Soul Calibur Series (1 Viewer)

[NNin]

Oh come on, give the girl a break. Her voice is annoying as hell, sure, but all the other stuff are perfectly justified if you read her backstory (which, Bamco, needs to be put in game!). Basically, the synopsis is that everything thinks she's bad luck because everyone she gets close to gets murdered (by Tira), and people try and kill her, and so to protect herself, she needs to kill in return, yes? After all that, you'd think she'd be desensitised, too.

Ummm, don't tell me... in order to do that, she thinks taking Soul Edge and befriend with Tira is the way to go?
Brilliant, girl. :ORLY:

Credits: onlinehero
http://www.undertow.club/fiction/3193-kunoichis-ascension-onlinehero.html

 

[Raden]

Actually he provided me the picture, so credit goes to him. :p

edit: Wow. Just listening to Pyrrha's voice makes me want to piledrive her until I break her neck. Unbelievable how annoying that can get.

 

[HyperZealot]

Actually there is a noticeable difference, it's just both thin and built body types are set at a default of like -15. When "reset" to zero they do look rather different, and allow for more varied builds. (Small type, -20 chest = Amy loli body types) Just wanted to throw this out there.

Ah, I didn't realize that. They didn't look too different at default. I'll have to try that next time I boot this game up. Kudos!

I'll probably be playing mostly Final Fantasy XIII-2 today (which is excellent, BTW), but I'll dig into this some more later. I really need to give multiplayer a shot, as well as Quick Battle. If the online play is good, that'll help redeem some of the lacking qualities of this title. Plus, I still want to try out all of newbs.

 

[nine]

edit: Wow. Just listening to Pyrrha's voice makes me want to piledrive her until I break her neck. Unbelievable how annoying that can get.

Actually i think that the voice are less louder than the IV. I find them more realistic (but that probably just me). :D

 

[anotherguttersnipe]

So I'm the only one not bothered by Pyrrha's voice then? I'm playing her soul edge version though. Maybe that's what's making the difference.

Anyways, some delicious copypasta from my DA journal.

After hearing various one-sided rants from blatantly biased fanboys/haters, I've finally been able to play the game for myself, and I can tell you this......

Online mode is a real step up from the previous game. There are alot of options in the online lobbying that people have been asking to see in fighting games for a while now. For example: you want the best connection in your game, you can search from up to 5 different regions(most games that allow you to search region give you only 3), and you can specify exactly how strong you want your minimum connection to be. Unfortunately, this means squat to me in Australia, as there are only two of us in the entire country playing online. Infact, other regions outside America are seemingly dead. Maybe it's a day 1 thing, but as it stands, you need to play an American, if you wanna find a match quickly....

Which is fine, considering how clean the connections are. You can play a 1 bar game, and the lag won't be anywhere near as brutal as it is in other games(UMvC3, I'm looking at you). Online player lobbies only support 6 players, but you can spectate matches in a small window whilst sending messages via an ingame system instead of going through the tedious console menus. There's also this 'Global Colosseo' thing, but I haven't tried it yet. Overall, online mode is(and I'm gonna say it regardless of how heretical it sounds), on par with SSFIV. Yeah, I said it.

...But what about offline mode? Well, you have the 14 stage main story for Patroklos. Normally wouldn't be a problem, since individual story modes have always been vague in Soul Calibur-thus leaving it to fanfic writers to flesh out the finer details(the few that didn't jump straight straight into fan pairings). However, Patroklos is the ONLY guy who has a story. Only Pyrrha, Z.W.E.I, Tira, Nightmare, and Siegfried's stories are vaguely touched upon. Anyone else in Patroklos' story only plays a supporting role. Anyone not, don't even get their stories looked at in the game. Because from there, you can run a six stage arcade mode, which just tells you how well you did at the end. A quick battle mode that will randomly match you against random A.I characters (supposedly you can unlock Algol/Devil Jin Style in there without going through the insanity of legendary souls mode), vs mode mainly for the off chance that you've got someone willing to jump on a second controller with you. And finally, Legendary Souls Mode-a boss rush that should not be attempted under any circumstances unless you are Chuck Norris.

Finally, there's the character creation mode. Everyone's been going on about how much better it is, but I honestly don't see it. Yes, it's better than it was in SCIV, but it's not great. But then perhaps I'm subconsciously comparing everything to Daz studio......

Yes, Soul Calibur's an awesome game to play online. But its offline mode is even more lacking than it was in IV-severly so. Does the dev team remember things like survival/team battle mode? Y'know, the stuff they used to give you in their SC games up to IV? And what of the conquest/edgemaster modes they had up to III? Those were awesome to play. Here, it seems like the message being brought across in V's single player mode is 'what are you doing here? Why are you not pwning noobs online?'

