It seems like 2012 is going to be the year that fighting games make a resurgence. Most of the big names in the genre are due to make some kind of offering, with Street Fighter X Tekken, Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown (good luck getting that title on the box) and Dead or Alive 5 all scheduled to be released at some point, alongside this, Namco's newest offering, Soulcalibur V. Of course, there's the possibility they'll all be terrible, in which case it'll just be known as '2012: The year a revival never happened and beat-em-ups died forever'. Or something equally as snappy.

Soulcalibur V is the sixth game in the Soul Edge series and the most recent addition since Soulcalibur IV, a game that featured three Star Wars characters in it's fighting roster. Admittedly that was four years ago, and don't get us wrong, Star Wars is great, but we're pretty sure a medieval fantasy fighting game probably shouldn't have Darth Vader in. Of course, maybe that's just us.

So as you can imagine, with vivid images of Yoda fighting a bladed gimp called Voldo still lingering at the back our minds, we weren't overly excited at the prospect of a new Soulcalibur game. Once you jump the shark, you don't coming back round for another go.

Or so we thought. But Soulcalibur V did something extraordinary, it actually made us want to play fighting games again. Who would have thought.

To start with, the fighting mechanics that have always been one of the series major plus points are back, and they've been tweaked to the point where they're even slicker and faster than before. A major point worth mentioning is how difficult it is to get the difficulty setting right in a fighting game like this. Too simple and there's no point in doing anything other than Hulk-like mashing of the controls, too complicated and most people just won't bother at all. 

Soulcalibur V actually manages to strike a great balance between the two, giving starters a chance to bash the crap out of their controller and still pull off impressive-looking moves, while anyone who takes the time to learn the controls and various nuances of the top, middle or bottom fighting system as well as the various blocking techniques will find an equally high level of satisfaction at the game's higher difficulty levels. 

To this extent, a major change in Soulcalibur V compared to IV is the replacement of the finishing moves with Street Fighter 4 esque Brave and Critical Edge moves (super and ultra combos respectively), special combos which are able to be executed once a damage bar fills up. They're easy to do, and they're fun.

Actual fighting aside, one of Soulcalibur V's most interesting features is the character customisation mode. This mode, as you may have guessed, allows you to take a multitude of options and basically create your own character from scratch, albeit one that uses an existing character's move set. While this may not sound that interesting, there's a lot to be said for creating hugely overweight semi-naked characters. Aside from anything else, in our case it just adds that needed element of realism.  

As we mentioned in our preview, the roster has changed quite a bit from Soulcalibur IV. The Star Wars characters are out and the new (and only) guest fighter is Assassin's Creed's Ezio, a nicely balanced new addition who's a great choice for players new to the series. As well as Ezio there are several new characters including ZWEI and the two characters who form the protagonists of Soulcalibur V's main story, siblings Patroklos and Pyrrha (the children of Sophitia).

Unfortunately it is this where the game falls down. The main story mode is hugely disappointing. The addition of well drawn cut-scenes and a semblance of a story, culminating in a battle against the series antagonist, Nightmare, don't really make a huge amount of difference to the fact that this section of the game just feels tacked on for the sake of it.

Having said that, the addition of online play and a fantastic soundtrack make Soulcalibur V a genuinely enjoyable, varied game to play, and single player story mode withstanding, a genuinely impressive beat-em-up.