Soul Series/YMMV

"Vercci's Spirit: "Voldo... you fulfilled my wish... Good for you!""
 * Alternative Character Interpretation: In Soulcalibur and Soulcalibur II, Nightmare's quotes can be ambiguously interpreted as Siegfried speaking through him instead of Soul Edge trying to reclaim its lost shards.
 * And the Fandom Rejoiced: When Ezio was leaked as a possible Guest Fighter for Soulcalibur V. Take Up to Eleven when he was confirmed officially.
 * To a lesser extent, when Kratos was announced for Broken Destiny.
 * Link's presence in the GC version of SCII made that version a Killer App for the console.
 * As of V, a lot of the recent DLC with the Cepheus Store updates has garnered this reaction. Each instance of rejoicing just gets better than the last.
 * Awesome Anachronistic Apparel: Setsuka's alternate costume in SCIV, which has been dubbed her "Mary Poppins outfit" by fans, references her European origins but has far more in common with the fashions of the much more recent Edwardian (1900's) era, rather than late Elizabethan era in which SCIV is set.
 * Awesome Music: With its own page.
 * Base Breaker: The Star Wars characters. Everyone likes Darth Vader, but not necessarily as a Soulcalibur fighter. Although they helped introduce new fans to the series similar to Link in SCII (especially Vader), the fact that they come from a futuristic sci-fi setting was not taken lightly. Yoda deserves special mention for his height making him rather unorthodox to play as, and because many Xbox 360 users were stuck with him rather than the much, much cooler Vader (until the DLC came out). The fact that many fans had been hoping for Kratos, who only afterwards got to be in the less popular Broken Destiny, did not help matters.
 * Also Dampierre. He's either a whimsical, hilarious and Crazy Awesome addition to the roster or too wacky and annoying for the series and (like the Star Wars characters) completely out of place.
 * The new Nightmare of V appears to be this, although almost completely from a gameplay perspective. A number of Soulcalibur forums are split down the middle between people that say Nightmare is insanely overpowered and people who don't think he's a threat at all.
 * Tira and Z.W.E.I. also tend to fall into this. Tira is a classic example, being an Ensemble Darkhorse considered the most interesting and competent of the series' villains by a large portion of the fanbase but also The Scrappy for people that don't like her voice acting or her role in Sophitia's Face Heel Turn. Z.W.E.I., meanwhile, is either considered one of the coolest of the new characters who got shafted in Story mode for that dick Patroklos or a bizarre, out-of-place anime character that doesn't mesh with the setting and got too much screentime as it was.
 * Algol. Either he's a well-rounded, tragic character with understandable motivations who also happens to be an undeniable badass, an OP character who is a complete pain in the ass to fight against, or simply lacks the wow factor of bosses such as Abyss and Night Terror from III. A great deal of fans asked if Algol would be returning in V, but his reveal in V caused a schism. Then it was revealed that Algol, like several characters, was a non-plot entity in V. The base was broken even further.
 * Natsu. The reaction on fan forums was frosty at best when she was first revealed. She's either viewed as a plucky, fun take on the usually stoic ninja class, OR an annoyingly tacky ninja-barbie, pandering to the very worst Mukokuseki pop-culture principles. That, and the fact that she replaced the deadly serious, ice-cold badass and fan-favourite, Taki....
 * Wait, there's people who see Tall, Dark and Snarky Taki as "ice cold"? That interpretation alone should be enough to cause some schism.
 * Only if you're new to the series. Taki only became (vaguely) snarky in IV and before that was best described as emotionless and efficient - as a ninja should be - so "ice-cold" is perfectly acceptable in regards to her nature. See Took a Level in Jerkass under her entry on the character sheet for more detail.
 * Broken Base: Soulcalibur V is on a crash course for splitting the fanbase in two (see also: Contested Sequel below). The competitive players love the changes done to the engine, while fans of the single player modes are disappointed with the slim solo options, not to mention missing/replaced classic characters.
 * Even the new mechanics are not safe from polarizing the fanbase. Many feel that the meter is well implemented while many others feel that it makes Soulcalibur less unique and more generic.
 * Chileans Love Maxi
 * Cargo Ship: In a series with Empathic Weapons, this was inevitable. This is most prominent with Tira, who explicitly fell in love with Soul Edge and wishes to have her soul consumed by it, but a few other characters have shades of it (such as Ivy and her Valentine).