 

[thesteedman]

I was gonna buy this game tomorrow since it comes out then here in the UK. After reading so many facts about the game plus not feeling all that keen on the game anyway, I'm actually going to keep hold of my cash for now and wait for the game to become dirt cheap before I bother with it. (Probs get it preowned too) I like the online of the last game, but SoulCalibur is a game I much preferred for the 1 player content it used to have. There is so much I enjoyed about the last games that are just not there for this one, and not even the create a character mode can really sway me to get it since it doesn't look that much better then the last (a clip I saw revealed all the same faces as the last game).

For a little while I had been looking forwards to this game, but over the last month prior to release it just hasn't gripped me at all. I'll hold out for Street Fighter x Tekken me thinks, and at least hope there are some people out there that are kind enough to post some bearhug clips from SoulCalibur (though I fear that material has been the same for the last 5 games with no change in the move XD)

 

[Rakkar]

For those who hate being forced to play parts of a game you don't enjoy to get to the content you do enjoy (like I do), here's an AI-breaking move that seems to work with upwards of 60% success on up to A-ranked opponents, probably better than 60%.

Spoiler: Spoiler?

Mitsurugi: Away + triangle. It's the one where he dodges backwards and then quickly stabs forward. Obviously range is a key factor so you'll have to use other methods to create the right range, such as throws or just plain fast attacks to force a CPU block. I pretty much win all A-ranked battles with mostly this move though.

If anyone else knows any moves that break the AI please share them, I'd love to make a list as soon as we can so people aren't wasting their precious hours of life trying to kill some ridicuous opponent to unlock something that should be available when the game is purchased. Particularly the legendary souls mode is inherently stupid, and I suspect it will probably unlock things. Unfortunately the first opponent in that mode is kilik, and you simply can't escape his stupid range with the backwards dodge so it doesn't seem to be helpful there, but I'm sure there are moves that work even better than this one.

 

[bryanthunder]

I was gonna buy this game tomorrow since it comes out then here in the UK. After reading so many facts about the game plus not feeling all that keen on the game anyway, I'm actually going to keep hold of my cash for now and wait for the game to become dirt cheap before I bother with it. (Probs get it preowned too)

I just wanted to say, this is likely for the best. Sans the online play (which I rarely use) there is not enough content here to justify a $60 price tag. $30? maybe, $20? that's reasonable.
I recommend waiting till either a "Super" version comes out, or until the price drops, and picking up a new copy. I want to support Project Soul, because I get the feeling they really tried their best with what limited time and resources they had. But there is very little in this game for me to recommend it to anyone.

 

[anotherguttersnipe]

For those who hate being forced to play parts of a game you don't enjoy to get to the content you do enjoy (like I do), here's an AI-breaking move that seems to work with upwards of 60% success on up to A-ranked opponents, probably better than 60%.

Spoiler: Spoiler?

Mitsurugi: Away + triangle. It's the one where he dodges backwards and then quickly stabs forward. Obviously range is a key factor so you'll have to use other methods to create the right range, such as throws or just plain fast attacks to force a CPU block. I pretty much win all A-ranked battles with mostly this move though.

If anyone else knows any moves that break the AI please share them, I'd love to make a list as soon as we can so people aren't wasting their precious hours of life trying to kill some ridicuous opponent to unlock something that should be available when the game is purchased. Particularly the legendary souls mode is inherently stupid, and I suspect it will probably unlock things. Unfortunately the first opponent in that mode is kilik, and you simply can't escape his stupid range with the backwards dodge so it doesn't seem to be helpful there, but I'm sure there are moves that work even better than this one.

Kilik was just a shock to the system. But he's manageable. It gets alot worse though, such an SCIV Siegfried that stance shifts the same way that Maximillian would(the guy that does the online warrior show on youtube-infact, I'm convinced that LS siegfried's AI is based on his play data), Edgemaster who Patsukas like a pro, and finally Elysium on Pyrrha Omega's moveset that punishes everything you throw at her with a nemesis impaler.

I've heard that Algol can be unlocked via quick battle, which is less taxing than Legendary Souls mode, just that I don't care about him enough to bother trying to unlock him.

 

[randomguy]

I beat legendary souls mode without silly ai tricks >.> . I see many of your points and I agree on several of them but since I am a fighting game junkie who just really cares about normal one v one stuff and doesn't care about extras I liked this game.

That being said my favorite soul game was 3

also yes you can unlock using Quick battle instead

 

[Raden]

So, not on the topic of the game itself, but still relating to the characters, it's said on the TR forum that someone will be starting work on SCV models for XNALara tomorrow.

