SoulCalibur

"An underrated arcade game turns into an overrated console game."

I've procrastinated in writing this review for a while now. Now I feel it's the best time to write it. I've logged at least 250 hours into this game, I've played every option to death (except "Extra Survival," don't really care much for that), and I'd say I've played every type of human opponent (from scrub to expert). I've "mastered" four characters (Mitsurugi, Ivy, Rock and Siegfried/Knightmare) and can easily hold my own with every character. So you could probably guess that I really like this game? Well, yes, I do. But I will try to review it as fairly as possible, cause I've found a few flaws.

First off, and why this game is getting so much attention right now, the graphics are indeed beautiful. The backgrounds are drop-dead gorgeous, finely detailed and intriguing, making the viewer want to see behind the walls blocking their view. Although deserted, and probably haunted, you feel like venturing to the "Ostrheinsburg Castle" just to see if it has any inhabitants left. This is how well Namco crafted the scenery in Soul Calibur-it's very impressive. The characters are remarkable as well, detailed down to the veins popping out of Astaroth's forehead and the stitch work done on Voldo's outfits (kinda gross to look at though). You will never see a pixel in this game, can you say "high resolution?" The Dreamcast sure can! But I will say that I think the arcade version of Virtua Fighter 3 looks a little bit better. As far as personality in the stages and characters, Soul Calibur has it beat.

Control is "like butter," in fact, I can't believe it's not butter! Lame attempt at a joke aside, this game controls just how you would want a 3D fighting game to move. In fact, it might be a little too good, if not overly simple. How could a game control too good that it would be a bad thing, do you ask? Well, lets just say it's very button-masher friendly. Eddy Gordo-types will feel right at home with Maxi (although, in my opinion, he's the hardest character to master). The "8-way run" feature needs to be a standard in all 3D fighting games. I know Soul Calibur wasn't the first 3D fighting game to use it, but I believe it uses it better than any other to date (I now can feel Tobal 2 freaks glarring at me).

Now for the bad, of which, thankfully there really isn't much. There are some unexplainable glitches in this game; some are pretty funny, and some are very annoying. The best one I've seen is when 2 of my friends were playing a Voldo/Maxi match. After Maxi was stunned by Voldo's hit, he started to run towards him. When he did, Maxi's head (which normally tracks the opponent) turned around completely (Exorcist-style). Creepy, but very funny. Also, sometimes when viewing moves in the practice mode, the camera shifts away from the character while they are performing the move. The last glitch I've seen is after a computer controlled fight (when the character posses and the stats are put up on the screen) the person will fall out of the ring right when the stats appear on the screen. Why didn't Namco fix these? The world may never know...Besides the errors, gameplay should be just a tad more balanced.

Famitsu Weekly gave Soul Calibur a perfect 40/40. Electronic Gaming Monthly gave the game a perfect 10. Next Generation gave it a perfect 5 stars. Does this game deserve it? Well, people are entitled to their opinion. I also happen to think people also buy into the hype. When this game was in the arcades you didn't hear EGM or Next Gen raving about how good this game was or how they couldn't wait for it to be ported to a home console. On the other end to that I really can't understand why a certain reviewer for Gamefan gave this game a 69/100 (while in the same issue he also gave Mortal Kombat Gold a 90/100?!?!). This game means more to me than to most just because I've logged in several hours into it at the arcade before it was even announced for the DC. I like this game a lot. I believe it's very good, but not perfect by any means.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 01/09/00, Updated 01/09/00