• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Soul Calibur V goes gold - New Vids, Screens

I like unlockables. Not just characters, necessarily. I guess I'm not jaded enough at this point to only demand competitive functions from my fighting games. I want to be able to appreciate as many aspects of the game as possible. The more there is to appreciate, the more I value the game. The more I value the game, the more I love it. That love translates into me becoming better at the game.
 
I will say though, if you are only picking one or the other I do totally get why they would be attached to single player as that forces people to play that mode they worked so hard on, when otherwise they might not.

And how much sense does this make? That's as bad a rationale as QTEs being attached to in-game cinematics, because "forcing you to play the QTE also lets you see the cinematics that they worked so hard on".

I mean, c'mon. Isn't the 50-60+ bucks that I spent on your damn game good enough to "warrant your efforts"?
 
Which is doing exactly what he claims to be a respectable means of keeping fighters fresh, but I guarantee this will be ignored.

It depends on what you call new. The majority of new characters are just replacements.

If you consider new unique movesets, SC5 has merely matched SC4 so far (Zwei, Patroklos, Viola, Ezio and Devil Jin vs Hilde, Algol, Yoda, Vader and Apprentice).
 
And how much sense does this make? That's as bad a rationale as QTEs being attached to in-game cinematics, because "forcing you to play the QTE also lets you see the cinematics that they worked so hard on".

I mean, c'mon. Isn't the 50-60+ bucks that I spent on your damn game good enough to "warrant your efforts"?

Well, Vs. Mode isn't the whole game, there are a handful of single player modes as well. The development team obviously worked long and hard on those modes and probably want people to experience and have fun with them.

Alternatively, some people just like to have goals like unlockable characters to help motivate them in single player and generally enjoy playing it to get everything. Vs. Mode is fun but the fact is there are more to fighting games than just that. Perhaps some people only enjoy that aspect, or enjoy it the most (and they should since that is the core of any fighting game...and kind of the point) but it doesn't mean the rest of the package is bad or should be avoided.

With QTEs and cinematics the cinematic is still playing anyways and adding a QTE is just an attempt to keep the person awake (Which I agree is stupid). I don't really think that comparison is a good one at all though.
 
It depends on what you call new. The majority of new characters are just replacements.

If you consider new unique movesets, SC5 has merely matched SC4 so far (Zwei, Patroklos, Viola, Ezio and Devil Jin vs Hilde, Algol, Yoda, Vader and Apprentice).

But the poster said giving new characters old movesets helps keep it fresh.

That's exactly what's been done.
 
Well, Vs. Mode isn't the whole game, there are a handful of single player modes as well. The development team obviously worked long and hard on those modes and probably want people to experience and have fun with them.

Alternatively, some people just like to have goals like unlockable characters to help motivate them in single player and generally enjoy playing it to get everything. Vs. Mode is fun but the fact is there are more to fighting games than just that. Perhaps some people only enjoy that aspect, or enjoy it the most (and they should since that is the core of any fighting game...and kind of the point) but it doesn't mean the rest of the package is bad or should be avoided.

With QTEs and cinematics the cinematic is still playing anyways and adding a QTE is just an attempt to keep the person awake (Which I agree is stupid). I don't really think that comparison is a good one at all though.

The comparison is apt for one reason. In both cases, I, the end user, am "forced" to play/see something I necessarily didn't want to see, because the developer is basically "sanctioning off" content (or rather, holding it ransom) that I would rather have access to as soon as possible, if not right out the box.

And for a game whose main focus is on its multiplayer, sanctioning off content that directly pertains to that mode of play is stupid.

Someone back on the KOFXIII topic put it best: imagine if you will, that a good amount of Story Mode or CaS content was sanctioned off, until you got, let's say, 50 wins in online/local Vs. mode. And there was no other way to do it. You HAD to play that other mode to get to what you wanted.

Could you imagine the outrage that the more "casual" players would experience, at something like that? I can guess they wouldn't exactly want to hear to "but you should be experiencing the mode that the devs worked so hard on" in that case, now would they?
 
I like unlockables. Not just characters, necessarily. I guess I'm not jaded enough at this point to only demand competitive functions from my fighting games. I want to be able to appreciate as many aspects of the game as possible. The more there is to appreciate, the more I value the game. The more I value the game, the more I love it. That love translates into me becoming better at the game.

