Soulcalibur
| Soulcalibur | |
|---|---|
European arcade flyer
|
|
| Developer(s) | Project Soul |
| Publisher(s) |
Namco Namco Bandai Games (XBLA, iOS, Android) |
| Producer(s) | Yasuhiro Noguchi Hiroaki Yotoriyama |
| Composer(s) |
Junichi Nakatsuru Yoshihito Yano Akitaka Tohyama Takanori Otsuka Hideki Tobeta |
| Series | Soulcalibur |
| Platform(s) | Arcade, Dreamcast, iOS, Xbox Live Arcade, Android |
| Release |
Arcade July 30, 1998 Dreamcast
July 2, 2008 iOS January 19, 2012 Android November 20, 2013 |
| Genre(s) | Fighting game |
| Mode(s) | Up to 2 players simultaneously |
| Cabinet | Upright |
| Arcade system | System 12 |
| Display |
Raster, 640 × 480 pixels (Horizontal), 65536 colors Up to 2560 × 1600 pixels (Android) |
| Aggregate scores | |
|---|---|
| Aggregator | Score |
| GameRankings | 96.56% (Dreamcast) 78.91% (XBLA) |
| Metacritic | 98/100 (Dreamcast) 79/100 (XBLA) 72/100 (iOS) |
| Review scores | |
| Publication | Score |
| 1UP.com | B- (XBLA) |
| AllGame |  |
| EGM | 10/10 (Dreamcast) |
| Eurogamer | 8/10 (XBLA) |
| Famitsu | 40/40 (Dreamcast) |
| GameFan | 98/100 (Dreamcast) |
| Game Informer | 9.25/10 (Dreamcast) |
| GamePro |
(Dreamcast)
|
| GameSpot | 10/10 (Dreamcast) 7.5/10 (XBLA) |
| IGN | 10/10 (Dreamcast) 8.1/10 (XBLA) |
| Awards | |
|---|---|
| Publication | Award |
| Electronic Gaming Monthly | Game of the Year |
| GameRankings | Game of the Year |
| GameSpot | Game of the Year |
Soulcalibur (ソウルキャリバー Sōrukyaribā?) is a weapon-based 3D fighting game developed by Project Soul and produced by Namco. It is the second game in the Soul series, preceded by Soul Edge in December 1995. Originally released in arcades in July 1998, it ran on the Namco System 12 hardware. It was ported to the Dreamcast in 1999 with new features and improved graphics. The North American version was released in September 1999 as a launch title for the Dreamcast and was part of the successful launch of the new console. It became available as a downloadable title on the Xbox 360's Xbox Live Marketplace in July 2008. A sequel, Soulcalibur II, was released in July 2002.
Developed closely with Namco's Tekken development team, it is one of few home console ports that outdid their arcade parent graphics-wise. The title brought many innovations to the fighting game genre that include a heavy emphasis on weapons and a unique eight-way movement system. Soulcalibur is widely regarded as one of the best Dreamcast titles and is one of the most critically acclaimed fighting games of all time.
One of the biggest innovations introduced by Soulcalibur to the gameplay system of its predecessor, Soul Edge, is the eight-way run. Previous 3D fighters had only limited movement along the third axis, with sidesteps and rolls providing useful but unsustained lateral movement. In Soulcalibur, simply holding down a joystick direction causes the character to run in that direction, giving the player a sense of freedom and deepening the strategy of the game. Soulcalibur also improved gameplay with "forgiving buffering", executing the input for one move before the player's character has finished recovering from their previous move, and leads to executing a quick succession of moves (other fighting games such as the Tekken and Virtua Fighter series have relatively strict buffering requirements, meaning expert timing is required to pull off many combinations, but Soulcalibur features much more lenient timing to successfully execute a buffer). Finally, the Guard Impact offensive blocking maneuver shown in Soul Edge was given a deeper range of techniques in Soulcalibur, allowing players to push back or redirect attacks past themselves as well as swatting away an opponent's weapon to stun them.
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Wikipedia