Soul Calibur
Reviewed by Clement Chan Zhi Li
Soul Calibur is one of the first Dreamcast games released
and is one of the best beat-em-up games in history. In the
beginning, I just selected Sonic Adventure as I have my own
financial problems at that time. After having a couple of
bucks, I shelled out some money and this game is mine. It's
actually a fighting game that leads you to a new world, with
dozens of missions for you to do and for you to unlock all
the playable secret characters.
Graphics - 10
The sleek and beautiful introduction in a form of FMV was
astoundingly amazing. This game will show all the characters
at once with a rapid, beating music, flashing movements and
flawless animations. If you have unlock more secret
characters, they will be in the introduction of the game.
Cool feature from Namco! While in the game itself, Namco
enhanced the graphics from the arcade machine and everything
was a simple port with numerous improvements. As this game
was superior between the two versions, you'll see the
colours are much brighter, powerful internal Namco engines
created a new Dreamcast version all together.
The background was simply beautiful and is created in a full
3D form. Indescribable marvelous fully 3D rendered
characters followed without any strange looks in them, as in
Virtua Fighter 3tb (If you want to look for any examples,
just look at Pai and you can see that she looks really
strange with her eyes!). Moreover, the light source, is
simply cool whenever you attack the enemies. Trails of
flashing red will follow together with slashes in a
double-quick and smooth animations.
Music - 10
This game has been developed enough and there are simply
tons of background music for every stages. There is even the
name of the background music when you enter the particular
stage. Personally, I simply like the beating music in the
background, sort of giving you an adrenaline rush. Of
course, once you're engaged in a battle, you won't notice
the background music one bit, as all beat-em-up games have been!
Loud sound effects are more than bargained. Example, a slash
from Sophitia's sword will result a sound of knife plunging
into the enemy and if the enemy protects, you will hear some
sort of shield used. The voices are used in quite a big
amount of number and they're different for each character.
Although it's in Japanese, the almost-transparent subtitles
will surely guide you efficiently.
Gameplay - 10
There are simply lots of modes for you to play, especially
as there are hidden ones as well. But let's concentrate on
the main ones. The Arcade should be a mode that you will
play always, after the Mission Battle. Once you completed
the Arcade with any character, you will see the ending of
the character's quest thus unlock a new character for you to
control as. After all through the good parts, the downside
is that there are only 8 stages for each character and it's
pretty short.
The Mission Battle Mode, on the other hand provides points
for you to buy more arts in the Art Gallery. Some of the
arts contained hidden secret stages, missions, character's
costumes and even new modes for you to play! As the name
already suggests, you're in for a mission and a story will
follow each time before you play, whether it follows the
logic of the character's story or not.
The Museum Mode contains the Art Gallery, together with
other modes that you can see. There are certain modes that
allow you to view each character's movements automatically
as you unlock them in the Mission Battle Mode. The Practice
Mode is of course, for you to perfect your character's
fighting skills till you're familiar with them. You can even
view each character's move lists with the name for each
moves too!
Survival Mode is also fun for you to fight against all
characters at once to see how far you can go. If you fancy
for a multi-player game against your friend or any members
of your family, plug in a second controller and head towards
the Versus Mode. The Team Battle Mode also works for a
two-player game but you can also opt to play against the
computer. It allows you to choose characters as a team up to
8 players all together! Playing with friends or playing
against computer don't really matter in this game, there are
lots of modes for you to be entertained and honestly, you
won't feel tired playing even after months!
Controls - 10
Controls are not too bad and they're easy to perform,
considering that you're using a Dreamcast controller. You
can buy the arcade stick if you like if you feel more
comfortable with it. Attacks just needs a combination of
buttons and moves and it's incredibly easy that even a five
year-old will learn them! Added to that, there are also
simply many moves that you can easily perform and that's why
you'll mostly get confused if you see the move list!
Replay Value - 10
As this is a fighting game, it will definitely last long,
added with Namco's superior reputation together with the
familiar internal fighting engines, all from Tekken too!
About more than six modes for you to play, more than 10
characters for to explore the moves on and the fancy Mission
Battle mode for completely! Especially as there are over 300
Arts for you to buy, ranging higher and higher points all the time.
Overall - 10 out of 10
Namco's biggest success is definitely the hot-selling Soul
Calibur in my opinion and their Playstation successor, the
Tekken series should be the second. As Namco has made a wise
investment to Dreamcast, you shouldn't be worried about any
bugs in it as Namco is a company with good reputation. I'm
not trying to exaggerate every categories but honestly, this
game is worth ten times that you spend! Shell out some money
and grab this game before it's sold out! Now, how about Soul Calibur 2?
Soul Calibur
-----
+ Superior graphics and better than the arcade!
+ Engrossing background music for you to hear!
+ Tons of modes and characters for you to play with!
Soul Edge
-----
- Err... none.
- Yup, believe me, no flaws at all.
- You still don't believe me? Does easy-to-perform moves count?
OR
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