Soulcalibur 3 - PlayStation 2 Review

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To begin with, theres a huge amount of unlockable content in this game. You will be unlocking new costumes, characters, weapons and things every single day you play... for weeks!

This is an awesome addition to fighting games, which i feel lose their replayability too quick.

The new content adds a lot to an already jam packed game.

Theres 30 characters to take through story mode and theres a giant strategy/fighting side game called chronicles of the sword. This side game took me 12 hours to get through. Thats a pretty decent chunk for a side game.

Theres also a decent amount of fun little games in the mode called Soul Arena though some of the games are a bit too difficult.

The thing that seems a little screwy in this game and is its biggest flaw is its AI. This game has no difficulty adjuster so the game is always locked in the same difficulty. The AI is extremely smart, or cheap, and can string together fast moves and reactions that a human opponent cant. Its extremely lame to lose 75% of your life bar to one string of cheap attacks by the computer.

But strangely, even though the computer AI is very good and cheap, there are some basic moves which the computer just cannot block. Want to beat the game without losing a single battle? Pick Sophitia and just keep pressing triangle.

Its very lame that the computer will block and dodge the most advanced tactics but cannot block the most basic move. Its funny to see the hidden final boss, Night Terror, get beat with the most basic attack in the game.

While this game is boatloads of fun and an awesome fighter, it still isnt without a few flaws because of its strange and unbalanced AI. And thats what makes it 4 stars, and not a perfect 5 in my books.

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Soul Calibur III is the latest release in a great line of fighting games. The graphics are really impressive, and the character customization adds a great new dimension to fighting gameplay.

There are whole complex back-stories to all of the characters, developed over the game series. You can go into the 'museum' in this game to learn all about that, if you haven't been keeping up with the series. That will help you really understand the interactions between the characters. It's like being a part of a complex, epic story.

The graphics are simply gorgeous. There are pirate ships, where the floor moves and sways beneath you. There are elegant Chinese temples with mosaic tile floors and lovely mountains in the background. You've got renaissance mansions in flames, cages in grimy port towns, and much more. Each environment has moving elements to add to the realism.

The sounds are pretty traditional. Most of it is BASH SMASH YAAAAH! along with the background music, themed to match the environment. I do love this kind of background music far better than games that have rock music.

Gameplay itself has good and bad points. On the good side, there are a GREAT combinations you can learn for your character, so if you are diligent you can come up with awesome fighting sequences. You can learn which combos match well against your enemy's weaknesses and exploit them. On the other hand, if you're more the type that likes to button mash, you can have a fair amount of success with that, although you will get frustrated in the higher level battles.

The game is marked for teens, although it's far more tame than other fighting games I've seen. Many of the females *gasp* actually wear clothing. There really isn't any blood involved in the combat, although some parents argue that little tykes shouldn't see swinging swords and flails at all. There's no swearing.

That being said, the game is fairly challenging, and unlike the previous game, there's no way to set the difficulty up or down. If you play one on one you can adjust the difficulty so the younger person can have an easier time, but for regular gameplay you're stuck with "hard". I find this to be a shame. While experienced players will get along OK, it really would've been nice for new players to have an 'easy' option to go through the game in, to learn the game and have fun. They could always have upgraded through 'normal' and 'hard' later on.

With the customizeable characters and multitude of opponents, you can really replay this game for months without getting bored with it. There are always new combinations to learn and perfect. Well recommended!

Rating: 4.5/5

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Soul Caliber 3 Circa 2005

GOOD:

Good/Tight controls

Really balanced gameplay

Lots of different and unique fighters

Minutes to learn years to master gameplay

Literally TONS content to unlock such as new Fighters, costume pieces, stages, and extra modes of play

A 3D fighting game that really uses the 3D space (with eight way run)

Three all new characters

All returning characters from Soul Caliber 1 and 2 have their move sets/styles upgraded and slightly changed (in most case for the better)

A nice upgrade over the original Soul Caliber 2, which to many gamers is considered classic

Build your own unique characters

Lots of different modes of play from an arcade type mode to the real time strategy mode

Considered an Instant classic to many fans and many hardcore fighting fanatics

BAD:

Some might say that not much has changed (gameplay wise) since Soul Caliber 2

Have to unlock most of the game content like fighters, stages and items through many different modes of play, which takes time and skill (some people do not have either)

Slight lagging in a few areas

Loading is short but present and when buying items or checking out new content it can be annoying

Saving the game (which happens often while trying to unlock new content) takes a bit of time also

IF IT FITS YOUR TASTE:

Has medieval theme, both European and Chinese/Japanese

Not traditional fighting game in the sense that there is no real combos and supers, or even projectile moves

Game has built in quest type mode, where you pick a fighter and complete a number of challenges in a type of semi arcade mode (with story), the end result is you unlock more content and are a better player

Fight with weapons, like a 3D Samurai Showdown type of game or a Tekken/Dead or Alive with weapons

Build your own unique characters (pretty much costume only, you pick a pre-set fighting style) and fight with them in versus modes and Chronicles of the Sword mode, (Lots of the new items and costume parts should be unlock to really get a better selection of costume accessories, not much to pick at default)

New different modes of play like Chronicles of the Sword mode you fight in a type of real time strategy game (using your custom character) which plays out like a tactic game when instead of turn based battling it's fighting game battling, then there is even a World Tour mode where you fight in mock tournaments

Lots and lots of stuff to unlock from new fighters to new costume items for your custom character

GAME ITS MOST ASSOCATED TOO:

