Thursday 9 February 2012

Review on the Soul Calibur V launch event!

Alright a little late on this blog post but heck, it's here now.

Over the weekend, a launch event took place for Soul Calibur V where many fans came and had a couple of special guests. It was free and although the bar was free, I don't think that was why they came.

As I entered, greeted by one of the best Soul Calibur players in UK (King of Hyrule) I was amazed at the number of setups there were and many other surprises for me to find.

There were the finishing touches being made like installing the game and the streaming stuff being tested out by none other than EXdragon Project but the setup was just brilliant. What surprised me was that there was an upstairs with even more setups where I was thinking that for a moment that Namco were being a little optimistic with it. As I was talking to one of the Tekken guys who runs Snake Pit to know a bit more about the Tekken community and events being held, I hadn't realised that the place was starting to become pretty crowded and I was seeing many familiar faces everywhere at the event but two people stood out as they entered, Kayane (Marie Laurie) and Prodigal Son (Ryan Hart). It wasn't exactly a grand entrance, came in started talking to some of the familiar faces they recognise and before you knew it, an exhibition match was taking place with Kayane and King of Hyrule. Some amazing top play was taking place which you can find on [INSERT LINK HERE FOR STREAM ARCHIVE].

As I swayed away from the match being played on the big screen, I noticed that every single setup was being used. This was great as Soul Calibur V had only been released the day before and the feedback on Soul Calibur IV wasn't exactly brilliant so it was great to see so many people taking an interest in the game. Many familiar faces from the competitive scene, many unfamiliar faces who I feel that I probably will run into sometime in the future.

I met many great people while at the event, from various returning players to the Soul Calibur community, many new players, special guests and people with close relations to Namco Bandai. It was great especially when there was a queue for people to get the chance to play Kayane in a winner stays on best of 3 for about half an hour. Not surprisingly, she stayed on from beginning till end.

Since many people at the event had a competitive nature, Namco decided to do a tournament afterall. Many people entered where it ended up being groups into a top 4 elimination. I decided to enter myself and quite embaressingly... went out on the first match. Yea one match and no sound and I'm salty that I was done within a couple of minutes but watching the top players play on the big screen after that was really inspirational that I want to strive to get better and beat them all! Congrats to Talon for winning it with his very scary Pyrrha.

There was only about 20min of the event left so I took that chance to challenge Kayane to a match. Every setup was still being used but managed to secure one. Unfortunaely I had to find a stick as we only secured a pad setup so while she had her own one, I had to find a stick, quick. Managed to get one and boom, I'm ready.

With King of Hyrule and Joukisan (Joseph) there to help support me, we both picked Leixia and a mirror match was going to begin. I had a slight advantage in that I've seen how she had been playing on the big screen and on the French stream from earlier that week so I had a rough idea on her playstyle while she has no clue on how I play Leixia. Thing is that I have had no tournament experience of Soul Calibur so I was not used to top level play.

The match had begun and I had all my focus only on the match. I couldn't hear any cheers or whispering words of advice so it was just me and the game. Once in the game, Kayane is just another player that plays the game. Not one of the top Soul Calibur players in the world, just another player that I can play against. Using knowledge from when I watched her play before and what knowledge I already know of Leixia, I managed to win 2 rounds but so did she. It came down to the last round for both of us and it was close. Both of us had extremely low health where it was anyone's game with any hit. I decided to take a risk where unfortunately it did not pay off where she won that match. There was enough time for a rematch where I managed to win a round but did come close many times to winning. I lost it in the end so after a hand shake, it was GGs.

I had only realised after on how well I did against a top player. Because I was outside of the match, she is not just another player, she is one of the best players and I came very close to beating her. Considering that what King of Hyrule said that there wasn't a single other person that came as close to beating her like I did, it made me realise how much potential there is for someone who has not had any Soul Calibur tournament experience to get better and to surpass even the best players who have been playing it for years. I don't know if it is because the battle system is too different or the character just isn't like what people are used to but I think that with an influx of new players coming in, Soul Calibur players over the years had better watch out!

Anyway I hope that you enjoyed reading this (or you skipped to this last paragraph lazy bums). I really do recommend going to future Namco Bandai UK events as it was brilliant and is a great place to meet both competitive and general fans of the game. You can learn a lot about the fighting game community, not just Soul Calibur/Tekken so long as you talk to the right people and it is free! Oh and there is usually a bar which is always another incentive to come.

Thank for reading.

E

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