High production values and loads of single-player content make Soul Calibur III one of the finest entries in the series.
After the critically-acclaimed Soul Calibur II, released in 2003 for the Sony PlayStation, Nintendo GameCube, Microsoft Xbox, and for the arcades, Namco has taken a strange turn with its successor. Instead of having different versions of the game released on different platforms (with their own respective guest character), this iteration of Soul Calibur is exclusive to the Sony PlayStation 2. An Arcade Edition (AE) was also released for the game, but this is the review of the PlayStation 2 version.
Now, while the exclusive nature of this game on the PS2 may bother some, this does in a way sort of mean a good thing. Because Project Soul - the developers behind the Soul series - has only one system to focus on, the production values can be focused on just that one system instead of having it split into thirds for each system. This makes the third entry in the Soul Calibur series especially unique, because it must have been a very expensive game to make, considering it has THX Surround Sound, great music, graphics, and a massive array of single-player and offine multiplayer content that makes Soul Calibur III so great.
The story is familiar: Soul Edge - a sword that has been bathed in so much blood on the battlefield that it has become an evil, malevolent, living entity clashes with Soul Calibur - a sword created to combat it. The three new characters in this game - the scythe-wielding Zasalamel, the vengeful Setsuka, and the mysterious Tira - do, in fact, play a role in the story of this game. Nightmare has been released, and it is up to everybody to either destroy Soul Edge or keep it for their own purposes. In other words, it's the reason why everyone bothers fighting each other. In fighting games, stories that explain why everyone fights in the first place are generally pretty weak, but it's nice to see Soul Calibur make an effort - even if its one we've seen many times before. But it's forgivable.
Soul Calibur III will definitely keep you entertained with its seemingly endless modes, and each and every mode has its own form of uniqueness that sets it apart from the other modes. Although Soul Calibur III has no online multiplayer (while other fighters did support the feature), the sheer number of things to do in single-player and multiplayer is just mind-boggling - and the file size on the memory card explains it - it's nearly 300 KB worth of save data. For the single-player content, there is the standard story mode - Tales of Souls - but it plays differently than how one would expect. In this game, the story mode is not shared with the arcade mode, but is in fact a mode of its own. Tales of Souls tells the story of each and every character in the game (minus the unlockable bonus characters) through text, and you as the player make the decisions as to where the character should go or what he or she should do next. All characters eventually reach the same place in the end, but it's nice to see all the branching storylines. There are two endings for each character - and there are a lot of characters, and the Tales of Souls mode will keep you busy for quite some time. This makes Soul Calibur III's story mode the best in the series yet.
Another major single-player mode includes the Chronicles of the Sword, which takes advantage of the Character Creation mode. Chronicles of the Sword is Soul Calibur's take on a real-time strategy game - and it does a darn good job at it. This mode is massive, and it will take you at least a dozen hours to beat on your first time, if you're an RTS rookie. But seasoned strategists should be able to find some challenges here, because Chronicles of the Sword isn't easy. You make your own commander via Character Creation mode, and then you create soldiers to join your army. Eventually, as you progress through chapters, you will recruit more and more soldiers. This mode makes use of a level-up system, which affects different stats - very similar to Fire Emblem or similar RPG games. Chronicles of the Sword is very lengthy, and the story is very fitting for a game set in 1591. The massive amount of time you will spend in this mode is enough to make Chronicles of the Sword its own Soul Calibur game, and even after you finish it, you'll want to revisit it again, because the second time around your characters' stats are carried over. All in all, this mode is extremely statisfying to play, and it has a compelling story that will make you want to know how it ends. A major problem with the Chronicles of the Sword mode is the file corruption glitch, which has destroyed the Chronicles data, the Soul Calibur III data in some cases, and even corrupting an entire memory card in rare cases. These are caused by the moving or copying of files created prior to when the Soul Calibur III save data was created, among other causes. You'll want to look up the causes of Chronicles of the Sword file corruption before starting the mode.
