Soul Calibur

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Soul Calibur
Developer(s) Namco
Publisher(s) Namco
Designer(s) Hiroaki Yotoriyama
Release date(s) 1998 (Arcade)
August 5, 1999 (JP/DC)
September 7, 1999 (US/DC)
Genre(s) Versus fighting
Mode(s) Up to 2 players simultaneously
Platform(s) Arcade, Dreamcast
Input 8-way Joystick, 4 Buttons
Arcade cabinet Upright
Arcade system(s) System 12
Arcade display Raster, 640 x 480 pixels (Horizontal), 65536 colors

Soul Calibur (ソウルキャリバー Souru Kyaribā?) is the second game in the Soul series of fighting games developed and produced by Namco. Soul Calibur was ported and released for the Sega Dreamcast with improved graphics and new features. The Sega Dreamcast port is often cited as the greatest fighting game of all time, and even one of the greatest games across all genres. The port came in as 2nd in the Gamerankings.com's greatest games, only behind The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Following the first game Soul Edge (also a game created for the arcade originally and, subsequently the PlayStation) in 1995, the Soul series received a major makeover and was retitled Soul Calibur in 1999. Hence, Soul Calibur can also refer to the series consisting of Soul Calibur and its subsequent sequels (essentially the Soul series minus Soul Edge).

Soul Calibur is the name of the holy sword, created to battle the evil sword Soul Edge, around which the games' story-lines revolve.

Contents

[edit] Overview

Soul Edge / Blade had a strong following, but when Soul Calibur was released in the arcades, it was not as popular at the arcades as Namco would have liked or expected. Luckily for the series, Soul Calibur was picked up by the Sega Dreamcast, and became a smash hit almost overnight. Soul Calibur, the second game in the series, not the first, was set 3 years after the original and introduced a revolutionary feature, the Eight-Way Run. Previous 3D fighters had only limited movement along the third axis, with sidesteps and rolls providing useful but unsustained lateral movement. In Soul Calibur, simply holding down a joystick direction causes the character to run in that direction. This gives the player a sense of freedom and deepens the strategy of the game. Soul Calibur also improved game play with "forgiving buffering." Buffering is executing the input for one move before your character has finished recovering from his previous move. It is important for executing quick strings of moves. Tekken and Virtua Fighter have relatively strict buffering requirements, meaning expert timing is required to pull off many combinations, while Soul Calibur's relatively lenient buffering lets players focus more on the game and less on the controls.

[edit] Prologue

The mystical sword of the legends, the Soul Edge, ended in the hands of the dread pirate Cervantes of Spain. For the next 25 years he stayed dormant on the remnants of the port town in Valencia, taking the souls of those who reached him during their search of the sword. His reign of terror was soon to start, but the joined efforts of a divine warrior (Sophitia) and an underground ninja (Taki) stopped him, breaking one of the twin Soul Edge blades in the process. As it was about to tear itself apart, a young knight (Siegfried) approached the port town. The moment he took the hilt of the cursed blade, Soul Edge released a bright column of light into the sky. This was known as the Evil Seed, bound to bring calamity and death across its path.

Three years after those events, Soul Edge is in possession of a new host (Nightmare), a knight wearing azure armor. Europe plunges into a vortex of slaughters as he and his followers claim souls to strengthen the blade in its weakened state. Unbeknownst to them, a group of young warriors met on their journey to stop Soul Edge, and with them three sacred weapons join once again.

[edit] Character roster

[edit] Returning Characters

Starting characters:

Characters who must be unlocked:

[edit] New characters

Starting characters:

Characters who must be unlocked:

Soul Calibur was originally planned to be a dramatic overhaul, featuring only a few select characters to be carried over from its predecessor, Soul Edge. While the initial plan did not exactly follow through--as nine of the eleven characters from the original roster had carried over by the time the game was ported to the Sega Dreamcast--the game still did manage to nearly double the size of the roster from the previous title. Most of these characters were readily available from the second the player opens the package.

But although the game added ten new characters, eight of the newcomers were, for the most part, updated versions of previously-existing fighters. Of the three main protagonists, Kilik's moveset was largely taken from Seung Mi Na, Xianghua's from Hwang; and Maxi was a greatly updated version of what Soul Edge's Li Long would have been if he had returned. And of three of the main antagonists, Nightmare's moveset was largely taken from Siegfried, Astaroth's from Rock; and Lizardman was heavily inspired by Soul Edge's featured heroine, Sophitia. In the Korean version of the game, Mitsurugi was replaced by a Caucasian swordsman named Arthur because the image of the samurai is not very popular with Koreans. Added to that is the fact that both Edge Master and Inferno switch their styles to match randomly-chosen existing characters' movelists with each individual round of fighting. In fact, Soul Calibur only added two truly original playing styles, shown in Ivy and Yoshimitsu; and even Yoshimitsu had some moves borrowed from established character Mitsurugi. Additionally, Taki has experienced a change of her own now that she wields dual tantōs instead of one. Consequently, Namco has been working hard since Soul Calibur to gradually separate the roster's styles until the series features completely original styles for each of its characters.

