Soul Calibur Discussion

[finalark]

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Anyone else play these games? I've been a fan since the first one and personally, I've always preferred this series to Namco's other fighter, Tekken. I've always wanted to get into this series competitively but unfortunately there really isn't much of a scene for it. At least, as far as I know. It might just be where I live. Anyway, games in this series include:

• Soul Edge (JP)/Soul Blade (NA/EU), PlayStation (1996)
• Soul Calibur, Dreamcast (1999), Xbox 360 (2008)
• Soul Calibur II, GameCube, Xbox, PlayStation 2 (2002), PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 (2013)
• Soul Calibur III, PlayStation 2 (2005)
• Soul Calibur IV, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 (2008)
• Soul Calibur V, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 (2012)

So, does anyone else play this series?

 

[Spak]

I played SC II a lot whenever I went over to a specific friend's house and loved every minute of it. Unfortunately, I never actually got the game myself. I was always Kilik because he had a cool staff.

 

[Fusion?]

I'm pretty fond of the earlier Soul games as well, though with the exception of the character creation (...okay, and Amy), I'm not all that partial to IV and V. Namco left out things I liked about II and III in those games, like the weapons gallery, the backstory (which you had to buy an official artbook for in V's case, otherwise you'd never know why Mi-Na, Yun-seong and Cassandra aren't in V. Even after reading it I still don't know where Talim is), and the all-important (not really) Battle Theater.

Even so, I now own every Soul game save for Edge and Broken Destiny, just because I wanted to learn the story thay badly. Hm.

My main used to be Mi-Na for reasons similar to Spak's, but then it shifted to Amy/Raphael.

 

[mistersl56]

________________________________________________________________

 

[Twewy]

Sorry for rezzing an old thread, but oh man, Soul Calibur was my jam growing up. When I was little I used to love Link so I bought SC2 to play as him, ended up loving the series. I rented 3 a lot too, ended up loving to play Siegfried and making my own people. I revisited it lately and I really like playing Sophita and Ivy, Necrid's design is kinda stupid but I like playing as him too.

Is the HD Online Netcode really that bad, though? I was thinking of buying it at some point.

 

[finalark]

This thread is making me swallow how casual SC really is and it's hurting me deep down instead.

On the note of SC2, I still haven't picked up the HD version but I'm not too worried about the netcode since I don't play online anyway. I kinda wish there was a Wii U version so we could have Link, but I'm not too bothered because truthfully speaking Link was always kinda low tier anyway.

 

[Twewy]

Link absolutely ****s all over Weapon Master, for sure. 90% of the missions can be cheesed with Links A+G throw.

Speaking of casual SC, wasn't the meta for 2 "Guard Impact into a Guard Impact into a Guard Impact into a Cervantes combo of death"?

 

[finalark]

Link's ringout game is unmatched, I'll give you that.

I can't really talk for II's meta since I never played that competitive. The only SC I ever played competitively was IV, and that's only barely. There's no real events for these games sadly.

And guard impact is only a problem if you keep attacking high/mid and using super telegraphed attacks. Although I haven't gotten a chance to play II in years, not since I sold my PS2. Most Cervantes players I know are really bad and just spam dread charge and then wonder why everyone knows that they're going to spam dread charge.

 

[Twewy]

So I watched a speedrun of 2 a while back, it said it was a WR, guy used Link, alright. Guy's an idiot. Half of the time he didn't go for a ring out, and he failed a lot of missions wasting a lot of time. If it's still a WR I'm surprised because it looks easy to beat.

 

[finalark]

Link's pretty much good at one thing: ringout. I'm surprised he managed to cheese a lot of the single player missions with WR moves since Link's are telegraphed as all hell.

EDIT: Derp, WR as in world record, not while rising.

 

[Twewy]

Yeah, the guy constantly did stupid things, I'm pretty sure he did Link's "roll with them and smack them in the face" grab a couple of times.

But yeah, Link's almost terrible outside of Weapon Master. Poor Link, he and tiers never get along.

 

[finalark]

Yeah, Link's not that big of a loss. Fantastic for steamrolling single player, but against anyone with skill he's just too predictable and if you know how to break out of grabs his ringout game doesn't mena much anyway. I don't even think the guest characters were allowed in competitive play back in the day anyway.

Although I don't think Spawn or Heichachi were all that great either IIRC.