Couldn't said it better. I loved the feeling when I was unlocking 10 new characters in Tekken 2. I want the game to keep on giving even if I play alone. Secret unlocks are like digging through treasure chest.
Crybabies that need everything on a platter are really off putting, but I guess it's a fault of the internet where can you find everything before you try to discover it by yourself.
 
The comparison is apt for one reason. In both cases, I, the end user, am "forced" to play/see something I necessarily didn't want to see, because the developer is basically "sanctioning off" content (or rather, holding it ransom) that I would rather have access to as soon as possible, if not right out the box.

And for a game whose main focus is on its multiplayer, sanctioning off content that directly pertains to that mode of play is stupid.

Someone back on the KOFXIII topic put it best: imagine if you will, that a good amount of Story Mode or CaS content was sanctioned off, until you got, let's say, 50 wins in online/local Vs. mode. And there was no other way to do it. You HAD to play that other mode to get to what you wanted.

Could you imagine the outrage that the more "casual" players would experience, at something like that? I can guess they wouldn't exactly want to hear to "but you should be experiencing the mode that the devs worked so hard on" in that case, now would they?

I have no doubt a lot of CaS content is unlockable, and some of it probably is unlocked in a way similar to what you describe. I personally don't really mind either way. I know I am going to end up playing all the modes and don't really care where the unlocks are coming from. All I am saying is I can see why Namco would do it the way they are doing it. Also, you have to recognize that even if you are paying for the $60 package the Vs. Mode is not that entire package and there is more to it. Maybe you don't like the other parts of the package for some reason but that doesn't mean they just suddenly aren't there. I don't really think any game should cater to only part of a package rather than the whole. That's just me though.

Couldn't said it better. I loved the feeling when I was unlocking 10 new characters in Tekken 2. I want the game to keep on giving even if I play alone. Secret unlocks are like digging through treasure chest.
Crybabies that need everything on a platter are really off putting, but I guess it's a fault of the internet where can you find everything before you try to discover it by yourself.

I really like this too. It has always been really cool to discover there is more to the game than you thought. It is a shame that most fighting games are going towards everything being already unlocked from the start now.
 
Couldn't said it better. I loved the feeling when I was unlocking 10 new characters in Tekken 2. I want the game to keep on giving even if I play alone. Secret unlocks are like digging through treasure chest.
Crybabies that need everything on a platter are really off putting, but I guess it's a fault of the internet where can you find everything before you try to discover it by yourself.

The internet has nothing at all to do with me wanting to have all characters playable from the start. What a silly comment.

How can I discover everything with a character if I have to fight stupid AI to unlock them? It's a fighting game. I play it to fight other people, not the computer.

I don't care about other unlockables. make costumes, outfits, hairdos, whatever else unlockable. Not the characters I want to use the moment I get the game.

I've been playing fighting games for 20 years. The ONLY aspect I appreciate is vs. mode.
 
The internet has nothing at all to do with me wanting to have all characters playable from the start. What a silly comment.

How can I discover everything with a character if I have to fight stupid AI to unlock them? It's a fighting game. I play it to fight other people, not the computer.

I don't care about other unlockables. make costumes, outfits, hairdos, whatever else unlockable. Not the characters I want to use the moment I get the game.

I've been playing fighting games for 20 years. The ONLY aspect I appreciate is vs. mode.

I guess it is a good thing you're not the only person who plays fighting games in the world.
 
The internet has nothing at all to do with me wanting to have all characters playable from the start. What a silly comment.

How can I discover everything with a character if I have to fight stupid AI to unlock them? It's a fighting game. I play it to fight other people, not the computer.

I don't care about other unlockables. make costumes, outfits, hairdos, whatever else unlockable. Not the characters I want to use the moment I get the game.

I've been playing fighting games for 20 years. The ONLY aspect I appreciate is vs. mode.

Well I think unlocking characters is fun. Can't please both sides.
 
Well, yeah, since I play them to fight other people, that would be a bad thing.




Nope, guess not. Glad this is becoming the exception rather than the rule, though.

It takes like an hour to unlock everyone in these games.

Stop acting like it's a big deal.
 
Well I think unlocking characters is fun. Can't please both sides.

But is it the most fun thing you can do in a fighter? I can't think of any game where unlocking stuff is why I'd get the game in the first place.

