Tekken 8 is an interesting beast, as the game came out to critical acclaim before surprising everyone with a cosmetic store that only accepts real money. It’s been a rollercoaster ride for one of last year’s best fighting games, and we imagine fans have mixed thoughts about what’s happened.
While fans talk about balance adjustments and expensive costumes, I can only think about how much better Clive from Final Fantasy XVI would be if he were in a Soulcalibur game.
It’s not just Cliv,e either. Fans will remember when Noctis was revealed for Tekken 7, which had some of the busted moves in the game. Despite being incredibly fun, everyone said he should have been in an SC game. Luckily, the franchise was still alive then, and though fans didn’t get Noctis, they did get 2B from Nier Automata, so it’s not all bad.
Still, with characters like Clive, Raven, Yoshimitsu, and Victor continuing to use their weapons in battle, one can’t help but miss Soulcalibur. The 3D weapon-based fighting game was incredibly accessible to newcomers and offered plenty of depth for hardcore fans. Arguably, later games added too much depth, but any player could pick up these titles and have a good time. I still go back to some of these games for basic caveman button-mashing.
Fans of SC have also argued that the weapons-based fighter offered plenty of single-player content when that was considered a novelty at the time. SC2 had the RPG-like Weapons Master, and SC3 had a tower defense-style mode and an Arcade ladder with multiple choices. SC4 and SC5 were basic but offered Story Mode and other ways to kill time.
What separated Soulcalibur from other games was the ability to create your own character. Starting with SC3, create-a-character lets players go crazy with the characters they can create. Although the fighting styles were limited to the existing roster members, fans could still have fun with the endless options for these custom characters.
The most recent entry in this franchise was Soulcalibur 6, and fans could tell that this game would not get Tekken’s amount of polish. Visually, it was and is still a gorgeous game. Regarding content, there are two separate story modes for the regular and custom characters. Unfortunately, the game had no Arcade endings, and the stories had to be told through moving images instead of gorgeous CGI cutscenes.
Despite Soulcalibur 6 selling decently, Bandai Namco’s main fighting games are now Tekken 8 and Dragon Ball FighterZ. It’s a shame we won’t get a new SC game from the company anytime soon. Some of SC’s DNA can be seen in Tekken, as that series now has the aforementioned weapon-based characters and tons of customization, but it’s just not the same.
Hopefully, Bandai Namco can let their hearts grow one day and bring back the Soulcalibur series. They should at least see what Capcom’s doing and consider re-releasing these games as a collection. They can even start with Tekken for all I care; just give us Soulcalibur in some fashion.
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