 * Complacent Gaming Syndrome: Hello, Natsu.
 * Complete Monster: Nightmare, as an embodiment of evil, obviously qualifies, but Cervantes and Astaroth also fall into this pretty easily, given that Cervantes cares only about living on and attaining godlike power through Soul Edge, even absorbing Ivy's soul in the process, while Astaroth wants to kill everyone, starting with the gods, For the Evulz.
 * To some, Tira could count. Her devotion to Nightmare is one thing, but in process of crossing so many Moral Event Horizon such as first manipulating Sophitia into an unwilling and painful Face Heel Turn, then, then repeats her practices in poor, innocent Pyrrha gleefully... there's nothing else to call her except "Bitch."
 * Contested Sequel: Soulcalibur V. Hoo boy. The online crowd highly praises this game for finally focusing on what really matters instead of single-player content, while fans of the single-player and story aspect lambaste it for the same reasons, particularly the lack of story content for everyone who isn't Patroklos or Pyrrha. Opinions on the character roster vary even more wildly.
 * Die for Our Ship: Rothion must die for Siegfried/Sophitia, Hilde must die for Siegfried/Cassandra, Yun-seong must die for Link/Talim, Link must die for Yun-seong/Talim, Hwang must die for Yun-seong/Seong Mi-na and among others.
 * With the exception of Rothion, this all seems to go in reverse. Whether or not the shipping wars are somewhat friendly or downright hostile depend upon the individual pairing in question.
 * Ensemble Darkhorse:
 * Li Long. He was probably the reason many people got into Soul Edge, thanks to his unique weapon and flashy moves. His lack of presence in the other games makes this all the more sad. Thankfully Maxi uses the same weapon -- hey, wait...
 * Link, the GameCube-exclusive Guest Fighter. Singlehandedly got more people into Soulalibur II than any other system's guest character. In fact, the GameCube version is one of the few multiplatform games in the 6th generation of consoles to sell best there.
 * Kratos. Probably the main reason why fans bought Broken Destiny; fans had been hoping for him as a guest character ever since SCIV was announced.
 * Shura. Possibly the most popular (bonus) character in Soulcalibur IV. Harada and Daishi received a lot of tweets asking if she would return.
 * Talim is also very popular due to her kind personality and unique playstyle. Filipino players especially like her, since she's the only Filipino fighter in the series.
 * Hwang, to the point where fans are petitioning him to be included in V. Unfortunately, Word of God states that neither he nor Shura will be returning in V.
 * Ezio Auditore. 'Nuff said. Bonus points for being the least base-breaking guest character, as fans critically approved his fighting game debut.
 * Darth Vader has evolved from a Base Breaker into one of these, for being one of the best guest characters to use in competitive play, the only one of the three Star Wars guests to not be broken in some way, and for being, y'know, Darth Vader. Possibly a bigger game-seller than Link.
 * Epileptic Trees:
 * In II's Weapon Master Mode, one of the three gates main antagonist Veral is trying to destroy in order to release the full power of Soul Edge is guarded by Tristy, Guardian of the Soul, who appears as Kilik in the story. In the epilogue, Tristy notes that the powers of the two soul swords have made him immortal, and as such, he'll spend the rest of his existence recording the history of the world. Most fans came to the same conclusion: Tristy is the past identity of Edge Master, with additional backing seen in Olcadan recognizing Kilik's style (it's heavily implied that Edge Master and Olcadan fought to a draw in the past).
 * The Assassin enemies in II were believed to be Hwang due to them duplicating his moveset.
 * There's a somewhat popular theory that Voldo is none other than Vercci himself, simply driven insane by his paranoia and greed.
 * V is just swarming with these. Is Did  Is Viola an amnesiac Amy? That's not even getting into the appearance of Ezio, who, by his series' canon, was dead before the Soul series even started, and the Word of God statement that Ezio is in V due to Animus, implying that either Ezio is some sort of "ghost" or that the game takes place within Animus itself. And let's not even get started on the potential Shipping/Ship Sinking debates popping up from the fact that both Xianghua and Hilde are now mothers.
 * Another prevalent theory is that
 * When  was leaked, many theorized that  had trained  when he was little. Not only does he have  fighting style, but he also  during certain moves. This was later confirmed to be true.
 * The rumor that there will be Nintendo 3DS version has caused some people to think that Link will make a comeback.
 * Evil Is Cool: Most of the series' villains count, particularly Big Bad Nightmare and undead dual-giant-gun-sword-wielding pirate Cervantes.
