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So hmmmmmmm I have Soulcalibur V now and since I love this series with low-burning but never-extinguished passion I guess it would be a good idea to talk about it.
Here are some UNSORTED THOUGHTS ABOUT EVERYTHING:
-Patroklos is pretty adorable. And a brat. But adorable! Also: a douchebag. But so adorable.
-Okay so there's this line in Story Mode where Patroklos is confronting the, um, essence of Soulcalibur, Elysium. And it looks like Sophitia but like, only wearing napkins, and Patroklos is like "WHO ARE YOU" and Elysium is all "I AM THE IMAGE OF THE MOTHER YOU HAVE DREAMED" or something along those lines, which made me laugh and laugh and laugh, because wow those are some interesting dreams Patroklos is having of his mom, huh.
I'm such a mature individual, I know!
-Pyrrah is maybe the least proactive character in the history of forever. Pyrrah Ω: Hilarious. "OH GOD IT'S FILTHY!" So much craziness.
-Speaking of story mode, it is all Alexandras, all the time. Okay, that's a lie, you do get to play as Z.W.E.I. a few times. But basically you just play through Patroklos' and Pyrrah's shared storyline with some other characters making appearances to help them along. Siegfried is basically a babysitter, Ivy is an inconvenient information booth, the entire cast of characters involved in the "Find Out What the Fuck Happened to Kilik" plot show up for like 2 episodes to make Soulcalibur more, um, Soulcalibur-y, and a whole bunch of characters don't show up at all. So the vast majority of the plots set in motion in the released profiles have zero development and no resolution in the game. It totally blows because I doubt there will be any future resolution in stuff like DLC.
-Brave/Critical Edges are funfunfun~ Some people have been complaining that they take away from the traditional Soulcalibur feel, but I dunno. The meter charges slowly so you generally don't have access to them for the first round, and I think at most you can reasonably hope to pull of 2~3 Edges per match assuming you do not spend it on anything else, like Guard Impacts. And they can be sidestepped/blocked as well, SO. They are far more integral to winning than Critical Finishes in IV, but they aren't absolutely necessary to win. Also, they're flashy and cool-looking. :p
I admit I may be biased because the addition of Brave/Critical Edge really helps out Raphael.
-Speaking of Raphael, his P2 outfit is ~glorious and beautiful~ and I love it to bits.
-Natsu is my favorite new character. She's like a tiny, even more dangerous Taki. Sometimes when I'm playing as her online I feel like I'm cheating because she is just that good. And she has the best stage theme music. Her interactions with Leixia are cute too and I am bummed out that they got pushed aside in the "Soulcalibur: Sophie's Kids Edition" story mode. :/
-Favorite frivolous addition: people yelling at you when you win by Ring Out. Not only do they berate you for doing it, they have multiple quotes if you keep doing it! I'm not sure which I love most: Raphael's "Have you no shaaaaaaaaaaaaaame" or Hilde's "I can still fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight"
No, Hilde, you can't. You fell of the edge of a cliff.
-XIBA: WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU
In closing I would like to point out that a day after SCV's release, there is already Z.W.E.I./Patroklos pornfic.
Never change, fandom. :Db
Here are some UNSORTED THOUGHTS ABOUT EVERYTHING:
-Patroklos is pretty adorable. And a brat. But adorable! Also: a douchebag. But so adorable.
-Okay so there's this line in Story Mode where Patroklos is confronting the, um, essence of Soulcalibur, Elysium. And it looks like Sophitia but like, only wearing napkins, and Patroklos is like "WHO ARE YOU" and Elysium is all "I AM THE IMAGE OF THE MOTHER YOU HAVE DREAMED" or something along those lines, which made me laugh and laugh and laugh, because wow those are some interesting dreams Patroklos is having of his mom, huh.
I'm such a mature individual, I know!
-Pyrrah is maybe the least proactive character in the history of forever. Pyrrah Ω: Hilarious. "OH GOD IT'S FILTHY!" So much craziness.
-Speaking of story mode, it is all Alexandras, all the time. Okay, that's a lie, you do get to play as Z.W.E.I. a few times. But basically you just play through Patroklos' and Pyrrah's shared storyline with some other characters making appearances to help them along. Siegfried is basically a babysitter, Ivy is an inconvenient information booth, the entire cast of characters involved in the "Find Out What the Fuck Happened to Kilik" plot show up for like 2 episodes to make Soulcalibur more, um, Soulcalibur-y, and a whole bunch of characters don't show up at all. So the vast majority of the plots set in motion in the released profiles have zero development and no resolution in the game. It totally blows because I doubt there will be any future resolution in stuff like DLC.
-Brave/Critical Edges are funfunfun~ Some people have been complaining that they take away from the traditional Soulcalibur feel, but I dunno. The meter charges slowly so you generally don't have access to them for the first round, and I think at most you can reasonably hope to pull of 2~3 Edges per match assuming you do not spend it on anything else, like Guard Impacts. And they can be sidestepped/blocked as well, SO. They are far more integral to winning than Critical Finishes in IV, but they aren't absolutely necessary to win. Also, they're flashy and cool-looking. :p
I admit I may be biased because the addition of Brave/Critical Edge really helps out Raphael.
-Speaking of Raphael, his P2 outfit is ~glorious and beautiful~ and I love it to bits.
