SoulCalibur III

"A mix of Good and Bads with this game."

Soul Calibur 3 is a game that I bought from Blockbuster Video. Although I didn't mind purchasing the game for $20.00, considering to rent it was $10.00 a week, I felt that this game was missing alot of things, was wasting precious DVD space, and could have added alot more detail and dialogue than it currently displays. The fact of the matter is, is that this game was full of disappointments, SOME improvements, but mostly disappointments, especially to the classic characters from Soul Calibur 2 and 1. I rated the game below according to what I felt when I sat down and played through it.

STORYLINE (4/10)

The storylines of each character could at least have been narrorated by the voice actor, or at least maybe some basic narrorator. Having to constantly scroll down on your controller when you're trying to get into a story can become annoying to the point that you may want to just skip it and go right to the battles. I felt that many of the scenes where the character and the opponent it faces don't interact enough, they don't express their personal concerns about each other in terms of one getting in the other's way.

OUT OF BATTLE CHALLENGES (1/10)

The challenges before battle, AKA, the dodging of that large sprocket, etc, could have been more challenging. Moving left on the thumbpad is quite basic and doesn't change when you redo the quest to get more money. The traps all stay the same, and the characters still say the same, and it becomes lame after awhile. They could have implimented more traps. They could have even implimented full levels before battles in which you could use your character through actual storyline mode, and not just look at some stupid map, text, and then battle. That gets pretty lame really fast, especially when it makes you repeat it over and over again to get money, which has very little use other than if you want to create a custom character or weapon upgrade your favorites.

VOICE ACTING (3/10)

I felt the voice acting could have seriously done better. In Talim's case, at the end, she is panting, yet her breaths don't even match with her body's movements when it is trying to take in air and let it out. The words at least match their mouth movement, which I will give credit on, but their choice of words are not only too short, but they don't speak enough at all. A DVD is supposed to hold between 4.7 GB of data to 6 GB of data (if you REALLY want to jampack it). Take Final Fantasy for example, where it had FMV, Graphics, Voice Talent, and heavy duty on the music as well, all on a single DVD disc (PS2 disc). This game is nowhere near as long as Final Fantasy 10 is, and yet, the voice talent in this game is quite mediocre. The game is short, so there should be alot of voice acting, character interaction on a much larger scale, and explanations as well as rivalries, such and such. I felt the voice acting was not only poorly done, but also not done enough.

GAMEPLAY (4/10)

The flow of the game is good, no lagging time or breakups in the graphics, however, I have a major problem with the amount of cheapshots enemies get when you're on the ground or when you finish an attack. Your character takes a second to fully turn around after making a strike (maybe a glitch), and thus, your opponent opens up with a 5x combo on you. Another problem I noticed is the amount of damage you deal equivilant to your enemy's. For instance, I bought the best weapons, however, it did not do nearly as much damage as my opponents, even in easy mode.

CHARACTERS (7/10)

The characters themselves were well drawn, well detailed, but I had a huge problem with what they did to Talim. What did she do in Soul Caliber 2 that she had to be nerfed in power like this? They took her style out (I bet that pissed the Filipeno's off too when they played this game... joking of course), they took out her speed, her agility, and her quick-strikes, and replaced them with ineffective, slow moving and minimal-damaged blows, yet also they didn't give her any QUALITIES in this game. All of the other characters were pretty good, but Talim's horrendously underpowered performance in Soul Calibur 3 drops this from a 9 to a 7.

MUSIC (6/10)

Good, but not great. They could have had some deadly final battle music for the end boss, but instead it was pretty much on the dismal side. The music I felt did not match the background or the seriousness of the game in many of the stages. I also felt that each character could have their own separate theme, and not just the text storyline and constant music on the quest adventure.

SOUNDS (7/10)

The slashes were good, the kicks were good, the audio quality is good, the voice acting, again, dismal, cheap beginning catch phrases, cheap end phrases, but other than that, okay.

EQUIPMENT PURCHASING (5/10)

When I first bought the game, I thought the equipment feature would be awesome. You know, equip your favorite character with some armors and paddings so he or she takes less damage, but it isn't the case. It's only for custom characters, which is utter baloney. I found that to be really dumb. I liked the weapon purchasing for your character, but the armor purchasing should have been developed better.

MY THOUGHTS

The game is okay, but not as good as the others. I really like Talim, and what they did to her is seriously appauling. The voice acting was pretty bleak in this game, the graphics looked more Gamecube style than PS2 style, and I felt that they could have pushed much more into the DVD, considering they hold at minimum 4.7 GB of data. With all I see here, I am thinking at MOST they filled 1/2. Nowadays, the wave files for the character voice acting can be compressed enough that you can fit alot of it on a DVD disc, as well as heavy graphics. I felt the characters at least were well designed, the battles were smooth, but the cheap shots were extremely annoying. On the ground for 1 second, you might as well just let go of the controller, because you're already at 10% health due to your opponent's crazy attack power over your dismal attack power. ((CAPCOM vs SNK 2, although just as short as this game, was much better because of the lack of cheap shots when you're on the ground, trying to get up))

MY SUGGESTIONS

Soul Calibur 4 should become not just a basic fighting game, but also make it adventurous, just to fill up the damn DVD disc. Maybe have the fights become something that should be at the end of levels, and between each fight, have the character slashing monsters, or minions, jumping over lava pits, or completing puzzles along with battling. Of course, have that Health meter the same, and try to keep alive, and then have each character you face at the end some kind of end-level boss to get to the next stage. But something needs to be done to fill the disc, because this was pretty dismal for a PS2 game. Another thing that can also be done is to reinstate Talim's abilities, because she's pretty crappy in this game. I couldn't understand why Blockbuster Video was selling Soul Calibur 2 for 30 dollars, and Soul Calibur 3 for only $20.00, but after looking at it, I can sort of see why. Soul Calibur 3 has some problems, and I noticed them right away. I hope Soul Calibur 4 will be a much better game.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 08/30/06