Soul Calibur V loses all sensibility for its single player legacy. A content strapped arcade mode goes so far as to excise character endings or a boss, and the story mode is a brief, non-nonsensical run through a Shakespearean brother/sister conflict. You have to imagine the latter though with magical swords, angels, and zombies.
The thing of it is that Soul Calibur V could be gracious with solo play. There’s opportunity for mounds of unlockables and nostalgia fueled audio tracks, but instead Namco issues all of it as day one DLC. Memorable tracks from Soul Blade, arguably an orchestrated peak the franchise would never match, run $1 each.
To be fair, the vividness of the score here comes close, building to effective climaxes and effective rhythms. Clashing cymbals and blaring trumpets gives this fifth entry a sound of its own, oozing production value while offering an uplifting burst of energy to the weapons combat.
For all of its visual luxury and dominating armor set ups, Namco chickens out in terms of cinematics, the story mostly told with what appears to be storyboards for something never completed. They age them with a bit of browning and slap dash foley effects, as if that helps create an effective narrative illusion. There’s nothing here, content wise, that works if you don’t have local combatants or Xbox Live.
It’s a shame too because while it won’t revolutionize this up and down franchise, it creates an accessible core. Bringing in a wide, mainstream audience into the fighting arena is the fashionable thing to do, Soul Calibur V branching off the Street Fighter reboot’s success. Critical Edge attacks, one of those marketable terms born from ultra or super combos, creates a rapid turn-around in a tight fight. Two quarter circles and a trigger (or the three attacks) initiates a darkened screen fury, which for some can sap half a health bar.
The rest of the engine has always worked as a grandly presented chess match, attacks dealt with a focus on height creating dynamics that feel wholly unique to this series, even if it’s done elsewhere. Value here is placed on flashy, crisply animated attacks, enough that there’s room for even a newcomer to quickly adapt to holes in patterns. No one in Soul Calibur has ever felt eager or in a rush, yet through carefully thought out transitions, it moves like a dream and controls even better.
There’s hesitation in character design, the inclusion of a creation suite a weird sticking point. It’s as if the designers have so little faith in their own work they expect the community to do better. For most of the new additions, with the exception of Assassin’s Creed Ezio, that seems true. After the dead serious Mitsurugi or unnecessarily flashy Maxi, the series never stuck with an icon.
Of the new batch, only Pyrrha stands out, a reluctant fighter who apologizes for her kicks and holds back with her sword strikes. Without audible clips, there’s a sense she doesn’t want to be there, her sword slashes never eager to reach and her ground attacks soft. That’s character creation in the same vein as Mitsurugi’s spreading uppercuts indicating his growing aggression. It’s a shame the rest of the roster can never find such an identity.
All that’s left is a fully produced online arena, with rooms staged for multiple combatants and plentiful achievements to keep players in the community. Detailed fight tracking is enough for the stat hound, and lobbies provide a stable, usually lag free environment to hang out. It’s enough to relax to, and marvel at the visual prowess of the backdrops as friends maul each other, picking up on the stuff you miss while in a fight.
There’s a lot going on in Soul Calibur V’s backgrounds, and sadly, they feel better cared for plus more thought out than the single player snooze fest.