 * Fanfic Fuel: Soulcalibur V is becoming a potential case of this especially due to the fact that SCV is now a major case of What Could Have Been as the Story Mode was originally going to be a lot larger than it was but ended up being substantially downsized due to time constraints. Basically, if Namco doesn't release a more complete version of SCV then fan writers will probably have a field day with this.
 * Fan-Preferred Couple: While being focused more on violence and Rule of Cool than romance, subtextual or otherwise, some popular pairings as of IV are Siegfried/Hilde, Siegfried/Cassandra, Sophitia/ANYONE but Rothion, Cassandra/Raphael, Tira/Talim, Kilik/Xianghua, and Mitsurugi/Taki.
 * Even if Siegfried is a Chaste Hero/Celibate Hero and Sophitia is Happily Married, a lot of people in the fandom still like to couple them up.
 * Not to mention the wars that broke out over Yun-seong/Talim vs. Link/Talim.
 * Someone at Project Soul must've been paying attention to the latter, seeing as Talim's joke weapons in IV are a pair of ocarinas.
 * And of course, Raphael/Amy and Nightmare/Tira.
 * Thanks to Foe Yay on Setsuka's side, Mitsurugi/Setsuka is palpable. As is Taki/Mitsurugi/Setsuka. In terms of Theme Pairing, more than a few fans have latched onto Arthur/Setsuka due to the fact that the latter could be seen as the former's Distaff Counterpart.
 * In the yuri fandom, any combination of Sophitia, Taki, and Ivy or all three at once is seen as an acceptable choice.
 * Fridge Brilliance: Kratos battles Sophitia in Broken Destiny's opening movie, and even has a unique quote upon defeating her with a Critical Finish. Brilliance kicks in when you realize that Sophitia is an Athenian, and given the "differences" between Spartans and Athenians as well as Kratos' own relationship with Athena...
 * Funny Moments: Amy's ending in SCIV.
 * Game Breaker: In SCIII, Xianghua's A+K B+K move. The computer almost never blocks it. A few other "AI killers," too.
 * Sophitia and Taki have "unblockable" attacks which, while still slow to use, have areas of effect which can't be walked around, so you need to jump/attack the other person instead. Sophitia's barely even has the start-up restriction, since another attack leads into it.
 * Another AI killer would definitely have to be Link's throw in the GCN version of Soulcalibur II, which can Ring Out from almost anywhere on the stage.
 * Cervantes in Soulcalibur.
 * Astaroth was arguably this in III, where he had some of the most powerful throw combos in the history of the series.
 * Setsuka's initial incarnation was very hard to beat, since her fighting style emphasizes quick, hard-to-block strikes.
 * Hilde. Ringing people out with her in IV was so easy that every Hilde player who appeared on the main stage at the Evolution 2009 tournament was booed by the crowd.
 * Any mention of liking Amy in the 8WayRun forums is bound to be met with a boatload of hate.
 * Genius Bonus: Ivy uses a whip-like weapon and is the daughter of a pirate captain. Another name for the whip-like cat-of-nine-tails is "captain's daughter," according to the Other Wiki.
 * Ho Yay: Possibly Voldo for Vercci, also conveying Nightmare Fuel because Vercci is dead. This trait gets taken advantage of by Soul Edge, who impersonates Vercci's voice in order to bend Voldo to his will.
 * Although it shouldn't be taken seriously, Cassandra has a one-sided case of Les Yay towards Hilde in the gag comics explaining the new features in IV. Works surprisingly well considering her battle quote "Argh, you're definitely not my type!" is only used against males.
 * Just Here for Godzilla: The games that featured guests (Link, Heihachi, Spawn, Vader, Yoda, The Apprentice, Kratos, Ezio) were bought for the soul purpose of using them in a fighting game.
 * Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Siegfried and (in the yuri fandom) Sophitia.
 * Magnificent Bastard: Raphael. Quite possibly this trope's embodiment in the series. He also has quite a few similarities with Lelouch of Code Geass fame.
 * Not if Tira has anything to say. She's very good at playing many of the characters, particularly villains, for suckers. The only thing really holding her back is actually being loyal to Nightmare.
 * And as of SCV,.
 * All of the above are nothing compared to Zasalamel. He successfully manipulated everyone else on this list and more in order to do something nobody has since Algol - control both swords at once. And, in every path of every character, he succeeds.
