As a long time Soul Calibur fan, I have to admit that I’ve been extremely disappointed in the franchise ever since the the abomination known as Soul Calibur V released. While I was stupidly hyped that Ezio was a guest in SCV (along with that sick remix of Venice Rooftops) the rest of the cast was replaced with descendants or children who were cheap imitations of the originals, which made the game feel completely disconnected and ultimately hollow – not only due to the lame backstories of the replacements, but because the game was extremely barebones. Soul Calibur VI attempts to recon this tragedy and while it’s not a perfect game, it does a pretty good job of reminding people why the soul still indeed burns.
Soul Calibur VI is a return to form that provides players with both a fairly competent online structure where you can battle in both normal and ranked matches, working to ascend to the highest of ranks for showing off just how good you are online, but the best part of Soul Calibur VI is the return of decent single player attention. While we’re living in a e-peen waving world where everyone needs to show their dominance online, not everyone who loves fighters only cares about online play. Soul Calibur VI definitely struggles when jumping into the waters as I was frequently matched with players far above my skill level before finally leveling out a bit after 20 or so fights, so a casual player who wants to the test their skills might be quickly turned off by getting curb-stomped by someone who’s silver while they’re unranked. Thankfully, Soul Calibur VI remembers this and offers not only the standard Arcade offering, but also offers two single player experiences. The first single player mode is called Soul Chronicle, and this mode allows you to play as whichever character you’d like and play through their events as it relates to the Soul Edge storyline. There’s also a main storyline where you play as Kilik and learn the backstory that’s been unfolding since the original Soul Blade/Edge, and it’s all told with really nice voice overs and anime style comic panels. Not every character appears to have a playable section, as I cleared the story of multiple characters and never unlocked a playable path for Cervantes, but for the most part everyone has a section – even Geralt of Rivia, the guest character from The Witcher series.
The second and most enjoyable story mode is called Libra of Soul, and this mode allows you to create your own hero and see how the Soul Calibur story unfolds while adventuring among the lands and meeting up with the other characters of the cast in miscellaneous side missions and stories. I made a skeleton named Spinal, cause I’m also a big Killer Instinct fan, and I gave him the magic weapons style you’ll find on newcomer Azwel. As you play Libra of Soul, you earn money to buy new weapons and you level your character up allowing you fight harder enemies. It’s reminiscent of the Edge Master mode from Soul Calibur II, but more related to Soul Calibur III‘s Chronicles of the Blade mode. It’s pretty fun, but the story can get rather bland as you’re always just moving from place to place to harvest the power of the Astral Fissures. There’s also an alliance structure so you have to choose rather or not you want to play as good or bad, which also increases the desire to play a second character as pure good/evil depending on what you chose the first time, so that’s a plus for replayability.
Earlier I mentioned Geralt of Rivia being a guest character in Soul Calibur VI, and he’s easily the best feeling guest character that we’ve ever had. While Link/Spawn had their quirks, Heihachi never did feel quite right, Yoda and Darth Vader were flat out silly, and Ezio was good but that game sucked, so Geralt feels just as good as the normal cast does. He simply views every battle as a chance to improve his skills, and his Witcher signs are just magical enough to give his attacks and extra oomph without feeling too strong. Geralt is the pinnacle of guest character design, and I’m sad that Tekken 7 got Noctis as I think he also would have been a better fit for Soul Calibur. Perhaps Azwel’s blade summoning abilities were too close to Noctis’ Armiger? At any rate, Soul Calibur VI’s new characters Azwell and Grøh are both enjoyable to play and are far more memorable than trash tier dumpster fires like the twins (mainly Patroklos) from the previous entry. Azwel is an evil sorcerer who’s the main bad guy of the Libra of Soul mode, and he uses spirit weapons which allow him to summon weapons without ever actually wielding one properly. He’s also got the red/blue weapons similar to the main bad guy from Soul Calibur IV. Grøh looks like a rejected Final Fantasy character, and while he fights with a double ended staff, being able to break the staff into individual blades allows for some interesting mixups and some creative fighting – and thankfully he’s been nerfed from the beta where he could easily flurry spam a low attack that ended with an almost instant ring out in every match.
While I can certainly say that Soul Calibur VI is the best the series has ever looked – seriously, this game is gorgeous – Soul Calibur VI falls prey to the same thing most Bandai Namco fighters have recently been seeing. Soul Calibur VI feels a lot like Tekken 7, especially with the focus on Critical Edges and Reversal Edges, and while it’s nice to have a new entry in the Soul Calibur franchise – I fear that it’s going to feel just like the other stand up fighters, just like how the Dragonball and Naruto games all feel like the same game with different skins. Either way, for now, Soul Calibur VI is definitely steps in the right direction of reminding people why Bandai Namco has the best fighters not named Street Fighter, and I’m excited to see who else joins the fray in the series’ future.
Soul Calibur VI was reviewed on the PlayStation 4 Pro, and was provided for review by Bandai Namco.
