Kratos Soul : Calibur Fighting

The best fighting game kratos of war battle and defeat your opponents.

There are no performance bonuses associated with clothing and weapons this time around,

which is unfortunate if you really enjoyed that aspect of Soul: Broken Fighting Calibur,

but great if you want to wear all of the matching pieces of the Santa costume without feeling like your fashion choices are compromising your effectiveness.

Drama ensues from pitting one fighter against another, watching how the differences in style play out. While many of these dramatic confrontations have been played out before, two new characters offer something fresh.

Regardless of which fighter you choose to play as and what he or she is wearing,

Broken, like previous SoulCaliburs offerings, is easy to pick up and grasp the basics of.

He's more challenging to play, but grants a range of quick attacks and feints that benefit the skilled player.

Instead of presenting a series of rounds however, each chapter breaks down into short tutorials lasting a few seconds. The intricacies of guarding, executing critical finishes, how to use the new active purge system - all are explained via these short missions.

It's highly informative, but a total bore. You spend more time flipping through narrative text and explanations for each mission than you do actually fighting.

The Trial of Defense is a little longer and culminates in a boss battle against Algol from Soul: Destiny calibur,

so in that respect it's a lot like that game's Arcade mode.

The main difference here is that you score points and earn bonuses for guarding against your opponent's attacks and retaliating quickly.

Endless Trial is a survival mode of sorts, except that your fighter regains all of his health between rounds.

Seeing how many of the increasingly tough opponents you can make it past without ever losing is a lot of fun,

but your score isn't based on that.

Rather, every time you land a blow you earn points, and there's a score multiplier that goes up when you hit your opponent but falls back down when you get hit.

Still, add in a large ensemble of interesting and varied characters - not to forget the ability to make your own characters in Creation mode - and Soul: Broken Fighting Calibur contains all the necessary fundamentals of a phenomenal fighter.