So yeah, SCV has been out for almost a week now. It has seen mostly favorable praise from critics and top players of the SC circuit. All would seem right about this game.
However, there has been a growing number of folks who just don't get it. Their voices have been growing louder and more numerous by the day, so I think it's time I raised my voice and said, "You're all wrong. So very, very wrong."
So, what are people getting their panties in a bunch over? Soul Calibur V's single-player content, or the lack thereof. I've been hearing from many folks that they should 'save their money' because of the lack of single-player content, or that 'It's fun, until the multiplayer community dies in 3 months. Then you've got nothing.'
This. This is what you all look like right now.
These statements hurt me the most, because it shows just how the gaming community is as filled with drooling idiots as it ever was, and that means I'm going to be associated with the rest of you juveniles just by being part of it.
The story mode is there. It's better than the story mode in SCIV, that's for damn sure. Could it have been done better? Oh, hell yeah (I personally would have wanted some optional path branches as well as being able to select appropiate characters before battle - like, after Patroklos recruited Maxi, Xiba and Leixia, I think you should have been able to use them in his episodes, or be able to use Viola and Siegfried in ZWEI's episodes, or Tira in Pyrra's episodes), but it's still better than what we got with SCIV. It's not very often that you get a centralized, focused story in a fighting game - usually the story is all over the damned place because it tries to tell how 30+ characters managed to all defeat the final boss and everybody else along the way.
I'd rather have Jim cut off my balls with a wooden Lancer than see this screen again.
I'll also take Quick Match over SCIV's god damned Challenge Tower any day of the week. I hated that Challenge Tower. It required exploiting of the clothing buff system just to get anywhere respectable with it, and I ended up dropping it like a rock.
Compared to SCIV, this game is superior in almost every way. Not only was SCIV's single-player content lackluster, it's multiplayer was atrocious. Absolutely terrible, some of the worst netcode I've ever dealt with. Meanwhile, I've played people in Japan, Europe and who knows where else on SCV's online and it felt like I was playing them right in my damn room.
Fighting this guy seemed cool, until you found out that the game would pause every 2 seconds to re-establish the connection.
Ya see, this is the thing: fighting games are COMPETITIVE GAMES. That is THEIR WHOLE REASON FOR EXISTING. And SO MANY have phoned in their netcode, making the online experience TOTALLY UNPLAYABLE.
Is it good to get strong single-player content? Yes. (I out and out loved SCIII's Chronicle of the Sword mode) At the expense of the multiplayer? NO. (Chronicle of the Sword was the only good thing about SCIII.) There are TONS of other genres out there that are built on providing single-player content - just as you won't want their single-player content to suffer because they phoned in some multiplayer (Bioshock 2, anyone?), the same should not be done to fighters. Multiplayer in a fighter IS ESSENTIAL. ESSENTIAL. THAT IS WHY THEY EXIST.
Remember this game? Yeah, me neither.
I also always find it a bit ironic when people say that a fighting game without single-player content won't last long. Super Street Fighter II Turbo, Street Fighter III: Third Strike, Marvel vs Capcom 2, Capcom vs SNK 2, Soul Calibur II, Tekken Tag Tournament, King of Fighters '98, King of Fighters '02 - do you think any of these games lasted long because of their single-player content? Hell, most of those games didn't even have a story to speak of. If the focus is on single-player content, the game will last
exactly as long as the single-player content. So, at best, two weeks, because if it takes longer than two weeks for you to do everything that exists in the single-player of a fighter, I feel bad for ya, son.
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We shouldn't still be settling for less three installments later.
None of the Street Fighter IV games have managed to come close to being as good as SF3:TS or SFA2.
But by that same token, the single player content complaints ARE valid. They also extend to all Japanese fighting games coming out. Know what? Here is the real deal. Mortal Kombat gets nothing but shit from the fighting game community and has been shaming the Japanese fighting game developers on this front since the PS2. Hell, the last two MKs alone should be getting Capcom back to their SFA3 (PSX) and Namco back to their Tekken 3 days. Fighting game devs really do need to acknowledge the fact that a whole lot of the fighting game community doesn't go online with their fighting games. The bigger mystery is why this was KNOWN and ACCOMIDATED for during the Playstation era and here we are, 10 years later, looking at $60 games as $3 experiences again.
