Difficulty:

Hard

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Mixed reactions"

SoulCalibur is the weapon-based fighting franchise from the producers of Tekken, Bandai Namco. For the first time, SoulCalibur has been released on a handheld console and is the subject of much hype. Entitled SoulCalibur: Broken Destiny, this game might be lacking a key component in its much-awaited release: a single-player/story mode. Since Story Mode is not present, not much of a story is being followed in this game besides a goofy story in The Gauntlet, which is mostly just a giant tutorial and training mode. Although lacking an "arcade" mode, this game provides a new set of modes, including Trials, which pit you against a set number of enemies, earning points depending on how well you either attack, defend, or how many battle you can last. There's also the above-mentioned Gauntlet, which is kind of like the story mode, but does well as to warn the player in the beginning that this story does not follow original SoulCalibur canon. It pits you in a vast number of trials, with the first few being tutorials on how to do almost anything and everything when fighting.

Despite being such a limited piece of hardware compared to its console counterpart the Playstation 3, the PSP makes full use of its graphics engine to bring about many modes and one of the best graphics the PSP has seen to date. The best example of this would be the Creation mode, which like recent SC games, lets players create their own custom characters, adapt an original fighter's style, and use them in any mode in the game. New equipment may be obtained through various yet unexplained feats in the game, which gives players a large selection of items to choose from, although many pieces of equipment will already be available at the start. Load times are quick despite how good the graphics are, and there's even an option to install more data to further decrease the almost non-existent loading time. Fighting is also a breeze, with easy-to-pull-off controls and a responsive control scheme, which leads to some truly amazing fight scenes in-game. The backgrounds have been done really well, along with.. well.. everything. The character models, the moving objects, everything looks great in this game.

The lack of a solid story mode degrades what should have been an otherwise near-perfect game in its genre. Being on par alongside Bandai Namco's earlier and successful Tekken: Dark Resurrection, this game can impress veteran players (trust me, a number of ghost players in this game are tough.) and newcomers (like me) alike.