Namco, you have tainted a once-great fighting game franchise.
SoulCalibur once upon a time was the top fighting game released that wasn’t called Street Fighter II: Turbo or Mortal Kombat II. This fighting game was the first of its kind to receive so many awesome reviews, and it made 3D fighting the new direction of the genre. It ushered a new era of gamers, and gave the Dreamcast a short breath of life before its inevitable death.
So surely a game with perfect reviews and praise from every corner would find a way to continue selling a decade later, right? Even with the same company working on it, right? Even with the fighting mechanics and successful formula still intact, right?
Well.............
Somewhere along the lines, Namco thought it would be a great idea to make their next game pay-to-win. Somewhere along the lines, Namco thought to make the game free and charge you for everything.
Insert SoulCalibur: Lost Swords.
The game is only single-player. You can only choose from three characters. You have to buy your way to earning more powerful weapons to survive. The game has no ring-out. The game has no counter ability. Some of the deep fighting mechanics have been removed. You need to buy the other characters and their alternate costumes. THE GAME HAS NO MULTI-PLAYER. REPEAT, A FIGHTING GAME HAS NO MULTI-PLAYER!!
Are you kidding me? Seriously?
The producer of the game mentions that he doesn’t want to alienate the new gamers by putting them in online multiplayer against the heavier-spending veterans, which is why he made the game free to start, simplified everything, and shielded them from the good Soul players. And the logic here is confoundedly ridiculous. How can you possibly grow your franchise if you are not going to allow communication between the players? And let me remind you that this is a fighting game, and stripping the multi-player from a fighter is like removing the storyline from an RPG—it is a game-killer no matter how good the rest of the game might be.
And you just released Soul Calibur II in its entirety a mere year ago at just $20 on the XBox and Playstation online stores. Why wouldn’t I just go back to that game instead of putting up with a free game that is a mere shadow of what the SoulCalibur series is all about? Why would I even look at this game? Gamers aren’t stupid, any game that is free is whether a trap or just a Facebook game. There’s no such thing as a highly-acclaimed free-to-play, play-to-win game.
Similar to Capcom’s ridiculous Breath of Fire 6 decision, this SoulCalibur game is going to wreck the reputation, image, and overall perception of the franchise. What was once an unforgiving, tough, hardcore cluster of games is suddenly opening up to entice new players by removing some of the layers that made the fighting games great in the first place. The saddest detail in all this is how Namco doesn’t seem to see the terribleness in all this nonsense. This is just going to confuse the newcomers, anger the gaming community, and make the hardcore fans absolutely livid. Nobody wins here, nobody.
Namco, Soul Calibur VI better be absolutely amazing, and it better be a game-changer. Because after the stupidity of SoulCalibur V, Legends, and (especially) Lost Swords, you owe us, bad. And I am not sure VI, VII, or VIII can bring you back to the successful Arcade/Dreamcast days.
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