 * Memetic Badass: In some circles of the Internet, Mitsurugi is this.
 * Memetic Molester: Voldo, Ivy, and various other questionable attacks can pertain this status. These two just dominate the competition.
 * To a lesser extent, Tira, thanks to her Critical Finish in SCIV, which involves her forcing a kiss of death to her opponent. Her non-input ending in SCIII also contributes due to how easily taken out of context it can be.
 * Memetic Mutation: O RLY?
 * The narrator, starting in Soulcalibur. Not a Fountain of Memes himself, but fans have found it amusing to do mock commentaries in his pithy, sometimes nonsensical style.
 * Thanks to his LP of the story mode in V, several of Maximilian's comments are working their way up, the most frequently repeated one being "I'll carve... my own steak!" for Alpha Patroklos' Critical Edge ("Medium rare, bitch!" addendum optional; the actual line is "I'll carve... my own fate!").
 * Moe: Xianghua, Talim, and Amy. If you can find the love between a Yandere and an Evil Weapon touching, then Tira counts as well.
 * Pyrrha and Leixia seem rather moe as well.
 * Word of God says Pyrr's timid demeanor was meant to make her more appealing to Japanese audiences.
 * Most Annoying Sound: "JUST KIDDING!" Not only because of Xianghua's shrill voice, but also because it alerts a feint move meant to let the opponent's guard down. Leixia inheriting it doesn't help.
 * Xiba's death cry of "FOOOOOOOD!" is also very, very high in the running for most annoying sound in the game. Christ, we GET IT, he's a Big Eater!
 * "Squirm! More Souls! With this... you BURN!" If you are playing Arcade mode in V on Standard, you will hear this exact sequence of Nightmare quotes (while waiting for him to stop beating on your prone body so you can get an attack in edgewise) every single round you fight against him unless you prevent him from attacking at all.
 * Narm: Voldo's Soul Edge ending, emphasized by bad PS 1-era voice acting.
 * "Squirm! More Souls! With this... you BURN!" If you are playing Arcade mode in V on Standard, you will hear this exact sequence of Nightmare quotes (while waiting for him to stop beating on your prone body so you can get an attack in edgewise) every single round you fight against him unless you prevent him from attacking at all.
 * Narm: Voldo's Soul Edge ending, emphasized by bad PS 1-era voice acting.

"Tira: "Normal humans don't go around killing people and burning towns!""
 * And this rather bizarre and erroneous statement uttered by Tira in SCV. It should be noted, however, that


 * Nightmare Fuel: Back in Soul Blade/Edge, fighting Inferno/Soul Edge is one by itself. A flaming red skull with two swords, fighting you in a place where the world is crumbling apart, and all of Soul Edge's voices are all numb-chilling howls...
 * Even worse, Hwang's bad ending in that game. Victorious, Hwang took Soul Edge back to his homeland, thinking that he can contain the evil of Soul Edge to save his country. Bad idea. When he got back home, he became possessed, starts killing his countrymen, and the camera closes to his face, while he lets out a chilling evil scream and his eyes become evil red...
 * Pyrrha Omega is quite creepy as well.
 * Charade. Just look at it.
 * Darth Vader laughs in his ending, meaning bad things for the future.
 * Seung Mina. Groin Attack. Saying "bye bye" as she slices.
 * In V, start a fresh edit based on Yoshimitsu. Eventually you can use the same "Mummified" underwear for all your other characters.
 * Replacement Scrappy: Averted with Cassandra, who was intended to be Sophitia's Suspiciously Similar Substitute, but has been quite well-received (perhaps because popular demand brought Sophitia back as well, meaning the fans gained a new sword and shield character without sacrificing anything). Played perfectly straight with Hwang's "replacement" Yun-seong, however (though Hwang's moveset was closer to Mitsurugi and Xianghua). There are a LOT of people who far prefer Hwang to him.
 * A good number of people see a majority of V's cast like this. Since they get almost zero story development due to no story elements in the arcade mode, they are more or less reskins.
 * The Scrappy: Although Tira and the various Tier-Induced Scrappy characters get quite a bit of hate, the most universally hated character in the series appears to be Rothion, Sophitia's NPC husband. Mostly for Die for Our Ship reasons, as people prefer to pair Sophitia with characters of either gender such as Siegfried, Taki, Cassandra, or themselves.
 * As of SCV, he's finally dead due to illness. But then so is Sophitia (at least from what's been revealed so far). You can't have your cake and eat it too, people.
