two parts fluid controls, one part enormous online community, and three parts busty women. When these ingredients are stirred to perfection, the only results are either that they've finally announced Dead or Alive 5 or there's some soul reaping to be done.
While the world waits on the voluptuous ladies of Team Ninja origins to return, Namco brings its own brand of swords, shields, and breastplates into its fifth installment with the wonderfully executed Soulcalibur V.
Soulcalibur V makes newcomers to the land of blades and babes feel at home immediately while managing to accommodate veterans of the ring with the game's relatively deep story mode. Assuming the role of the Sophitia's son Patroklos, players slash and slay their way across 16th century Europe in the attempt to reunite the Greco-protagonist with his estranged sister.
Told through the use of mind-melting full-motion videos and sepia-toned story sequences, the main plot has gone from a forgettable side-note in previous entries to one of the game's main attractions, adding both depth and replay valueto a genre that most often revolves around a second controller port.
Gameplay additions like character's "Brave Edge" and "Critical Edge" attacks replace the outdated mechanics of the "Critical Finishes" and Soul Gauge found in Soulcalibur IV. The complaints of the game favoring colloquially dubbed "button-mashers" have been heard, and the new "Just Guard" feature both provides a source of cover and quick-steel retort against players too heavy on their gamepads.
Like the game's turbulent changes in gameplay, Soulcalibur's roster has seen its fair share of improvement. This time around, players can choose fighters from a long list of the previous game's green-footed, but equally endowed progeny. And while previous intriguingly odd combatants are missing from the battlefield, the creative minds at Namco have chosen Ubisoft's most deadly Italian acrobat, Ezio Auditore, to join in the frenetic fray.
What really helps Soulcalibur V stand out in its super-saturated genre is the heaping helping of fluid, eight-way controls and a shiny coat of pixels that flaunt what is surely one of the prettiest fighters of all-time. Music, provided by industry veterans from all over the electronic entertainment landscape collaborate to produce a phenomenal soundtrack both in and out of the ring.
Online play, Soulcalibur's armor-plated bread and butter, pits players from around the globe in the 3-dimensional ring to see who's truly worth their weight in souls. Ranked matches and their casual counterpart player matches create an ambience of competitive nature while typically keeping matches from being overly intense.
Adversely, those lacking the technology to take the fight online are left with little content to contend with. A standard versus, character creation, six-stage arcade, and "Legendary Souls" modes are all that players lacking a CAT-5 cable can indulge in. While character creation can be quite entertaining, no amount of interchangeable brassieres and lengthy leggings can compensate for the game's key faults.
Unfortunately, the same flaws that haunt previous iterations linger and, while it doesn't condemn the game to GameStop's coveted $10 and under box, it's the deciding factor to stop many from paying the full retail price.
Limited content, a steep learning curve, and a very lacking tutorial mode are still the series' insurmountable antagonists, and until Namco can K.O. these gameplay killers the series will stay exclusive to its core demographic of players.
Though the cast has changed, mechanics altered, and swords swapped out, Soulcalibur V manages to keep the same fighting spirit of previous generations, and beyond the acute chinks in its armor, the series is still king of the ring.
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