106. Soul Calibur VI (Bandai Namco, Playstation 4, 2018)

While Soul Calibur VI is the first title in Namco's fighting game series that I purchased, I have quite a bit of history playing the earlier titles at friends' houses, so when they suggested a bizarre tournament featuring custom characters, I knew I had to buy my first Soul Calibur. Making stupid custom characters has always been a fun pastime for me in any game that offered a character creator, and the Soul Calibur series has always been a particular delight. Back in 2012, my friends and I held our own republican primary using created characters. Prophetically, Mitt Romney won the primary, though he viciously lost to Robama (robo-Obama), as he would later that November.

The Soul Calibur series has stayed the same basic course in terms of gameplay since its inception. Characters move around in a semi 3D environment, fighting with weapons, 3 attack buttons and a block button, etc. What I've always admired about Soul Calibur is its simplicity. Compared to something like Street Fighter or Guilty Gear, Soul Calibur always felt like it relied less on combo memorization and tricky button inputs and more on just reading your opponent and predicting their next move.

Soul Calibur VI is basically just that: more Soul Calibur. It does introduce a few new mechanics (at least new to me since Soul Calibur IV), including a rock-paper-scissors-but-more-complicated- clash system that can be pretty entertaining, as well as a more traditional super move for each character. I do wish the character creator was a little more player-friendly. Diligent players have managed to create some amazing stuff, but it feels like you're working against the character creator a lot of the time. I also just generally dislike the look of Soul Calibur in general, and the voice acting is really bad.

4/5, despite everything, it's still Soul Calibur