SoulCalibur V - Xbox 360

This game has excellent graphics and the game-makers made the home characters more difficult to beat. I love playing this game when I have time even though I bought it for my children.

there is some changes from the last soul calibur but this one has a lot of cool things packed into it. the story mode is a little short 20 chapters but a lot of fun. the creation you get 50 slots and unlock armor along the way also leveling up you can get new characters unlocked like assassin creed brother hoods character. the creation has many things i like about it the weapon you can change the color of the blade, the slash, handle and other part of the item. you get different moveable parts but they are a little tricky to move i had that on a previous game a few years ago but it dose add a lot to your soul. i wish they let us have beards in the creation you know the long beards of old wise warriors. also they give you the choice to change the base color on your cloths to have a pattern to get a two tone or multiple colors. there is some items that are download content that is cool but if you dont take your xbox online those items you cant get like aeons head or a skeleton body. i create souls from my favorite movies, games and anime they are either spot on, better than the original. the graphics are the best i have seen, better facial movement when talking, create your voice having a high pitch or low pitch and different styles. graphics 10 sound 10 game play 10 story mode 9.5 creativity 10 characters 10 character weapons 10

We purchased this on release day, brought it home and was almost immediately disappointed. Although the graphics are great the story is lacking and the characters aren't up to par. They have basically the same characters as previous games with very few additions. My favorite character is Kilik who (on the 360 version) is an unlockable character which I expected would mean he was great. Instead, they made him a "mimic" which means he DOES NOT use his own move set when you play as him. From stage to stage he takes on other characters move sets and weapons...this was very upsetting. They spent so much time making the extra stuff that they cut short on main characters. Right from the start it is extremely difficult which I normally appreciate but this was too difficult in "normal". Nightmare as the boss in arcade mode was very frustrating because he would spam me right off and I couldn't even get off the floor which let's be honest, should NOT be the case in any game. I did manage to beat him using most of the faster, longer reach characters. Lizardman character somehow gained these huge "angelic" wings that he uses and cannot be blocked against. This game more than it's previous versions had one major frustration... when you are destroying your CP apposition (say Nightmare), they will be at the brink of death and all of a sudden receive a power up which allows them to use a finishing move...basically crippling and in some cases completely killing you. The saving grace of this game is the character creation. They did a wonderful job here. They expanded SO much since SC4. They allow you to add patterns, stickers, tattoos, etc to any part of the body and even the clothing/armor! They are still lacking in the voices area but it can be overlooked. I did find an interesting glitch though. I built a male character with Ivy's move set and when I fought with him, in the middle of a grappling move her voice would break through for only a split second but it happened every time I hit that move. All in all, it's nothing special. Graphics are great, creation is great but game play was majorly lacking. I wish I had waited to buy it once the price went down because it was NOT worth $65. Save your money and rent it before you buy it.

This game fails to meet most the expectations I had. The story part often uses a book page style to tell you its story, finding yourself annoyed with long dialogue and boring pictures that just leave you confused at times. The AI players are indeed harder but you can beat most stages by repeating the same move over and over in story. Anytime the AI actually shows difficulty is when they are the ones repeating a certain move on "you" multiple times. Character styles are much like the Soul Calibur 4 except for feeling more bulky and slower. Some characters change their style after each match allowing for a quick change in strategy, however it can annoy if you liked Kilik before since he now changes styles each match. In general I just don't have a reason to keep playing it. It's not worth unlocking more gear since special gear no longer adds attributes in character creation. It's fun while it lasts, but replay value lacks greatly.