EDIT: Yeah, after looking up a list for II HD it looks like Heihachi is currently considered lower mid and Spawn is near the bottom.

 

[Twewy]

Yeah, Link's not that big of a loss. Fantastic for steamrolling single player, but against anyone with skill he's just too predictable and if you know how to break out of grabs his ringout game doesn't mena much anyway. I don't even think the guest characters were allowed in competitive play back in the day anyway.

Although I don't think Spawn or Heichachi were all that great either IIRC.

EDIT: Yeah, after looking up a list for II HD it looks like Heihachi is currently considered lower mid and Spawn is near the bottom.

I remember Heihachi being near high-mid or such a while back. Really, tier-wise, the only good guest character was Darth Vader. Everyone else was either mid(Ezio, Heihachi, Apprentince) or bottom (Link, Spawn, Yoda).

 

[finalark]

Most of the guest characters are put in just for fun and because they generate press and advertising. Although I wonder if Dante had gotten in III if he would have been low tier.

 

[Deleted member]

Aside from that mediocre free-to-play game, I've only played Soul Calibur II for the GameCube. I was eagerly anticipating HD Online, but then my excitement plummeted when I heard about the netcode. Despite the impression my avatar and one of my Smash mains might give you, this has absolutely nothing to do with Link's exclusion. I was a bit more of a Nightmare player anyway, and I also enjoyed Taki.

III-V look okay to me. I have considered playing them out of curiosity, but that's a big maybe.

 

[Twewy]

Despite the impression my avatar and one of my Smash mains might give you, this has absolutely nothing to do with Link's exclusion. I was a bit more of a Nightmare player anyway,

So you still liked the guy swinging around a huge sword?

 

[finalark]

III-V look okay to me. I have considered playing them out of curiosity, but that's a big maybe.

III is alright. It's the single most visually appealing game in the series and one of the best looking games on the PS2 IMO. Plus it has a ridiculous amount of single player content including two lengthy and completely separate story modes. Seriously, to see the entire game you'll need to put in a good 30+ hours. That being said, it's notoriously unbalanced and had it's share of high-level exploits that nearly broke the game. If you want something casual, this game is great. If you want something competitive, hunt down the significantly rebalanced arcade version.

SCIV is probably the best game in terms of competitive play (even if Hilde was horrible broken at launch, but people found ways around her). It's easily the most balanced game, even the game's PS3 guest character, Darth Vader, was actually viable to an extent. That being said, if you're not interested in competitive play then its pretty underwhelming. The single player content is pretty lackluster and the game falls hard into the "real is brown and gray" traps that so many games felt into at the beginning of the HD era. That aside, it's a pretty solid game and I'd recommend looking into since you can find it for dirt cheap these days.

Now we get to SCV, which was ambitious as all hell but unfortunately their ambitions stretched beyond their budget and time limit. Many mechanics were completely overhauled or removed, meaning that knowledge of the previous games didn't necessarily apply here. However, once again the single player was garbage (at this point I realized Namco thought that custom characters should be enough for single player) and the story mode was short and underwhelming. To be fair, only a third of the planned story mode made it into the game, on top of a ton of other features most of it had to be cut for time related reasons. Anyway, SCV also introduced a ton of new characters, as it was intended to be a semi-reboot via timeskip. Unfortunately, most of these characters were really unappealing and played almost identically to fan favorites that were cut, making many (myself included) wonder what the point of it all was. Oh yeah, and I'll add that a lot of the characters are incomplete with a few having dead-end move sets.

And that's my opinion on the last three SC games. HOORAY!

 

[Deleted member]

So you still liked the guy swinging around a huge sword?

It took me a minute to understand what you meant, but I get it now.

Spoiler: For those who don't get the joke

My current avatar character, Fierce Deity , carries a huge sword similar to Nightmare's, and one of my Smash mains is , who also carries a huge sword.

To clarify, when I said "one of my Smash mains," I did mean . He was fun to use in SCII, though.

III is alright. It's the single most visually appealing game in the series and one of the best looking games on the PS2 IMO. Plus it has a ridiculous amount of single player content including two lengthy and completely separate story modes. Seriously, to see the entire game you'll need to put in a good 30+ hours. That being said, it's notoriously unbalanced and had it's share of high-level exploits that nearly broke the game. If you want something casual, this game is great. If you want something competitive, hunt down the significantly rebalanced arcade version.

