SoulCalibur V

 PlayStation 3
Metascore
81

Generally favorable reviews - based on 53 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 47 out of 53
  2. Mixed: 6 out of 53
  3. Negative: 0 out of 53
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  1. LEVEL (Czech Republic)
    Mar 22, 2012
    70
    A good genre piece brings fans hundreds of hours of entertainment. Japanese poetics with schoolgirls wearing katanas and thin knights with iron swords are worth seeing. [March 2012]
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  2. Thunderbolt
    Feb 19, 2012
    70
    The combat mechanics are easy to pick up, but the advanced techniques ought to be more than enough to keep things interesting. Regardless of its shortcomings, Soulcalibur V is still a fun and engaging game. That's all what really matters.
  3. CD-Action
    Feb 13, 2012
    70
    Apparently the devs ran out of money and couldn't polish the game the way it deserves. SoulCalibur V had a big deal of potential – a lot of great characters and a cool fighting system – but simply feels unfinished. [March 2012, p.54]
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  5. PlayStation LifeStyle
    Feb 10, 2012
    70
    It's a competent fighter, yes, but nothing about it really screams "must-have" unless you are a diehard SoulCalibur fan.
  6. DarkStation
    Feb 7, 2012
    70
    Soul Calibur V ultimately feels rushed. The modes are shadow of their normally robust nature, the character list has been reduced severely, and the net code is not as good as it should be. It seems like Namco was desperate to get in on the fighting game revival and rushed this out. I expect better from this series and with so many fantastic and cheaper fighting games out, such as King of Fighters XIII, Mortal Kombat 9, and even Soul Calibur IV, I cannot recommend the game to anyone but the most hardcore of Soul Calibur fans.
  7. Games.cz
    Feb 1, 2012
    70
    It's easy to sell goods that are supposed to be good. However, when authors simply copied everything great from the Street Fighter game because they were not able to deal with their own worn-out game concept by themselves, there is something wrong. We want you to better take care of tenderfeet. We want more bonus content. And we want some fresh juice. SoulCalibur is far from going down to the second league, however, there's no play-off this season. Fans of the series will most likely buy it, the rest of you just take it easy and wait for the all-star mainstream: the Street Fighter x Mortal Kombat game.

Awards & Rankings

42
#42 Best PS3 Game of 2012
31
#31 Most Discussed PS3 Game of 2012
56
#56 Most Shared PS3 Game of 2012

User Reviews

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User Score
6.7

Mixed or average reviews- based on 206 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 90 out of 206
  2. Mixed: 83 out of 206
  3. Negative: 33 out of 206
  1. EverydayLegend
    Feb 5, 2012
    5
    The Soul series of fighting games have always been a breed apart - where other fighting game franchises have focused on fast and frenziedThe Soul series of fighting games have always been a breed apart - where other fighting game franchises have focused on fast and frenzied action, high-count combos and twitch reactions, Soul was different in the sense that it required elements of patience. You never had to worry about your guard breaking, because you were meant to constantly shift your position or quickly intercept an attack with a well-timed block. You never had to worry about one mistake costing you the match (in most cases) because juggles and combos, while present, took a backseat to a more deliberate style of fighting. It wasn't a scrap, it was a duel, and you had to do less outplaying of opponents than you would OUTHINK them, and this was a refreshing change of pace in an era where the Marvels and Guilty Gears of the world were focused on finding ways to use one more gauge. Soul Edge/Blade brought a new idea, SoulCalibur perfected it, and SoulCalibur II immortalized it. SoulCalibur III was released on the PlayStation 2 without an arcade playtest preceding it (for a Japanese fighting game, that's never a good thing) and as such had massive issues that plagued it, and SoulCalibur IV felt like it had an identity crisis - it didn't know exactly what game it wanted to be, and could never find a comfortable place in between trying to remain relevant to the changing tastes of the genre and maintaining its own unique sense of class.

