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[AmyS]

SC3 was the low point.

But without getting into anything else, if there is another Soul Calibur, my most requested aesthetic feature is bring back the day night transitions that the original arcade and PS1 Soul Edge / Soul Blade had.

 

[Skilletor]

I think it all started with Soul Calibur III - that memory card issue where it deletes your save data was something that stopped people from buying at least from what I heard.

After that - everything else was rush and not as polished....

I'd say, as far as gameplay, sc5 is the most polished the series has been since sc1.

 

[Freshmaker]

I'd say, as far as gameplay, sc5 is the most polished the series has been since sc1.

Yep. It's still being played at tournaments in fact.

This NEC's top 8:

http://www.twitch.tv/bifuteki/v/29761393

 

[Skilletor]

Yep. It's still being played at tournaments in fact.

This NEC's top 8:

http://www.twitch.tv/bifuteki/v/29761393

I watched that. It was awesome.

Love this game so much.

 

[tiggerkiddo]

I can't offer much insight since I came into the SC competitive community rather late but man do I wish Namco had given Soul Calibur V more attention and content, it was such a fun game to play and seemed pretty balanced.

 

[FrankNitty]

For myself personally I would say it started to go downhill in V as I lost most of my competition as they stopped playing it.

I wasn't a huge fan of the soul gauge, and critical edge they added. Though I did like the brave edge, and just guard they added. That was a nice touch. not a huge fan of the change to GI's though it did make you more cautious as to using it.

The only thing that I never really liked about SC was the damn character creation. I don't really give a damn about it and thats what they seems to focus on mostly.

Overall though I love SC. Always have, 2 was so good, 3 I actually hated at first because they changed Ivy too much, but then I found Setsuka and realized how stuns worked and it was a wrap. She was everything I wanted in a character. Then they took her out and made alpha patroklos...yeah. Still used him but he's no Setsuka lol.

I was lucky enough to have a SCIII AE in the Tilt by my place so I was able try that.

Looking back, I had the most fun with 2, but 3 and 4 were the better games imho. 3 with the introduction of the critical stun and 4 with the soul meter.

 

[Freshmaker]

...Though I did like the brave edge, and just guard they added. That was a nice touch. not a huge fan of the change to GI's though it did make you more cautious as to using it.

GI is actually pretty ridiculous now.

- You can cancel movement at any time with a GI
- You can cancel a GI with a JG so if you whiff the GI, no biggie.
- It covers all attack heights.
- Mostly offers a guaranteed followup if you have meter for a CE.

Other than wasting meter, a GI is a really safe option.

 

[FyreWulff]

The Soul Series's platform juggling has always been a strange thing. Soul Edge, the first game, was exclusive to PS1. The sequel was exclusive to Dreamcast (later ported to 360 and mobile). Then the sequel to that was on all home consoles except for Dreamcast. Then the sequel to that was PS2 exclusive. Then the following two were PS3/360, but you've got weird side games like the Wii exclusive Legends, the PSP exclusive Broken Destiny, and then PS3's now defunct Lost Swords.

And somewhere in the midst of that chain, Nintendo tried to buy the whole company, so at one point Soul Calibur almost became a Nintendo franchise.

They were only blocked by the Japanese government for the purchase.

 

[Kumubou]

I'd say, as far as gameplay, sc5 is the most polished the series has been since sc1.

SC1 is hilariously broken (as an example: people think step-guard was bad in SC2? Doing it in SC1 also sped up your step animation), but very few people played 1 competitively so it's not really known.

I actually think SC3:AE is the best game in the series, as it fixes a TON of issues SC2 and SC3 PS2 had... and of course, it's the one version to never get ported to a home console so about 20 people in the US have ever played it. Good job, good effort, Namco. SC5 would be behind that, from a mechanical standpoint. I still get mad whenever I remember that both of my mains in SC4 ended up getting dropped in SC5, though. :<

 

[Freshmaker]

SC1 is hilariously broken (as an example: people think step-guard was bad in SC2? Doing it in SC1 also sped up your step animation), but very few people played 1 competitively so it's not really known.

It also broke throw tracking so it was really hard to shut down.

 

[nded]

In hindsight, SC3 was the beginning of the end even though I was obsessed with that game for a while. I still kind of love it for bringing back Hwang.

 

[Cronox]

Really disliked what they did with timing based defensive options in SC5, they were completely unintuitive. SC2 was the pinnacle for me. Give it a good story mode and the franchise could rise again...

