SoulCalibur

"Welcome back to Namco's finest."

Soul Calibur is the killer follow-up to an amazing fighting game by Namco. While better known for the Tekken series, Namco has created a rather impressive game that has both the depth of Tekken and the beauty of Virtua Fighter 4. With massive characters, amazing play mechanics, awesome visuals and an audio track that is nothing short of jaw-dropping, there is little here that a fighting game fan could find wrong! Like most fighting games, this one takes hours to master and patience in order to learn every nuance that it has to offer.

-The Game Play -

The game is your basic one on one fight with characters that range from the small and fast {Taki} to the slow moving and rather powerful {Astaroth}. With the wide range of diversity that can be found in each character, any fighting game fan will probably find someone that will fit their style within the first couple of times of playing! The battles consist of a best two out of three, but instead of using fireballs and ice freezes, you'll rely on your prowess with a weapon, each of which has it's own strengths and weaknesses.

The challenge doesn't end there, with the in-game battles needing you to use your weapon effectively, or you risk losing it altogether if it takes too much damage from you blocking. This effectively eliminates the ''turtle'' player who does nothing but block all round! Now, with the addition of older character, newer characters have different weapons and ranges and I’ve found that there is matching characters. This means that once you’ve mastered one, you’ll be able to find another one just like it and master that one as well, which adds to the overall depth of the game.

The best part that I found about Soul Calibur is the fact that you can take on the mission mode just like you could in the original in order to unlock different aspects of the game. With a much deeper mission plan, you can earn money to unlock different things in the gallery and a ton of different stages for your playing pleasure later. However, the missions that you find here take a little bit of practice and you might be revisiting them several times in order to get the money needed. Be aware that the more you revisit the different challenges, the less money you actually earn and some of the challenges will be too difficult to complete multiple times.

Clean and precise, Soul Calibur offers the gamer a variety of move sets and button presses that is strangely similar to Street Fighter and other various fighters. Laying heavily on the button press system, gamers of all types, from the novice to the expert will have no trouble learning all of the move sets. Using them all effectively is another story and that only comes through with plenty of practice! In addition, there is a new feature with the eight-way run that allows you to set up attacks from the side and effectively avoid whatever is coming at you. This is yet another instance of having to re-learn everything that you’ve learned before.

-The Visuals -

Very detailed and very beautiful, each character and stage has a life all of its own. Chests heave, weapons clash and characters stagger when hit all in a realistic way. The moves are extremely well detailed and animated with little or nothing to chance. The backgrounds and locations that you find here are some of the best that I’ve found in a fighting game in a long time and all deliver the feeling of being back in the past. Once you’ve gotten used to the stages and the characters, you’ll be able to pick up smaller detail which makes for a much more pleasing presentation!

-The Audio -

With a hybrid of rock and symphony, each stage has it's own blend of music that doesn't hurt the ears and keeps the pace of an intense battle. Add this in with a killer voice over announcer and you're looking at something as close to perfect as you can get without actually being there! Each stage has it's own blend of epic music that really keeps the mood and the urgency of the game at a high pace. The different sound effects that range from the grunts and groans, to the battle cries of every character as they go to initiate a heavy attack!

-The Verdict -

Soul Calibur is a wonderful game that allows you to play through in a three-dimensional world of depth and needed skill. As the battles get longer and the characters become more diverse, this is a great place to go if you’re tried of the Tekken series and a wonderful break away from the Street Fighter series. If you want a good fighting game for the Dreamcast, then you’re going to have to look at this title before you start heading off into the Capcom and SNK games that are the rage of the Dreamcast system. There are several things here you’ll enjoy, from the Arcade style fighting to the Mission Mode, there are hours of enjoyment to be found in this one disc.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/02/02, Updated 10/02/02