I picked up SoulCalibur V on Xbox 360 a couple of days ago. With the exception of Legends (which is a spinoff title, and not a particularly good one, if I’m to believe the reviews I’ve read) I’ve now played every home version of the SoulCalibur games.

I haven’t tried out or unlocked all of the new characters yet, since I’ve only had the game for three days (Dampierre from Broken Destiny is playable, but only for those who pre-ordered the game), although I notice that quite a few of them have styles recycled from other characters – Pyrrha fights like her mother Sophitia, Xiba has Kilik’s old staff and fighting style, Natsu is just like Taki, and Leixia fights like Xianghua. Out of the characters I’ve unlocked and played with so far, I’ll probably stick with Raphael as my main character, with Patrokolos (the new protagonist of the game, along with Pyrrha) and Leixia as my backups. Unfortunately – or perhaps not – I’ve only been able to play two games online so far, both of which I lost rather embarrassingly thanks to my eagerness to jump online and forge a reputation without actually understanding the game.

So far, I’ve finished all paths of Arcade Mode on normal difficulty (and even did a few on Easy, for completeness’ sake). I don’t think there’s anything special if you beat any mode with every character, as it was with the previous games. The character creation machine is just as robust as IV’s was, and you can now put stickers and tattoos on characters’ equipment. You still get to pick out different weapons for your created characters, but the changes are purely cosmetic now – no special benefits or drawbacks, like in III and IV (I still keep those two games in my collection because some of their customization options are different from V’s).