I'm with Skilletor on this one.

And yes, I'd love a game to keep the story locked until you won 10 times in ranked or versus. That's exactly what it's like for us.

Also, that only takes an hour as well.

At the very least, at launch give us a $1 DLC key to not grind. I'd pay that.

I don't mind unlockables outside of characters, but when it comes to costume parts- I want to be able to unlike by playing the game the way fighters are intended to be played. SC4 allowed this- somewhat.
 
At least unlocking isn't as bad as the arcade days. Their unlockables were time released. The original Soul Calibur released 1 character a week. So that was about 2 months to unlock everyone. I think Soul Calibur 2 didn't unlock anyone until a month in, but there were only 2 unlocks. Yup...Tournaments on a new machine sucked if you didn't use the default cast.
 
The internet has nothing at all to do with me wanting to have all characters playable from the start. What a silly comment.

How can I discover everything with a character if I have to fight stupid AI to unlock them? It's a fighting game. I play it to fight other people, not the computer.

I don't care about other unlockables. make costumes, outfits, hairdos, whatever else unlockable. Not the characters I want to use the moment I get the game.

The point is not knowing what characters are hidden, as you know, they're are supposed to be discovered by you. But of course they will leak because someone always gets an early copy and it'll be posted on every gaming site and in titles of topics on forums. So yes, internet has a lot to do with this, don't be naive.

And when there's no one to play with at the time it's boring and sad to stay all the time in training mode, some people like to do other things in the game that'll give some bonuses.
Fighting games are not multiplayer exclusive. They are still games with story and progression system with unlocks like every other game. It's not like unlocking characters takes crazy amount of time or effort, yet people cry and bitch like they have to build a cathedral, it's sad.
 
All characters should be unlocked from the start in VS mode. That's all there is to it. That goes for all fighting games.

Costumes, colors, and I suppose even retard boss characters that no one plays seriously are fine for unlocks, but not characters.
 
The point is not knowing what characters are hidden, as you know, they're are supposed to be discovered by you. But of course they will leak because someone always gets an early copy and it'll be posted on every gaming site and in titles of topics on forums. So yes, internet has a lot to do with this, don't be naive.

And when there's no one to play with at the time it's boring and sad to stay all the time in training mode, some people like to do other things in the game that'll give some bonuses.
Fighting games are not multiplayer exclusive. They are still games with story and progression system with unlocks like every other game. It's not like unlocking characters takes crazy amount of time or effort, yet people cry and bitch like they have to build a cathedral, it's sad.

Never said I was against unlockables. Just unlockable characters.

My time is limited. I'd rather spend it doing what I want to in a fighting game.

Also, back in ye olden days of unlocking characters in T2, I already knew who was in it because I'd played it in the arcades.

Anyway, I think I get into this argument whenever unlockables are mentioned. Now that there's a search function, I should just copy paste what I say.

/me goes back to KOF.
 
The music from AC2 actually fits damn well during the fights in those gamesradar clips. Then again, the music from AC is fucking awesome anyway.

What is the word on single player content though? Any yet?
 
It's not like unlocking characters takes crazy amount of time or effort, yet people cry and bitch like they have to build a cathedral, it's sad.

Again, I'm with alstein. I'd love to see what would happen if the shoe was on the other foot, for a change.

"Want to play story mode? Want to unlock Create-a-Char mode? THEN GO GRIND OUT A FEW HOURS IN TRAINING MODE, MAGGOT! GO GET 10 WINS IN VS. MODE! BECAUSE WE SPENT SO MUCH TIME AND EFFORT ON THOSE MODES AND YOU MUST EXPERIENCE THEM IN ORDER TO GET TO WHAT YOU WANT! MWAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!" *inserttrollfacehere*

...That much would be ridiculous, wouldn't it? Why can you guys on the other side of the aisle see that's what exactly they're doing to the aisle opposite you?
 
Says who?

Well, to be honest, unless the single player is like the quest stuff in SC2, it's really not worth spending that much time on.

Single player is rarely (if ever) an accurate simulation of multiplayer.
 
The music from AC2 actually fits damn well during the fights in those gamesradar clips. Then again, the music from AC is fucking awesome anyway.

