'Soul Calibur V' Review

"Soul Calibur" on the Sega Dreamcast was one of the best fighting video games of its time. It featured a variety of interesting characters each with his or her unique fighting style to beat each other up, an interconnecting story that provided context why they wanted to beat each other up, smooth controls that made it easy to beat each other up, a quest mode that put variety into beating each other up, and challenging opponents (human and computer) that made it satisfying to beat each other up.

Three more "Soul Calibur" games came but never really had the same appeal of the first one. "Soul Calibur IV" was particularly offensive with a forced inclusion of "Star Wars" characters who never really fit within the game and were overpowered compared to the main cast. Now the fifth "Soul Calibur" game creatively titled "Soul Calibur V" is out for the Xbox 360 and PS3. I was hoping for a return to form just like the first sword swinging game.

Hope springs eternal.

The story mode is woefully short. Instead of giving each one a series of battles with a story wrapped around them, the story focuses on two siblings easily manipulated to reunite with each other before fighting each other and eventually facing the big bad evil together. It's a flimsy story but it's accentuated with decent cut scenes and illustrations. Wading through the story is made even less satisfying when I discovered that I could win every battle using only the throw buttons.

The marketing blurb says players can see what happened 17 years after part IV. And looking at most characters, nothing much changed. Most character designs remain unchanged partly due to them not aging and partly due to the game being too lazy to think up new designs for them. Those that are changed feel like younger rehashes of classic characters. Most of the new characters are introduced during the Story Mode. And there's Ezio Auditore shoehorned in as a fighter as well despite having no part of the story.

The inclusion of Ezio Auditore of "Assassin's Creed" is a blatant attempt to cross two fan-bases together to grab more money from either camp. But at least his time period and fighting style makes his inclusion more believable than Darth Vader in part IV.

Also included for single player are Arcade and Quick Battle modes. Arcade pits you against a varied series of characters to fight. Quick Battle pits you against individual fighters with unique titles. Defeating them allows you to customize your player profile with their title. There is also a Legendary Souls mode where the computer opponents are cheating extra challenging. But all of that fighting just feels monotonous after a while.

I guess what really shines as indicated through the "Soul Calibur V" pre-launch party in San Francisco is the Versus Mode. But since "Soul Calibur V" is a fighting game, a good Versus Mode is supposed to be a standard feature anyway so that doesn't count.The game lets you challenge players on the same console. Random matches, tournament play, and ranked matches are also available online.

All the time spent beating each other up in "Soul Calibur V" in any mode eventually unlocks various patterns, clothing items, and characters that can all be used to create your own fighter based on the fighting style of a pre-existing character. The amount of customization is astounding and player creations can get creative. But is this supposed to be a fighting game or a dress him/her up game?

So with a weak story, pretty much unchanged characters, and a monotonous string of battles throughout the game, "Soul Calibur V" still misses the mark compared to the first game. But fans of the series and anyone who ever wanted to see a sword wielding schoolgirl fight against a fan-created version of Batman.

"Soul Calibur V" is expected to release January 31, 2012.