We all have great ideas, Soul Calibur just never uses them. Just another Fighting Game.
Soul Calibur takes on the next chapter, where it again highlights Nightmare as the maker and breaker of the Soul Calibur/Edge. Like any other fighting game you go through a conquest mode of defeating a few opponents, beating a key opponent (Isn't it funny that characters always have someone they are racing or competing against? But it's never more than two, and in this case, one.) After defeating him/her you fight some more and then you face the boss.
Other modes are quite boring and instead of the old classic Conquest Long-Mode, they basically cheated us and placed in a Survival Mode with cash and prizes. Not that Conquest in III or II were great, but it certainly gave you a better feel then a cheating SURVIVAL MODE.
Soul Calibur hasn't done much to make itself Online worthy in my opinion. Characters are still unbalanced and now to introduce into it, Yoda. Yoda is like Oddjob from 007 Golden Eye (64). He's impossible to do a standard through too and with enough button mashing you can end up the victor and even you will WTF at the screen.
I remember the forums, all over the internet, with kids with new and decent some ever GREAT ideas for the new Soul Calibur. Personalized Reversals, Disarming, Mini-Games, all sorts of ideas. They were not simple ideas, some went into long exponentially great lengths to explain what they meant, but honestly, if you want to make a great game, you can't just cookie cutter, add contrasted edges, and kick in a few new special guest characters and call it a sequel.
However, Bandai has accomplished to fool players into thinking it's the greatest fighting game yet. It's simply another Soul Calibur game.
Onto Online Play:
Bandai's server may just be worst than Bungie's, but I am not putting anything engraved yet. Bandai has no real sense of just what a Ping and Connection is. Where I am sure many ELITE players were looking to keep a solid xxx and 0 score, you can be beaten down by a newb who has 2 bright yellow bars or less.
Facing laggers is all I did when I went to ranked games. I even beat a few, but they were certainly stronger on the side of wins in the end. I am not sure if anyone has faced this problem, but it seems very common for me.
Soul Calibur offers graphics that are just a little better than it's younger brother. It has added very few moves to the list, so you will be able to jump into the action like it were III. Because guess what? It's an even crappier version of III, but with crappy Online play.
What anyone see's in this game is beyond me. But it's a waste of money.
Why did I give it a 6.5? Because it's an average game, but I would buy an average game. Not this one.