    With that said, SoulCalibur V is a descent into full-blown manic schizophrenia, and is easily the most unnecessarily contrived attempt at revitalizing the franchise. Somewhere along the line, I imagine someone at Namco Bandai had to have said "I wonder if we'd do the franchise and its fans justice if we only took the system back it its roots," but I'm sure that genius was ignored or fired for speaking not only a great idea, but the truth. Whoever came up with the conceptual gameplay ideas for this title needs psychological evaluation. Probably rehab from whatever rocks they were smoking, too.

    First of all, let's talk gauges. SoulCalibur didn't have a "guard crush" anti-turtle mechanic until SC4, and they connected that to a one-hit-kill system that was almost impossible to initiate because it took forever to whittle down someone's guard. So, they thought up a better idea than half-heartedly stealing a Guilty Gear gameplay trope was to steal a Street Fighter one: enter the new gauge at the side of the health bar, which powers Brave Edge moves (think EX specials), Critical Edge moves (think Ultra Combos in SF4), and Guard Impact. The first two on this list are lame additions to try to add a false sense of complexity, but the last one kills not only me, but I'd be willing to wager 80% of the existing, longstanding fanbase.

    Guard Impact is to SoulCalibur as a series what breathing and blinking is to human life. They decided to change the way it's worked for the past 13 years for some reason, whatever reason that may be, it wasn't good enough. In its place is "Just Guard," where you need to block at the exact frame (or nearabouts) to cause a window of counterattack. This has taken a system that caused tense parry wars and impossibly exciting action between friends and foes alike and successfully reduced it to trying to tap guard at just the right moment of any incoming attack. So, they took yet another great 2D mechanic and plastered it into a game where it really didn't belong (you have Garou: Mark Of The Wolves to thank for Just Defense). Again, they have taken the rich complexity of chess at a hundred moves a minute, and reduced it to Connect Four on a PixyStix sugar rush.

    Every step isn't backwards, however. The music is fantastic, classic tracks and new alike. The visual fidelity is stunning, backgrounds pop and come to life, characters have ornate clothes, lip-sync is very well done for speaking animations. The online netcode is beyond solid and functions like a dream (X360). The character creation mode, a SC staple since SCIII, is easily the greatest part of the whole game. This is what every character creator should be, and Namco Bandai should carry that proudly. It's just a shame that the game that uses all of these sublimely fantastic elements should perform so underwhelmingly, and I'm not going to even go into the abysmal story mode and complete lack of single-player content, again, something the Soul series is not only known for, but carries high praise and accolades for those very features in past games. Let's do the math: major characters missing, balance issues out the wahzoo, a fighting system that doesn't deserve the name SoulCalibur, a complete and utter lack of meaningful single-player anything, fantastic presentation in which everything shines but the gameplay itself, atrocious storyline...it all equals a five, and it really should be a four, but the rest of it shows such high workmanship that I can't bear to not give credit where it's due.    … Full Review »
  2. nemean
    Feb 7, 2012
    1
    Story: ~1hr to beat. Note: this involves a few fighters. The rest -omitted, you get to fight on a few stages. The few people that do show upStory: ~1hr to beat. Note: this involves a few fighters. The rest -omitted, you get to fight on a few stages. The few people that do show up have 1 line of dialogue. Almost the entire cast of SC5 is not in the 'story mode'. Wow! Big effort Namco. ~3 cut scenes in story mode. The rest is pencil drawings. Yeah, I prefer pencil drawings on my 60" 1080P HDTV. Thanks Namco for 1996 & chargingfull price for a 'new' game. It's as if Namco scanned the storyboard pencil drawings that should have become CG video or even in-game-engine sequences & decided "Nah, we're 2 cheap. Let's use pencil drawings instead." I almost forgot, you're going to hear a LOT of "I love you brother/sister/mother" in story mode. You get to hear those words & READ them 2. Why? cuz you can unlock the text. cuz that is SO much more fun than unlocking katas (e.g.SC2), different gameplay modes (e.g. SC3) & ending movies (e.g. SC4).