Soul Caliber 2

Tekken 5

Samurai Showdown

ADDITIONAL NOTES:

This game is only for Sony's Playstation 2 unlike Soul Caliber 2 which was also for Xbox and Game Cube, note you can still get Soul Caliber 2 for a pretty cheap price and it's a also a great game

This game came with a pretty lame demo disc, which in my opinion neither adds nor takes away anything from the entire over all experience of Soul Caliber 3, although it should be noted that this demo disc has all unlocked content for Tekken Tag, Tekken 4 and Xenosaga (the original)

I am going wish that a version comes to Xbox-360, which would be cool :: Crossing Fingers Now ::

Honest reviews on Soulcalibur 3 - PlayStation 2

SCIII is a very entertaining action/fighting game. The variety of characters and their wide array of battle moves are impressive. Each of the characters possess weapons that have their own peculiarities and specialties. As a result, even though the settings are recycled over and over, you will still be able to fight repeatedly without getting bored. You can use different characters each time you play the game. My advise here is to become competent using one character before moving on to using another. The number of possible attack moves per character ensures that you will always have something to learn. To me, the best feature of this game is that you can also create your own characters and dress them up the way you would like to. The attacks available to your created characters will be determined by the type of weapon they carry.

The one aspect of the game that kept me from giving it a higher score is the fact that the battle program is inconsistent. I agree with some of the comments stating that this is a challenging game. However, there is nothing wrong with that. A challenging game is fun and you get a feeling of accomplishment when you finally make progress. But you do want the game to be consistent. You do want the game to challenge you and force you to master moves. However, the problem with this game is that this idea is applied inconsistently throughout the battles. To use a particular example, let's talk about Talim. I first used Siegfried to fight Talim. I was landing heavy blows, they were connecting, and my button presses were timed properly. Siegfried was executing his moves properly. I was "chaining" attack after attack. Talim was stunned and was taking a lot of punishment. Yet, she would not go down. And then Talim lands one kick and one swipe and the next thing you know, Siegfried was knocked out! I have beaten Talim numerous times, in different modes, using Siegfried, Raphael, Ivy, and my own character. During those many battles, I noticed the inconsistency. It seemed to me like the game responds slowly during some battles, like there was a built-in lag in the battle system. I noticed this when fighting against Talim and Sheong-Mina. My characters were moving and behaving like they were in slow-motion against them. However, they respond and react normally when playing other enemies. It's almost like the game developers chose them to be the favored characters and added a built-in disadvantage to your player. It really isn't the fact that the game is indeed challenging, it's the fact that you are automatically at an unfair disadvantage against these two characters.

I wanted to make sure that I have the right moves and that there was nothing that I was doing to handicap myself. I consulted an online guide. I also bought the Strategy Guide. Following the advice from those sources, I used the suggested moves to keep Talim from getting close. Again, the fact that my character became sluggish against Talim made this difficult. The strategy is sound. Keep a short range enemy at a distance, and use your superior "reach" to do damage. The lag between my commands and the system's response kept me from accomplishing my strategy.

This is a fun game. However, heed what some of the reviewers are saying about the battle system, or AI as one reviewer mentioned. There is that inconsistency, which is almost like a system "cheat". I have a feeling that this is what the other reviewers meant when they said that there is something wrong with the battle system. As much as I like the game, I find that one aspect to be a big negative.

The game allows you to create your own custom fighter. You can actually create a fighter that looks exactly like KOS-MOS (the main character from the Xenosaga RPG series) by using the Type X armor.

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I've been a fan of this series ever since I went out to buy a Dreamcast for the sole purpose of playing the first Soul Calibur at home. When SC3 came out, I bought it as soon as I could without a second thought. Unfortunately, this was the first time I was disappointed with the series.

In many ways, Soul Calibur III continues the legacy of the previous titles while adding some innovative gameplay elements and a few new characters to the ever-expanding list. The single player story mode continues the ongoing storyline in a more dynamic fashion than in the past, and the Chronicles of the Sword battle-style mode is a refreshing addition to fighting games. The custom-made character option doesn't add huge variety to game play, but is a lot of fun to tinker with. In fact, I love every addition they've made to the game.

The disappointment stems from a single fact: I am not a hardcore fighting gamer, nor will I ever be. I simply don't have the time or inclination to practice long strings of moves and combos. The other thing that attracted me to the previous games was the scaling level of complexity that made it so I didn't have to. There was a lot of richness and complexity to the game play to play around with, but for those who didn't have the patience to master it there was still the option of playing at a low difficulty setting so as to enjoy the ongoing story and theme of the game. This richness and complexity hasn't gone anywhere the hallmark style of play is still very similar to its predecessors.

Unfortunately, for reasons unknown to me, they decided to remove difficulty settings from the single player game modes entirely. Not only that, but the standard difficulty setting ends up falling quite a bit higher than what I like to play at. I have not had a single game session since buying it that did not end in bitter frustration at my inability to get anywhere with the late-stage CPU foes. The final fight for the story mode invariably reveals a CPU that can flawlessly pull off a half dozen hits with no chance of blocking or avoiding unless you manage to block the first hit with perfect timing.

I'm sure there are a lot of folks out there who work perfectly well at this difficulty setting and enjoy the challenge of the new system. If you are not the type that likes spending time practicing moves and perfecting combos to plow through the game, though, I can't recommend SC3 at all. All of its technical achievements and interesting innovations can't make up for the fact that it's simply not fun for a casual gamer to play.