|
EX's Soul Calibur III (PS2)
|
| [February 24, 2007 05:29:38 AM]
|
For fighting games, I've pretty much given up swearing at the TV because I know that I suck horribly and will die 9/10 times anyway, so ignoring that, I've grueled on exploring the game features of Soul Calibur III. The store where you can 'buy' extra items and bonus features using money obtained by completing story-modes, regular matches, and levels in 'Chronicles of the Sword'. The aspect of unlockables presents nothing new, although the ability to purchase different parts and weapons etc. that you can use to make your own custom characters is rather fun.
More notably unique is the 'Chronicles of the Sword' mode of play. Unlike the typical 'Story mode' that consists of select battles vaguely contextualized and interconnected by crappy cutscenes and/or text read-outs--something fairly common in recent fighting games--'Chronicles of the Sword' uses the fighting game engine as a part of an interesting hybrid RTS game structure. The player has a roster of characters that they can customize and choose who to play with for each level/round. It feels like an RTS game, with set winning and losing objectives/conditions, played out in real-time; however, movement is restricted along certain set paths, much like a board-game. What makes this all the more intersting is the ability engage in combat with enemies encountered on the field through the Soul Caliber III combat system, allowing you to play out the battle yourself rather than having your characters bash at each other in small-sprite form.
While the storyline provided in the 'Chronicles of the Sword' mode is almost entirely through text, it is much more compelling and fun because it is a single extensive story, with the hero/heroine being a character custom-created by the player, making it much more interactive and compelling compared to the regular 'Story mode'. In the Story mode, each character's 'story' seems bland and uninspired, and many of the fights and cut-scene animations seem to be recycled. On the other hand, I've played through 14 chronicles in Chronicles of the Sword, I'm still not all the way through, and its got me hooked despite how horrible I am at fighting games.
add a comment 
|
| [February 24, 2007 03:28:26 AM]
|
Soul Calibur III is undoubtedly an addictive fighting game with a lot to offer; I've been playing non-stop puttting off writing this log because of it. At the same time, however, the game engine and control system follow the traditional standards of fighting games, making Soul Calibur III also another one of the multitude of games that makes me pull my hair out in frustration.
While the grahpics and attacks of Soul Calibur III look spectacular, I found that like virtually every other fighting game I've played, there is no 'real' tutorial that can help you pick up and learn the mechanics of the game. No matter how many fighting games I go through, every fighting game I come across throws me into combat with nothing but the instruction manual outlining basic control features and the 'practice mode' for you to screw around with the controls in. This is where--in my opinion--Soul Calibur III fails miserably. Like other fighting game series(like Tekken), in order to learn what move combos you can use, you either have to spend a massive amount of time messing around and experimenting, or take advantage of the 'move list' provided, which no beginner player can possibly digest and use to learn to play effectively. Thus, the gameplay experience effectively hinges on the intuitiveness of the control system, which, quite frankly, is not intuitive at all unless you have extensive experience in playing fighting games with the Playstation controller. What further more makes the control system unintuitive is how the commands are broken down into A, B, K, and G, which can be re-assigned to any of the buttons on the controller, making the exact controls confusing to identify and figure out which button does exactly what.
As a fighting game, Soul Calibur III fits into the fighting game genre as a game not aimed at being newbie friendly, intent on delivering maximum action to hardcore gamers who are already into the genre. However, some of the features in the game--originally intended as adding new challenges for experienced players--make the game-play experience for inexperienced players dramatically worse. Perhaps the worst was the Icey floor effect on a stage without guard rails fighting against an opponent that used a lance or spear. The enemy's weapon gives them a large attack-range, allowing them to smack me around before I can even get close enough to attack. Furthermore, I easily get knocked down and away, sliding out of the ring, unable to do anything to prevent it. To summarize what could be turned into a 20 page rant, that's just (insert cuss words here). While there is a certain progression of enemy AI and hadicaps implemented in Soul Calibur III, the learning curve remains much too steep, and the primary focus of the challenges in the game are made very difficult, targeting the hardcore fighting gamer audience. Consequently, such additional features in Soul Calibur III result in a more challenging gameplay experience, making beginner players even more distraught than they were before. In this, I speak for myself, as I have found that I truly suck at fighting games; I simply can't perform the speedy repetitive motion in the finders needed to time attacks properly in order to easily pull off special/complicated combos. It has taken me over a day in order to get vaguely proficient enough in the controls to jump around and pull off a few select combos that I've figured out how to use, and otherwise get my ass handed to me if I screw up... Thus I still (and probably always will) face the problem of learning how to play effectively with (what I find to be) a non-intuitive control system.
add a comment
|
|
|
 |
EX's Soul Calibur III (PS2)
|
|
Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Saturday 24 February, 2007
|
|
