Soul Calibur V is a good game, but it could have much more. It is a step backwards from what it once was.
Taking place well over a decade or so after the events of Soul Calibur IV, Soul Calibur V revisits the tale of swords and souls, bringing back several mainstays (some of whom seem to have defied the aging process) and introduces a slew of new characters. Borrowing a page from Street Fighter III, many of the newcomers are loosely based on familiar fighters of games past, passing themselves off as the children or disciples of their respective sources. Unfortunately, in lieu of these new additions, a lot of the established roster didn't make the cut. Talim, Zasalamel, Yun-Seong, and Setsuka are just several of the fan-favorites that have been omitted along with their individual play styles. Some of the new fighters like Xiba (Kilik), Leixia (Xianghua), Natsu (Taki) and Patrolkos (Sophitia/Cassandra) possess many of the movesets of their related counterparts, which may more or less remind you of the characters that they're modeled after, but you can't help but feel a certain emptiness after having grown accustomed to your old favorites for as long as the franchise has existed.
As if to compensate for its absence from Soul Calibur IV, Soul Calibur V brings back the much-maligned Story mode. The story centers around Patrolkos Alexandria, the esteemed son of series mainstay Sophitia, as he embarks on an epic quest to fight a mysterious enemy known as the Malfested. He must also seek the whereabouts of his missing sister Pyrrha while on the heels of the legendary swords Soul Edge and Soul Calibur making their return to the world. This is basically a linear campaign consisting of 20 or so chapters where the player is involved in predetermined fights using predetermined characters, and you can finish it all within the fabric of an afternoon. Throughout your journey, you're consigned to only three characters, which is rather disappointing, and not everybody from the game's initial roster shows up---even for a brief cameo. Furthermore, the game doesn't give you the opportunity to explore the numerous other story branches. We don't get to explore the proposed journey of Xiba, Leixia, Natsu and Maxi as they seek the whereabouts of an old friend. We don't get any insight as to whom Siegfried chooses to succeed him as the inheritor of the Soul Calibur. We don't ever find out the origins of Z.W.E.I. (much less the meaning behind his acronym) or Viola. And, without divulging spoilers, two important characters do indeed return to the fray, but they aren't necessarily how you remember them and the game doesn't bother to explain how or why that is. Had the Story mode expanded on these, it might have carried more weight than what it's currently got, and this is made worse by the absence of character endings. For these reasons, the Story Mode has been blatantly demoralized as a constrained Arcade mode with a textual narrative, sparse cinematics, a path that only goes one way, and a bunch of half-assed, hand-scribbled static story scenes. That's it. There aren't any variations in these fights whatsoever---not like the ones found in past games where their mission modes offered fight conditions that made these particular bouts interesting. Here, you're simply going through the motions in a do-or-die grueling mash fest that seems to insult your intelligence.
As for an Arcade mode, that itself is included in the deal, and it is about as self-explanatory as it gets---with six bouts consisting of five rounds each. While it serves its purpose, the said lack of character back-stories and endings severely hurts its relative appeal and almost renders it obsolete in theory. The only meat of the Arcade mode is the option to select between different opponent brackets as well as a Ranking mode for when you want to showcase your best times with the rest of the world via online leaderboards. Other modes of play include the incredibly difficult Legendary Souls mode, where the player is pitted in six bouts against a pre-determined bracket of characters at their highest known skill level and cheapness---sending even the staunchest of masochists into a spasm of profanities. Quick Play sets up individual matches against random opponent AI that you can choose to your liking (similar to Virtua Fighter 5), and the VS. mode allows you to have at it locally with a friend or the computer. There's also a Training mode to get your feet wet and train to your heart's consent, but Soul Calibur V offers little to nothing in the ways of helping newer players get acquainted with its complex gameplay system and its various changes from past games, deeming it unfriendly towards beginners and casual players.
What Soul Calibur V is lacking, it more than makes up for with fine-tuned, refined combat. All the traditional weapons-based gameplay is fully intact and as about as exciting and enthralling as fans remember. Yet, Soul Calibur V takes it up a notch by implementing a couple of interesting tweaks to the formula, including the Critical Edge system. Basically, the Critical Edge system is to this franchise what the Super Combos are to the Street Fighter series; a volley of incredibly powerful super attacks that can be employed on the fly as long as your Soul meter reaches the required plateau in which to use it. In essence, Critical Edges give your character a much-needed advantage during the most intense situations--especially when you're about to lose a match to Siegfried's falling Zweihander. Knowing when to use these attacks means the difference between victory and defeat. Guard Impacts are tricky defense maneuvers that can deflect most powerful attacks and stagger your opponent long enough for you to respond in kind. Unlike Soul Calibur IV, however, they now cost a portion of your Soul meter, and they still demand the utmost timing to pull off. Not exactly helpful when you need it, but in hindsight, it does make certain fights that much more challenging, and certainly never boring.
