Soulcalibur III


Missy

Recommended Posts

From IGN:

First Look: Soulcalibur III

Namco announces PlayStation 2 exclusive for the U.S. First trailer, screens, and behind the scenes video inside.

by Jeremy Dunham

March 24, 2005 - Namco Hometek, the American branch of Japanese development and publishing company Namco Ltd, officially announced this morning that the fighting sequel Soulcalibur III would be headed to U.S. shores later this year. Though an exact release date wasn't revealed, the new game is expected to arrive near the end of autumn or beginning of winter 2005.

The surprising twist of this announcement is that Soulcalibur III will be system exclusive to the PlayStation 2, and will not appear on Microsoft's Xbox or Nintendo's GameCube at all (and if it eventually will, nobody at Namco is ready to talk about it). This PS2 exclusivity is definitely great news for the almost 700,000 PS2 owners that bought the second game in 2003, but likely disappointing for the more than one million combined users who purchased Soulcalibur II on other systems.

System politics aside, Soulcalibur III should still more than satisfy returning franchise fans. Continuing the story of the ongoing battle for sword supremacy between Soul Calibur and Soul Edge, Soulcalibur III begins with a mysterious new figure reawakening Nightmare in order to gain control of the blades. Aside from that, further plot details are still shrouded in mystery, but given the series' history of gameplay over backstory I wouldn't expect to hear more on that for quite sometime.

In terms of game specifics, Namco has remained vague for this initial announcement, but it is confirmed that at least three brand new fighters (Zasalamel, Tira, and Setsuka) will join more than 20 returning characters for a grand total of 25 different combatants. From what we can tell so far, these three new warriors are pretty cool too. "Resolute Avenger" Setsuka, for example, sports a regal Japanese outfit and umbrella to compliment her graceful fighting style. The smoking hot "Misguided Angel of Death" known as Tira wields a bizarre circular cutting tool that not only slashes her opponents to ribbons, but apparently her outfit well. The most mysterious new fighter of the group, however, is the "Evil Enigma" named Zasalamel -- who wears a nice set of elegant white robes while wielding a gigantic razor-sharp scythe. Nice!

As for Soulcalibur III's validated gameplay features, they include the Tales of Souls story mode, a two-player versus option (both standard and special versions), your typical training-oriented practice mode, a tournament feature, a special situation option known as Soul Arena, and a Museum feature that enables players to explore the entire history of the franchise and their unlockables.

The most interesting addition to Soulcalibur III, however, is the Chronicles of the Sword feature (also known as "Lost Chronicle Mode"). In it, players can create their very own customized character with variables such as sex, occupation, look, and weapon. Players can then take these specialty created fighters and play with them in a "real-time simulation." But what that means exactly, Namco hasn't said yet.

The final gameplay option is known as World Competition Mode, but all we know about it at this point is that you can "rise in the ranks" and "play it any way you want." Whether or not World Competition is just Soulcalibur's version of the "virtual opponent" arcade mode found in Tekken 5 or if its something much deeper, is still unclear, but even if it's comparable to Heihachi's game it's a good thing. Sadly, there's no word on whether or not there will be any online-enabled features.

Of course, we expect to return with more on Soulcalibur III this May while attending the 2005 Electronic Entertainment Expo. Hopefully then we'll have quite a bit more on the specific gameplay elements, the reported "more stages than ever before" (including a new German castle, a Grecian shrine, and a spooky clock tower), and various other elements of the game.

I'm most excited about the CAW mode.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

:OMG: It's a good day to own a PS2. (Even though I own the GC version of II).

I wouldn't get too excited about creating your own person, though, call me a pesimist, but I don't see it going too deep. I hope the prove me wrong.

Since it says that only 20 of the 25 are returning, methinks Charade, Necrid, Assassin, Lizardman, and Bezerker are being cut (Just please leave Seung Mina!).

Probably be a pretty good game, at least it will pass the time till VF5.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 6 months later...

I have just found out that the long-awaited Soul Calibur III will be released for PS2 on Oct.25.

THAT'S THIS TUESDAY!

:)

/hooray

(unfortunately, almost everything is released a day later in Canada)

This latest title in the series will include 3 or 4 new characters, beautiful graphics, the ability to make CUSTOM CHARACTERS!!, and even an RTS(real-time strategy) campaign for your custom characters.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I also got a chance to try this game on Saturday.

Randon Create characters is enough of a reason to buy this alone.

QFT

But just remember, there are some random character battles that nobody wants to see. example: Remember the thong battle. ya. not pretty

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm more than a little irked that I spent so much time playing as Tira after so many people said she was this fantastic new character. I couldn't handle her ridiculous moveset to save my life. Lame.

Miscellaneous fact: Crispin Freeman does the voice of Seigfried. :OMG: :yes:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, I was disappointed by Tira. You think she could do something better with a giant bladed hoop instead of using like every other sword. Still, I think the godliness of Zasalamel and Setsuka make up for it. Oh, I noticed that too about Seigfried. Awesome.

Since I've heard a lot of hate for the difficult AI, I need to say that I, personally, like the higher difficulty of the game. At first, it was extremely frustrating to have my ass kicked by Abyss about ten times with Mina before I finally beat him. However, I think it helped my playing immensely. Since, instead of letting you hack your way through story mode with ease, like SCII did, you have to learn how to duck, block, guard impact, and utilize the 8-way run effectively, or you'll find yourself hacked to bits or thrown of a cliff. Honestly, I think I'm already better with SCIII than I was with the previous game; maybe it's also because Antonio and I are hyper-competitive twits always needing to best one another. Either way, I honestly don't think the AI is a determent to the game.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh, I despise the AI for kicking my ass all over the place, but I respect it because it is helping me get a lot better a parrying and throwing. Shit, Xianghua kicks my ass every fucking time I play against her, even with my "best" characters, Taki and Sophitia.

I think I'm going to work with Taki. In 3-D fighters, I'm a better close-range fighter than long-range. Taki is insane if you can chain some slashes together.

Oh, and I'm going to create KOS-MOS from Xenosaga as a create-a-fighter. Everything you need to make her costume and her person is in the game. :OMG:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bah, damn this PS2 exclusiveness! I needs me ghost pirate. Cervantes is my best character too, he's the only fighting character that I've ever sat down with on practise mode and forced myself to learn everything.

For he is a pirate, and I am sad.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

So, how's everyone coming along with their games? I've unlocked all the characters and cleared Tales of Souls with everyone at least once. And I've unlocked all the jobs for created characters. Speaking of which, I'm working more and more on my Sephiroth created fighter and he looks really good. The only problem is I should have waited until I unlocked 'Swordmaster' as a job before I started creating him because then he could use any weapon instead of just the lousy samurai katana. Oh, and Sophitia has become my best character. I'm getting lethal with her launch combos.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

I am about to chuck my controller through the TV screen. I've been playing Soul Arena and the endless fighter endurance mission (I forget the name off the top of my head). Last night, I was up to the 37th fighter in a row on the ridiculously difficult "Hard" level of difficulty. I was kicking Mitsurugi's ass, but he gets some bullshit little thrust kick on me and I fall over a banister into the water outside the ring. I didn't even go 2 feet into the air, but somehow I flew over a guardrail??? FUCK. RIGHT. OFF. I couldn't speak for like 5 minutes I was so pissed off.

Then today I'm trying again and I'm up to 27 I believe (Setsuka) and she knocks me off the clock tower platform with some shiteating little vertical sword swipe.

Seriously, I'm getting up to Marble Madness levels of anger here. :bang: :bang: :bang:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.