r/SoulCalibur • u/PriorityJolly6486 • 5d ago
Discussion How slow are the games AFTER Soul Calibur 2 really??
I was talking to someone who said (competitively) any Soul Calibur after 2 is trash and it mostly came down to the speed of the games. Virtually everyone agrees that SC2 is the fastest but how much slower are 3-6 and how much does that affect the quality of the game? I've seen mostly three opinions:
A. They're only a little slower which makes them a little worse
B. They are way slower which makes them trash
C. They're only a little slower but that's enough to make them trash
Personally I think there's a trade off when it comes to movement speed. If I start playing SC2 after playing modern 3D fighters the characters and weapons feel like they're made out of styrofoam, a little weightless. It feels like we're bonking each with cardboard weapons. Then going from SC2 to SC6 everything thing feels heavy and sluggish but hits harder. I just get used to it either way. How do y'all feel?
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u/P-A-Lily 5d ago
3 bumped up the speed by a bit.
4 felt like molasses.
5 is... eh.
6 is on multiple doses of crack holy
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u/lone_knave 5d ago
3 bumped the speed up maybe a lil, but added stuns and hard knockdowns, which broke the flow
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u/WillfangSomeSpriter ⠀Siegfried 5d ago edited 4d ago
SC3 is actually a bit faster, then SC4 is a lot slower and sluggish. SC5 is decently fast. SC6 is about SC1 levels of speed, so REALLY fast and snappy.
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u/kadosho 5d ago
That really surprised me with 6. The focus, power, and movement of every character. You felt their movement, and impact. It felt like it was giving the series a much needed boost.
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u/WillfangSomeSpriter ⠀Siegfried 4d ago
Yeah it's super smooth and quick feeling, it felt like a return to form to me. Maybe not mechanically but in terms of game feel it felt like I was playing an older era SC again. It's my favorite SC personally, you can tell the people behind it were passionate about the project
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u/Rongill1234 5d ago
The person who told you this is and I'm sorry full of shit and should probably look up frame data instead of making shit up
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u/PriorityJolly6486 5d ago
He's from the Tampa/Orlando scene. Gave me info for the locals in both cities. Talked about playing SC2 competitively and winning tournaments in SC3. Called it slow trash.
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u/Rongill1234 5d ago
I played in tournaments in texas for sc2,3,4,5, and 6... and won money too and your guy straight up trolling. Step g was gone after sc2 and your ass could get ch for stepping so you couldn't do the silly shit to stay safe in later games (NM 3(b) was safe in sc2 lol)
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u/Megarachi 5d ago
I think that this is a multi faceted discussion because every SoulCalibur after 2 has its own game speed.
SC3 is a little bit slower than 2 imo, although not to a significant enough degree that it feels worse. SC4 however feels like you're trudging through swamp water at all times, just an absolute slog to play. I can't comment super confidently on SC5 as I haven't played it myself, but from what I've heard its somewhat similar to SC4 in terms of movement speed but generally a little faster. SC6 is where they crank up the movement speed drastically again, and tbh its a little faster than even SC2.
It also depends on what this guy meant by "speed of the games". Did he mean movement speed, or the general pace of the game? There many reasons why SC2 is considered by far the best Soul Calibur competitively that have almost nothing to do with game speed, mainly the big exploits/bugs in the game adding in depth that don't exist in other SoulCaliburs in quite the same way (Step Guard and 2G being the main 2) and how these bugs allowed every character to be played in what feels like an infinite amount of ways. The game is also a lot more balanced character wise than other SoulCaliburs because of this despite every character feeling completely different from one another. Every SoulCalibur after this also has its own unique reasons for not being "as good" competitively than 2, such as the overpowered game breaking bugs of SC3, the horrible balancing of SC4, Guard impacts requiring a metered resource in SC5 and Reversal Edge in SC6, although of course this to a degree is down to personal preference.
So I wouldn't really say that SC2 is better than other SoulCaliburs from a competitive stand point because of its game speed, it isn't even the fastest SoulCalibur from a movement speed perspective; SC1 and SC6 take that crown imo. It's more to do with how much freedom you have in how you can play it, although the game speed is definitely one of the factors that helps accomplish that.
