Soul Edge was released a couple of years ago, right after the excitement over Tekken 2 started to die down. Die-hard Tekken fans hoped for something to satiate their appetites for a new game in the series. Other fans hoped for a worthy weapon-based fighting game not seen since the Samurai Shodown series was in its prime. With arguably the best cinemas ever seen in a video game, and easy-to-perform moves and combos, the game was just screaming for a sequel, and now it's here.
The story line for the game is extremely deep, unlike Tekken which has absolutely no story line until its PlayStation counterpart came out with cinemas, that is. One of the main baddies in Calibur is Nightmare, who is an evil version of Siegfried. It seems that at the end of the Soul Edge tournament, Sophitia, mortally injured after destroying one of the evil Soul Edge swords, was about to be killed by the now-insane Cervantes.
Taki jumps in to defeat Cervantes and takes Sophitia from the battlefield. Siegfried finds the broken Cervantes and Soul Edge. Taking the sword, Siegfried becomes possessed and is now the final Boss in Calibur. The endings in this game will be even more elaborate.
It could be said that the Soul Edge team learned a lot from the development of Tekken 2, the Tekken 3 team learned from Soul Edge, and now the latest installment, Soul Calibur is a hybrid of all these games.
To an expert Tekken player, Soul Edge offered little but pretty graphics. Soul Calibur addresses many of these problems, and attempts to repair them. Out with most of the MK-style button-mashing combos, and in with the strings There are a ton of brand-new innovations that make the game a marvel to play: guard impact, staggers, stage variance, stance changes, motion delay and analog cancels. Guard impact and staggers are pretty much an attempt at applying realistic physics to the combat.
For example, if Astaroth swings his huge axe at Taki, her relatively small Sais are only going to do so much to block the attack. As a result, it's possible to cause Taki to stagger, effectively leaving her open to another hit. While this may seem unfair, you'll need to remember that Taki is a lot faster than Astaroth and would therefore be able to get a lot more hits in before he even pulls off a guard impact.
It's just up to you if you want to be able to hop around and jab your opponent to death or simply smash them with just a couple of slow hits. On a side note, the weapon meter from Soul Edge is now gone. While you won't be able to destroy your opponent's weapon anymore, there are still plenty of ways to take care of "blockers.
Additionally, some characters are able to execute special attacks that can only be performed while running. The fact that your opponents can run around and crack you on the head while you're standing still can make for some tricky fights. There are ovals, octagons, squares and many more. This is important in Calibur because, like the Virtua Fighter series, there are ring-outs. However, as is to be expected in a sequel of this nature, there is a slew of new characters.
Available from the outset are: Nightmare a revamped Siegfried possessed by the Soul Edge , Kilik, Xianghua, Maxi a nunchaku specialist to satisfy Li Long fans , Astaroth big guy with a big club--Soul Calibur's "Rock" substitute and perhaps the most devilish new member, Ivy a platinum blonde in a skimpy outfit with a multisectioned sword that turns into a whip.
It's pretty obvious this is a much-improved game over the original. Even if Soul Edge wasn't your cup of tea, you might want to give Calibur a look. It should be out nationwide when you read this. Welcome back to the stage of history--this time it's on the Dreamcast. Namco's decision to port Soul Calibur to the Dreamcast can almost be deemed historical on many levels.
Namco games like Ridge Racer and Tekken are synonymous with the launch of Sony's PlayStation and helped them get an early lead in their Bit battle with the Sega Saturn. Although Namco has recently announced that they have no other Dreamcast titles planned for this year, just the fact that their most ambitious arcade conversion ever will be on Sony's next-generation competitor has many excited about future possibilities.
Another reason Soul Calibur on the Dreamcast attains landmark status is because it's the first game to really show off the system's graphical prowess. While Namco has always offset the compromised graphics of home versions with extra modes and mini-games, Soul Calibur will be their first home title to sport better graphics than its arcade counterpart. Originally released last summer, Soul Calibur ran off of Namco's System 12 hardware, which at the time was already pushing the graphical limits of the board; 60 fps, improved texture resolution complex character models, advanced light sourcing and an orgy of particle effects made it one of the most beautiful fighting games ever conceived.
There was no doubt for a second that this game would have to pass up the PlayStation with its more dated System derived hardware. With the PlayStation 2 still more than a year away from launch, Namco had no choice but to consider their next viable platform--the Sega Dreamcast.
Since the Dreamcast with its Naomi-based hardware Is considerably more powerful than the System 12, Namco took this opportunity to pursue their vision of what Soul Calibur should or could have been.
When it comes to exploiting the strengths of a system, none is more capable than Namco. For starters, they've completely reassembled each character model from the ground up.
The difference between the arcade and Dreamcast versions is easily noticeable. Aside from the game's higher resolution on the Dreamcast, the fighters appear better fleshed out, less jagged and more lifelike.
Through extensive use of gouraud shading, Namco was able to conceal joints where polygons come together to form limbs. The end result is spectacular; body parts seamlessly work together to produce a coherent and realistic character model. In addition to how each character looks, Namco also wanted to perfect their motion data so they're as smooth as possible. A lot of tweaking went into improving the animation overall--stuff like blocking, staggering and parrying have all been touched up for the home version.
Other subtle touches include minor facelifts of each of the 19 arenas. A lot of background structures and objects which were originally 2D were upgraded to full 3D constructions. But wait, that's not all. Our sources in japan revealed to us even more mindblowing improvements for Soul Calibur.
Each character will have a fully articulated jaw and facial skeleton to allow a wide array of facial expressions and speech movement. The same will also apply for the bodies of the fighters. For the first time in any 3D fighting game, Soul Calibur will feature character models with a connected hip and torso segment. This ensures natural hip and chest motions that simulate the full range and limitations of human movement. In addition. Soul Calibur's skeletal system will also figure muscle and body mass into both the graphics and physics of the game.
If you look carefully, you can see muscles flex, and as fanboy service, Taki's heaving bosoms. Let's not forget, all of this graphical icing comes sprinkled with heavy doses of colored light sourcing and gratuitous amounts of particle effects all moving at a brisk 60 fps.
Soul Calibur on the System 12 already had some of the best graphics and motion capture for any fighter to date; now the Dreamcast version is on the verge of making history as the first fighter to take real-time animation to the next level of realism. This latest version of Soul Calibur will, in effect, put its former self to shame. Soul Calibur 3, disappointing only in that it came out at the end of the current generation systems, fulfills all of my wishes, giving us not only a complete Tales of the Sword mode, but also the Chronicles mode, in which you can play through a completely unique game.
While it resembles a mini game more than another feature of Soul Calibur. Soul Calibur 3 is a mixture between a full 3-D arena and 2-D sidescroll fighter. You can move left and right as typical of most 2-D as well as 'side-step' to go closer or further from the camera in a circle more or less.
Namco promises that you can outfit characters with weapons not found in the game proper, like shuriken. If only they could add online play Browse games Game Portals. Soul Calibur 3. Install Game.
Click the "Install Game" button to initiate the file download and get compact download launcher. Locate the executable file in your local folder and begin the launcher to install your desired game. Game review Downloads Screenshots Overall rating: 8. Playstation 2. GameFabrique Playstation 2 , Arcade.
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