 

[Freshmaker]

Really disliked what they did with timing based defensive options in SC5, they were completely unintuitive. SC2 was the pinnacle for me. Give it a good story mode and the franchise could rise again...

SC2 had just frame steps that'd let you avoid horizontals.

 

[Basketball]

A major problem was that they stopped releasing the game in arcades in Japan

The arcades give crucial information and can show balance issues with the characters
then the team could have fixed them in the console releases but that didn't happen

plus the collusion thing which killed the tourney presence

 

[Baron Aloha]

SC2 is when the series started to slide. SC3 got a lot of shit but by then I had accepted it would never be as good as SC1 again so I got over it and got some enjoyment out of it. SC4 was when it jumped off a cliff with the critical finishes and then SC5 had the super moves and axed half the cast and replaced them with shitty characters. I tried to play 5 but I stopped after a week, it just wasn't fun. I think they were all broken in some way or another but for me Soul Edge and SC1 just clicked way more.

 

[LithiumSpade]

The Soul Series's platform juggling has always been a strange thing. Soul Edge, the first game, was exclusive to PS1. The sequel was exclusive to Dreamcast (later ported to 360 and mobile). Then the sequel to that was on all home consoles except for Dreamcast. Then the sequel to that was PS2 exclusive. Then the following two were PS3/360, but you've got weird side games like the Wii exclusive Legends, the PSP exclusive Broken Destiny, and then PS3's now defunct Lost Swords.

This is probably the correct answer to what went wrong. I was lucky enough to play Soul Edge on PS1, then later picked up a Dreamcast and got Soul Calibur. Had a Gamecube by the time SC2 came out, and loved it - literally bought a PS2 so I could play SC3 and to this day it's my favourite in the series. Had a 360 for SC4 + 5, but was disappointed by both.

It's far and away my favourite fighting game franchise, and I hate to see how it's declined so badly. SC3 is the greatest tho, because I was able to avoid the biggest bugs (just turn off Auto Save!) and it has an absolutely ridiculous amount of content, great new characters and god it looked incredible on the PS2 at the time. I have the PSP version (Broken Destiny) installed on my Vita simply because it's the closest thing to a portable SC3.

Give me that in HD, Namco, and I may not play another game ever again.

(It helps that I have a bunch of equally SC-loving friends)

 

[Skilletor]

SC1 is hilariously broken (as an example: people think step-guard was bad in SC2? Doing it in SC1 also sped up your step animation), but very few people played 1 competitively so it's not really known.

I actually think SC3:AE is the best game in the series, as it fixes a TON of issues SC2 and SC3 PS2 had... and of course, it's the one version to never get ported to a home console so about 20 people in the US have ever played it. Good job, good effort, Namco. SC5 would be behind that, from a mechanical standpoint. I still get mad whenever I remember that both of my mains in SC4 ended up getting dropped in SC5, though. :<

I kind of felt that way, but I wasn't good enough back in SC1 to evaluate it. It feels like if people went back to play that now, what you say would be super apparent to me.

I LOVE SC3:AE, I just didn't play it as much as SC5, so I couldn't give an informed opinion on it. I do wish that got the HD treatment over SC2, though.

 

[FrankNitty]

GI is actually pretty ridiculous now.

- You can cancel movement at any time with a GI
- You can cancel a GI with a JG so if you whiff the GI, no biggie.
- It covers all attack heights.
- Mostly offers a guaranteed followup if you have meter for a CE.

Other than wasting meter, a GI is a really safe option.

They were super forgiving also. huge window for the GI.

I kind of felt that way, but I wasn't good enough back in SC1 to evaluate it. It feels like if people went back to play that now, what you say would be super apparent to me.

I LOVE SC3:AE, I just didn't play it as much as SC5, so I couldn't give an informed opinion on it. I do wish that got the HD treatment over SC2, though.

SC3 AE was pretty good. Started off as the one I hated the most, and ended up being one of my favorites. Played it pretty often at the San Diego Mission Valley Tilt arcade. The sad part about it was that the PS version had hurt it so bad that there was only like 5 of us that played it lol.

It's one of those games that most wouldn't appreciate unless they went back to it years later.

 

[AmyS]

Soul Calibur II on original Xbox could be played in HD 720p, although it was windowed, not full screen.

Interestingly, Soul Calibur II HD Online for Xbox 360 and PS3 are both 720p and full screen, but not 1080p.