If Tales of Souls and Chronicles of the Sword are amazing modes, then World Competition is a mixed bag. World Competition is a challenging mode that requires you to successfully complete twelve consecutive tournaments in order to win. It is a very hard mode that takes advantage of Soul Calibur III's brutal artificial intelligence (AI). This mode will probably make you rage, because the AI is relentless. It's relatively easy early in the mode, but later on you will have to make every use of Soul Calibur knowledge to beat it. This is my first problem with the game - the brutality of the AI. Now I'm a fairly decent Soul Calibur player - but you know the AI is cheap when they can read your input the millisecond you press a button. You can use the fastest low attacks in the game, and the moment the animation initiates the AI will be able to block it. Eventually, you'll wonder who programmed the AI in this game to Guard Impact every attack, block or duck every low, and grapple break every throw. And for some strange reason, some characters seem to play better or worse than other characters. Raphael and Lizardman, for instance, seem to have this unstoppable desire to attempt or land a grab on you at least once every round. Cassandra's AI is just as brutal as in Soul Calibur II, and Setsuka is just pure evil. It's this kind of AI brutality that will have to force you to get used to how different computer-controlled characters play. And get this: there are more hard difficulties than normal or easy combined. There's Easy, then Normal, then Hard, Very Hard, Ultra Hard, and Extremely Hard - if I recall correctly - there could be even more hard difficulties, but I'm not sure. It's just that the AI in this game is just too good, even on normal difficulty. In your first run of Tales of Souls - even if you're a Soul Calibur master, it'll take you a long time before you're able to get used to this game's AI. The sheer difficulty will turn many off from trying out World Competition, but it's a nice mode if you like a challenge.
A really nice mode is Soul Arena, which features two modes. The first is Quick Play, which is pretty much the game's standard Arcade Mode. There are no character intros or endings, but the game's main villain is always the last fight. It's a nice mode to try out every now and then if you absolutely despise the Tales of Souls' unskippable cutscenes. The other mode of Soul Arena is called Missions, which can be thought of as Soul Calibur II's Extra Weapon Master mode. These missions consist of challenges that can involve collecting a certain number of coins, successfully landing wall hits, fighting a giant Greek statue, and so on. They're generally wacky challenges that provide a fun spin on the fighting mechanics of the game, and there are Easy, Normal, and Hard difficulties (the same problem the AI applies even on the Normal missions). I found myself spending hours on this mode alone - there are many things to be unlocked by just playing this mode.
Perhaps the game's most unique feature other than the real-time strategy-based Chronicles of the Sword mode is Character Creation. Here, you obviously create your own character, but it goes much deeper than that. First, you start with gender, and then you choose a discipline. Disciplines are pretty much movesets, but the great thing that makes Soul Calibur III's Characater Creation a step over IV's is the unique movesets for each discipline. There is a Great Sword discipline, which plays much like Nightmare and Siegfried, but makes use of both moves while throwing in completely new moves as well. And there's also the more ambitious playstyles such as Wave Sword, Sickle, and Steel Fan. There's a ton of movesets available for use as you progress further in the game, and experimenting with how each one plays is very rewarding. After a gender and discipline are chosen, it's on to the creation itself. Here, you take bits and pieces of armor and layer them to create a completely new, unique fighter that looks the way you want it to. You can change the face, hair, and even the voice of the character. The way you dress a character affects is particular alignment as well. For example, if you give your character Unholy armor, then he or she will have an evil alignment and will therefore sound more menacing than if you gave them a more good-aligned set of armor. It's these little things that make Soul Calibur III such a unique fighter. My only gripe with this mode is that created characters' uses are so limited when it comes to different modes, and for some reason the characters you create here can't be imported into Chronicles of the Sword or vice versa - Chronicles of the Sword has its own character creation - but the characters you create there are limited to only that mode unless you replicate it in Character Creation. Overall, this mode is completely unique and you'll spend a lot of time making your own fighters. A nice touch is the ability to edit the already existing characters' costume colors. There are four costumes for every character (two are the default, while the other two are reserved for you to color-edit), and you can change the colors to the way you like them.
There is a Practice mode in this game, and like many other fighting games - it's simply a mode to practice your moves and brush up your skills. Practice is divided into two other modes - Free Training and Tutorial. Free Training is the standard practice mode, where you can practice your moves or take a peek at the game's expansive Move List - while Tutorial is more of a beginner mode. However, there's plenty of technical lingo to be seen in Tutorial mode, so it can also apply to seasoned veterans. Some of these terms can be found in the game's Glossary, which can be explained as the Soul Calibur dictionary. The Practice mode is self-explanatory, as it's simply a way to improve your skills at the game.
