Soul Calibur III

Soul Calibur is known as one of the best fighting game series of the last couple of generations. Allowing characters to take up the various swords and axes to add a bit of bite and power to the fighting engine, Soul Calibur managed to rake in the audience it needed to flourish and grow into the powerful franchise it could have been... yes, could have been. Soul Calibur 1 and 2, as well as Soul Edge and Soul Blade, started the series on a legendarily high note, offering a slightly better storyline than the average fighting game and allowing for sword to sword combat, as well as 8-way movement (trust me, this was new back in 1995), memorable characters and an easy learning curve. Jump to 2005, and Soul Calibur 3 has just been released. Suffice to say, it doesn't live up to Soul Calibur 2's standards... it might have meant well, but due to some poor decisions and questionable programming, the game is far from enjoyable.

The main storyline is that Siegfried is free...

THE GOOD:
Graphics
Sound
Game Play

THE BAD:
The AI
Removal of Team Battle
Doesn't live to it's full potential

SUMMARY:
Soul calibur III is the sequel to Soul Calibur II that is the sequel to Soul Calibur and that being the sequel to Soul Edge hence it is the fourth overall installment in the Soul series of fighting games.

Soul Calibur was released exclusively for the PlayStation 2, unlike its predecessor Soul Calibur II, which was also released for both GameCube and Xbox, with a single unique character featuring in each version, and the first Soul Calibur on Dreamcast.
But a cycle has been made as Soul Edge was on the Play Station.

Soul Calibur is the name of the holy sword (based on Excalibur and Masumune), created to battle the evil sword Soul Edge (Ragnarok, Murumasa), around which the game's story-lines revolve. So yes another game that is good verses evil again - but why fix what isn't...

THE GOOD:
Excellent variety of both old and new playable characters. Awesome graphics and sound. Easy to pick up and play. Tons of unlockables. Create player option. New gameplay modes.

THE BAD:
Very unbalanced CPU AI. A few old game modes have been removed. The new game modes aren't that good. No online play.

SUMMARY:
The 3rd installment in Namco's popular weapons fighting series, SC3 attempts to do more of the same as before and add some-keep the traditional weapons-based fighting but add some bells & whistles to make it more interesting and appealing. In doing that here it both succeeds and fails in that objective.

The graphics are once again visually stunning. The opening movie looks incredibly realistic and character designs are excellent with awesome visual effects. The frame rate is very smooth with no hints of flickering or slowdown even when the pace gets hectic. Sounds are excellent with a great combination of...

THE GOOD:
- A good amount of single modes to keep you busy
- Loads of characters to choose from, including bonus characters from previous games
- Create your own character
- Lots of unlockables

THE BAD:
- AI can get cheap at times
- Load times pretty long
- Corruption save file

SUMMARY:
Soul Calibur is a famous weapon-based fighting game from Namco (who happen to be the same company that created the Tekken franchise). The game takes place in the mid 16th or early 17th century, and delivers unique weapon styles, such as with a staff or a sword.


Single Player Modes

Tales of Souls:
Also known as the story mode, it has some replay value here. If you're like me and want to unlock practically everything, then you will find yourself comming back to this mode for different paths with each character. It's better than the previous story mode, because you get some nice cutscenes (though repetitive and...

THE GOOD:
- New modes including "Soul Arena" and "World Competition"

- Each character has an unique story line

- Ridiculus number of characters to choose from

THE BAD:
- Data corruption in COTS

- Long loading time

- Character Creation is more limited then we thought

- The AI are very cheap

SUMMARY:
Soul Calibur 3 is the new game in the Soul series for the PS2. Many things were added into the game including multiple modes and a whole bunch of characters. Here are some of the main modes.

Tales Of Souls

Tales of Souls is one of the new modes in Soul Calibur 3. In Tales of Souls you must choose a character and fight through a series of battles until finding Soul Edge. In an added bonus you must choose the path that your warrior will take. Created characters and bonus characters cannot play in this mode.

Chronicles Of the Sword

Chronicles of the Sword or COTS is a neat...

THE GOOD:
It's Soul Calibur
Lots of replay value
Solid gameplay
Good graphics
Big character roster
Some cool costumes
Create a character mode

THE BAD:
Can be little too hard at times
Edit a character mode is too limited.
Loss of some modes from Soul Calibur 2.

SUMMARY:
I'm a big fan of Tekken and Soul Calibur and this is just a great game. When it first came out I looked for it then I couldn't find it then me and my family went to a different store mostly just to find this game and I found it! It was really worth the 50 bucks. Like the title says Namco has done it again! In other words they made another great game.

Gameplay: As a said before the AI can be cheap at times but other than that it's great. With the new Chronicles of the Sword mode this game can keep you busy for awhile and not mention of the unlockable characters and weapons. And also some character from SC2 are alittle different now like Ivy and...

THE GOOD:
-Largest Cast of Characters
-Largest amount of Stages
-Many Unlockables
-Past "clone" Characters feel unique and different

THE BAD:
-Data Corruptions
-Glitches
-Long Loading times
-Repetitive scenes
-Cheap AI

SUMMARY:
Soul Calibur is a great game overall but not a perfect game

Soul Calibur 3 is another sequel and tries to go in many different directions from Chronicles of the Sword to creating your own character unfortunately its nothing really unique but its still a nice touch.
Tales of Souls is like story mode.The good things are being able to choose different paths,unlocking scenes,and unlocking characters. Unfortunately there are a few bad things. The scenes are repetitive so none of the characters TOS are unique,You are unable to skip scenes making it annoying to get to the end,and lastly unable to adjust the options in TOS.Overall TOS is a mediorce mode because it lacks...

THE GOOD:
Soul Calibur gameplay
Interesting new features that you'll learn to appreciate
Ass load of playable characters
Amazing level designs
Good graphics and sound

THE BAD:
Ridiculously cheap A.I. for newbies
Graphics could have been better
Long load times
Hwang didn't make it to the main roster (fanboy complaint)

SUMMARY:
NERD ALERT!



When I first got the game the day it was released, I had mix feelings about it. It seems like a lot of reviewers did, too. I thought they messed with my favorite characters too much, and that the extra modes were crap. I even told myself that this game ain't worth 50 bucks.

Well, it's been over a week now, and I gotta say, the game has changed my mind.

I'm glad I waited over a week to write a review. If I did it...