E3: SoulCalibur III Hands-On

The third in Namco's popular fighting series was playable at its spacious E3 booth - we sneaked in some playtime.

When it was first announced that SoulCalibur III would be a PS2 exclusive, with no news of an arcade release, some were pretty dumbfounded; thanks to the inclusion of Nintendo's Link character, the GameCube version of Soul Calibur II was a commercial success, outselling both the PS2 and Xbox versions. Regardless, Soul Calibur III was on hand at the show and looking quite hot, to say the least.

Just from watching the game in action it's easy to see that Namco has the PS2 hardware fully cracked. With the David Copperfield-like magic, Namco performed on the visuals of Tekken 5 for the PS2, but it appears as if the company has outdone itself with SCIII. The graphics were looking quite sharp, with colorful, vibrant and large, well-detailed character models moving around sporting smooth flowing animations. The backgrounds were even more impressive with arenas set within lush, beautifully detailed environments with sharp textures, solid lighting effects, and some nice particle effects.

Traditionally the soundtrack of the Soul Calibur series has always consisted predominantly of orchestrated sounds and Soul Calibur III looks, err sounds like it's set to continue that tradition with a number of beautifully orchestrated themes to accompany the action. The sound effects are equally well-served with a nice variety of sharp sounds including that of blades clashing and character voices.

The brief story behind the latest in the Soul Calibur series involves the mysterious revival of the dark knight, Nightmare, and the re-emergence of the unholy sword which was previously sealed. So now with the reemergence of the sword, the legendary battle for supremacy between the Soul Calibur and Soul Edge will recommence on a grander stage and in the end only one sword can prevail.

The E3 demo had two types of play modes available, the standard VS. mode where two players can go at it, and the single-player, "Tales of Soul" mode that pitted Soul Calibur's staff-wielding badboy Kilik in a series of single-round contests against the rest of the game's fighting roster, in a story mode setting. At the end of each fight, we were taken to a map screen of sorts, where we could plot our next course and read updated storyline content. While the E3 build limited us to just one character, when Soul Calibur III is released players will be able to select any of their favorite characters and watch their stories unfold and view individual character endings by battling through the Tales of Souls mode.

The fighting in Soul Calibur III is what fans have come to expect from the series' ever-improving brand of quality weapons-based combat. While all of the fighters wield different, albeit powerful weapons, performing their moves is easily accomplished thanks to the game's intuitive control scheme. The traditional four-button setup allows for performing high and low weapon attacks, kicking, as well as blocking, and the fighting engine feels a little more refined over its predecessors and like Tekken 5 features added interactive elements such as breakable walls and floors.

One thing that was immediately noticeable about Soul Calibur III was the jacked up difficulty of the game. Unlike its predecessors which were all quickly accessible to beginners and allowed for a lot of button mashing, the AI opponents in Soul Calibur III weren't as accommodating as before and put up quite a fight.

And speaking of opponents, Soul Calibur III's hefty 25 character fighting roster features all of the fighters from the previous entries in the series as well as introduces three brand-new characters who have entered the battle grounds of Soul Calibur with their own personal reasons for taking part in this unholy battle.

There's the one-eyed scythe wielding warrior, Zasalamel; there's the colorfully dressed Setsuka who sports a parasol that doubles as a sword, and last but not least there's Tira, who could almost be mistakened for an Elf-like character with the predominantly green outfit she's sporting and wields a pretty cool-looking circular shaped bladed weapon. All three characters are quite unique in their own way, wielding cool new weapons and helping to bring more excitement to Soul Calibur's already exciting weapons-based combat.

Along with new characters players can also look forward to a new character creation feature where for the first time in the Soul series players can go in and create their own fighters, customizing them with weapons, modifying their physical features, as well as providing them with a gender and occupation.

Other single player features include a real-time simulation feature known as "The Chronicles of the Sword" mode, where players can utilize their created characters and watch how they perform in battle against other AI controlled opponents - which for the most part pretty much sounds like a spectator mode of sorts.

When Soul Calibur III is finally released, players will have access to a wealth of game options including a Practice mode where they'll be able to practice using different characters, a Soul Arena mode, a Shop where accessories can be purchased, a Museum mode where players can view all of their unlockables as well as view the history of the series, and a World Competition mode where players will be able to battle their way up the ranks.

Soul Calibur III is currently slated for release later this year. Keep it tuned here for more info as it becomes available and all-new video coverage to follow.

Joseph Jackson
Executive Editor, Kikizo Games