Why, oh god why,do gaming companies NEED to change things up with every sequel?

So Soul Calibur Broken Destiny (PSP) is out today. And While I normally will read well into games long before they are released, digging through every article about how the physics engine allows for more realistic chesticles, or how X engine makes Y mechanic seems obsolete in comparison etc etc. But not for this game. It wasn't until I had the misfortune of picking up the game with the last of my game spending cash for the next few weeks that I realized what they had done. Everything Soul Calibur 4 did wrong, they did even worse.

Story mode has been degraded to a tutorial. There is no more story once you complete the tutorial. Granted, this IS a PSP title and the main focus is that you can fight on the go, but still one would expect a little bit more from the history of this franchise. Most of the story consists of quick 2 second fights where you have to block/attack/special/whatever a few times... and then the story continues! You get a quick "good job, now you're learning!", a pat on the back, and sent on your way. They named this mode "The Gauntlet", and it may be the most accurate name they could have given it. It has an inch deep plot with 2D characters you care nothing about (unless you main them ;) ), it consists entirely of tutorials and training stages, and it's 42 CHAPTERS LONG. Any long standing fan of the series will give up around chapter 7.

Character creation also went the way of SC4. You pick a style of an existing character for weapon/attacks aaaand then make a costume. Even then the costumes are more limited than SC4 was.

Now, don't get me wrong... this is STILL soul calibur. The graphics by any PSP standard are incredible. And there's such a huge character selection it keeps the multiplayer varied and interesting. And lets not forget Kratos! The gore spewing, harpy raping, god slaughtering, greek hating bad-ass that has deserved to be in a fighting game for the known existence of time.



They also added another new character named Danpierre. Who as I understand, came out of the closet just in time to join the other fighters. He reminds me a bit of Willy Wonka. If Mr.Wonka was french... and wore striped pants... and was really gay.



And yes, the graphics ARE pretty amazing for PSP.




Despite it's shortcomings this is a pretty decent addition to the Soul series. If you likes 1 2 3 and 4, you'll like this one. It's not any better than the others, but it really isn't much worse either.

That being said, whatever happened to the good ol days of 2 and 3? Soul Calibur 2 did, and to this day still does have probably the best "story" or campaign mode I've seen in a fighter. This was even one of the defining features of the game that got it such a high rating. I'm still to this day wondering when, why, or how they thought that they had gone wrong with this style of campaign and had to change it. The "story" mode (create-a-character tales of destiny thing) in SC3 was actually really good as well (though arguably inferior to SC2). Moving from fight to fight had an interesting mechanic and almost felt like a simplified dynasty warriors. What also really impressed me with 3 was the massive variety created characters could have. Not only adjusting their appearance and clothing, but created characters had access to weapons, fighting styles, and moves that the main characters did not. It allowed players to make their own personalized fighter without just making him LOOK different like in SC4 and broken destiny.
As a good example, the heavy lance!




A 10/10 series has gone down to about a 7/10. I can only hope that for the next entry in the Soul franchise Namco gets their act together and remembers that the fans want more than a knee deep fighting experience with the same characters in the same form using the same attacks with less modes and options than the previous game.