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Soulcalibur III

From the Soulcalibur Wiki

Soulcalibur III
Cover of Soulcalibur III
The NTSC box art for the game, depicting characters Mitsurugi and Ivy in the background, Zasalamel in the front, and Nightmare in the logo.
Developer(s) Namco
Publisher(s) Namco
Designer(s) Hiroaki Yotoriyama
Picture format 480p (EDTV)
480i (SDTV)
Platform(s) PlayStation 2, arcade
Released NA October 25, 2005
EU November 18, 2005
JP November 23, 2005
Genre(s) Fighting
Mode(s) Up to 2 players simultaneously, for up to 8 players total in a League mode
Ratings ESRB: T (Teen)
PEGI: 16+
OFLC: M
OFLC/NZ: M
CERO: 12+
USK: 12
Input methods 8-way Joystick, 6 Buttons
Cabinet Upright
Arcade system Namco System 256

Soulcalibur III (ソウルキャリバーIII Sourukyaribā Surī?) is the sequel to Soulcalibur II and is the fourth overall installment in the Soul series of fighting games. It was released exclusively for the PlayStation 2, unlike its predecessor Soulcalibur II, which was also released for both the Nintendo GameCube and the Xbox, with a single different guest character featuring in each version.

Soul Calibur is the name of the holy sword, created to battle the evil sword Soul Edge, around which the game's story-lines revolve.

The game includes new modes such as Tales of Souls, an interactive story-driven mode comparable to Soul Edge's Edge Master Mode; Create-A-Soul Mode, in which players can create custom characters from thirteen total occupations, with multiple weapons and fighting styles; and Chronicles of the Sword, a real-time-play mode that allows players to take their created souls through adventures of their own. The game also has the largest character roster – 24 characters playable in Tales of Souls mode and an additional 18 playable in all other modes – and largest battle stage selection in the Soul series history.

Although recent generations of fighting games have supported online play, Soulcalibur III does not. The game's producer, Hiroaki Yotoriyama, has said that, "At the current time, the online infrastructure is extremely different between countries, and there's people that can not enjoy network gaming. We've decided to concentrate on improving the game's offline content and its characters so that people all over the world will be able to have fun."[1]


Contents

[edit] Features

Rock fighting Nightmare.

Features in Soulcalibur III include:

[edit] Create-A-Soul

Create-A-Soul allows players to construct their very own characters by donning them with an assortment of clothing parts such as armor or robes. The player may also change the character's hairstyle color, eye color, skin color and facial features, ranging from young to old as well as voices. As the player completes tasks through the game, more parts can be unlocked for availability. Depending on the parts chosen, the character's alignment will differ from either good to bad or in-between (neutral) which influences their dialogue as well as their Destined Battle in Quick Play. Character construction first starts with the creation's gender, followed by their fighting style and weapon. At the start, only seven are available, though three more can be unlocked as well. 9 of the styles also contain Soul styles, which allows the character to use the same weapons and fighting style as the playable characters, safe for Olcadan and Abyss. The Swordmaster style allows the creation to select all but the Soul styles.

[edit] Soul Arena

Sub menu for Quick Play and Mission modes

[edit] Tales of Souls

Choose your character and go to town.

[edit] Chronicles of the Sword

A separate storyline from the main Soul series. Players take the role of the protagonist through a Create-A-Soul battle and participate in RPG-like conflicts

[edit] World Competition

Play against various pre-rendered opponents from around the world, similar to Tekken 5's Arcade Mode

Most Extra Weapons make a return from Soulcalibur II. In this installment, however, the number of extra weapons is reduced to 8 different weapons, including the two defaults for 1P and 2P, the Ultimate Weapon, Joke Weapon, and The Ancient. The system is once again changed, this time based solely on abilities; normally 2 per weapon, 4 per Ultimate, and 3 occasionally. Icons are displayed telling every effect in detail for each weapon.

There are no third character costumes presented in this installment, but to compensate there's a Color Edit mode, where the player can edit the colors out of 3, or in some cases 4, sections of a character's costume and make their own personal version of it. The parts that can be changed range from clothing to skin to hair color.

[edit] Characters

The characters that must be somehow unlocked appear as bold.

[edit] Returning characters

[edit] New characters

[edit] Bonus characters

[edit] unplayable characters

New characters are marked as "+"

[edit] Soulcalibur III: Arcade Edition

Main article: Soulcalibur III: Arcade Edition

[edit] Collectible card game

Soulcalibur III is part of the Universal Fighting System Collectible Card Game, created by Sabertooth Games and now published by Fantasy Flight Games. It was one of the official founding franchises of the card game, alongside Street Fighter, when the game was released April 2006. UFS has seen 5 expansions based on Soulcalibur III's characters and history.

[edit] Trivia

  • It was planned that Dante from the Devil May Cry series was to be included as a playable character in Soulcalibur III, but he did not make it to the roster, nor did he make it to Soulcalibur IV. He was supposed to be in Soulcalibur III due to the fact Capcom borrowed an engine from Namco for their game Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening and its special edition. It is suspected by some that Dante still left an impact on the finished game, as Kilik's red trench coat was removed for being too similar to Dante's red trench coat and Nightmares 2p Soul Edge (Phantom) strongly Resembles Dante's ultimate sword, Sparda.
  • Soulcalibur III is the first and only game in the Soul series to be presented in THX surround sound.
  • Soulcalibur III is often panned by most fans and the tournament community for its unbalanced characters and large amount of bugs and glitches. The game only lasted 3 months in tournament play.

[edit] Gallery

The back North American boxart for Soulcalibur III

The front European boxart for Soulcalibur III

The back European boxart for Soulcalibur III

The playable characters of Soulcalibur III

[edit] References

  1. ^ Hirohiko Niizumi (2005-03-31). Soul Calibur III's producer talks details. GameSpot. Retrieved on 2006-09-16.

[edit] External links


Soul series
Main series
Soul Edge/Blade – Soulcalibur – Soulcalibur II – Soulcalibur III – Soulcalibur III: Arcade Edition – Soulcalibur IV
Others
Soulcalibur (film) – Soulcalibur Legends - Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny
Retrieved from "http://soulcalibur.wikia.com/wiki/Soulcalibur_III"