I can't freakin' wait. *hyper smiley*

ON the point of the game, has it ever been explained why Kilik is a mimic and Elysium is apparently Sophitia with a mask?

 

[bryanthunder]

ON the point of the game, has it ever been explained why Kilik is a mimic and Elysium is apparently Sophitia with a mask?

Nope. Kilik makes no appearance in the story-mode so we are given zero explanation for why he is suddenly a master of weapons and can summon spirits. There isn't a reasonable explanation anywhere.
And yes, I'm fully aware he's Edge Master's student, and no "he learned everything from him" isn't a valid explanation. Edge Master is heavily hinted to be immortal and from a time when Algol was still human.
Elysium is the physical manifestation of the will of Soul Calibur, so it can take on whatever form it desires. Likely took Sophitia's form to manipulate Patroklos. Think of it as the opposite counterpart to Nightmare, only obsessed with order instead of chaos.

 

[anotherguttersnipe]

So, not on the topic of the game itself, but still relating to the characters, it's said on the TR forum that someone will be starting work on SCV models for XNALara tomorrow.

I can't freakin' wait. *hyper smiley*

ON the point of the game, has it ever been explained why Kilik is a mimic and Elysium is apparently Sophitia with a mask?

Alt Ivy is already out.

rexil on deviantART

Nope. Kilik makes no appearance in the story-mode so we are given zero explanation for why he is suddenly a master of weapons and can summon spirits. There isn't a reasonable explanation anywhere.
And yes, I'm fully aware he's Edge Master's student, and no "he learned everything from him" isn't a valid explanation. Edge Master is heavily hinted to be immortal and from a time when Algol was still human.
Elysium is the physical manifestation of the will of Soul Calibur, so it can take on whatever form it desires. Likely took Sophitia's form to manipulate Patroklos. Think of it as the opposite counterpart to Nightmare, only obsessed with order instead of chaos.

The story(or lack thereof) is one of the things that really annoyed me in the game. Like, why does Cervantes look human again? Why are we referring to lizardman as Aeon Calcos? How is Patroklos more proficient in Battōjyutsu than he is in his in Athenian style? Who taught it to him? (sure as hell wasn't Sophitia)? Why is Cassandra-who should be an important member of the Alexandra family not even given a mention?(the least they could've done is told us she died in IV-hey, now there's some Ryona worthy discussion. How would you like to see Cassandra die? I vote a slow bonecrushing bearhug from Astaroth)

the list goes on.....

This information does infact exist...... On their wikipedia page. But there's the problem. If the source game doesn't use it? How do we know that the backgrounds provided are official canon, and not from the mind of a would be fanfic writer?

No doubt that these issues will be addressed-on the expansion that will only appear on PSV.

 

[DeNice]

Guys, I gotta get some stuff off my chest, so bare with me, this may be long-written...

So yeah, I got V on release date and I share quite a number of complaints like you guys do. The fighting itself it cool (although I feel it's much more streamlines towards the "newbie crowd" Street Fighter IV did rather than feel like its own source material) but its mostly just the throw in of characters that are given no reason to even be around anymore and were just thrown in because they're "fan-base mainstays" that's bothering me. They went through the efforts to bring Hilde back, but she doesn't even show her face with Siegfried and Z.W.E.I. during story mode when dealing with Nightmare's forces. Viola [grown-up Amy] was told to have a major importance in the story, but doesn't even truly do anything to even be noted as a side character. She's just scenery, and says maybe only 2 lines of fate to Patroklos and that's the end of that. I would've liked to know more about why Z.W.E.I. has so much beef with Dumas/Nightmare as well. Anyone with a fragment of Soul Edge in them all of a sudden no longer aging (Maxi, Tira, and namely Ivy) bothers me, and Cervantes all of a sudden breaking free from Soul Edge and just suddenly finds a human body for literally no reason (just to go back to his days before Soul Edge terrorizing the sea) really irked my nerves. Hell, even the legacy characters are rather just handwaved for their importance value (Natsu [Taki doesn't come back from a mission in 2 weeks, decided to go on an entirely unrelated journey with the Asia group in response], Xiba [who literally does nothing but want food and that's it]). I think that even worse than just throwing in stuff like this is cutting characters that most likely would had offered a better reason to get involved in the story. Talim could've been a fully capable wind priestess by now to help purify Calibur at the very least instead of Ivy... (and we all know why Ivy made the damn cut. She's got three insurance policies after all...) And for Pete's sake, Zasalamel was not only original, he's flippin' immortal and his entire existence revolves around the damn swords, and we don't here so much of a peep out of him. As much as I hate Algol and know he's in V, he's in the same boat for not getting any story importance whatsoeveer. I just feel if you're gonna add/remove characters to a story driven game like Soul Calibur, especially since they're so important to the feel of the games, you should do more than just throw them around at will and give them real purpose for being around.

