[merylsilverburg]

Well, I've been playing the game for a good portion of the past weeks and I have to say I give the game around 7.5 out of 10. It's okay, not that great, which is a disappointment. I think it's because of all the changes...not that change is bad, but the tone of the series isn't "Soul Calibur" anymore, IMO.

I played the "Chronicles of the Sword" mode which I felt is pretty good, but not well-placed in a game such as "SC." Plus, the story was just messy IMO. The idea of the strategy is fun though, but it's obviously not a real strategy game, so real strategists would hate it, I think. One gripe was that I couldn't stand some of the weaker jobs that causes the character to die at the blink of an eye even though you level up after winning a battle. For example, my main character is an Assassin and her attributes are mostly in speed. Even after countless leveling up and dying, the speed increases to its max point and the others (health, strength, and vitality) are improved but there doesn't seem to be a difference to me. I have bought the best weapons she could wield, I have practiced with her and I still die horribly in some battles. Or maybe I'm just a bad player, who knows?

The character creation mode is interesting and there are many, many possibilities to create various characters. So far, I've created Kurosaki, Ichigo from the anime Bleach, Tenjou, Utena from the anime Shoujo Kakumei Utena and Aerith from (duh) "Final Fantasy VII." The items to customize your characters are endless nearly which makes this mode really refreshing; what's more, you get to use those characters to fight. What's annoying, I think, about the job choice is that not only do you have to unlock the other jobs, but you have to stupidly buy them as well. It's a real waste of money, I feel.

The Soul Arena is pretty fun but I can't say it holds my interest all that long. And the Tournament thing? I thought this was "Soul Calibur" not "Tekken"...the look of the Tournament mode just feels out of place.

The Tales of the Souls mode is okay but it's somewhat annoying because of the same paths and scenarios that occur. There is hardly any variation whatsoever...the only story I found interesting was Ivy's.

Finally, the new characters. Well, Zasalamel is fast (like all the characters now) and I feel like he's more for the middle-advanced players...his scythe is easy to handle and it's good in both close and long range. But, he can be somewhat cheap and somewhat hard to use because his scythe can destroy anything in a matter of seconds, but takes some knowledge to perform the attacks. Setsuka (I like her) is very, very fast to me...and I love her battousai fighting style. She is, to me, for the novices because the poor woman has so many stupid cheap shots (like Mitsurugi) and lack of moves (she repeats the same move over and over again) that fighting against her will cause more than a few blood vessels to explode. Tira is definitely for advanced players, IMO, because her ring weapon is hard to use and the attacks are hard to execute. She is definitely someone who needs to string a bunch of combos together (like Xianghua) in order to do some serious damage. When I was playing as her in the "Tales of the Souls" mode, I died so many times even when I tried to just mash buttons or attempt to perform combos. She seems slow to me, somehow.

Well, that's my mini-review. It's still a good game though...what I find stupid is that the Xbox 360 will soon have the game with, apparently, "better looking graphics." Okay, well, the graphics on the PS2 were fantastic to me but if they don't spruce up the gameplay for the X360, then all the beauty and sparkle of the mind-blowing graphics wouldn't do much.