SCIV is probably the best game in terms of competitive play (even if Hilde was horrible broken at launch, but people found ways around her). It's easily the most balanced game, even the game's PS3 guest character, Darth Vader, was actually viable to an extent. That being said, if you're not interested in competitive play then its pretty underwhelming. The single player content is pretty lackluster and the game falls hard into the "real is brown and gray" traps that so many games felt into at the beginning of the HD era. That aside, it's a pretty solid game and I'd recommend looking into since you can find it for dirt cheap these days.

Now we get to SCV, which was ambitious as all hell but unfortunately their ambitions stretched beyond their budget and time limit. Many mechanics were completely overhauled or removed, meaning that knowledge of the previous games didn't necessarily apply here. However, once again the single player was garbage (at this point I realized Namco thought that custom characters should be enough for single player) and the story mode was short and underwhelming. To be fair, only a third of the planned story mode made it into the game, on top of a ton of other features most of it had to be cut for time related reasons. Anyway, SCV also introduced a ton of new characters, as it was intended to be a semi-reboot via timeskip. Unfortunately, most of these characters were really unappealing and played almost identically to fan favorites that were cut, making many (myself included) wonder what the point of it all ways. Oh yeah, and I'll add that a lot of the characters are incomplete with a few having dead-end move sets.

And that's my opinion on the last three SC games. HOORAY!

Thanks! I'll keep all of this in mind. Thinking about it now, SCV doesn't appeal to me much, being as incomplete as it is. I'll probably give SCIII (most likely the PS2 version unless I'm lucky enough to find an arcade with an SCIII cabinet) and IV a shot.

 

[Atrabilious]

Only a third of SC5's story made it into the game? I always wondered why the story in that game was such absolute tripe. I just kinda wrote it off as SC having jumped the shark in the story department, wasn't aware they stretched themselves thin during development. After all the character cuts and lacklustre replacements my interest in the series almost completely disappeared.

I haven't really played much Soul Calibur since SC2, I've put some time into the proceeding entries but not massive amounts. I dunno why but none of them ever managed to catch my attention like SC2 did.

Shame since I grew up on Soul Calibur, or Soul Blade rather, as it was called when it first started off. If they ever get around to making a SC6 I'm curious to know where they'll go with it, and what they'll do with the character situation.

 

[Twewy]

A third didn't make it into Soul Calibur V. More like a fourth did.

 

[finalark]

Only a third of SC5's story made it into the game? I always wondered why the story in that game was such absolute tripe. I just kinda wrote it off as SC having jumped the shark in the story department, wasn't aware they stretched themselves thin during development. After all the character cuts and lacklustre replacements my interest in the series almost completely disappeared.

I haven't really played much Soul Calibur since SC2, I've put some time into the proceeding entries but not massive amounts. I dunno why but none of them ever managed to catch my attention like SC2 did.

Shame since I grew up on Soul Calibur, or Soul Blade rather, as it was called when it first started off. If they ever get around to making a SC6 I'm curious to know where they'll go with it, and what they'll do with the character situation.

Here's some interesting trivia for you: the director for Soul Calibur V actually wanted to name it Soul Blade II, but Namco said no. Originally the team behind it wanted it to basically be the Resident Evil 4 of the series, that is to say that they wanted it to be the definitive game the breathed life into a dying franchise. It's a shame because you can feel the intent, but you can tell that their vision wasn't realistically in line with their budget. I don't think I'd even know where to begin as far as "what ifs" or "what should have been" goes.

I really don't know if we'll see an SCVI. From what I've heard Namco has starting converting the series into a pay-to-win beat 'em up of sorts. They probably realized that their money lies in Tekken and that the SC series hasn't been taken seriously since SCII.

If Namco was to do an SCVI though I'd rather they had it take place between SCIV and SCV so we could have all of the classic characters back. I never really found the story to be all that interesting (or coherent) enough to care, but the "new generation" of fights introduced in V are mostly really unappealing. They could also just be lazy about it and just reboot the series.

 

[Twewy]

If Namco was to do an SCVI though I'd rather they had it take place between SCIV and SCV so we could have all of the classic characters back. I never really found the story to be all that interesting (or coherent) enough to care, but the "new generation" of fights introduced in V are mostly really unappealing. They could also just be lazy about it and just reboot the series.

