Now entering it's fifth iteration Soul Calibur has somewhat lost its sheen and its edge. With Soul Calibur IV being a major disappointment with unbalanced character creation mechanics and sloppy online game modes. So whats set to change in Soul Calibur V? Well quite a lot from what I can see.
This time round we see the timeline shift 17 years into the future with the cast getting a complete refresh. So now we have the sons and daughters of the previous Soul Calibur favourites such as Sophitia duke it out in yet another tale of swords and souls, seemingly eternally retold.
This time round we see the timeline shift 17 years into the future with the cast getting a complete refresh. So now we have the sons and daughters of the previous Soul Calibur favourites such as Sophitia duke it out in yet another tale of swords and souls, seemingly eternally retold.
Now from experience I would usually say this is a terrible idea, but from the limited hands on time I had with the title I can say the new characters handle reasonably well and retain the feeling of their predecessors. For example one of the new characters, Natsu is instantly recognisable as a disciple of Taki with her nimble kicks and swift ninjato swipes.
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| Natsu looking rather surreptitious after winning a bout. |
Fans of the series may be disappointed that their favourite warriors may not make it into the final build but I can see why they took this route. The intertwining “destinies” of the original cast were bordering on tedious and its about time the series had a reboot to allow for some more creative leeway. The characters that were available to us at GAMEfest were old favourites: Ivy, Tira, Mitsurugi, Maxi, Asteroth, Voldo and Hilde aswell as newcomers such as: Patroklos, Z.W.E.I, Pyrrha, Leixia, and Natsu.
The returning characters all looked suitably aged (especially Mitsurugi who looked like he went through hell) and weary from 17 years of what one can only imagine wasn't sitting drinking tea and eating biscuits.
The fighting experience was extremely close in feel to Soul Calibur IV and should be instantly familiar to series veterans, with smooth as silk gameplay and refined fighting mechanics. Some of the newer characters movesets however felt a little off such as Z.W.E.I, which despite obviously being a strong character had little utilisation of his abilities, and was horrendously under developed in the GAMEfest build.
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| Tira gets a facefull from Ivy proving that she's still no pushover. |
The visuals were an absolute feast for the eyes much like SC4, but it seems the engine has been improved with better lighting and combat effects whilst still maintaining a rock solid 60FPS framerate which is a huge improvement.
Overall though Soul Calibur V is shaping up to be a very compeditive title in the fighter market, with a beta build which almost feels as complete as many retail releases, so with months of polish I can only imagine what they can achieve come release day in March 2012.
Be sure to check our Facebook page for all the Soul Calibur V pictures we have lined up for you, plus feel free to check out the rest of our GAMEfest coverage whilst you're there.
2 comments:
in other words - WANT!
Happy to see this veteran come back on the playing field for the game market which seems to have hit a creative low with the street fighter game, and its intresting enough to see that they are aging the characters that we play with rather then trying to make a 50 year old man look 17 which is a feal i get from the tekken series.
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