If your franchise includes Chocobos, peachy princesses, or zombie Dobermans, reaching the fifth game in the series happened a long time ago. Other franchises never produce so much as a sequel. Soul Calibur V actually marks the sixth or seventh game in the series, but there have been gaps of several years between some games that left fans wondering about the future. The good-looking game we appreciated on our Dreamcast and original PlayStation has continued to mature, but the focus is as much on quality gameplay as high-end graphics. Don't get us wrong: The graphics are good enough, but fighting games are always about fluidity and speed. If eye-candy can't be added without slowing things down, it won't make the cut. The payoff for us is lightning fast action that feels as responsive as anything we ever played in arcades.

One of the better aspects of Soul Calibur V is the option to create a custom character, including every kind of strange and delightful accessories you can imagine. Sure, it may seem trivial, but it all serves the goal of making this the most feature-rich version of the game you've ever played. And who doesn't like seeing their own creation mincing around the battle arena? The range of options for designing your fighter isn't as deep as a game like Dragon Age or Skyrim, but it's pretty darn close. From the sublime to the ridiculous to the downright pornographic; it's a tweaker's dream. The storyline that plays out includes some immensely over-the-top sequences that are good for a laugh, but even these showcase the game's graphics nicely.

Fighting games are trending a bit like the Racing genre; it used to be that a racing game was just about picking a car and hitting the track. Now you have to virtually be a mechanic to play a racing game... The heritage of Soul Calibur V includes some straightforward arena battling, which is still present in this version. Almost everything else is on an entirely different plane. The simplest mode to describe and play is the Story, subtitled "1607 A.D." Fans of the series will be excited to fill in parts of the Soul universe not yet addressed, but you don't have to care one bit about the narrative to enjoy the action. As you traverse stages in Story Mode, you'll hone your skills against successively harder opponents, up to the final confrontation. You get some sense of the breadth of characters and fighting styles during Story Mode, and you'll hopefully master the basic controls. You can break away from this gradual progression at any time and launch a multiplayer session on Xbox LIVE, where Soul Calibur V really comes to life. There are three basic components to playing on LIVE: You can compete in one-on-one combat, join ad hoc battles with larger groups, or jump into a massive "Town Hall" mode called "Global Colosseo." Only the one-on-one matches confer ranking points, which show up on the LIVE leaderboards, and on your player "license." Group battles work a bit like any LIVE Party mode, where you can be a spectator or mix it up with your friends who are also playing the game. This stuff has no impact on ranking, but not everyone is obsessed with ranking, after all.

Outside of the main story and online play, you can set up local battles or play Arcade Mode to hone your skills. There are also formal training options, and for veteran players, there's a special mode called "Legendary Souls" that pits you against A.I. fighters at their biggest and baddest. If you've played even one of the previous games in the series, you'll immediately be in familiar territory. There are some new actions available during battle, such as the Just Guard, which works only when perfectly timed, to knock away most enemy attacks. The basic rules of combat remain the same, with options to defeat opponents through lots of small, deft attacks or crush them with raw-power attacks and throws. The controls take some getting used to, if you're just coming back to the series on console, but the depth of gameplay and the online modes illustrate why most of us will never go back to the arcades. Soul Calibur V is the kind of game Fighter fans will keep around until they get rid of their consoles.

Someone once compared the modern game controller to driving a car. The final estimation was that driving a car was less complex and involved fewer moving parts. Nowhere is this more true than in a game like Soul Calibur V. The developers at least latched onto the idea of combining certain button pairs, and mapping these to the shoulder buttons and triggers. You can accomplish moves with one press of a button that previously required serious twitch reflexes. At the outset, when you're dumped into battle, Soul Calibur V works well with the tried-and-true button-mashing technique. You can only go so far without training, so that's an option, but one that's somewhat buried. Jumping into battle immediately will find you at an impasse later, when enemies stop falling for your stupid tricks and become very skilled at exploiting your characters' weaknesses. Just looking at the diagrams attached to moves, and the incredibly long list of moves, is enough to make most people's heads spin. The person who buys and loves this game is going to be a core fan of fighting games, not afraid to put the time in to learn the combos and the relative advantages of each character. Driving a car might not even be the right analogy; becoming a real Soul Calibur V master is more like learning a new language. At first you'll master a few little bits, small combos and moves that work well against enemies. Later, you'll learn to string combos together into devastating chains that can be used to defeat even the largest, most powerful enemies.

If you get a little confused reading the move list in Soul Calibur V, you're probably missing some history. Labels like "A" and "B" make sense, except what Soul Calibur V calls "A" is actually mapped to (X) while the so-called "B" is mapped to (Y). The "K" action is mapped to (B) and the (A) button is assigned to "G" moves. Behind this strangeness is the fighting-game convention that predates all these consoles by at least a decade. Arcade fighting was all about hits and kicks, usually high and low or weak and strong. The placement of the button matters, since gamers in arcades got used to finding things like high and low attacks in certain places. Labels matter, since that's how moves are memorized. At first, you can just pound on the buttons and not sweat the details. As things progress, you'll start to study the move list in search of the really crushing moves your character possesses that come in handy against more powerful enemies.

The notion of using the shoulder buttons and triggers to simulate multiple button-presses will be a polarizing strategy. It doesn't make the game easier, just more accessible. We found it liberating to have the entire controller at our disposal, but it's not like Soul Calibur V forces you to use a certain control scheme. Almost every aspect of the game can be customized, as you would expect from several decades of experience designing awesome fighting games. The little touches are what make games great, but little stuff doesn't work unless it's built on a strong foundation. Soul Calibur V is certainly the pinnacle of a grand tradition, and it will not disappoint its core audience. It's not catering to new or casual fans, but that's hardly a mark against it.