SoulCalibur website : http://soulcalibur.com/en_US#/home
Gameplay video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsXJYmLTDKU
The SoulCalibur franchise has been one that I have been following since young and provided me hours of great enjoyment and entertainment. Soul Calibur is a 3D fighting game, by developer Namco, which first started off as ‘Soul Edge’ in 1996 on PlayStation and Arcades. SoulCalibur exhibits a variety of original characters in a beautifully designed medieval environment and is accompanied by well-orchestrated original sound track which adds in to the heroic feel that the game has. But what appealed to me the most is that unlike most of big name fighting games, SoulCalibur heavily features the use of a wide array of weapons as its fighting mechanism. Today the series is at its 8th instalment with ‘SoulCalibur V’ released in 2012 and it will be the game I will analyse for this assignment.
The lens of skill
SoulCalibur V is all about real skills which physical, mental and social skills.
The physical skills requires the user’s dexterity and reflexes to both input commands and react to the opponent’s attack. While simple attacks can usually be performed by pressing one button and a direction, long combos and special attacks are much more demanding in terms of physical skills. They require pressing a series of buttons of two or more buttons simultaneously in a strict timing. Critical hit are usually performed with the notoriously hard to input command involving a double quarter circle on the direction pad and pressing 3 buttons at the same time. Of course, this command can be more easily performed by using the analogue stick and shoulder buttons of the PS3 controller, but the player still needs to time his input to his opponent move. Whether a critical hit will be effective or misses is often a frame-by-frame matter.
The player must also memorise each move of his character in order to vary his attacks and make him less predictable. Combos can be learned and practiced in the Practice mode of the game and players can achieve a reasonable level of mastery in quite a short period of time. However, to truly excel in the game, knowing his own character is not enough. One must also learn the moves of the opponent’s character and know how to react to them. Knowledge about the length, speed, direction and range of a combo as well as the vulnerability interval of each attack give an edge to the player.
The strategic and tactical aspect is perhaps the thing I enjoy the most in a battle. It involves social skills like reading the opponent, trying to feint him and counter his attacks. The game takes a whole new dimension when skilled players are trying to outsmart each other, using their character’s own set of skills and attribute. The game emphasizes a lot on space and situation awareness. The player always has to gauge his opponent’s range and speed while avoiding certain areas on the fight ring which would expose oneself to a ringout, automatically losing the round.
The lens of competition
Competition is present throughout almost all of the game modes. I usually spend most of the time playing the offline versus mode against friends, trying to beat the other and finding out who is the most skilled. The gameplay provide a lot of tension and winning a match can be particularly satisfying. The online versus mode also enables players from all other the world to compete against each other and the online ranking system try to achieve a fair ground for players to compete against opponents of the same level. The difficulty level can be adjusted for the game’s other offline game mode, thus enabling novices t0 meaningfully compete against the game AI.
The lens of beauty
SoulCalibur graphics are gorgeous. The characters are beautifully designed, with each having their different costumes and weapons reflecting their own personality. This makes the characters more believable and helps the player relate to the more easily, thus making them more fun to play with. From the magnificently crafted stages to the good voice acting and the epic-heroic sound tracks, all is done just right to provide a compelling environment. Story telling is also quite well done using cinematographic scenes, and keeps the player interested enough in the storyline of the game. The soundtrack is also a delight, with very well-orchestrated heroic-epic music which makes the game this much better.
The lens of the avatar
Character creation or customisation is definitely one of the features that I enjoyed the most in the game. It allows the player to create a new characters based on the default fighting style, by selecting from an array of different body types, outfits and equipment. SoulCalibur V’s character creation system is an expansion of its prequel, where the user is given more customisable options. This creates a connection between the player and the created character or avatar. I actually did spend a lot of time creating new characters and I can more often than not, project myself into this avatar. As such, playing with this avatar becomes more engaging and also adds variety to the characters we encounter in the game, especially in the online mode where people across the world can fight as their own avatar. This gives the impression of playing against other people and not just an AI controlled default character in the game.
The lens of the character web
The SoulCalibur’s story has bas been spanning over more than 16 years now and a lot of the characters have been introduced in the series. Each of them has different relationship with other characters that seasoned players are familiar with. The series often introduce new characters which add on to the intricate relationships. In order for players to keep up with the relationship among characters, a character web has been presented, allowing seasoned and new players alike to get a better understanding.