Now, I have a soft spot for Pyrrha (I'm a sucker for cute girls, after all, and she along with Leixia is my main when I play seriously), but I'm not gonna look past the things that I know are in her character design that makes her unappealing to anyone that isn't Japanese. She can definitely grate on cats' nervous systems with her whiny voice/lack of willpower early in story (as I can even see here in this thread, lol) but I do feel one of those is at least partly justified considering her background. They wanted to give her a reason (Patroklos) to be strong-willed and protective (and all that jive), but even before that, I think she could've at least used a tiny bit of that on herself to not look so darn meek (while still having the capability to 'kill' her assailants no less). Again, I personally don't mind her at all, but everyone else I know can't stand her, so ultimately that's something I hope they can work on in VI.

But who am I kidding? This game literally was centered around Patroklos, and honestly I hated him at first. The smug, douchebag characters always got on my bad side easily. His character development helped move him to neutral in my book though, and I will give the guy one thing for wanting to follow through on saving his sis, but that's about as far as he goes. I mean, did they really thing fans wouldn't raise eyebrows at a Greek native teenager being much better at a JAPANESE swordstyle than his own homeland (a move done just to include Setsuka in some way, shape and form without actually adding her)? That's all I gotta say on that matter.

Oh, and just for a side bit, Nightmare really is Raphael's dead body [the playable one is a spectre/ghost that's only barely able to hold his existence due to his 'undying love for Amy' and willpower alone]. Yeah... and it wasn't spoken about whatsoever in the game itself.

Other than my roster complaints, I don't mind the game itself outside of some random gameplay junk. The other issues I got I'll save for discussion at a place like Shoryuken.com or something, but I just had to get the monkey off my back. Now... I gotta get back to unlocking Creation parts...

 

[ssdanku]

Yeah I understand how you guys feel, story mode was definitely cut down to nothing, I honestly think they left quite a few characters out to add them as DLC later on. For example Dampierre is on the disc , but u can only get him from Best Buy (in the US, differs from country to country on where u can get him) but rest assured he will probably be up for DLC to make people pay for a character that's already on the disc!. Today's video game publishers are so money hungry this has become common practice in almost every game it really sucks. So I really think later they will offer a lot if not at least a few of the missing characters as DLC, but as far as story wise I don't think they will ever explain what happened to a lot of the characters.

 

[anotherguttersnipe]

Unlikely. I've seen the DLC plans, and it state that there's gonna be two more releases worth of create a character gear/classic SC tracks. But be on the look out for a broken destiny like expansion..... on handheld systems.

 

[Rakkar]

I beat legendary souls mode without silly ai tricks >.> . I see many of your points and I agree on several of them but since I am a fighting game junkie who just really cares about normal one v one stuff and doesn't care about extras I liked this game.

That being said my favorite soul game was 3

also yes you can unlock using Quick battle instead

Sorry I should have specified, I'm trying to figure out how to unlock all the custom character clothes/armors. I already have all the characters, you can unlock all of them without playing a single Legendary battle (except I'm still somehow missing one guy to the right of the middle block).

It's nearly impossible to figure out for me at this point since I don't know
A. which specific action unlocked the items when I unlock one
B. how many items remain to be unlocked

If anyone knows either of these questions at least, it would be helpful, as well as any other AI breaking moves (because frankly I have no desire to play against a ridiculous goddamn computer to unlock the remaining items).

 

[Raden]

Likely took Sophitia's form to manipulate Patroklos. Think of it as the opposite counterpart to Nightmare, only obsessed with order instead of chaos.

So just as bad as Nightmare, then...

So what I have managed to gather from all this so far is pretty much:

-Sophitia's vagina churned out two murderous hellions
-Kilik somehow became a master of everything and learned how to summon ghosts
-Pyrrha needs her trachea slashed out so she can't make that horrible noise anymore
-Soul Calibur is pretty much Soul Edge after all
-The entire offline experience is so shallow it might as well be called "you're playing this over online??" mode
-You can make tigers that shoot lasers... okay actually that's kinda fucking cool

Is there really any reason to get this? I'm thinking no, since I have had SC4 for about three years and have played it a total of half an hour...

 

[anotherguttersnipe]

-You can make tigers that shoot lasers... okay actually that's kinda fucking cool

Wait, what?

EDIT: Oh..........

 

[Raden]

http://www.fightersgeneration.com/nx/game/scv/scv-s103.jpg

Although it looks more like a customization for Rock or some axe wielder. But if you can use that tiger thing on a created character, you can give it Devil Jin's fighting style. Boom. Laser-shooting tiger.