Thoughts for: Thursday 24th November 2005

Tales of Souls :: [23:54:57]
I got Soul Calibur III on the day it came out (how could I not?) and within a few days managed to do everything on it I want to do. I say everything I want to do because in the game the single player element has been vastly expanded. There's now enough action and stuff to do to keep the single player modes entertaining for a long time. This is something which fighting games have often lacked, a decent single player element. Most fighting games are known for being fantastic multiplayer games but little more. It seems this time Namco wanted to challenge that view by showing they can produce something of real quality for someone to play alone. The mix of characters is impressive with everyone from Soul Calibur II making an appearance plus a whole host of interesting and very original new characters. For once the boss of the game isn't some shoddy firey corpse either but rather an actual being (which you can play as once you unlock him). The new characters are imaginative, interesting and fill gaps in the plotlines and character relations which make for a fantastic edition. For example the addition of the character Setsuka gives Mitserugi a real adversary rather than him just being lumped with Taki because of the whole ninja vs samurai thing. The new characters in the game all have very unique fighting styles and are interesting to learn to use. Some old favourites make a return too, most noteably Rock. In true form of the standard of this game Namco have also moved away from just giving such bonus characters the same moves as someone else, in fact they all have their own unique moves which is a welcome addition. Old characters like Lizardman have had a makeover in both moves and appearance as have many of the other characters. Speaking of appearance the graphics differ little from SC II quality wise so don't expect to be hugely impressed and in fact the custom characters can look a little shoddy at times. The custom character element of the game is a welcome edition with some interesting combinations available. You can create pretty much everything and gathering the cash to buy components you want can be quite addictive. The custom characters can only be used in certain game modes (fair enough) but can have a selection of weapons and not only that, they can even have a selection of fighting styles. For example if you make a samurai class character then your custom creation will begin with only the option of using the "Katana" style. However once you have used the character enough you will have unlocked another 4 styles to use. (Incidentally if you want to do this quickly then create a second character of the same class and go to vs mode. Make your opponent have a 0% health so a single strike kills them and kill them 50 times, this will unlock all the fighting styles for that character class, then delete the unwanted character and repeat the process.) The last two styles of a custom character class are always "soul of ...", with these fighting styles you literally just get a copy of one of the character in question, so if it says "Soul of Mitserugi" that's whose moves you will get. That isn't the be all and end all of it though because the other three styles available to your character tend to be very unique and very fun to use. Each class does not have that many moves however and an accomplished player will have mastered the use of them in mere seconds, however for beginner players they prove to be very useful weapons capable of kicking some major arse with relative ease, with the added bonus of being able to look exactly how you want to look. Not half bad really. The multiple classes: Ninja, Assassin, Samurai, Gladiator, Knight, Saint, Sage, Dancer, Theif, Pirate, Monk, Barbarian (there might be more I don't remember) make for plenty of ones to try out and considering most of them have styles which are unique to their character class this can make for some interesting shit and very unexpected manouvers for your opponent.
A further good point to the game is the now expanded and coherent story modes available. In the "Tales of Souls" mode you choose a standard character and play through their story in depth with a full story beoming evident. Not only that but you are given choices at every stage of your journey and depending on which choices you make you will go to different places, the story will develop differently and you will fight different opponents. You can also find yourself fighting things which are not normal characters. For example should your progress be going practically unhindered your character often feels as if they "are being watched" then you get the option of hanging around or not. If you hang around you have to defend yourself against a level specific enemy for example on one level you have to defeat 20 lizardmen with diminished health before the time runs out. That's not the only time non-standard opponents occure however, as on some levels before you get to fight a standard character, Eg when you fight Voldo, you have to fight your way through generic opponents like "Theif" which just use custom character class moves and tend to be easy to defeat. By the way if you happen to find yourself being watched on Sophitia's level then let me know how you get on with the Colossus because that fucker is a bit tough. As if this wasn't enough they have also taken a cue from Resident Evil 4 and now during any cutscene (of which there are a fair few) there is a reasonable chance you are going to get your head smacked in. Only very quick reflexes and paying close attention to the screen will allow you to input the commands before you find yourself in a world of pain. Failing to block or dodge whatever is coming at you in the cut scene generally means you will start the subsequent fight with a chunk of your life missing or worse. As if that wasn't enough the end cutscenes of the game which you get for completing it have the same things and depending on whether or not you put the combination in quickly enough you get one of two stories. As if all of that wasn't enough choice for you, you also get some very different things happening if you happen to go through the entire game without losing a single bout. It's ludicrously tricky to do but worth it and gives veteran players something to do. Speaking of veteran players, the moves for all the old characters are mostly the same, anyone who was in SC II will only have had minor moves changes and you will no doubt pick up their new moves/button combinations very quickly.
The other new big feature of the game is the replacement of the Edge Master mode with "Chronicles of the sword" a tactical game punctuated by fighting bouts which uses another set of created characters and tells the tale of a war from before the time of the actual game. It's interesting and quite fun to play but not interesting enough to hold your attention all that long. It does have numerous victory conditions and challenges to keep you interested but I doubt most people will play through it more than the once required to unlock characters and items etc. Incidentally if you don't like the game mode all is not lost because you can still get the items/characters simply by playing enough battles in other game modes (to do this quickly I suggest you and a friend just go on vs mode and play a fuckload of fights as in hundreds). Speaking of vs mode however one fault in the game does crop up. Perhaps to punctuate the fact that they are showing fighting games can be fun single player games they have removed "Team Battle Mode". This is the favourite mode of me and my friends in fighting games so that was pretty annoying but the ability to set the round counter on vs battles quite high means you can still have some considerable tests of skill without it. Even so it is a travesty that Team Battle is missing from this game. As a final addition to the single player fun, Namco have added "Soul Arena". This is more similar to the old "Edge Master" fun and games where they put you in situational battles and depending on how well you do, you unlock items and equipment etc. More of these unlock as you play through the game. Some of them are fun and some of them are interesting. However none of them are necessary. They are there for experienced players to show off more than anything. Oh and seemingly just for kicks Namco chucked in the ability to be able to play is pretty much any character from the Chronicles of the Sword and the Soul Arena and even the item shops! All of these characters are located on a single slot on the character select screen once you unlock them and are not up to much really, with their moves merely being a copy of some of the custom creation move sets. They are there more for the novelty value of it than for the actual fun of playing as them really. All in all the game is a worthy expansion of the series and is plenty of fun to play. The single player emphasis does work but more than anything just for the fact that the Tales of Souls mode is more fun to play because of the in depth stories and the ability to play it again with different eventualities.
Overall I give this game a 8 out of ten and that score is mainly due to the lack of graphical improvement and the lack of team battle. If Namco had considered those elements then the score would be higher.