After being ushered into a tiny dark room in the back of Namco's E3 booth with three other journos and several reps from the publisher (several from Project Soul, specifically), I watched the same initial presentation of Soulcalibur V that you watched on Joystiq back in mid-May (seen above). I once again marveled at Namco's insistence on pushing the game's ridiculous story over its gorgeous new game's engine, not to mention the improvements to Soulcalibur's core mechanics that distinguish the upcoming sequel from its predecessors by focusing on a "more elegant" combat system.

In real-world terms, this means that battles in Soulcalibur V are intended to be faster, more fluid, and heavy on offense. And in my experience, it was just that -- a noticeably early build, sure, but already showing an extra layer of smoothness in motion that felt far less stilted than past titles.