As far as the characters themselves are concerned, two unique new souls and a guest character from another game enter the fray with their own individual fighting styles. Viola is a mysterious woman with an equally mysterious floating inanimate object that she can use during a fight to attack her opponents from both sides at once. Z.W.E.I. is a guy who seems to be straight out of Fist of the North Star---with a curiously-shaped sword and a werewolf familiar that he quickly summons to help him garner that much needed edge during his combo attacks. And, last but not least, there's Ezio Auditore from Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed series. Unlike most other guest fighters (i.e. the ridiculously out-of-place Star Wars characters) Ezio fits perfectly well within both the context of the Soul Calibur universe and the thread of its gameplay, and is fairly balanced. He isn't overly powered, but he's not incredibly weak either. In other words, he can easily be mistaken as a Soul Calibur regular rather than a guest from Ubisoft's franchise. He may not be able to assassinate his opponents in one shot (as far as I know), but he's a lot of fun to use and a great character overall.
The online modes are where Soul Calibur V truly shows its grit. For the first time ever, you're given your very own license for which you'll earn titles through meritorious play. The license serves as your gamer tag for the world to see, and you're granted numerous awards and bragging perks based on how well you do against other players. A new personal Leveling system allows you to gain experience points when you play either offline and online, and climbing this ladder will earn you titles, parts for character creation (more on that later on), and even unlockable characters. I prefer earning my rewards through various gameplay conditions----like Soul Calibur IV's Honor system and the shop modes of Soul Calibur III. That was what made Soul Calibur fun to play beyond the sum of its parts, and Soul Calibur V's rather mindless experience system completely marginalizes the idea of rewarding skill and effort, downplaying a tried-and-true game mechanic to the point of monotonous level grinding. Replays are also available so you can study potential opponents, and you can create rooms with groups of up to six players, or join the Global Colliseo with as many as 100 others to partake in matches, watch matches and chat with your buddies (and future enemies) via voice or text. Those clamoring for good online competition within the context of the Soul Calibur universe will have little to complain about here. But, the whole thing seems to be built around the sole purpose of online play and pleasing its multitudes of truly dedicated fans who relish the gameplay above the story lore.
And when you do play online, you'll likely want to use a character that you yourself have created. Thankfully, Character Creation makes a comeback in Soul Calibur V, and it offers an greater degree of design freedom than ever before. As was the case in the previous game, you will choose an existing character template from the established roster and build your own masterpiece around it. The game gives you the innumerable opportunity to alter a character's physical make-up to build some truly unique character frames. Patterns are now available for clothing as well as customizable tattoos, facepaints and other unique quirks like devil's horns and horse legs. And armor and weapons are no longer dependent on the restrictions of percentage bonuses and stats; anything is fair-game---even going so far as allowing male characters to be dressed in female attire, and vice versa. So you needn't worry about having a powerful fighter look like he or she dressed themselves in a closet with a blindfold on in order to reap armor and weapon benefits. Though you no longer proffer from any fight bonuses, you aren't constrained by the limitations either--the system goes as far back as Soul Calibur III in its simplicity and accessibility while not compromising its depth.
Visually, Soul Calibur V is a beautiful game. That is to be expected. Many of the stages are variations of older arenas, but others are completely new---like the battlefield stages with no ring-outs, and a colliseum-like stage that harkens back to the original Soul Calibur. The music by the world-renowned Eminence Symphony, as well as various other artists like Jasper Kyd, is excellent, belting out some truly epic orchestral scores. This by far is the best sounding Soul Calibur game to date.
All things considered, Soul Calibur V is nowhere near horrible, nor is it the worst game in the series. But when you think about it, it has slowly gone downhill by fixing what was never broken in the first place; only to end up breaking it. It brought back the campaign mode, but it is only a shell of its former glory. It introduced brand new characters and story branches, but the game doesn't bother to expand on them (save for Patroklos and Pyrhha) and even went so far as to omit individual character stories and endings. It improved its online features, but did so at the unfortunate expense of its offline charm---the same charm that has helped define the series as the stuff of legends.. I remain a wayward fan of the franchise in spite of it all, but Soul Calibur V is a mixed bag. It fulfilled certain expectations yet failed in others. It is, at best, a great game that is fundamentally flawed, and burdened by so many missed opportunities to be as great as it could have been, and greater than it was.