Soul Calibur 5 Review

Just what the hell is Voldo, anyway? Soul Calibur 5 is the sixth game in series to feature the V-man, and yet still no one knows what he actually is. More to the point, what does it say about the people who created him?

Out of all the humans in the universe, though, real or pretend, Voldo would be pretty near the bottom of a list of people we’d like to fight in real life. Just imagine it. The horror.

Soul Calibur 5’s new story mode doesn’t shed much light on the matter. Voldo does make plenty of appearances during its linear, cut-scene-and-still-image driven narrative path, but beyond the fact that he’s weird and up for a scrap at the drop of a pair of leather chaps, no one’s any the wiser.

In fact, that’s a sentiment that you could use to sum up SoulCalibur 5’s story as a whole. Only those paying very close attention will be able to follow the tale of Malfested (infected with some sort of powerful nastiness) sword-wielders, the origins of Soul Edge and the true nature of perennial badass Nightmare. 

If you are paying attention, though, you’ll get an insight (albeit one that seems like it’s been written by an eight-year-old) into the world of Soul Calibur and why, 17 years on from the events of Soul Calibur 4, everyone’s still hungry for that crystallised shiny Soul Edge sword.

No mention of why you had to fight Yoda in space back then, though. Hmm. You spend most of the story playing as new character Patroklos as he first tries to rescue his sister Pyrrha and then embarks on an adventure with her, with story scenes punctuating scraps with arbitrary guards and standard roster characters en route.

Nightmare is a badass, and the end boss in Arcade mode.

It adds a bit of colour to a genre typically threadbare in its single-player options, but if Soul Calibur 5’s story hooks you for longer than a day then you’re weirder than Voldo.

Far more interesting is the actual fighting itself: a glorious refinement of over a decade’s worth of swords and souls and samurai and seven-foot-tall three-year-old axe-wielding maniacs.

If you’ve played any Soul Calibur before, you’ll be in familiar territory: fast, fluid combat that’s both instantly accommodating and intimidatingly vast, both haplessly frenetic yet curiously measured.

Anyone can pick up a pad and start mashing buttons in Soul Calibur 5 and they’ll get results, but pitch them against a master and they’ll be sent home packing with their kitana between their legs.

While the meat of the game is largely unchanged – it’s still chunky, sexy Eurasians kicking each other in the balls and slashing each others’ chests apart – there are some significant tweaks to the flow of the action.

First and foremost are Soul Calibur 5’s answer to Street Fighter’s Ultra Combos, Critical Edges. If you’ve played Street Fighter 4, you know what to expect – a super-powered combination that you unleash with a specific button input, but only when you’ve taken enough of a beating that your new Edge Gauge is sufficiently full of magical Edge juice.

They’re easier to pull off than Ultras, because they’re always the same – two fireballs and all three attack buttons. Not that Soul Calibur 5 has fireballs, but seeing as you’ve probably played a fighting game since 1991, you probably know what we’re talking about.

Siegfried vs Nightmare. It’s like Ryu vs Ken. Without the homoeroticism.

They’re also less spectacular than Ultras – barely memorable for the most part – yet always worth connecting with during a bout. Critical Edges can be linked into combos or used as counters, but just as Soul Calibur 5 isn’t as tightly technical as Street Fighter 4, so its answer to Ultra Combos aren’t anywhere near as satisfying to unleash.

That Edge Gauge can be used for something else, too. Brave Edges are similar to Street Fighter’s powered-up EX moves, but much trickier to nail.

You’ll need to hit all three attack buttons immediately after inputting a character’s standard special attack, and if you get the timing right you’ll fire off a more powerful and sexually attractive version in exchange for half your gauge.

They feel like a bit of an afterthought – it’s certainly better to maintain your gauge for a Critical Edge. Street Fighter 4 uses separate meters for EX and Ultras – one being a reward for offence, the other an apology for the battering you’re taking – and therefore it makes sense to use them in different circumstances. In Soul Calibur 5, it’s just a better idea to build up your Edge Gauge and then unleash hell as soon as you can. 

In truth, Soul Calibur 5 doesn’t really need combat gimmicks or meters – the actual flow of the battle is far more enticing than any number of crash-zoomed multi-stabs.

A far more welcome addition is the Quick Step, a basic evolution of the eight-way-movement that has underpinned the action since Soul Edge’s arcade debut back in 1996.

Now, with a double-tap up or down, you take a – yep – quick step, laterally, meaning you can sidestep almost any attack and immediately launch a counter to your opponent’s stupid prone frame. 

Success comes from lateral movement, timing and some heavy combos.

Measured use of the quick step is key to success – use it too much and you’ll end up facing the wrong way yourself, but time it just right and you look like the ultimate badass.

Which is more than can be said for Soul Calibur 5’s handful of new characters. Ignoring the likes of ‘Kilik 2’ Xiba and Xianghua clone Leixia, you’ve got the annoyingly named Z.W.E.I., Taki’s student Natsu, Sophitia’s offspring Patroklos and Pyrrha, and crystal-ball-holding oddity Viola to get to grips with. Oh, and continuing Soul Calibur’s unusual bent for including guest characters, Ezio Auditore da Firenze. Obviously. 

Out of that list, only Z.W.E.I, Viola and Ezio offer anything particularly new, and all of them still fit into the Soul Calibur mould of in-n’-out attacking and heavy combo rushes.

There’s no one as game-changing as El Fuerte in Street Fighter 4 or even Soul Calibur’s own Astaroth, and when compared to the established roster, there’s little to get excited about.

Ezio at least feels like a normal part of the roster and not an unbalanced tie-in like Yoda was, although he’s a touch on the slow slide to accommodate his short-range flurries.

Mercifully, too, Kilik replacement Xiba is a trickier proposition, meaning you can’t just mash the pad with your face and win every single match any more.

You can easily create characters that look like they belong in the ‘proper’ roster.

Ultimately though, the fact you can build your own characters really rams home how uninspiring this new lot are. If you can’t create someone more interesting than Z.W.E.I., then you’re not trying hard enough. Even if he does have his own familiar that leaps out of his body and attacks his enemies. All right, maybe he’s not that bad after all.

The character creation system is strong, though, and adds a freak-show element to the online world that no other standard fighting game can really mimic.

In truth, though, Soul Calibur 5 is not about new characters or flimsy stories, it’s about the refinement of a fighting system some 15 years in the making.

It may not offer much in the way of innovation, reinvention or revolution, but this is still 3D fighting of the highest quality, and the best ever in the series.

After SoulCalibur 4’s Lucas-fuelled misstep, it’s a treat to be back in the company of Mitsurugi, Ivy and even Voldo. It’s good to have you back, you face-crotched man-worm, you.