Soul Calibur V - Playstation 3

The bad parts are all about the single player experience. The arcade mode is a bit silly and the story seems like entire segments were cut out. The "story" mode was okay, but really just filler for me to practice some fundamentals before I got into the online parts.The online modes are fun, although I haven't tried ranked. Occasionally it took a little while to find a battle in the global colloseum, but the lag was never an issue for me.The game is a lot faster than previous installments, but the execution required is about the same. Defense will take a little while longer to learn, so for the next month or two there will be a LOT of people playing a rush-down style and/or mashing a lot of fast attacks to win. Once the community has a chance to play this a while longer, defense will improve and you will see more balanced play styles emerge.SC5 requires a slightly different skill set than SC1-4. There is less time for reaction, so your yomi must be better. Also, match up specific knowledge is going to be a lot more important in SC5. You have to go into each fight with a battle plan, and play your way - rather than just reacting and punishing your opponent. The windows of opportunity to punish whiffed moves is a lot smaller due to the speed of the game now.Overall I think it is a great follow up to SC4. Some people bitch about the graphics being only 720p, well sometime a choice must be made in the tug-of-war between less lag during online play and better graphics. Almost all real fighting game fans would opt for less graphical detail and less lag. The online mode is what will make this game popular and give it longevity.

Gameplay:It's definitely different from the older games. Overall I have found it solid and unforgiving and that's how I like my fighter games. Unless it's a brawler like Super Smash Bros I feel most fighter games need to be this unforgiving and relentless in order to be a proper tournament worthy game. As a casual gamer who enjoys the tough games I give this game 4 stars.Story:Bad but I enjoyed the anime light show at the end. Pretty much there is no story for every character. It's all one solid campaign that can be beat in a day. Broken down by episodes which is pretty much one fight each.Customization:There are limitations that weren't in the other games. If you have your custom character wear a jacket or full dress then he/she can't wear a skirt or skirted belt like armor. However with the options they added to it, being able to add patterns and symbols, I don't really miss what they took away aside from the annoyance of seeing that I can't stack on an article of clothing because it would layer over something I already equipped.NOTE: Last thing, Mitsurugi no longer has his battoujutsu techniques. The attack from sheathed sword stance, however most of the moves that were initiated by it are still here. Just something specific since I was a big Mitsu user back in the SC II and III days. Just fair warning that many of the characters are missing some of their extra movesets. I actually enjoy that they cut out the fat and stuck purely to making the game balanced even though there are still characters who are lower and higher tier I have met players who are skilled with the supposedly low tier characters.

I had played almost all the SC games so far, and -for me, at least- the best of all is SC III. Is gives you the option to create your own and distinct char, and bring a strategy game inside that gives you a second game inside the game, and that let you to get more pieces and weapons to create more chars. For me, that game is almost perfect.SC V brings again the char creation mode, and almost all the pieces are nice to use (believe me, that's an improvement). But you are limited to the weapons and moves of the main chars (Remember that in SC III you have extra weapons, so your char could be really original, instead of a disguised main char. Even more nicely, in SC III you can have one char with six optional weapons, so you can change your fighting style without changing your char! yay!).If you and your brother are playing on the same console, each with your own profile, the unlockables will apply only to the active profile, not both. And you will be looking at your online enemies, even if you are playing offline.The game art is beautiful and, even when the game programmers had traded some playability in favor of looks, the fighting system is very nice. Is a good game to buy and play, even lacking for some extra weapons and extra modes.If you are a fan of the series, this game is a must-buy. But join me and ask for a SC III remake in PS3! :D