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Thursday 21 February, 2008
Game Entry #2:
Gameplay:
For the second hour of gameplay, Soul Calibur 3 fails to lose any of its original attractions that I first felt about it. I still have a sense of attachment to the same characters that I liked in my first hour of gameplay, maybe even more-so, and multiplayer with friends has not lost any element of fun. During a versus match, one of my friends brought up that he felt like the game was just all about button mashing and that it required no skill...I quickly had to shut down this theory of his with a couple of guard blocks against his button mashing followed by a swift set of deadly combos with Kilik's bowstaff.
I got a little more into the single player modes and I have the same feelings as I previously did about the new elements that the developers added to this game. The new ideas that the development team added does not take away any element of gameplay at all and the whole game still flows nicely together.
I have gotten more emotionally involved with the outcome of the battles as well, especially in versus matches against friends. We all seem to get pretty riled up at any outcome of a match up, and this feeling has us wanting to play the game more. The main plot of the narrative part of the game is the same though, and once you have beaten it with one character, you have played through the entire main narrative plot of the game, which sort of turns me away from that element of the game.
Game Design:
I absolutely loved the implementation for the character movement that the developers used in this game. From my personal programming experience, it seems like the implementation for all of the different characters and their moves would be pretty complex, and I believe that this game does an excellent job of handling this. When you want to pull off a move with a certain button combination, the move will execute when you get the combination right. I also feel that this gives the gamer a sense of accomplishment; if that is a difficult move to pull off, then they should be proud that they did so.
An element that I think the developers could have improved on is level design. Level design in Soul Calibur 3 did not change much from its predecessors, which is kind of a disappointment. One semi-improvement on level design is that some barriers break when an object hits them, but it has no effect on the gameplay itself. The graphics and backgrounds are definitely pretty in the game, but it feels like you are always on the same playing field in every level, that nothing new ever happens.
The music score is another element in which I think the developers could have improved. The music gets rather repetitive, which eventually becomes a nuisance to the ears of the gamer. I understand that it is a fighting game, but background music does have effects on gamers and if the development team would have put a better score together for their game, then the game itself would be that much more memorable.
I absolutely loved the award system that this game provides. There is so much content and hidden elements to unlock, that it makes me, as a gamer, want to play the game until I unlock everything. There are numerous weapons for every character in the game, different outfits for every character, different concept artwork that can be viewed, different modes to unlock. There is a lot of content, and every time I played a level I unlocked something, which got me excited and kept me thinking "What will I unlock next?" The reward system is excellent in this game.
Overall, I give this game a 5 out of 5 stars because the elements that were bad did not take away from the gameplay experience at all. When you look at the very heart of the game, it is an excellent fighting game. The music is not that big of a deal, and levels are the same as in any regular classic fighting style game. I could never get bored of multiplayer, and there is enough content in the game to keep me wanting to play it. This is a great game.
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