 * Also Yun-seong. Full stop. He is everything wrong with teenage action characters in one migrane-inducing package. This is a "hot-blooded" teen who has been shown, told, and even experienced that Soul Edge is nothing more than pure, unadulterated evil that would only possess him and force him to destroy everything he has ever loved. So what does he do? Return home to fight for his country? Or even to continue his training? No. He searches for the damn thing anyway! In fact, Seong Mi-na's only role in the series these days is to stop him from being so incredibly stupid, even if it means attacking him with a bladed weapon. His English voice is also seen as a factor by some, but Your Mileage May Vary.
 * Necrid. Widely thought to be the most broken character in the Soul series (albeit debatably; many see him as a Game Breaker, although some consider him to be a Skill Gate Characters) with a spam-happy, clumsily cobbled-together movelist consisting almost entirely of moves stolen from other characters. Fans did not hide their dislike. The fact that he comes literally out of nowhere doesn't help.
 * Even with the Replacement Scrappy issue aside, Xiba is not being particularly well-received by the fandom. His backstory is basically nonexistent, and his only personality traits are constant hunger and being as dumb as a sack of hammers. Even if you like his playstyle, the fact that 99% of his quotes are about how much he wants to go eat will start to grate on you very quickly.
 * Similar to the above, Patroklos is quickly being placed amongst the least liked of the new characters. What makes it worst is a notable combination of Designated Protagonist Syndrome; Designated Hero; Spotlight-Stealing Squad; an Establishing Character Moment where he murders an innocent man in cold blood because Patroklos thought he looked malfested right after saving the town; and the Ass Pull introduction of a new Deus Ex Machina ability that Soul Calibur had never used before this game. These coupled with everyone else being Demoted to Extra and the brief and story mode don't exactly help Patroklos' case.
 * Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Forget about a character getting any plot development unless they either have the Soul Edge or are related to a Soul Edge wielder.
 * Characters do get character development, though. Like Xianghua in III, who learns to not let her past failures hinder her after training in the General's mansion.
 * Siegfried has been treated as the main storyline character of the franchise ever since the first Calibur, despite not getting ownership of the titular blade until IV (arguably III, going by backstory), where he further cements his status as main character in his design.
 * But now we have Patroklos as the main character, even though Siegfried's returning.
 * Tear Jerker: One of Tira's potential endings. Nightmare dies, and she is left shaking his body and sobbing that she doesn't want to be alone.
 * That One Achievement: Wind of Battle in V. The player's required to move over 87,600 total meters across the stages in-game. It's made worse than it should be by the limited offline content.
 * That One Boss: Setsuka is a stone-cold bitch to fight when she's a computer in Soulcalibur III.
 * Colossus is this a bit, but it's not terribly fake difficulty or cheap A.I. He's a goddamn giant statue that deals extra damage and is hard to block. For once, it's a reasonable point that he'd be hard.
 * NIGHT TERROR. There is a perfectly good reason he serves as the True Final Boss of Tales of Souls in III; you need to be flawless if you want to win.
 * The Apprentice, despite not being a broken character, tends to be a pain in the neck to fight against.
 * They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: The series has been frequently accused of going this route ever since IV, but this is even more prevalent in V since several characters don't appear in the story mode (and of the ones that did, few had a significant role) and there are no character-based endings in the Arcade Mode at all.
 * They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Unlike the other Ditto Fighter characters, Charade wasn't limited to a humanoid form. Its weapon demonstration was it flying around in a comet shape, before reforming. Its event match in III showed that with the Grieve Edge discipline, it didn't even have to be a whole body. And it even had eye beams. None of this was ever used again.
 * Possibly justified in that, by the time of IV, all of the shards and permutations of Soul Edge (Charade included) returned to Nightmare to reform the sword.
 * Lizardman's Rage Against the Heavens plotline starting in III was largely forgotten, and Lizardman eventually became no more than a vehicle of Comic Relief by the time of IV. However, Lizardman's (or should we say Aeon) bio in V shows that this is slowly beginning to reverse itself.
 * Since the story in V mainly follows Sophitia's children, many were Demoted to Extra in terms of plot, but some characters' stories are outright ignored. The Mitsurugi and Algol subplot is one of them as Algol seems to be a just a boss waiting to be unlocked. Other characters such as Cervantes and Aeon are not even mentioned, but the arguably worst example is Viola, who not only kept the Epileptic Trees growing with the whole thing but had a total of three lines for a character stated to be so important. This can all change in future titles, however.