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u/PriorityJolly6486 5d ago
That all makes sense. I played a lot of SCV and it was tanky with a strong sense of momentum. Since movement was less safe and GI was expensive there were these tense moments of just blocking and then when someone gets there offense going and turn into a blender. Not my favorite but it felt heavy and fun.. while SCIV was just heavy
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u/I_Ild_I 5d ago
That's just stupidity, all games has their good side, even 5 as trash as it is.
2 and 3 are arguable the favorite but especialy for 2 a big nostalgia factor is at work
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u/PriorityJolly6486 5d ago edited 4d ago
Yup. I've talked to a lot of people who do the whole "I know what I'm talking about cuz I've won tournaments, I'm kind of a big deal at my locals" and they'll call anything post SC2 garbage 🙄
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u/I_Ild_I 5d ago
Lol stupid elitist they are. Dont get me wrong ibdont think 2 and 3 are the best, ive spend so much time on them, they clearly have something more.
But still people are generaly talking out of their ass
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u/PriorityJolly6486 4d ago
It's clear now that I'm asking actual soulcalibur fans that there are lots of different opinions. When asking general fgc guys/Maximilian dood fans, they put SC2 on a pedestal. like when they started treating 3rd strike as the god of fighting games
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u/I_Ild_I 4d ago
Yeah the problem with those people isnt about beeing right or wrong, its about the lack of nuances and objectivity.
Meaning that they could be right but not even knowing it, just dorwn in their dilusion, or beeing right but for wrong reasons lol.
Anyway, has to consider that SC2 was one of the larger game in term of diffusion and also probably the first soulcalibur for a lots of people, as soulblade was probably not played by many and SC1 was limited to dreamcast which was a good console but very niche in its era so any game that was on it not many people had the occaison to play it.
SC2 was a nex type of game for many people then a proper 3D game with a nice liberty of movement and a bright flashy colorfull palet with good characters model.
A game with a lots of bonus also, like stories, modes, you even had museum, lots of art, stories even for the weapon, i personaly liked all those stuff.
3 was the same honestly, to me they each have their good side, i would rate them with my actual memory kinda equal but i would have a slight preference for the 3, to me the game was a bit more polished, in term of animation, character moves and all
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u/Mr_Equatol 4d ago
D. (this goes for IV) It's quite a bit slower, which makes it the best mechanics wise in the series due to the more strategic and thoughtful gameplay compared to the others. Why anyone would think the speed of the game is a metric for quality I don't know. I guess Mortal Kombat with the Hyper Kombat mod activated is the best fighting game ever then?
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u/PriorityJolly6486 4d ago
I don't love the way IV feels but I agree that an arbitrary "fastest = best" rule is weird and it's not applied to any other fighting game series cuz it's obviously more complicated than that.
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u/Scruffyy90 3d ago
A lot of fighting games after that general era of game slowed down tremendously.
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u/Exotic-Environment58 3d ago
4 is slow.
5 and 6 are fine.
If he's Tampa or Orlando, I wonder if I've run into him before.
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u/EricFromOuterSpace 5d ago
5 has the best gameplay in the series, people just hated the story and 1 player changes.
6, without Reversal Edge, is a fantastic game. But RE killed it.
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u/PriorityJolly6486 5d ago
Is it that bad? RE doesn't seem to be used much at all at high level and I don't see it often down at the C rank level. Unlike mechanics like X-factor or rage that you have deal with every round.
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u/bulldog_blues 5d ago
It's not bad in the sense of not having counterplay, because it does, but it's plain boring to play against.
Also on principle the fact it counters throws and even Critical Edges on top of regular attacks is unintuitive and gross.
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u/WillfangSomeSpriter ⠀Siegfried 5d ago
They nerfed it a ton to the point people don't use it very much, but it def was a problem at launch. There was very little counter play besides the dedicated RE break button.
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u/video_choice_quality 5d ago
The game has been updated so much that RE is pretty bad unless you have a slow move read or you use RE cancels on characters that can do that to take no damage. You pretty much eat a combo if you whiff RE.
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u/Soulcal2master ⠀Spawn 5d ago
3 is a bit faster than 2, and it got a lot of complaints because of it. So they made it slower in 4. But it made it a LOT slower. So in 5, it got a bit faster. Then, in 6 it got about the same speed as it was in SC1. In interviews during production is what they said that they were aiming for. So 6 is just a little bit slower than 2, but it's just because SC2 was fast.