[Mechanical R]

Before you grab SC4, See how it all started…

When a Warrior is born, a quest is also begun. Thankfully, thanks to Namco we can relive all the stories of the old school weapon based beat em up before the Soul Calibur series takes its first steps into the next gen era next month in august.

The game offers 4 modes of play. Arcade is your typical story mode. Each character fights 6 random characters to reach stage 7, with a character who is entwined with your characters story in some way. After your ‘destined battle’ you fight it out in Stage 8 with Inferno for the soul edge sword.

When you’re tired of the story, some tests of your skills should be on order, with Time Attack mode and 2 versions of Survival. Time Attack, think of it as time trial races for the arcade mode and Survival being the classic, endless round where you take on an opponent one at a time till your defeated. The other version of this, ‘Extra Survival’ see’s the same rules only with a one hit one kill added in, which will make that first blow…well…crucial.

If you’re a big fan of the past Soul Caliburs you’re probably asking me ‘Where’s the quest mode?’ Sadly, its been removed most probably due to the size restrictions, however its something I really enjoyed in the SC series and would have liked to have seen it in the arcade title.

If you weren’t asking me that, you might be asking what about online play? Well, sadly, this also didn’t make the cut. A 2 player local version is available but taking your blades to the anonymous masses aren’t allowed in Soul Calibur’s arcade title. SC4’s going to have to bring it all for us.

This version of Soul Calibur is in fact the Dreamcast port, so already from there; the looks of the game were improved on already. The game does look surprisingly good to look at for such an old game, being Namcos only real effort in how SC looks was to bump it up to our HD level. Good job on there count however.

Most, if not all sound, in game, from the BGM to clashes of swords are straight from the original, with most the dialogue in Japanese with English subs you wont really want to pay too much attention to that, rather more your eagerness to get right into battle and get that first blow in.

With everything in the game unlocked from the start, this game instantly loses the drive to ‘unlock everything’ gamers have when really into a game, and with no real online, playability the game sadly see’s a stunted growth on replay ability, after you’ve completed all the stories in arcade mode with each character the only drive may be just to get the rest of the achievements from it. Although the Time Attack, Survival and Extra Survival will cure your SC needs till the release of Soul Calibur 4.

Overall, a really good port of the game, but something really only for the die hard SC fans or fans of the dreamcast version purely because no online or much else to get from it unlockable wise, but is sure to kick up a stir ready for when the next gen Soul Calibur 4 hits this August.

Rating 7.0

Published by: Namco Bandai
Developed by: Project Soul
Genre: Fighting
No. of Players: 1-2 players local