SoulCalibur III

"One of the best fighting games out there"

The Soul Calibur series actually started off on the Dreamcast. Of course, the Dreamcast failed and Soul Calibur wasn't that well known. This was of course remedied when Soul Calibur II was announced for the PlayStation 2, GameCube AND Xbox. It became a hit on all three systems and Soul Calibur was known by pretty much anyone. While original plans for Soul Calibur III were also made to be put on all three systems, Sony actually did something smart by buying the rights to Soul Calibur. That is why Soul Calibur III is exclusive to the PlayStation 2. Soul Calibur III is undoubtedly a better game than Soul Calibur II and it is probably my favorite fighting game this generation.

Like the previous installments, Soul Calibur III is a 16th century fighter. Every character actually has their own personal story so the story will be different depending on the character you are playing as. Every character is looking for the sword for different reasons. Some want to use it for good, some for evil while other characters want to destroy it outright. The major character in the actual storyline are Nightmare, who was the fan favorite of Soul Calbiur II and Siegfried which is essentially Nightmare's “good” side. This of course means that Nightmare and Siegfried have a major rivalry. At the end of Soul Calibur II, Siegfried had sealed away Soul Edge. Unfortunately, with the help of a mysterious man, Nightmare is reborn. Siegfried has to go and destroy the evil once and for all. This is the core of the storyline but like I said earlier, every character is looking for this power and each character has their own allies and enemies and grudges that resurface during the storyline. Unlike Soul Calibur II's fight after fight after fight with little story, Soul Calibur III actually tells you the story in between battles. This was a welcome addition because the storyline made the actual fights more exciting.

The game play for the most part has been left relatively unchanged. I am personally someone who played Soul Calibur II on the GameCube so it took me a little bit to adjust to the PS2's controller but I found that pretty much all the old moves are still for my favorite characters as well as some new ones too. I don't claim to be a fighting mechanic expert but for people concerned about balance, yes, there are characters that are clearly heads and shoulders above the rest of the selection. There are a lot more characters in this game in addition to all the old characters of Soul Calbiur II sans Necrid. I never noticed any one particular character that could trump the rest but there were several characters that were better than the rest. If you've played previous games you'll know that there actually two ways to win. One is reducing the opponents health bar to nothing like in most fighting games and the other is knocking your opponent out of the ring where he or she will plummet to his or her doom. Knocking out usually doesn't happen but it isn't really that uncommon. What's nice is that you can pause the battle and look at the command list to learn how to do some movies. Of course, if you're playing against a real life person, that just might make that person angry if you keep pausing the battle to look at commands. I never really needed it as I had experience with Soul Calibur II but it is a great way for newer players to get better.

In additional to storyline mode and regular VS battle mode, Soul Calibur III has a lot of nice little extra features which are very fun to play. For starters, you can create your own characters! Honestly, the character creation isn't THAT intricate but there's still a lot you can do. You select their gender, their clothes, their hat and all that. You'll unlock more features for character creation through the other features of this game like Chronicles of the Sword. Speaking of Chronicles of the Sword, this was a major bonus feature in this game. In this mode you use your created characters in a real life strategy type game. It isn't that complex though. This mode is comprised of several different chapters, each one with their own objective. Unusually it's to defeat other characters though. And to top it off, the main characters of Soul Calibur III will sometime splay a cameo appearance where you can fight them in a tough battle. World Competition is another mode in which this is basically a tournament where you play as a character of your choice and you fight enemies to advance further. This is actually very tough as the computer is top notch in this mode. Probably the biggest reason why I gave this game a 9 and not a 10 is the fact that there wasn't a Team Battle. Team Battle was my favorite part of SCII and they took it out. Everything else in this game is enough to surpass SCII but the lack of Team Battle was extremely disappointing. There is a shop in this game run by annoying weird looking girls where you can buy weapons, armor and items. You'll use the shop.

Like I said, there are a lot of characters to unlock and a lot of characters to play as. All of the characters from SCII return except for Necrid. Some classic quotes are still used but there are a lot of new quotes too obviously. One of the biggest problems of Soul Calibur II was that the stages really sucked. This is not the case in Soul Calibur III. There are AMNY stages to choose from and while some of course suck, there are several good ones. One is where you're on a castle while a major battlefield is going on. How cool is that? The soundtrack is also really great too. Jurakudai Villa is probably my favorite stage and the track to that stage, Ephemeral Dream undoubtedly has a large part to play in that. Some of the classic Soul Calibur tunes return but for the most part, the soundtrack is a vast improvement. I was truly impressed as I was not expecting a good soundtrack. The graphics in this game are also really well. They're better than Soul Calibur II's as the detail is really impressive both on the actual characters and in the environment. I guess I would have liked to see a bit more interaction with the environment though; I think Tekken 5 actually beats out Soul Calibur III is that one area.

I don't find this game to be easy but it is far from impossible. I'd say the difficulty is actually quite satisfactory despite me admittedly getting frustrated at times. I'm really glad this game has a lot to do in it, the event mode you did in Soul Calibur II got boring after a while but Chronicles of the Word was much more fun and epic. It gave you a real excuse to use your own created characters. Really, in the end this is just yet another excellent game by Namco. Namco was the company of this generation for me by far. I would have really liked to see Team Battles in this game. I still can't over why they left that out. This game would one of the best games ever if they kept it in. Oh well. Soul Calibur III easily trumps the previous installments and I can't see the logic of preferring SCII to this game. SCIII has more characters, much better stages, much better soundtrack, improved graphics, a better storyline and more moves and techniques to use. People who are against the game claim that AI is cheap which is true at times but it isn't that big of a deal. Heaven forbid that Soul Calibur actually provides a little challenge. Obviously those people are stuck on how easy Soul Calibur II was and thus lack the skills to play a more challenging game. Sad. But that's beside the point. Soul Calibur III is easily one of the better fighting games this generation. There is simply no doubt about that.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 01/02/07