See Natsu, Hilde, and Ivy battle on the stage of destiny in these new character trailers.
Also: see Ezio Auditore in action in Namco Bandai's latest entry in their long-running fighting franchise.
Going on 16 years now, it's astounding how fundamentally unchanged the series is. Sure, if you dig down into it, Soul Edge and Soul Calibur V might seem more like cousins than siblings, but the relation is clearly still there. Or: the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Consider the lineup, updated here with new character Natsu standing in for long-time combatant, the ninja Taki, as well as returning characters Hilde (who acted as a stand-in for Seong Mi-Na from earlier games), and Ivy (whose character design guarantees that she'll never not be in a sequel).
Cross-arena dashing looks a little smoother than in earlier entries and combos seem to blend more smoothly as Namco Bandai continues to iterate on their characters' animation (is this a different engine from IV because it looks like it). If I knew whether the publisher was able to nail the netcode in this one (the bane of the modern fighting game), then Soul Calibur V could easily rocket to the top of the games I'm looking forward to this month.
Soul Calibur V will be available in North America January 31st.
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