Aurgelmir said:
Another thought I had about the game is that the flow of combat seems to have changed slightly. It used to be that pushing one button many time in a row you got a three hit combo, now though you mostly only get two hits.
Not a complaint just an interesting observation.
Yup thats the first thing I noticed with Siegfried now that I finally have the damn game. I havent had much time to play it yet so I will only give a brief of my first impressions first of all the intro is a bit crap better than Soul Caliburs and possibly 4s but not as good as 2,3 and nowhere near up to the gold standard of intros that was Soul Blades.
Moving on the visuals are much more in line with what I expect of soul calibur this is what SC4 should have looked like much like SC2 should have looked like 3 (yes I know visuals improve with time) its not amazing graphically but at least it looks nice again.
Fighting I much prefer ATM I still havent given it a good workout but it already feels tighter than 4 and that can only be a good thing as they started to let themselves go after really tightening it up in SC from Soul Blade. So yeah so far it feels almost as good as it did in SC and an improvement over 2,3 and 4 but I may change my mind on this after ive given it a good 40 hours or so playtime and really start to get to grips with it.
I am not a fan of guest characters(except Link he was cool) so I wasnt looking forward to Ezio and Devil Jin (his style) being in this game and after playing with and against them they have done absolutely nothing to make me change my mind both just feel out of place and dont fit the game I also wish they would get rid of Yoshimitsu and maybe keep Seung Mina and Sophitia in instead but no it looks like guest characters are here to stay (some more permanent than others).
No edge master mode (or whatever you want to call it tower mode/quest mode etc) is a bit annoying and no endings at all in arcade is a little cheap but at least there is no stupidly powerful boss you have to fight ala SF4 DoA4 KoFXIII and to a lesser extent Blazblue:CS also no artwork to unlock just titles makes it feel a little cheap in the single player department. I know SC wasnt exactly overflowing with options and if it was one or the other im glad they focused on the combat rather than extra modes but seriously how hard would it have been to add some unlockable artwork or even a few pictures and some text at the end of arcade?
I like the changes to guard impact in the past it became way to easy to have the match stall in these back and forth parry wars and the guard crush further pushes it towards offensive play which I think is better and is a much better alternative than the almost useless instant kill system in 4 (dont think I ever got to use it in a standard match unless I abused the AI and certain moves to force it). While the critical edge brought back happy memories of playing Soul Blade even if it dosent work exactly the same its use in matches feels natural coming out fast enough to catch unwary opponents while still being telegraphed, that being said there seems to be a disparity between the usefulness of the move between each character.
Havent tried the story or online yet so cant really comment on that while the character creation looks even better than 4s but need to unlock more stuff before I really try it out.
Im in two minds about getting rid of sword properties as one the one hand it was a nice gimmick while on the other it was just that and probably detracted more than added to the fighting (I always played with it off in 4 for MP) but you know an option to choose like in SC4 would have been nice.
Usually how long I spend on each SC game is dependant on the standard of the fighting as I traditionally play a lot of MP on these games with SC on dreamcast I must have spent a fair few hundred hours on MP while on SC2 I probably only played about 80 as it was a disappointment fighting wise same with 3 both of which were saved by single player content while 4 felt like a very slight improvement even if it seemed to be drowning in convoluted systems. Only time will tell on V I suppose but at least its off to a more promising start on the fighting front than 2,3 and 4.
Its a shame they just cant seem to marry great fighting with great wealth of content in this series its always one or the other.