There's a problem with having most of the classic fighters back. The Korean fighters depart for home and disappear from the series's story after learning the true nature of SE and SC, Raphael is killed during/after IV, Sophita is killed to keep her daughter alive, Cassandra gets flung into Astral Chaos, Nightmare gets killed, Xianghua basically just ups and leaves after getting preggers from Kilik, I'm pretty sure Astraroth I gets killed, Mitsurugi retires after fighting Algol, Setsuka beats Mitsurugi, realizes "Hey, revenge is dumb" and just goes to teaching kids self-defense...the list goes on. If anything it'd feel lazy to have the classic fighters back at that point, which is a shame because SCVI/Soul Edge 2 really should have most of the classics back, but plot-wise they've fell into a hole there.

Soul Edge/Blade was made because the creators wanted a fighting game where all the characters were to be connected in some way, and it's kind of funny most of the connected oldies in the series are gone from the story now. Who's left from the original in V? Cervantes, Siegfried, Mitsurugi, and Voldo...everyone else is killed or MIA.

 

[Atrabilious]

Seems like they just need to reboot it at this junction if they want to salvage the characters, or dig into that time-travelling stuff that was at the end of SC5 and just go for timey-wimey shenanigans.

And that's something else that never really sat well with me, the phasing out of the originals for newer replacements, not just in SCV from more or less from SC1 onwards. The originals came back once in a while for one reason or another, but never took their spots back to become mainstays as such. Hwang and Li-Long in particular, though Seong Mi-na and Rock haven't faired much better.

Especially Li-Long. I'd love to be privy to the decision making that went into that replacement. "We got this badass, bladed nun-chuck wielding assassin from Soul Blade, what do you want to do with him?" "Replace him with Medieval Elvis."

 

[finalark]

I just want to know what the hell happened to Talim. As far as I know she just disappeared off the face off the earth some time between SCIV and SCV. As a Talim main (in SCII at least) I was actually pretty pumped when I heard there was going to be a time skip for SCV partially because I wanted to see what an adult Talim would look like but that never happened.

My conspiracy theorey: Namco didn't want her to lose her "moe" appeal so she was dropped. Or they just flat out forgot about her. We didn't even get a replacement character in SCV.

 

[Twewy]

Especially Li-Long. I'd love to be privy to the decision making that went into that replacement. "We got this badass, bladed nun-chuck wielding assassin from Soul Blade, what do you want to do with him?" "Replace him with Medieval Elvis."

Maxi was great, and you know it. He also had the best Destined Battle in 2; He didn't give any ****s, he just burst in there and started wailing on poor Astraroth and even canonically whipped his sorry golem ass.

 

[dezeray112]

I've been playing the SoulCalibur series since the 2nd game.

My fave characters are Killik and Yun-Seong.

 

[Twewy]

Project X Zone 2 got announced and shown today, and for some reason they picked Natsu.

At least she comes with Strider Hiryu and Shinobi.

 

[finalark]

Not Taki? Man, Namco really wants us to dig the new characters. I wouldn't really have a problem with most of they were at least interesting. I like Viola for her unique move set and witchcraft inspirited design, Zwei has the virtue of being unlike anything else in the game and Patroklos is at least solid in terms of game play.

The other characters though? Pyrrha is moe otaku bait, Xiba has zero back story and one personality trait, Natsu was made to be the opposite of Taki because why not and Leixia has so little to separate her from Xianghua that it makes you wonder why she exists in the first place.

 

[Twewy]

Xiba has zero back story

From the SC Wiki:
Kilik and Xianghua separated before Xianghua gave birth to Xiba. As a result, Xiba has never met his father. What's more, he isn't even aware of the fact that Xianghua is his mother.

When Xianghua returned to her homeland, her grandfather forced her into an arranged marriage. She begged her father, Mast Kong Xiuqiang, to raise her newborn son Xiba. He acquiesced, but Xiba and Xianghua are only allowed to see each other once a year.

In an ironic twist of fate, Xiba learned Kilik's fighting style from Kong Xiuqiang. He took to the staff with aplomb, and soon began merging the formal arts of Ling-Sheng Su Secret Arts of the Rod with his own self-taught fighting techniques.

Xiba grew up in the mountains with his master, and he has very little knowledge of society. His education is limited to martial arts, but his natural instincts are very finely honed. He thinks quickly on his feet, making major decisions in a matter of seconds. He doesn't approach others with suspicion, due to his pure heart. The mountain village he grew up in was full of kind men and women who treated him like a treasured member of their own family. Due to their influence, he doesn't mind being an orphan and retains a positive outlook on life.