 * It goes beyond that. Daishi and Project Soul said that there would be a rough 50-50 split between newcomers and veterans. Eleven out of twenty-eight characters are "new" (thirteen if you count Yoshimitsu the Second and the new Astaroth), and none of them save Z.W.E.I., Viola, and Ezio bring anything distinctly "new" to the table in terms of gameplay. Daishi also hinted at the possibility of Bangoo (Rock's adopted son) and Salia Olschmidt (a fellow Schwarzwind member and longsword user--a style yet to be seen in the series--who appeared as early as Siegfried's Soulcalibur ending and was specifically singled out in concept art for V alongside Siegfried) on Twitter, leading many to believe they'd be included in V. They weren't. And then there's the case of Alpha Patroklos, a somewhat hamfisted attempt to keep Setsuka's style in the game at all costs, seeing as nothing in the story itself suggests that Patroklos knew iaido until Z.W.E.I. brought it up (for the record, the tidbit about Setsuka training Pat is only mentioned in his profile on Facebook and the story is fully detailed in a guidebook) and no buildup or even a hint was given as to Pat's knowledge of the art (for one, his shield acts as a scabbard for his sword, leading some to wonder why Pat wasn't given a few moves demonstrating what Setsuka taught him, no matter how clumsily he might've performed them with a shield and in spite of the fact that his sword and shield style was utilized in honor of his mother). Some fans rationalized that the style could've instead gone to Mitsubro (the Fan Nickname for an unknown martial artist claiming to be Mitsurugi's eighth brother who is mentioned in his character profile), who could've turned out to have been a relative of Setsuka's trying to kill Mitsu for Setsuka's sake. Above all, many are wondering if someone goofed when deciding upon release dates for this game and Tekken Tag Tournament 2; this game barely gets over a year in development, whereas TTT2 has been in Japanese arcades since September of 2011 and yet won't get an international release for consoles until Holiday 2012. At this point, Project Soul might become a Scapegoat Creator for what is most likely time constraints forced upon them by Namco.
 * The revelation that Hilde is a mother has been considered to be this due to how underwritten it was; namely, all we know is that Siegfried is not the father (in which that alone has disappointed certain shippers). But even if Siegfried is not the father, could you at least give us a name to the father and her kid(s), Namco?
 * Gameplay-wise one could understand why Cassandra did not appear in V (seeing as she and Sophitia were succeeded by Patroklos and Pyrrha), but Namco's explanation of "She disappeared and was never seen again" after IV was a tad bit strange. Fans wonder why Cassandra, who specifically took up arms to prevent Sophitia from having to abandon her life as a wife and mother due to Soul Edge, was not involved in helping to raise her niece and nephew.
 * It's been revealed in supplemental materials that
 * Regardless of your feelings on Xiba replacing Kilik as the staff wielder while Kilik becomes a mimic, the way the plot went about things (especially ) could've been handled far better. In spite of taking several moves from his predecessor, Xiba is, for the most part, not a Kilik clone, very much in the vein of Seong Mi-na and Kilik after Divergent Character Evolution kicked in. Then there's the indication from Maxi's bio that Kilik had somehow gone insane and/or evil during the 17-year interim. So, not only could you seen a radically different take on Kilik in-game, but the game could've have kept Kilik and Xiba as similar but distinct bojutsu practitioners (much like the aforementioned Mi-na and Kilik) instead of turning Kilik into a mimic like Edge Master, a role that actually cripples Kilik as he's shorter than all of the male characters he's imitating barring Xiba, thus shortening his range by comparison (and aside from having a few of his old moves added back to Xiba's moveset when mimicking him, he gains no additional bonuses that work as a tradeoff for his shorter range of attack; even ). Granted, the game itself implies that Kilik is following in the footsteps of his master and has essentially become a second Edge Master (with Kilik's bio in New Legends of Project Soul--a Japanese-only artbook which fills in many of the gaps left unanswered in the actual game--lending credence to this), but that plot point could've been easily held off until the next game (with Edge Master--who actually has a small amount of plot importance--being replaced by Kilik himself), thus at least partially circumventing Xiba's Replacement Scrappy label (not unlike how Cassandra was included alongside Sophitia in her debut) and the backlash against having three mimics (an unheard of amount) in the same game.