    Arcade: Remember picking a fav fighter, pick their 1P/2P/3P costume, select their diverse weapon set? Play through arcade/story & unlock their 'ending movie'? That was fun & rewarding. Namco removed that part of the game. Yes, no story mode for the remaining people in the game. All fighter endings are gone. No option to view the cutscenes, all 3 of them. That's right, they removed all the endings. Want to know what happened to Astaroth? Raphael? Amy? Taki? or Cervantes? Good luck, cuz all that is missing from this game. What did they replace it with? You get a sad arcade mode (fight 6 times) Yippie! cuz that is *so* much better than full CGI endings (sarcasm). Oh, I forgot they added a 2nd arcade mode. What is different about it? You get to fight 6 times (sound familar?) and... The difficulty is higher. rip-off. Even SF2/MK1 had ending movies We've got HDTVs, 3D games, lossless high-def master audio surround sound & what does Namco give us? pencil drawings & text descriptions of "Loves his sister, can't wait to live with her". WTF?

    Chronicles of the Sword/Tower of Souls: GONE. Replaced with... ??? Nothing. It is just gone. You have arcade (fight 6 times), training (worthless), & VS mode (which doesn't work properly). Oh wait, you can fight online.... except you could already do that in SC4.

    Reduced: Taki, Sophitia, Kilik, etc are gone. But you get 3 ppl that are mimics (copy other styles),add 2 more that have ~identical styles [Sophitia's son & daughter], that seems 2 be an extra 2 fighters, it's more clones, that makes 5 mimic fighters.

    Museum Mode/Gallery mode/photo mode/Kata mode: GONE. Replaced with: Nothing.
    1-player: All standard modes like time attack, team battle, tower of souls, survival, ARCADE, gallery, etc. ARE ALL GONE. Nothing to do in 1-player. This stands out since previous SC games had a strong single player (i.e. SC2). Using your fav. fighter & level them up by playing a variety of matches? How cool it was to have reached level 10 with everyone? This led to further rewards in-game... GONE.
    2-Player: Good luck trying to get this working. It took over 10min+ to get a VS match. Oh, & both players were sitting IN THE SAME ROOM. Remember how you could handicap your fighter compared to your opponent? i.e. in SC4 you could have 1/2 health & your little brother could have X2 health. Help even out matches where someone is less skilled, it was useful & a staple in SC? GONE.
    Training: Games typically give you info on new features & explain how 2 use them? it's good 2 have this info? Namco doesn't provide it. Yet they tout it as 1 of the main features. Contrast that with SC4 which provided it. Namco couldn't be bothered to copy some text into the game to help out players. Oh wait! They do have text... yes they provide lots of text about love....(More later). Training mode is reduced compared to SC3/4. Gone.
    Unlockables: Oh how we used to collect artwork, concept art, music, weapons, movies, opening CGI sequences (complete with inserting your CaC into those sequences), BGM, kata (demonstration) mode & all sorts of other fun stuff? Well That is all gone too. But you CAN unlock things like these wonderful TEXT descriptions. E.g. I just unlocked "Loves his sister." Wow, that is great Namco. A... piece of text? What can I do with it? I can have it appear when I play online. Wow.... that is supposed to be better than having Taki or Sophitia in the game? RIP OFF!!!
    Options: No 3D support (Arkham City/Assassin's creed). Remember changing time limits/round? You could select 'infinite' time/round, have a fight 2 the finish? GONE. Namco decided to force a max limit [60 sec]. Thanks for giving me LESS options than before.
    I've been with SC series from the start & SC5 is a joke. I even explained to Namco (via Twitter) what was wrong with SC4. In fact, 1000's of fans explained exactly what they did/didn't want. Yet Namco gave us this? Reduced, reused & recycled over-priced POS.    … Full Review »
  3. RMenezes
    Feb 4, 2012
    10
    This review contains spoilers, click full review link to view. It's better than Soul Calibur 4 in gameplay, but is worse than 3 in game modes. The Creation and Online modes are excellent, and the new characters like ZWEI and Viola were very creative. And finally the story mode started walking again, but I would like to see the end of the other characters too. I recommend this game for all the fighting game fans, specially the SC fans.… Full Review »
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