1. Pokémon Brilliant Diamond (NS)
2. Metal Slug 3 (XBO)
3. Wii Sports (Wii)
4. Castle of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse (GEN)
5. Arc the Lad (PS)
6. Rayman Origins (PC)
7. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons (PC)
8. Final Fantasy IX (NS)
9. Kirby's Return to Dream Land (Wii)
10. Mario Golf - Advance Tour (GBA)
11. Cat Quest (PC)
12. Soul Calibur VI (PS4)
I recently picked up Soul Calibur VI at a pawn shop for a whopping $5. I've been a fan of the series since playing Soul Blade on the Playstation at a friend's house. I've thoroughly played through that, and SC1 and SC2. Three and Four are in my collection, but I haven't really touched them yet. For whatever reason I recently had the urge to play a modern fighter and I went with this.
I "beat" the game by playing through all of the characters' stories in the "Soul Chronicle" mode. I also dabbled in the arcade mode and the quasi RPG "Libra of Soul" mode, but didn't play either of those to completion. I will say that I really enjoyed the fighting mechanics - not terribly much has changed with how the game plays even as far back as the earliest entries in the series, but there are some small extras and the action does stay consistently fast and fun. Moves and combos are reasonably easy to pull off, and you can play fairly successfully as a button masher, but there is also a lot to offer if you dig into a character's move list to really learn their strengths.
I will say that this game made me wish that DLC wasn't a thing. Part of the fun of late nineties/early 2000s fighting games was unlocking a bunch of characters and stages and modes, but in this game only one character was unlocked by gameplay. A quick peak at the DLC and I figured about 10 more characters had been released, but only if you want to pay for them. It took away one of the reasons I wanted to play - to see who or what I could unlock and try next. Games like Tekken 3 and Soul Calibur 2 had like 8-10 characters you could unlock through playing, and those games resonate as some of my favourite fighting game experiences of all time. I don't think that is coincidental.
Visuals are great, sound and music do the trick, the story is poor enough that I skipped through much of it. If I was to sum up how I felt about Soul Calibur VI, I would have to say: "Playing" the game is great, but the overall experience left me feeling like something special was lost.