Another Tale of Souls and Swords Eternally Hackneyed Until The End of Marketing

Before I dive on into the meat of this review please allow me to first thank my friend, Dan, for allowing the use of the title for this review. I, after a long spell of not reviewing or doing much of anything, have chosen the ever-popular Soul Calibur 3 for PS2 for review today.

The story is a simple one, at best. There are two swords, Soul Calibur (the good sword) and Soul Edge (the evil sword). Regardless of these two swords' continued battles against one another, most people seem oblivious to Soul Calibur's very existence, let alone it's utter rivalry against the evil blade-- which is typically called 'the ultimate weapon' in spite of being broken two or three times now. Anyways, in the end of Soul Calibur 2 (the game that got me into this series) Siegfried (formally Nightmare) was in a large battle against Raphael, and after a devastating strike, got his own will freed from Soul Edge's desires and suddenly found Soul Calibur and struck against the evil sword. Soul Calibur and Soul Edge nullified each other and merged into one large blade, so Siegfried took them and set off on his way to try and destroy Soul Edge for good. Other characters join into this massive war for varying reasons (some to obtain Soul Edge, some to destroy it, but some how they, too, have no idea what Soul Calibur is!). Now, in most fighting games, the plot gets deeper as you play through the game with each respective character, but SC3 breaks tradition in such a fashion as that only three characters have any plots that actually go anywhere of any significance or that don't blatantly contradict themselves. One such storyline with plot holes big enough to create their own gravity wells is that of a new character, Zasalamel where in his own story he faces off against himself (as every other character in the game must at one point or the other-- and some for just no real reason at all.) It's like Namco's writers got a few really good stories done and decided to just speed production along by fudging some other stuff and excuses to get the other characters in on it and the game on shelves by the release date. Even though I thought the stories where you could even pick where the characters went were pretty cool, after the fifth play through they become little more than vain attempts to artificially extend the length of the game. Thankfully, most of these can be skipped by mashing the X or O buttons until the load times complete. Aside from the story mode (called 'Tales of Souls') there is another story altogether in the 'Chronicles of the Sword' mode, where three kingdoms are fighting one another for control, and you play as a young cadet from a military academy as he gets involved into the 20-level long pain in the butt with very little relevance and about as much depth as a facial pore. The story gets a C over all for effort. Or lack thereof.

And about those graphics? Yep, the graphics are still nice and solid. No worries there, of course, the girls are still bouncy, the guys are still lumberjacks (or rather effeminate as the case may be), the weapons are shiny and hard and the backgrounds are still back there-- as though you'll pay them a lick of attention or something. The action in right in front of your face, and it's fast, solid and smooth all the way without a problem until late in the Chronicles where there is a low-res map screen with so much crap on it that you'll be dragged to a crawl in no time. Aside from that-- A.

Sound? Yep, still sound too. Unfortunately, unlike the game's graphics, the sound suffers a considerable number of issues. Namely the flat-out poor quality of the voice actors and announcer. The voice actors attempt to mimic that of the Soul Calibur 2 cast and crew, and while a few do a stunning job, the vast majority fall short (or flat on their faces). And for whatever reason, certain sound bits are displayed in text on the bar towards the bottom of our screens yet are never said out loud (why?) and some are cut-off by sudden scene changes (this easily could've been fixed-- that was mere laziness). The music was mostly taken from the previous games, so it's nothing too new or exciting, but it gets the job done, I guess. Sound gets a low B- or maybe a high C+.