 * To make matters regarding Xiba worse, when his bio was translated into English, a rather important tidbit of information was left out: namely, that he is the illegitimate son of Kilik and Xianghua. In the story mode of both versions of the game, he doesn't seem to acknowledge the fact that he is Lexia's half-sibling, and more than likely both parties are completely unaware. This could've very easily been tied in with the aforementioned potential Kilik plot.
 * According to Daishi Odashima, the story mode of SCV was only one-forth of the planned size.
 * Tier-Induced Scrappy: Hilde, not really for her ranking (there are characters ranked higher than her) but rather for how easy it is to win via ring out with her. During the Soulcalibur IV tournament at EVO2k9, every time a Hilde player was featured on the main stage, the entire ballroom would be filled with people booing.
 * Link. He's less useful in this game than even in Super Smash Bros. Wrap your head around that. His Ring Out game, on the other hand...
 * Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny: A major thing most people use the character creation feature in III and IV for.
 * Behold, Jesus vs. Hitler, Gandalf vs. Sauron, Ronald McDonald vs. Colonel Sanders, Obama vs. McCain...
 * The inclusion of Vader and Yoda means half the work is already done for some people, or all of it for those who download the other guy.
 * What about (based on the latest trailer of SCV) Ezio vs. Nightmare?
 * Villain Decay: Lizardman goes from being enslaved by an evil cult, to wishing to destroy the God Hephaestus with Soul Edge, to simply wanting his human soul.
 * Mind you, none of these things are necessarily bad reasons for villainy. The reason the decay took over is because of the direction Namco took his character in.
 * Of course, V implies Lizardman has taken a level in badass, and is now a winged, fire breathing, dual-wielding monster back to hunting down holy warriors. It doesn't hurt that his moveset now takes a few cues from none other than Kratos.
 * Not to mention the implication in his bio in V that he
 * Lampshaded in Broken Destiny, where one of the early levels consists of the player beating the shit out of him, while it's obvious he's The Woobie.
 * The Woobie: Sophitia in IV. The emotional turmoil she has to endure due to the villains targeting her loved ones is so great that even her artwork shows Sophie in tears. By the gods, does this woman need a great big hug.
 * Her daughter Pyrrha continues the trend in V. People who try to get close to her all die, causing many to see her as a bad omen. She's sold into slavery. And then the noble that bought her turns out to be not that bad, they fall in love, making things look like they're improving, only for him to be murdered the same night he proposed, leading to her being imprisoned. What makes this worse is that this is the same girl Sophitia fought and possibly died for in hopes of giving her a better life.
 * It gets better. Not only is Tira manipulating the poor girl, but
 * Aeon Calcos. It doesn't help that with each game, he gets further away from his humanity as opposed to making any progress in getting it back. It makes his fans wish the writers would throw him a bone for once.
 * Aeon himself decides to go the Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds route out of spite for Hephaestus (who appointed Aeon as a holy warrior tasked with destroying Soul Edge in the first place, which arguably led to his current predicament). Can't say we blame him.
 * And as if that wasn't enough, Aeon is the Destined Battle for all created characters. This has a story explanation--Hephaestus is now sending new "chosen ones" out to stop Soul Edge... but all with the mission to destroy Aeon.
 * This is as a consequence of Aeon now fighting for Ares (who granted Aeon his new abilities), and the conflict between the two gods has escalated into war. But think about it: Hephaestus is sending a bunch of more or less untrained warriors out to fight another chosen one who has powers way beyond what they have, not to mention decades of experience on them. What the Hades, Hephaestus?
 * WTH Costuming Department: The characters' outfits have become more and more ridiculous with each new entry. Soulcalibur IV was the lowest the series ever got, with Soulcalibur V recovering at least some common sense in this area.
 * Your Mileage May Vary, considering that some of the designs (both default and alternate) in V have received mixed reactions, with some of the newcomers being hailed as too "anime-esque" (in particular, many note that Z.W.E.I. looks like he walked straight out of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, which is only exacerbated by E.I.N. more or less acting as his Stand). IV was criticized moreso for blatant Fan Service (most notably, the increasingly Stripperiffic female characters and the Clothing Damage feature) than the actual character designs themselves.

The alternate universe single player modes, Weapon Master and Chronicles of the Sword, have examples not found in the main games:


 * Fashion Victim Villain: Did they just set the character editor to random for creating the characters? Even Strife fails to be threatening, mostly due to his hair.