Soul Calibur

Soul Calibur is the second game in the Soul series of fighting games developed and produced by Namco, consisting of Soul Edge (Soul Blade in the US), Soul Calibur, Soul Calibur II, and Soul Calibur III. Originally an arcade game, Soul Calibur was ported and released for the Sega Dreamcast with improved graphics and new features.

Following the first game Soul Edge in 1995, the Soul series received a major makeover and was retitled Soul Calibur in 1999. Hence, Soul Calibur can also refer to the series consisting of Soul Calibur and its subsequent sequels (essentially the Soul series minus Soul Edge). Soul Edge was also a game created for the arcade originally and, subsequently the PlayStation. Its plot line is set before the game for the Sega Dreamcast.

Soul Calibur is the name of the holy sword, created to battle the evil sword Soul Edge, around which the games' story-lines revolve.

Overview

Soul Edge / Blade had a strong following, but when Soul Calibur was released in the arcades, it was not as popular at the arcades as Namco would have liked or expected. Luckily for the series, Soul Calibur was picked up by the Sega Dreamcast, and became a smash hit almost overnight. Soul Calibur, 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 Soul Calibur, 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. Soul Calibur 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 Soul Calibur's relatively lenient buffering lets players focus more on the game and less on the controls.

Prologue

The mystical sword of the legends, the Soul Edge, ended in the hands of the dread pirate Cervantes of Spain. For the next 25 years he stayed dormant on the remnants of the port town in Valencia, taking the souls of those who reached him during their search of the sword. His reign of terror was soon to start, but the joined efforts of a divine warrior and an underground ninja stopped him, breaking one of the twin Soul Edge in the process. About to tear itself apart, a young knight approached the port town. The moment he took the hilt of the cursed blade, Soul Edge released a bright column of light into the sky. This was known as the Evil Seed, bond to bring calamities and death across its path.

3 years after those events, Soul Edge is in possession of a new host, a knight wearing azure armor. Europe plunges into a vortex of slaughters as he and his followers claims souls to strengthen the blade's weakened state. But unbeknownst to them, a group of young warriors met on their journey to stop Soul Edge, and with them 3 sacred weapons joins once again.

New Characters

Soul Calibur 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, such as:

Other new characters were required to unlock by some means or another in the game, such as:

Lizardman - Sword and Shield
Edge Master - Imitative power
Inferno - Imitative Power (although Inferno was really SoulEdge from ''Soul Blade)
Yoshimitsu - Katana and Flag

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 heavily inspired by 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 is 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, Soul Calibur 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 Soul Calibur to gradually separate the roster's styles until the series features completely original styles for each of its characters.

All characters from Soul Edge returned with the exceptions of Li Long and Seong Han-myeong (SoulEdge returned as Inferno)

Features

Soul Calibur has the basic modes of play presented in most fighting games: Arcade Mode (fighting through 9 rounds, the 8th 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 throught the various levels in the game, fighting and fulfilling tasks to earn points. The mode has four variations for 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, Soul Calibur II, and Soul Calibur III Soul Calibur lacks the Extra Weapons feature. Each character counts with their main (default) weapon in both 1P and 2P form, along with the version of the weapon used by Edge Master.
Out of the 19 characters available, 5 of them were granted a 3rd costume, available to unlock in the Missions Mode: Maxi, Siegfried, Sophitia, Voldo and Xianghua. Moreover, each character counted with a transparent version of their costume (Arcade only) or a liquid metal version of it (Dreamcast port only). There's also the possibility to use an Unknown Soul (blackened character) version as well.

Trivia

According to a timeline released by Namco on their Soul Archive site, Soul Calibur happens around 1587, thus allowing for the calculation of the character's birthyears.
The arcade has one updated version generally known as Soul Calibur: Version B.
Soul Calibur's introduction sequence is the only on the series to use in-game graphics. Because of this, there's the added feature of customizing it, allowing to change or switch the characters who appears in it.
The characters Sophitia and Lizardman (and eventually Sophitia's younger sister Cassandra from SCII) worship the Greek gods, but this is an anachronism. It is much more likely that a Greek of the 16th Century would be a member of the Greek Orthodox Church.
Soul Calibur introduced the extra unlockable Exhibition Videos. These videos are katas, or weapon demostrations, performed by the characters. Characters who has similar weapons share the same kata (Kilik and Seong Mi-na, Xianghua and Hwang, Nightmare and Siegfried, Astaroth and Rock and Mitsurugi and Yoshimitsu) differing only in the weapon and set on their stage. Most of the videos were later re-used in the following sequels without alterations other than different stages and/or weapons.
In the versions where Arthur replaces Mitsurugi, Hwang switch places with Xianghua. Hwang is selectable since the start and Xianghua takes his place as a Time-Release Character.
In the Japanese version of the game, the "Evil Seed" is called "Evil Sperm".
Soul Calibur for Dreamcast is widely considered one of the greatest games of all time, and is the only game of the fighting genre, on any platform, to have ever received a perfect 10.0 rating from IGN.com (review)and GameSpot. Also, it was the second of only six games to receive a perfect score by Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu.
The game's name, Soul Calibur, is named after Xianghua's Spirit Sword. That being said, it is likely that Soul Calibur is a play on the name Excalibur (Magical sword in Arthurian legend). This is supported both by the fact that Caliber is not usually spelled with a 'U', and also the fact that the sword has been called Soulcalibur (without spacing)in later titles.

Awards

E3 1999 Game Critics Awards: Best Fighting Game

External links

Soul Calibur at The Killer List of Video Games

Soul Archive Namco-sponsored Soul series archival fansite.
Guard Impact, a Soul Calibur fansite. Under heavy overhaul.