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Soulcalibur
From Soulpedia English
| Soulcalibur | |
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| Platforms | Arcade, Dreamcast |
| Release Date | Arcade
Dreamcast
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Soulcalibur (ソウルキャリバー, Sourukyaribā?) is the second game in the Soul series of fighting games developed and produced by Namco. Soulcalibur was ported and released for the Sega Dreamcast with improved graphics and new features and became one of the best-selling Dreamcast titles overall. 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; it is ranked as the fourth-best game of all-time by review aggregator site Game Rankings. 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 Soulcalibur in 1999. Hence, Soulcalibur can also refer to the series consisting of Soulcalibur and its subsequent sequels (essentially the Soul series minus Soul Edge).
Soulcalibur is the name of the holy sword, created to battle the evil sword Soul Edge, around which the games' story-lines revolve. According to a timeline released by Namco on their "Soul Archive" site, Soulcalibur takes place around 1587.
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[edit] Gameplay
Soul Edge/Soul Blade had a strong fanbase, but when Soulcalibur was released in the arcades, it was not as popular at the arcades as Namco would have liked or expected. Luckily for the series, Soulcalibur was picked up for the Sega Dreamcast, and became a smash hit almost overnight. Soulcalibur, 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 Soulcalibur, 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. Soulcalibur 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 Soulcalibur's relatively lenient buffering lets players focus more on the game and less on the controls.
[edit] Story
Eventually, Siegfried become Nightmare and terrorized Europe. When Siegfried got Soul Edge, A pillar of light appeared. This is known as the "Evil Seed."
Kilik was a member of the Ling-Sheng Su Temple. When the evil seed appeared, everyone inside it went insane and started killing each other. Kilik remained barely affected, using his own inner strength and the Kali-Yuga. In his own self defense, Kilik killed many temple members, including his sworn sister Xianglian. He passed out and woke up with Edge Master, who explained about Soul Edge, and the evil that was inside of him. Kilik set out on a quest to destroy Soul Edge.
Eventually, he came across an Indian port town, where Maxi's crew and Jessie, Maxi's daughter, were being attacked by Astaroth and some monsters. Kilik helped out, but when one of the monsters stole Kali-Yuga, Kilik went insane and attacked Maxi. Maxi managed to fight him off, but not before Astaroth killed the entire crew. Astaroth tried to kidnap Jessie before killing Kyam, her uncle. Now that Maxi had nothing left, he decided to help Kilik destroy Soul Edge, with the intent of getting revenge on Astaroth.
The two continued their quest and met up with Xianghua, who had the third Ling-Sheng Su Temple treasure (But none of them knew it). She decided that since she was under orders to find Soul Edge, she would go along with the two men.
When the three reached Nightmare's stronghold, Astaroth was waiting for them. Maxi stayed behind to fight him while the others went ahead. Kilik fought Nightmare and won. When Inferno appeared, Kilik was too tired to fight, so Xianghua fought instead. Before it attacked, Xianghua's Krita-Yuga became Soul Calibur, the good version of Soul Edge. Xianghua won against Inferno, but Inferno, Soul Calibur, and Nightmare got sucked into a void. This ends Soul Calibur 1.
[edit] Movies
[edit] Opening Movie
[edit] Playable Characters
[edit] Starting characters
(+ = New Characters)
[edit] Unlockable Characters
- Cervantes
- Rock
- Seong Mi-na (aka Seung Mina)
- Hwang
- Siegfried
- Lizardman+
- Edge Master+
- Inferno+
- Yoshimitsu+
[edit] Features
- Soulcalibur 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 of each of 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, Soulcalibur II, and Soulcalibur III, Soulcalibur lacks the Extra Weapons feature. Each character has his main (default) weapon in both 1P and 2P form, along with the version of the weapon used by Edge Master.
- Out of the 20 characters available, 6 of them were granted a 3rd costume, available to unlock in the Missions Mode: Maxi, Siegfried, Sophitia, Voldo, Xianghua, and Jessie. Moreover, each character counted with a "transparent" version of their costume (Arcade only) or a "liquid metal" version of it (Dreamcast port only). There is also the possibility to use an "Unknown Soul" (blackened character) version as well.
[edit] Trivia
Soulcalibur 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 based primarily on 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 was 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, Soulcalibur 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 Soulcalibur to gradually separate the roster's styles until the series features completely original styles for each of its characters.
[edit] Dreamcast Port
Soulcalibur was released in Japan for the Dreamcast in August 5, 1999; and in North America as a launch title, in September 9, 1999.
The Dreamcast version of Soulcalibur is often cited as an example of a home conversion of a game being vastly superior to the original. Among the differences were the improved graphics (the DC version often being cited as the prettiest game of all time upon its release), tweaked gameplay, new game modes, new costumes, and the inclusion of an extra character Cervantes de Leon.
The Dreamcast version features new modes such as the Team Battle, Survival and the Training Mode. In Missions Mode the player completes various missions to attain points, which can be used to buy various art and costumes. Another feature added is the artwork section, containing both official artwork, fanart and High-res pictures. Also unlockable are 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. However, the codpiece is present in the European and Japanese versions.
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