Soulcalibur VI

Soulcalibur VI is the seventh main entry in the Soulcalibur fighting game series, hard-rebooting the franchise after V tried to do a soft-reboot/time-skip.

Origin
Motohrio Okubo, a producer of Tekken 7, announced the game at The Game Awards 2017. Fan reaction has been overwhelmingly positive when gameplay previews showed two iconic veterans - a younger Heishiro Mitsurugi and Sophitia Alexandra.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) They brought back (most) of the veterans who had been absent from Soulcalibur V.
 * 2) Gameplay is incredibly fluid and fast-paced by 3D standards. Despite this, new mechanics and overhaul of older ones were remade to lower the skill-floor for newcomers while keeping the skill-ceiling untouched.
 * 3) * One such example is tweaking guard breaks to now work on any area rather than having a "high" and "low", while removing the meter cost that it had in V.
 * 4) * There's an option to use reversal edges instead, which temporarily blocks every non-guard breaking attack in a string and release a powerful attack that initiates a rock-paper-scissors minigame. This technique usually serves as an easier, yet less powerful alternative.
 * 5) Character customization is as great as ever, allowing you to either have an existing character cosplay another or altogether create an original character.
 * 6) * On the topic of customization, there's now multiple races to pick from, giving players more options.
 * 7) The styles of guest characters Geralt of Rivia (The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt), Yorha no 2B (NieR: Automata) and Haohmaru (Samurai Shodown) can finally be used for custom characters. Geralt can't be edited beyond which weapon he uses, unfortunately.
 * 8) Two detailed story modes, one where you play individual characters and another in a RPG style where you travel with your created character with stats.
 * 9) Two of the "clone" characters released so far, Seong Mi-na (though she came before Kilik, she was obsolete in older games) and Amy Sorel, were remade to be significantly more different from Kilik and Raphael Sorel, the former now being used more. Cassandra was later added and changed to be different from her older sister Sophitia as well.
 * 10) Newcomers Groh and Azwel proved to be popular from a gameplay perspective due to their unique take on new weapons.
 * 11) A very diverse cast, with each character having their own unique gimmick.
 * 12) As the game retells the story with a few minor changes, this can help newer players understand the lore without having to read up upon the older games.
 * 13) A large, expansive gallery full of art, music, and lore to explore.
 * 14) Most importantly, the game saved the franchise from the death that V nearly caused.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Reversal Edge has been panned by both newcomers and experienced players alike. Newer players found the attack too strong, while more experienced players found it too annoying to deal with.
 * 2) Those used to cutscenes from previous games will be disappointed by both story modes being mostly pictures with text.
 * 3) Long time veteran Tira was on-disc DLC. This did not sit well with fans, and Okubo himself later admitted that making her on-disc DLC was a mistake.
 * 4) There are actually less parts for customization, which was ironically V 's strongest quality outside of gameplay.
 * 5) Matchmaking is rather iffy; for example, a G or F rank, equivalent to Bronze, can be matched against a B or A rank, the equivalent to a Diamond rank in other games.
 * 6) While the stages are competently made, many criticized them for being too generic by Soul standards.

Reception
The game got an 84 out of 100 on Metacritic. Bandai Namco revealed that the game's launch was successful. A second season was announced at EVO 2019, with Haohmaru of Samurai Shodown fame being confirmed a third guest fighter. Season 2 began on November 25, 2019.

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