As if the game couldn't get any bigger, there's a Shop - which is actually three shops in one. There's a Weapons Shop - where you can purchase weapons with in-game money received from Tales of Souls, Chronicles of the Sword, World Competition, and Soul Arena. Each weapon has different affects, and these apply to many different modes in the game. Some weapons can prevent ringouts, while others prevent grabs and the more interesting (and expensive) weapons automatically Guard Break or Guard Impact attacks. It's very interesting to see how each weapon affects the character in a good way or a bad way. Weapons that are akin to Soul Edge are more powerful, but can drain your health every time you attack or progressively throughout the match. There's a great sense of balance between all of the weapons, but you'll find yourself commonly using the Soul Edge weapons once you obtain them - and they're very hard to unlock. The Armor Shop is for purchasing clothing, hairstyles, armor, etc. for the Character Creation mode. There are hundreds of clothing options to purchase, and devoted completionists are going to have to spend dozens of hours to buy them all. The Items Shop is where it gets interesting. Here, extras can be purchased to add to your collection in the Museum. You can buy illustrations, movies, concept art, individual character weapon demonstrations, and even more Character Creation slots and disciplines. In the Items Shop, the more fancy-sounding an extra sounds, the more expensive. And some of the most expensive items in Soul Calibur history are found in this shop and the Weapons Shop. You'll be spending a lot of time collecting money to spend in all three of these stores, because there's hundreds upon hundreds of things to buy if you combine all of the things you can buy here.
The Museum consists of illustrations, movies, stage concept art, and cutscenes. The illustrations include characters, stages, and bonus character concept art form Chronicles of the Sword. The movies consist of E3 trailers and the game's intro, along with some nice other extra movies for you to unlock and watch later on. The concept art for stages is just simply beautiful. Soul Calibur III has the best art direction in terms of stages in the entire series, and it has really great music on par with Soul Calibur II. Some tracks have been brought back from earlier Soul games for Soul Calibur III as well, and it was nice to hear those nostalgic tunes again. The Event Viewer for the cutscenes is a nice touch, and all of the cutscenes and endings from Tales of Souls can be seen here. The cutscenes are well-made and unique to many characters, and some of them are a nod to the original Soul Blade/Soul Edge - the first entry in the Soul series. Some cutscenes have quick-time events just like the original, and whether you input the correct command just might determine what happens in the fight. All of the character endings are split up into two endings in a similar fashion. During an ending, at some point in the cutscene an input will be requested of you. You can choose whether to input the command or not (some are harder to time than others), and endings are different depending on whether you did input or not. This boosts the already-high replay value even further, and seeing each and every character's ending was satisfying - though some endings are better than others.
The standard offline multiplayer mode is still here, so you can duke it out with your friends in the Standard VS, Special VS (where weapon effects apply), and a tournament mode. Sadly, Team Battle does not make a return from Soul Calibur II, and that was a major disappointment. However, the VS modes are very fun to play with friends, and there are endless amounts of characters to choose from and stages to play on. Soul Calibur III has the most stages and characters in the entire series. Some stages have different versions, which can affect matches (for example, a stage may not have any boundaries to prevent ring-outs, but another version of the stage can restrict ring-outs by adding a cage around it). The standard character roster is expanded even more with created characters from the Character Creation mode, and there are nearly twenty bonus characters to unlock. The replay value in this game is just jaw-dropping when it comes to unlocking characters, stages, weapons, items, missions, and more.
The game's graphics are incredibly realistic for its time. Project Soul has outdone themselves with the way the stages look, and their use of colors to set the mood is outstanding. Music in this game is expertly composed as expected of Namco Sound Team, and this game's character designs - while some are unusual - are some of the best in the whole series. This game's voice-acting is decent, and while some voices are much less evil-sounding such as Nightmare and Cervantes, many corny arcade-like voices from Soul Calibur II such as Kilik and Yun-seong have been improved. Each and every character is unique in their own right, and all of the characters (minus the bonus characters) have their own Character Profile, where you can read about a particular character's history, along with their stage. You can also hear their voice tracks in English or Japanese (you can set the language in the options menu), and even take a gander at their character model. Soul Calibur III has stood the test of time, and has aged very well. The visuals are some of the most realistic I've seen on a Sony PlayStation 2, and the frame rate is consistent almost all of the time.
While Soul Calibur III has its good points, there are issues such as the impossibly relentless AI, the file save corruption glitch, and other things that could have used a little more polish before release, and inclusion of many new single-player modes is nice, but sadly some of the better modes from Soul Calibur II are absent, such as Weapon Master and Team Battle, but this is forgivable when you see how much content is crammed in this game. There's just so many things to do in Soul Calibur III and it'll keep you satisfied for months if you're a completionist, and the very fun gameplay you've come to know from Soul Calibur is still here. It's a tad faster than Soul Calibur II, and there are some balancing issues with some characters, but overall it's a very well-made game with high production values to round off the sharp edges.
If there's one word that can describe Soul Calibur III, it's ambitious. The Chronicles of the Sword mode was an interesting take on real-time strategy, and they did a fine job at it. Character Creation is a welcome implementation to the game (and this would see expansion later in the series). There are some rough patches to be found in the game, and it does have its weak points - but if you can forgive Soul Calibur III of its faults then there's plenty to be found in this addictive fighter that'll keep you coming back for more.