And the meat-n-potatoes of every game, the gameplay itself! Namco apparently thought the past Soul Calibur games just weren't hard enough and went out of their way to make this installment as obscenely hard as they possibly could by making computer enemies with superhuman reflexes, the ability to block or counter virtually anything you can deliver and always hit about two or in some cases three times harder than your character. The punch line? You can't adjust the difficulty in any areas except for an 8-stage arcade mode where you're rewarded with the game's equivalent of two bucks in gold. This frustratingly annoying point aside, the gameplay is just fine! L1 shoulder button or X button guard, square is a horizontal strike, triangle is a vertical strike, O button is for a swift kick (or in same characters, a punch), R2 is for the soul charge (a brief power-up that increases damage exerted) and L2 and R1 both do different moves that I lack the words to accurately describe. From there, you link buttons together to make combos, counters, etc, etc, etc. Of course, the game's difficulty rating makes any attempt at combos or any real form of strategy outside of button mashing a vain gesture as the game (being the game and therefore the processor of the button input you do anyhow) can and will realize what you're up to and perfectly block/guard impact/counter/whatever you to the point of death or ring out (which ever arrives first). Along with this there are also random interactive cinemas where for a few nanoseconds you're given a command prompt in the upper-right hand corner to do something but usually you won't have enough time to execute the command in time and when you do or do not, there's usually very little difference (save for the ending cinemas, where each character has two endings based on the input) Thankfully there is a cinema viewing mode where you can do the input on time, fully knowing what needs to be done so you don't have to play through with pen and paper in hand. Anyways, Chronicles of the Sword mode attempts to force you into a military strategy game that requires about as much brain power as tic-tac-toe, which really just ends in more frustrating battles where you will invariably lose 99 times out of 100. There's also a level-upping system where your character actually will grow and strengthen, but it's best to be ignored as I've cleared a level 60 Astaroth with a level 7 monk, but then had 5 level 65 warriors wiped out by a single level 30-- so the numbers mean nothing, really. However, don't get me wrong, somehow or the other the gameplay-- in spite of the difficulty-- can be incredibly and genuinely addictive, especially when it boils down to the subject of the character creation mode, where you can clothe, color, accessorize and stylize your own custom-made warrior. I like this part a lot. On the other hand, this mode, too, as restrictions, the most obvious of which is that each gender has but one body type a piece, meaning if you want your character to be male you'll get a lumberjack like a slightly larger version of Yun Seung, or if you want a lady fighter you'll end up with an anorexic twig with a large chest. However, the clothing, hairstyles, accessories and weapon choices are very vast including fighting styles that aren't included in the pre-made 30+ characters. You can even make celebrities, famous heroes of other games and even your own friends in this character creator. (A really fun one I did was making the hero of Final Fantasy 7, Cloud Strife-- and it looks just like him to!). There's also a World Championship mode where the battles are so ridiculously hard I will refrain from getting too in-depth in here. There's also a mission mode that varies from a ridiculously easy version to an extremely hard version of about eighteen battle situations each with unique facets (specific enemies, varying challenges, gameplay variations) most of which are pretty fun. The fact is, the game has flaws but it is definitely a good fun investment (especially seeing as how the game has dropped in price considerably since the release!)

Replay? Definitely there. Lots of characters, hundreds of weapons, artwork, videos, and extra goodies to purchase (for a pretty penny, too!) there is definitely a ton of replay here, and especially so in the versus mode where you can go head-to-head with friends! Overall, around a low B.

Wait, is something missing? Yes. Some articles Namco should have included (and should include should they ever make a Soul Calibur 4) is the return of the weapon library that described the weapons and their use, and the return of a more Weapon Master-ish style of gameplay that gives you the chance to experience various challenges without the monotony of the Chronicles gameplay style. Oh, and why was this game PS2 exclusive? I had to wait way longer to get it and my PS2 than I ever would have had to had it been a three-system release like its predecessor! Gees~.

The final judgment? In spite of how rough I was on this game it boils down to this- the good: lots of characters, character creation mode, varying gameplay, good versus mode, excellent graphics and decent enough sound. The bad: ridiculous, unchangeable difficulty (if I want a challenge, Namco, I'll jack up the difficulty in Soul Calibur 2!), some poor voice actors, the interactive cinemas, and the World Championship mode. And that's all she wrote-- or not.

Recent update! Yes, just within the past hours I suddenly became possessed by some certainly unholy being to sit down and play this game some more. I cleared virtually everything the game has to offer and I wish to elaborate again that the difficulty level of the game thoroughly shoots a lot of the fun right out of the water to the point where broken controllers or TVs are beyond inevitable. In light of the pain I've recently had to endure I now pronounce this game to be a C-, at its best.