I'll agree on that personality trait though.

 

[Zink Imp]

Project X Zone 2 got announced and shown today, and for some reason they picked Natsu.

Well PXZ is a sequel to Namco X Capcom. Taki was in that game, so they probably decided that having Natsu instead of Patroklos or Pyrhha was a better as a replacement for her.

I'm surprised there wasn't any SCV rep in the first PXZ. I wonder if Mitsurughi will come back as well.

 

[dezeray112]

Project X Zone 2 got announced and shown today, and for some reason they picked Natsu.

At least she comes with Strider Hiryu and Shinobi.

Its a pretty interesting choice that they picked Natsu. I wonder if we can expect any others to be in PxZ2?

 

[Atrabilious]

Its a pretty interesting choice that they picked Natsu. I wonder if we can expect any others to be in PxZ2?

"If you don't like her now you will if we keep shoving her down your throat!"

I honestly can't think of any good reason to put in Natsu over Taki outside of thin-veiled attempts to improve her popularity. They should've just bit the bullet and put in Taki.

 

[Twewy]

"If you don't like her now you will if we keep shoving her down your throat!"

I honestly can't think of any good reason to put in Natsu over Taki outside of thin-veiled attempts to improve her popularity. They should've just bit the bullet and put in Taki.

They do tend to reference things the fans like. Zero has a move based off a glitch in X4, Ryu has a combo Daigo made, and Akira has a combo that's apparently popular in VF. To put in one of the most used characters from SCV makes a little sense.

 

[dezeray112]

"If you don't like her now you will if we keep shoving her down your throat!"

I honestly can't think of any good reason to put in Natsu over Taki outside of thin-veiled attempts to improve her popularity. They should've just bit the bullet and put in Taki.

That's why I am a bit curious to why Natsu was selected over the other SC candidates. So who knows?

 

[Zink Imp]

"If you don't like her now you will if we keep shoving her down your throat!"

I honestly can't think of any good reason to put in Natsu over Taki outside of thin-veiled attempts to improve her popularity. They should've just bit the bullet and put in Taki.

That's why I am a bit curious to why Natsu was selected over the other SC candidates. So who knows?

Like I said before, Taki was in Namco x Capcom. PXZ is a sequel to NxC. They probably chose Natsu because she's Taki's successor. Mitsu was also in NxC so maybe he'll come back with his updated SCV appearance.

 

[Twewy]

I think it was more Banpresto/Monolith Soft were all "SEGA and Capcom are adding ninjas. You wanna add any?" and Namco was all "Natsu! According to online stats the players LOVE her!"

 

[finalark]

"If you don't like her now you will if we keep shoving her down your throat!"

I honestly can't think of any good reason to put in Natsu over Taki outside of thin-veiled attempts to improve her popularity. They should've just bit the bullet and put in Taki.

It's like when Square wanted Lightning to be the face of Final Fantasy so they shoved her into EVERYTHING. Although that might have worked to some degree. I've seen a surprising amount of people on FFXIV who give their characters the surname "Farron."

I'm guessing that they picked Natsu over Taki for that reason. Although she does seem to be one of the better received new gen characters. Probably because she's basically the Kilik of SCV. Easy learn, easy to win with. However, while both characters are the newbie's favorite for the same reason, Kilik is easily countered once you master the art of guard impact where Natsu is still ridiculously good even at high levels of play, leading to:

I think it was more Banpresto/Monolith Soft were all "SEGA and Capcom are adding ninjas. You wanna add any?" and Namco was all "Natsu! According to online stats the players LOVE her!"

 

[dezeray112]

So if they ever do a SoulCalibur VI, what new characters would you guys like to see?

 

[Twewy]

So if they ever do a SoulCalibur VI, what new characters would you guys like to see?

If this was 2002, I'd love to see Kain and Raziel as guest characters. I was playing SC2 after a bit of the LoK series and those two would be perfect for a crossover. Soul eating sword meets soul eating sword.

 

[Deleted member]

So if they ever do a SoulCalibur VI, what new characters would you guys like to see?

It would be thrilled if Link returned, but a Wii U version seems unlikely since Namco didn't even bother porting HD Online.

As for new guest characters, I don't really care enough to want any aside from Marth if a Wii U port happens since he'd fit with the rest of the cast well. I generally prefer characters native to the series.