What is the word on single player content though? Any yet?
I think one of the AC2 composers is one of several composers working on the soundtrack too. It's been a pretty big production, actually. They have a collectors edition of just the soundtrack and a making of going for about the same amount as the game itself.

For single player there's:
Arcade mode with multiple paths of enemies to chose from.
Quick Play mode where you choose different AIs arranged in different regions. I think there's 200 different AIs.
Story mode following Patroklos according to the description. Has over 16 episodes to it, but I'm not sure how many more. The last achievement with a number on it is 16, but there's still a story complete achievement above it.
Legendary Souls mode where you fight all the bosses from previous games.
 
I think the Smash Bros. games probably do it best with unlockable characters. In those you can get them (typically faster) by doing certain objectives in single player, but you can also unlock all of them eventually by playing vs. It is the best of both worlds that way so that people who want to play either method can get all the characters. It is too bad real fighting games haven't done something like that.
T6 had all characters unlocked from the start, but you could unlock endings by playing any mode. Too bad most people missed this and thought they had to play scenario campaign to get them.
 
Story mode following Patroklos according to the description. Has over 16 episodes to it, but I'm not sure how many more. The last achievement with a number on it is 16, but there's still a story complete achievement above it.

I think it is a safe bet looking at the achivements that the story mode has 32 episodes
 
The internet has nothing at all to do with me wanting to have all characters playable from the start. What a silly comment.

How can I discover everything with a character if I have to fight stupid AI to unlock them? It's a fighting game. I play it to fight other people, not the computer.

I don't care about other unlockables. make costumes, outfits, hairdos, whatever else unlockable. Not the characters I want to use the moment I get the game.

I've been playing fighting games for 20 years. The ONLY aspect I appreciate is vs. mode.

I'm sorry to say it but...
People want unlockables too.
Soul calibur is a lot of things and it make sense that they hold it back a little.At least the content is on the disc and accessible.
Just like yiu only enjoy versus..there are people who want that feelign of progression.
 
I'm sorry to say it but...
People want unlockables too.
Soul calibur is a lot of things and it make sense that they hold it back a little.At least the content is on the disc and accessible.
Just like yiu only enjoy versus..there are people who want that feelign of progression.

Why not do this then

Have it in the option screen: do you want locked characters: yes/no? Each side would get their wish that way.

99% of players would unlock their chars that way though.
 
I'm sorry to say it but...
People want unlockables too.
Soul calibur is a lot of things and it make sense that they hold it back a little.At least the content is on the disc and accessible.
Just like yiu only enjoy versus..there are people who want that feelign of progression.


People can unlock new hats all day; what we're asking for is characters to be unlocked in VS from the start.

If people love unlocking shit so much that's fine, but at the least they should have an "unlock all characters" in the option mode for people that don't want to bother playing single-player.
 
A compromise for unlocking characters might be to give the game meaty, meaningful modes, like a really good story mode, then leave all characters unlocked for pure versus play off and online. Leave most of them locked for story modes, challenge modes, trials, everything else. Hell, why not make versus mode give back to single player for a change? Like to use a character in story mode and such you have to play them a lot in versus mode.

Wouldn't that be like a motivation to actually try every character? Learn how they play, and thus learn the match-ups that much faster?

My ideal super meaty fighting game package would be a combination of an in-universe story mode, and VF5's amazing arcade tour.

Arcade tour would take place in a "real life" themed virtual series of arcade and tournament venues. You'd be able to use every character immediately. You'd earn rank with them by playing humans, or personalized CPU characters at arcade locations.

Then when you had enough experience with the character, you'd unlock them for a full story mode for that character, challenge trials (real trials, and stuff that made you learn/prove you learned advanced tactics), time attack, survival, etc.

If you really wanted to give players a lot to unlock, make stuff like alternate colors and costumes the rewards for going through trials, beating time trial par, and beating survival tiers. So it all comes back around to where it started.

Funny to think... didn't unlockable chracters, as opposed to "secret" characters that you only picked with a code, come from Tekken 2 arcade? And the premise that time locked characters would keep people playing the machine for months waiting on the next surprise challenger?
 
My main problem with unlockable characters is if I want to just show the game to a friend or play it at someone else's apt/house besides mine. If I forget to copy my save data and bring a USB stick, as I often do, not all the characters are available in versus mode from the get-go, which sucks.

