Soul Calibur III Update: Character Creation and Chronicles of the Sword
Series creator and producer Hiroaki Yotoriyama gives us an updated look at the third entry in the PS2-exclusive fighter.
Soul Calibur III producer and creator Hiroaki Yotoriyama fills us in on the upcoming game.
We've been lucky enough to try Namco's third entry in its top-notch weapon-based fighter after the game was announced earlier this year. But while our look at the playable demo for E3 was cool, it really only let us get a taste of the core fighting mode. Since then, we've been left wondering just how the other single-player modes, especially the character-creation mode, are going to play out. Thankfully, a recent visit from none other than Hiroaki Yotoriyama, creator and producer of the series, shed some light on what to expect from the two key modes in the upcoming sequel: character creation and chronicles of the sword. The enthusiastic and well-spoken creator even let us try out an updated version of the game, which went a long way toward winning our affections. So what are the new modes like? And how does the game handle now? Although you can probably guess some of these answers already, Soul Calibur III managed to surprise us nonetheless.
Our demo of the game began with the feature Yotoriyama is most excited about: character creation. The concept behind the mode isn't anything new per se, because these days character creation is popping up a lot across most genres. However, Soul Calibur III's is looking like arguably one of the deepest we've seen yet. The mode features two ways to go about getting yourself a custom fighter. For players that like to keep things simple, the mode offers a "character color edit" feature that lets you take an existing character and mess around with his or her coloring by adjusting three different areas. For folks looking for some real fun, the character-creation option is where it's at.
You'll start out by picking a gender, male or female, and choosing an occupation for him or her. The occupation you choose will affect your character's fighting style and proficiency with weapons. Furthermore, occupations come in all manner of variants that lend themselves to your fighter specializing in specific weapon types. So, for example, you'll find different types of specialties in the ninja occupation, each favoring a type of weapon such as the sai or katana. Though you'll start out with a handful of occupations and their individual variants, as you go through the game you'll unlock more than 10 subsequent variations.
Once you've settled on an occupation, you'll be able to move on to customizing your fighter. The options open to you when tweaking your fighter are staggering. You'll be able to play around with more than a dozen options, since your fighter's body is broken up into specific areas. As a result, you can change everything from the type of hat he or she wears to the specific elements of his or her face, such as eyebrows, lips, and eyes, to name just a few. You'll even be able to pick his or her voice from a selection of sound samples.
Once you've put the finishing touches on your custom character, you can take your polygonal alter ego into the game's other modes. The only slight catch right now is that it appears you may have to remake your custom character if you want to use him or her in the chronicles of the sword mode. However, the character creator is easy to use, so it shouldn't be that huge of a deal if that turns out to be the case. So just what is this chronicles of the sword mode all about? Is it like mission mode from the previous games, or is it like something else? Turn the page to find out.
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- GameSpot Score 8.2 great
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