Soulcalibur III Update

Aug 8, 2005

Soul Edge was a 3D fighter with weapons... Weapons! And for a time, arcades were good.

Understand that the addition of sharp metal things to a fighting game in 1995 was practically unheard of. Back then such a feature was an example of breakthrough forward thinking. They're like arms and feet, only made of pointy metal! And they act exactly the same as arms and feet, too. How extraordinarily awesome!

1995 was a much simpler time, but then time passed.

Exercising better judgment and further boosting its relationship with Sony, Namco took its Soul Edge arcade title and reworked it for the PSOne nearly a full year after SCEA's super system released. The result garnered much applause. And for a time, consoles were good.

There are weapons and there is fighting! And now we can stab folk in the comforts of our own homes and without the looming threat of a pride stealing eight-year-old with unnatural hand eye coordination. Yay! Rejoice! Rejoice!

The revolution had truly come. This editor remembers pumping hundreds of precious hours into the arcade machine and thousands more into the retooled PSOne version of Soul Blade because it just rocked that hard. At least, it didn't involve the unnecessary fireball tossing of Toshinden or the heavy timing of Tekken. Sure, SB may have been called the layman's fighter by snooty experts, but we who loved it loved it fiercely.

Soulcalibur, Soul Blade's direct successor and heir apparent, was released in the arcades sometime in 1998. Once again, things were pretty good. But, it wasn't until an infinitely superior version hit SEGA's poor Dreamcast in 1999 that the world suddenly stopped and took notice of this new console usurper to the Soul crown. Then again, Soul Edge fans mainly stopped and noticed how the weapon breaking had been removed, but whatever.

For every man that could deny Soulcalibur's claim and write its more forgiving fighting up to mass market catering, there were twenty who had mastered the intricacies of Kilik's pole skip to slash to overhead to unblockable that could argue otherwise.

More than just an ample fighter, Soulcalibur also gave gamers an enormous quest mode. By navigating a primitive world map, we could unravel some ridiculous storyline and gain access to dozens of extra characters and costumes. After that it was all about accumulating weapons, environments and hundreds of art pieces. Deep goes the well of the Soul!

After the ill-fated Dreamcast went the way of the dodo, Namco created Soulcalibur II for GameCube, Xbox and PlayStation 2. While that title did retain the sleek visuals and excellent fighting system of its father, it took a couple major steps back in terms of longevity. It was pretty much the same song, after all, only it featured a touch less quest and touch more Link, Heihachi, and Spawn. Well, no longer.

Soulcalibur III cometh! And along with it walk new characters and a more refined fighting system. But atop all that is a level of depth previously unheard of in the series -- a level of depth that few fighters in history have even come close to offering.

First up is Character Creation. It can be broken down into two basic categories: There's the custom creation and the standard character color edit. The latter option is just that, an ability to edit the basic appearance of preexisting characters. The other tool, custom character creation, allows a player to make a new fighter and assign that warrior a personality, wardrobe, and distinct fighting style. According to Namco, 3D fighting technology has not advanced enough to allow the heights and weights of characters to be altered because of preset animation routines and collision detection issues, but gamers can still make some pretty unique people.

Gender is a given. And while we can't add the third option of "Space Ninja" to the mix, the choice of male or female is there. Neither will alter in-game performance. The only difference between Soulcalibur's men and women is how thongs get applied.

Decide upon a hulking brute, lithe girl, or sulking karate dude and then assign jobs to the new character. Those include Barbarian, Ninja, Dancer, Monk, Saint, or Samurai. So basically it's an average job fair, sans the Space Ninja department. Each occupation has a specific set of schools within it too. According to Namco, there are up to seven teachings per category. Think of the schools as fighting styles. Progressing through the game's equivalent of a quest mode unlocks new schools within each job set.

Once a character, a job and a few basic specialties have been established (which implies a move set has been determined), the newborn champion can be augmented with hairstyles, makeup and clothing. Expect to toy around with the head, hair, mask, chin, lower torso, mid torso, upper torso, arms, shoulders, neck, waist, lower legs, upper legs, shins, socks and feet of any given combatant. Each category contains between 20 and 30 parts. Of course, each part's color can be changed and clothing can even be layered in some cases.

Dig this... Each piece of clothing has a bit of personality attached to it -- one point plus on the shorts, one point minus on the exposed bra. That eventually forms a personality. Personality determines the state of a character and how he or she walks and speaks. All black leather with steel spikes on nipples with a lovely skull helmet will create an evil warrior, though we're not trying to judge or anything.

We're actually hoping that in future revisions we'll be able to set background music and have pieces of clothing breakaway in fights. Imagine earning the trophies of another player, wearing them on the arm or around the neck as badges of honor, and then having them ripped away mid-fight. After a loss, background music could even be defiled by some horrible wail to really drive home the fact that YOU LOST HARD AND REALLY, REALLY NEED TO HEAR HOW MUCH. We like that kind of rub.

Our demonstration primarily focused on all the character creation, but we did still get to see a bit of Chronicles of the Sword. This new mode comes alongside a few basic arcade modes and the Tale of Souls. Looking for story and interactive cutscenes? Look for Tale of Souls. Chronicles of the Sword may include some narrative, but it isn't designed to explain Sophitia's past, it's all about letting new players explore and conquer a new world.

Chronicles of the Sword features an overhead real-time map, upon which players can order about small groups of heroes to accomplish specific objectives. These miniature armies are designed to strategically acquire points of interest, but there's a team versus team fight whenever a band encounters another. The winners live. The loser kind of doesn't. Different units have different strengths and weakness and the whole thing is designed to offer a deeper strategy to all the sword and club beatings.

We're no dolts and we know you want to see some Soulcalibur III gameplay, some Chronicles of the Sword, and some Character Creation, so please view the attached videos for all the goods. We'll update with the latest information as soon as we get a more complete build of Soulcalibur III in our offices. Currently, the game is scheduled to release exclusively for PlayStation 2 this October.