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Ramenth's Soul Caliber III (PS2)
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| [January 31, 2007 01:41:12 PM]
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So, after playing SC3 for another hour, I realized that all the impressive moves are inanely hard to do. I suppose this should be a down side, but some how it doesn't seem like it to me. In my mind it allows for a lot more skill to influence the game.
In Smashbros, a lot of the high level skill comes from doing smaller exploits such as wave dashing, and other things that weren't intended by the creators. In Soul Caliber, from what I've seen, there's very little of that. Instead, you have people who actually sit down and learn not just the long code for the moves, but learn to enter the codes quickly and use the moves well. It adds a level of what I truly consider to be skill, as opposed to just knowing how to play better than other people know how to play.
Other than that, I really do like a lot of the basic story of Soul Caliber. It's different from most sword epics, which are just "Boy has sword. Sword is Magic. Boy stops the ultimate evil." Soul Caliber, on the other hand, is much more focused on the Soul Edge; The Blade of Evil. More than half the characters are evil, and the ones that aren't have all be strongly impacted by the Edge.
The Caliber itself barely shows up in the main plot, usually not manifesting until the end of the game to fix things. Of-course, in SC3 both swords are basically destroyed by Zazameial and create their own creature, Night Terror (Pure Awesome-sauce by the way). I'll be interested to see where the series goes from here; It seems like my favorite character (Nightmare) is finally redeeming himself, which is good, because he's much easier to play when not in oversized armor wit a giant demonclaw.
Anyway... The game is looking good. It's been around for long enough that the series has weeded out most of the flaws, at least in my mind. there are definitely some overpowered moves, but all fighting games have that. As a whole, it's a very good game, and I eagerly await the next.
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| [January 31, 2007 01:34:44 PM]
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Soul Caliber 3!
I have been a fan of the Soul Caliber series ever since I first played the original on the Sega Dreamcast. The series has a lot of stuff that works very well for it. Soul Caliber itself is a fighting game, and is probably one of the more complex fighting games out there. Matches are limited to two players, which is a downside, but the area you're playing in is three d, including some limited up and down depending on the field.
As far as winning the game, there are two major ways to do it. You either need to reduce your opponent to 0 health, or you need to knock them out of the ring. Different fields make different choices more appealing, due to all sorts of factors such as walls, or a slippery floor covered with rats that are on fire.
Character design, in my opinion, is another thing that Soul Caliber does very well, and Soul Caliber Three is no exception. You play the roll of one of a host of fighters, ranging from an undead hell-pirate from spain to a nunchaku wielding Elvis impersonator (Okay, former military officer who looks like elvis) from korea. Almost every different type of melee weapon user is given a nod in the game; From a roman deathknight to a whip wielding english girl, or a pole-arm toting girl. From greeks to the norse to strange creatures who defy explanation outside of really freaking creepy (Voldo).
As good as the Character design is, I was unhappy with some of the new characters added in SC3, namely Zazamiel. His back-story is that he can't die, and wants to, so he'll use the sacred swords to do it. Okay. So who cares? It doesn't give a compelling plot, at least in my mind, at all. Then again, this is a fighting game, so we don't really need a plot.
The final thing that the Soul Caliber series is a master of is moves. Every character has what looks to me to be well over two hundred moves, with some going even more than five hundred. Or, if you count Edge Master, Inferno, and Charade, OVER 9000?!?!?!. Anyway, many of these moves are hideously complex to use, but that doesn't effect game play.
Unlike SSBM, which features a few moves in a number of variations, all of which are moderately easy to use, Soul Caliber's moves range from the easy, a simple vertical slash, to the inanely complex that you will never need but look really cool, such as the downward cross parry finished with a kick ending in the night behind stance. Having variety like this makes for very diverse game-play, as someone who uses only three or four moves repeatedly will get easily trashed.
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Ramenth's Soul Caliber III (PS2)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Wednesday 31 January, 2007
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