[edit] Features

  • Soul Calibur has the basic modes of play presented in most fighting games: Arcade Mode (fighting through 8 rounds, the 7th being a pre-defined battle for each character), VS Mode, Time Attack, Team Battle, Survival and Training Mode.
  • Missions Mode is a mode where the player moves through the various levels in the game, fighting and fulfilling tasks to earn points. The mode has four variations for its many missions, each harder than the previous one.
  • Points earned in Missions Mode allows the purchase of outfits, specials and various artworks from the game: CG portrait, sketches, character art and fanart are among the wide variety of artwork presented to unlock. Another added feature (unique of the franchise) are the "Exhibition Videos" or katas. These videos portray the various characters performing a kata with their weapon of choice.
  • Unlike Soul Edge, Soul Calibur II, and Soul Calibur III, Soul Calibur lacks the Extra Weapons feature. Each character counts with their main (default) weapon in both 1P and 2P form, along with the version of the weapon used by Edge Master.
  • Out of the 19 characters available, 5 of them were granted a 3rd costume, available to unlock in the Missions Mode: Maxi, Siegfried, Sophitia, Voldo and Xianghua. Moreover, each character counted with a transparent version of their costume (Arcade only) or a liquid metal version of it (Dreamcast port only). There's also the possibility to use an Unknown Soul (blackened character) version as well.

[edit] Dreamcast port

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Soul Calibur was released in Japan for the Dreamcast in August 5, 1999 and in North America as a launch title, in September 9, 1999. Among the differences were the improved graphics, new costumes and the inclusion of the character Cervantes de Leon.

The Dreamcast version features new modes like Team Battle, Survival, Training and Missions Mode, in which the player goes through missions attaining points to buy various art and costumes. Another feature added is the artwork section, containing both official artwork, fanart and High-res pictures. There are also new costumes, a "liquid metal" version of the characters' costume and a Battle Theater mode.

The North American Dreamcast Version of the game removes one of Voldo's suggestive codpieces featuring a bull. The codpiece is present in the European and Japanese versions however.

[edit] Reception

The Dreamcast port became wildly successful, with over 1 million copies sold.[1] Critics also consider it one of the greatest games of all time, receiving perfect 10 scores from GameSpot[2] and IGN,[3] and also a perfect 40/40 (second of only six games) by Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu. Soul Calibur won the 1999 E3 Game Critics Awards for Best Fighting Game. Soul Calibur was listed as the 43rd greatest game of all time on IGN's 2005 top 100 list [4] and voted the sixth greatest game in the 2006 readers' picks version.[5] Game Informer listed it as one of the top 10 Dreamcast games.[6]

The Dreamcast version was widely praised at the time and showed off the system's graphical power
The Dreamcast version was widely praised at the time and showed off the system's graphical power

[edit] Trivia

  • According to a timeline released by Namco on their Soul Archive site, Soul Calibur happens around 1587.
  • Soul Calibur's introduction sequence is the only one in the series to use in-game graphics. Because of this, there's the added feature of customizing it, allowing to change or switch the characters who appears in it.
  • The characters Sophitia and Lizardman (and eventually Sophitia's younger sister Cassandra from SCII) worship the Greek gods, and the cult that created Astaroth followed the god Ares. However, the Greeks of the 16th Century would be members of the Greek Orthodox Church. The game explains that the Greek gods are only worshiped by few people.
  • Soul Calibur introduced the extra unlockable Exhibition Videos. These videos are katas, or weapon demonstrations, performed by the characters. Characters who have similar weapons share the same kata (Kilik and Seong Mi-na, Xianghua and Hwang, Nightmare and Siegfried, Astaroth and Rock and Mitsurugi and Yoshimitsu) differing only in the weapon and set on their stage. Most of the videos were later re-used in the following sequels without alterations other than different stages and/or weapons.
  • In the versions where Arthur replaces Mitsurugi, Hwang switches places with Xianghua. Hwang is selectable since the start and Xianghua takes his place as a Time-Release Character.

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.gamespot.com/dreamcast/action/soulcalibur/news.html?sid=2447323
  2. ^ http://www.gamespot.com/dreamcast/action/soulcalibur/review.html
  3. ^ http://dreamcast.ign.com/articles/160/160953p1.html
  4. ^ http://top100.ign.com/2005/041-050.html
  5. ^ http://top100.ign.com/2006/001-010.html
  6. ^ Game Informer, Issue 166, February 2007. Page 116

[edit] External links

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Soul video games

Soul Edge • Soul Calibur • Soul Calibur II • Soul Calibur III
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