IMO, unlockables should've been limited to outfits, or maybe secret guest characters like Sophitia (who'd just be an alt. costume of Pyrrha for example as if made in CaS). Considering the extensive Character Creator in this game, not seen in any other fighter, this would've still been enough incentive for people to play single player mode.
 
Grinding matches in Brawl to unlock shit was possibly the most horrible waste of time ever. At least in Soul Calibur 3 you could set it up so you had Yun-Seong in a 1 round VS match against an opponent with 0 health. Just leave it so it has a button for both Kick and Menu OK on Auto and leave it there overnight.

At any rate, this is supposed to be a tournament game, and tournaments need setups without characters locked.
 
Funny to think... didn't unlockable chracters, as opposed to "secret" characters that you only picked with a code, come from Tekken 2 arcade? And the premise that time locked characters would keep people playing the machine for months waiting on the next surprise challenger?

Yea, it was just a gimmick/feature before to keep people pumping quarters in, and extend the life of the game in the arcade, not to make single player more deep and enjoyable, haha. Of course, they put it on the home ports. Damn them.

Aside all that, I think best scenario for all of the stuff like this is, all unlocks are tied to "points". And you can accumulate points everywhere, including versus mode and practice mode. That said, I personally prefer no character unlocks. Just colors and all that jazz.

I still have sad memories of trying to unlock all the crap in MVC2. I resorted leaving the game/dreamcast sit in practice mode for hours while I was at school/work to get even those small amount of points, or whatever it was called. I don't think that was good for the poor dreamcast hardware (my DC was already loud as hell).

MVC2 has the worst system ever!!!!
 
I would rather all characters unlocked, with interesting and engaging single player modes. Which is what the Soul games had in the past. Though I don't believe that both sides are right or wrong. People have different values for games, and I respect that.
 
Their commentary makes it plain enough.

"I don't know if there are others who make up honor codes..."

Yes. There are. They're commonly called scrubs.
Hahaha, I had the video muted so I didn't hear that. Reminds me of the "NO THROWING" my older brother imposed on me back in the SCII days.
 
Unlocking characters who aren't bosses or overpowered is stupid as hell.

I'm not a fan of the new characters. Pretty much the only character I can see myself using is Nightmare.
 
I actualy like the Blazblue option ... or at least is going in the right direction

z5q6u.jpg


A dlc to unlock everything is a good idea for people who don't want to spend time =P

This, huge stuff ("expansions") like GTA's Ballad of Gay Tony and insanely opitional stuff is the only dlc i support
 
I actualy like the Blazblue option ... or at least is going in the right direction

http://i.imgur.com/z5q6u.jpg[/IMG

A dlc to unlock everything is a good idea for people who don't want to spend time =P

This, huge stuff ("expansions") like GTA's Ballad of Gay Tony and insanely opitional stuff is the only dlc i support[/QUOTE]
BlazBlue example is kind of a bad example since they're not charging for the regular characters but the crazy suped up versions of the characters that most people wouldn't seriously play anyways. It would also be a non-issue for tournaments since those versions of the character wouldn't be allowed for the obvious reasons.

Besides, I don't really feel like being nickel and dimed just to play the damn game I already payed for.
 
Now that you mention it, SC IV did the same thing iirc.

I think they did it kinda with the CAS parts. I hated that part of the game. It was such a damn time sink to get all the items. I hope it is more reasonable this time in how it unlocks.

I don't think SC4 went all the way with paying a small fee to unlock all the parts. Maybe they also did some special holidays crap too, like a special pumpkin head or something? I don't remember exaclty. Maybe they put all CAS part unlocks for sale as DLC. I should boot SC4 to check right now, hehe. But I won't......NFL playoff time!!!!!
 
BlazBlue example is kind of bad since they're not charging for the regular characters but the crazy suped up versions of the characters that most people wouldn't seriously play anyways. It would also be a non-issue for tournaments since those versions of the character wouldn't be allowed for the obvious reasons.

Besides, I don't really feel like being nickel and dimed just to play the damn game I already payed for.

You can buy Mu which was the only unlockable character.
 
Single player's something you play 30 mins tops. Single player should never be the focus of a FG.

In SC4 I mainly played vs. matches against the AI. Online was mostly unplayable in SC4, and I have nobody to play offline against. And the AI on harder levels in SC4 was pretty fun to play against.
 
Top Bottom