Online testing can never, never, never replace local multiplayer and that's how fighters are truly put through their paces. Going off of the competitive players will never bring a balanced view point.
SCII had it all, the arcade version was put through five iterations before the console version, which was the sixth iteration. SCIII, IV and V did not have thsse itirations but you know what did - Street Fighter III?
There's a reason SFIII Third Strike is so respected and it is not backs people decided it was better after SFIV was out. SFIII TS had a huge following before SFIV was even a thing. The reason SFIV is reviled by these people is it never got the same sort of attention to its iterations.
SFIV spent little time in the arcade and built most of its refinements through the same flawed means that SCV is going for now.
SCII had this amazing feature in its arcade iteration, very similar to Virtua Fighter 4's Kumite mode. It was called Conquest and it built AIs based on players who practiced through that mode.The more you played, the more the AI learned to emulate your style of play with your favored character. Players could challenge other player AIs through this mode to get a robust variety of playstyles from the existing characters.
Namco collected that data to see what they could update and fix or how they could improve the game. The result of all this data collection was a better game.
SCV doesn't have that going for it.
It's just that complaining about the single-player component isn't a valid complaint. Again, if they focused on the single-player, the community would die as soon as everybody completed single-player - a week or two at best.
Like I said, look at SCIII for the proof. MK9 is even an example, although it HAD a solid fighting engine - NetherRealms Software just can't fucking leave well enough alone and the game changes every day.
I'd love to get into MK9 because I find it fun, but having to relearn the game every time there's a major ain't exactly fun to me. I believe balance patches have a place in fighters, NRS is just using it the wrong way.
Stop being a pathetic fanboy and excusing their laziness, "OH HURR DURR THE MULTI IS SO GOOD FUCK THE SP HURR", yea ok, fine you feel that way but don't be a condescending prick to those that don't feel the same, I am not a multiplayer guy, never have been and never will be, both AE and Marvel 3 provided enough SP content to keep me entertained for awhile, Soul Calibur usually some semblance of SP content, Chronicles, the tower, hell just simple arcade endings, SCV stripped this all way, for what? A good multi, woopti fucking do, it will be dead within a few months just like every other non Capcom fighter.
Even your opening line "Its being well received by the fighting game community" makes me laugh, because Soul Calibur had such a robust following and enormous community following it.
The game's a joke and there's no justification for the removal of single player content, non whatsoever.
7K, everything you said is 100% true. Don't waste your time trying to convince these people.
Single-Player would buy it two weeks, at the most. Even the most fully featured single-player fighting games don't last longer than that.
I think all the complaining about SCV's lack of single-player mode is REALLY doing a disservice to the online features which really should have been STANDARD in fighting games when this console generation started. Lightning fast connections that rival playing with a friend on the same console. A community hub. Rival Stat tracking. Online tournaments.
Why has it taken THIS LONG for a big name fighter to have these features? Now that Namco has done it, Capcom and NetherRealms (along with everyone else who wants to compete) will have to follow suit. Too long has fraudulent online been something we've just dealt with because "That's the way it is."
But whatever, I'm sure you don't care. You'd rather the connections be 56k quality just so you have have 100 sloppily-done "Fight them while their weapons do poison damage/their weapons are invisible/you are invisible/quick sand!" bullcrap.
No Team Battle. That's all.
At any rate, I'm with you on the multiplayer aspect. My brother's a fighting game enthusiast, having bought pretty much every fighter this console generation. He's logged thousands of matches in SFIV; his time with the single player pales in comparison. But as you said, SCV's multiplayer is probably its strongest aspect. He hasn't complained once about connection issues/lag; compare that to SFIV or MvC3, where I hear him moan every other match.
I'm not good enough at fighting games to make any observations about SCV's nuances, but to me the game feels right. I'm glad to have it, and I'm glad others far more skilled than me are excited to play it and dissect it.