-Natsu is my favorite new character. She's like a tiny, even more dangerous Taki. Sometimes when I'm playing as her online I feel like I'm cheating because she is just that good. And she has the best stage theme music. Her interactions with Leixia are cute too and I am bummed out that they got pushed aside in the "Soulcalibur: Sophie's Kids Edition" story mode. :/
-Favorite frivolous addition: people yelling at you when you win by Ring Out. Not only do they berate you for doing it, they have multiple quotes if you keep doing it! I'm not sure which I love most: Raphael's "Have you no shaaaaaaaaaaaaaame" or Hilde's "I can still fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight"
No, Hilde, you can't. You fell of the edge of a cliff.
-XIBA: WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU
In closing I would like to point out that a day after SCV's release, there is already Z.W.E.I./Patroklos pornfic.
Never change, fandom. :Db
no subject
Date: 2012-02-02 07:15 pm (UTC)From:- I kept waiting for someone to backhand Patroklos across the face and tell him to stop being such a brat. Not because I don't like him, but because it would be funny and, let's be honest, he kind of earned it at points.
- MAN CAN I JUST TAKE A MOMENT TO SAY HOW MUCH I DISLIKE ELYSIUM'S OUTFIT? I don't care that it's so skimpy, it's just, you know, it just looks so halfassed. If they're going to dress her like that, they could at least make her majestically skimpy.
And, yeah, Elysium deciding the best way to appeal to Patroklos is to look like his mother except wearing nothing but saran wrap is pretty hilarious.
- Pyrrha reminds me a lot of Oichi from Sengoku Basara, from the passive, apologetic, and emotionally abused beginnings to the part where she turns crazy and evil after the universe pushed her around to the point of no return. So, I like her!
- I do like how the story mode was set up as one continuous thing, but yeah the lack of exploration of any of the other storylines they put out there was... frustrating. I think they could have kept that format while still actually getting into the other character's stories. It probably would have required it them to have made it pretty long and divided into multiple chapters or something, but I would have enjoyed it a lot. (And, I mean, come on, you can't just dangle this stuff in front of our noses and then not do anything with it.)
THAT BEING SAID, I think I would be even more frustrated if they decided to release these things as DLC, which I wouldn't be able to purchase as far as I know. It would feel like Namco giving me, specifically, the middle finger.
- I didn't get the big deal about the Critical Edges? One of my friends is super mad about it and I don't understand at all. They don't feel obtrusive at all to me, and I like them better than IV's Critical Finishes.
- Raphael's 2P is the best thing ever, tbh.
- I ship Natsu/Leixia pretty hard I'M JUST PUTTING THAT OUT THERE.
- lmao, I didn't even notice that. Ahahaha, Raphael's is amazing.
- Xiba is perhaps the least subtle Son Wukong reference ever.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-06 10:54 am (UTC)From:Weirdly enough, what bothers me most about story-related content is the complete lack of endings in Arcade. Like, I can understand wanting to focus on one particular narrative and presenting it in 'epic' fashion, but why couldn't they just slap together SOMETHING for Arcade endings? SCII's endings were like three lines of text and some pictures and that was good enough -.- SCV doesn't even go that far.
Raphael's 2P just...makes me melt into a puddle of goo... ^q^
Natsu/Leixia is so delightfully obvious.
"Leixia stop looking BOYS, gdi"
"Leixia go be cute"
"Leixia watch me be your badass overprotective boyfriend, I'm really good at it"
Xiba would probably annoy me less if he weren't such a one-dimensional Sun Wukong wannabe. There's more the Monkey King legend than food, damnit! D:
no subject
Date: 2012-02-06 05:45 pm (UTC)From:Yeah, I had wondered if there was something in Arcade too! And then there wasn't and I was like "...Oh :|"
Xiba's lines make me think they're withholding food from him to make him pull his weight. I'm not really sure how I feel about that.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-05 02:03 am (UTC)From:I just got around playing SC5 yesterday. Just the story mode, some arcade...what I heard was there was a rushed production of it? That doesn't sound good, I would have much rather have a delayed game than one with so little single player content.
I haven't looked at the bonus content yet, but the character bios in the art book really made me hope there was more of a story mode. (Particularly Raphael's and Hilde's...we know almost nothing about them to begin with -.-) And there isn't much dialogue either, I could have have Raphael's dialogue was exactly the same as SCIV's.
But I haven't really played the game that much yet, this is just a first impression :D With so many details left out, maybe I can still write fics and not worry too much about what's canon xD The only problem is Siegfried being old, I guess, but I can always invent some kind of Soul Edge time machine like they did for at least 3 of the other characters.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-06 11:24 am (UTC)From:Production was almost certainly rushed. IIRC SCV was first announced on Dec. 25th 2010, and a year for development is pretty short.
I was hoping there'd be something in Arcade, even if it was just a few concluding lines, but there's not even that...even the character interactions tend to be on the disappointing side. (Raphael and Viola have almost nothing when they meet. ;_; )
There seems to be a lot being planned, story-wise, that was eventually set aside due to time constraints. (There's lots of little things, for example, that seem to point at Graf Dumas being Raphael-possessed-by-Nightmare...)
SCIV Siegfried shows up in 'Legendary Souls' mode!
Then he kicks your ass repeatedly :(
Older!Sieg is growing on me. I wish he didn't have slicked-back hair, though, it bothers me for reasons I can't figure out.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-11 02:21 am (UTC)From:I have more time this weekend to play the game again, maybe I can find out more about this game and replay some parts.
The concept art for older Sieg was pretty good, but I can't but notice his age when I play :( Slicked back hair reminds me too much of Strife or those bad guys of movies.