I know that this game is very likely mentioned in imu's epic "most anticipated games of 2012" thread, but I wanted to toss out a proper thread/topic about it for not just conversation, but to let you guys know that bestbuy is doing their cool little thing where they take a new/hot game and sell it for $40 for a week a few weeks after it came out (i.e. soul calibur 5 came out on the first tuesday of february, methinks)

best buy did this with marvel vs capcom 3 (the original one, not sure if they did it for ULTIMATE mvc3) and they've done it with some other titles, so if you're not exactly 100% OMFG I GOTTA GET THIS DAMN GAME THE SECOND IT COMES OUT and you're willing to wait around ~3-4 weeks, bestbuy very well might give you a one week timeframe to go and cop the game for $40, which is PIMP AS HELL.

anyways, if you know the soul calibur franchise you pretty much know what to expect with this one; tekken with weapons. this time around, there's some contrived plot device where this game takes place ~20 years later, thus giving the game an excuse to drop in a whole bunch of new/modified characters, along with returning a few of the most popular characters from the series (siegfriend, cervantes, ivy, mitsurugi, etc.... they're all "immortal" as it was). oh yeah, and this time the end boss is the metahuman embodiment of SOUL CALIBUR, aka the good sword, as opposed to the usual metahuman embodiment of SOUL EDGE, aka the evil sword.

lamentably, they didn't return the typical story/ "tower of souls" mode, where you can select a character and take part in crazy variant matches and equip different weapons/armor/items/spells/etc as you go through a series of increasingly difficult matches. there IS a story mode, but you pretty much gotta play as sophitia's kids for it, so that's kind of blah. i haven't had a chance to get down with it, but my brother reports that it's scaled back and a disappointment when you consider that soul calibur 4 had the best "story mode" yet in its "tower of souls" where it provided more in-depth/unique gameplay for single player gaming. from there, yeah, arcade mode art galleries and blah blah blah.

and, of course, there's online play. i haven't had a chance to jam yet.... but i'm aphexedvexed on xbox live so drop me a line if you want to play against someone who's essentially a skilled buttonmasher, insomuchas i know the general controls/attacks/moves for most characters, but i don't know the specific moves for everyone that allows you to effectively "dance" all over the battlegrounds and actually have a chance against nightmare on normal difficulty. holy fucking shit is he a BITCH on normal difficulty; you gotta know what the fuck you're doing if you wish to even get a round against him, let alone defeat him.... cuz like, aside from countering the fuck out of you, now he's got a move where he creates a little FF7-ultima-like dome of fire around him that knocks you off of his ass when you're engaging him in close to prevent him from destroying you with his full array of attacks from medium-long distance.

so yeah, anyone else fuck with this one? again, i'm aphexedvexed on xbox live if y'all down for the whoopin you so richly deserve. until then, see you guys on page 2-3/etc! hasta!

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