Talim Joins Soul Calibur VI

Bandai Namco is slowly unveiling each new character on the closely kept secret that is the Soul Calibur VI roster. It's usually very typical for fighting games to refrain from revealing everyone all at once in order to string the fans along and get them all excited and frenzied whenever a big new reveal takes place. That's the general direction that Namco is going in with revealing new characters for Soul Calibur VI. The latest character that Namco has let gamers take a peek at is Talim, the young elbow blade-wielding fighter who has a penchant for speedy attacks and the ability to utilize her agility to make use of the large arena around her.

The minute long trailer showcases Talim and her fighting style using the back-blades positioned against her elbows. The fighting technique is known as the "Wind Dance" fighting style, but is very similar to how most martial artists wield the tonfas.

The actual fighting for Talim starts in a rather dynamic way. She jumps in to attack and quickly uses a counter-parry to go into another starting combo and special attack. While this clip may be short, there's a lot to parse through in terms of how players will be able to use Talim in Soul Calibur VI both offensively and defensively. So, if you aren't entirely comfortable being an aggressive combo-fiend, you can utilize Talim's more defensive properties to rely on quick counters and parries.

The next clip showcases one of her grab moves, where she flips around and slams her opponent onto the ground. There's a nice element of redirection here, where instead of just flipping her opponent she spins and flips around and them slams them to the ground, creating a slight element of disorientation for the opponent. It's a perfect setup to get in a few low attacks before the opponent rolls out of the way or gets back up to their feet.

We also see more of Talim's agility on display, in terms of using her small size to move around opponents with ease. We see this when she quickly spins to get around to the side of her opponent and performs a side kick to knock them off their feet. This is part of the multi-layered meta game that Namco is including in Soul Calibur VI, with players encouraged to rely more on just standard attacks and combos, and make use of the more technical elements of the guard and parry game, not unlike Tekken 7.

Talim also retains a lot of her standard, lightning-quick combo attacks so she can can transition from neutral to low to air juggles at blinding speeds. She's oftentimes compared to Taki in terms of her speed-to-power ratio, but she doesn't quite have the zoning abilities like Taki to quickly close the distance if she's too far away from an opponent during a fight. Unlike Street Fighter, you can't rely on projectiles to zone opponents, so characters like Talim have to rely on speed and misdirection to get in close.

You'll be able to play as Talim in Soul Calibur VI starting October 19th, 2018, when the game launches for PS4, Xbox One and on Steam for PC. Both the PS4 and Xbox One versions will also come with collector's edition options that you can pre-order from the Bandai Namco store.