Soulcalibur (video Game)

is a weapon-based 3D fighting game developed by Project Soul and produced by Namco. It is the second game in the '' Soulcalibur'' series, preceded by '' Soul Edge'' in December 1995. Originally released in arcades on July 30, 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 game 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 and it is forward compatible with the Xbox One along with the sequel, ''Soulcalibur II''.

The game centers on the pursuit of the legendary weapon known as Soul Edge, now in the possession of a warrior known as Nightmare, who slaughters countless people to satisfy the blade's bloodlust. Other warriors pursue him either to claim the weapon for themselves or to destroy it, end his mass murder, and free him of its curse. Developed closely with Namco's ''Tekken'' development team, it is one of the few home console ports that outdid their arcade parent performance-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'' received unanimous critical applause upon release; it is the fourth-highest-rated video game of all time, with a 98 rating on Metacritic. It won the majority of Game of the Year awards in its respective year, and is widely regarded as one of the greatest fighting games and one of the greatest video games ever made, topping numerous "best of" lists in years following.

Gameplay

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 move 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 his or her 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.

Characters

''Soulcalibur'' was originally planned to be a dramatic overhaul, with all new characters apart from Mitsurugi from ''Soul Edge''. However, nine of the 11 characters from ''Soul Edge'' ended up carrying over to ''Soulcalibur'' by the time the roster was finalized in the Dreamcast version ( Cervantes, Hwang, Seong Mi-na, Mitsurugi, Rock, Siegfried, Sophitia, Taki, Voldo), with an additional ten new characters joining the ranks (in the South Korean version of the game, Mitsurugi was replaced by an English-Japanese swordsman named Arthur).

As with many fighting games, many of the new characters were heavily styled after existing characters from the franchise. For example, new character Maxi has a fighting style and move set influenced by ''Soul Edge's'' Li Long (the only of the original starting characters not to return). In fact, ''Soulcalibur'' only added one original playing style, belonging to Ivy. New characters Xianghua, Maxi, Yoshimitsu, Astaroth, Kilik, Nightmare, and Lizardman were based upon existing characters Hwang, Li Long, Mitsurugi, Rock, Seong Mi-na, Siegfried, and Sophitia, respectively. Consequently, Namco has been working since ''Soulcalibur'' to gradually separate the individual styles of the characters in order to make each one unique.

Plot

The mystical sword of the legends, the "Soul Edge", ended up in the hands of the dreaded pirate Cervantes de Leon of Spain. For the next 25 years, he stayed dormant on the remnants of a Spanish port town, taking the souls of those who reached him during their search of the sword. Like Soul Edge, starts in the year 1583. The reign of terror of Cervantes was soon to start, but through the joined efforts of Greek divine warrior Sophitia Alexandra and Japanese ninja Taki, he was stopped and killed, with one of the twin Soul Edge blades being shattered in the process. As it was about to tear itself apart, young German knight Siegfried Schtauffen approached the port town and battled Cervantes, whose corpse had been momentarily reanimated through Soul Edge's will. After emerging victorious, Siegfried's attention turned unto the sword. The moment he took the hilt of the cursed blade, Soul Edge released a bright column of light into the sky. This was known as the "Evil Seed", bound to bring calamity and death in its wake.

Three years after those events, in 1586 AD, Soul Edge uses Siegfried as its host, and now Siegfried is Nightmare, a knight wearing azure armor and sporting a hideously deformed right arm. Europe plunges into a vortex of slaughters as he and his followers claim souls to strengthen the blade in its weakened state. Unknown to them, a group of warriors met on their journey to stop Soul Edge, and with them, three sacred weapons join once again.

Development

After releasing ''Soul Edge'', Namco took some time to evaluate what had made the game successful before jumping into the development of its sequel. Producer Hiroaki Yotoriyama decided to give the sequel a new name instead of just calling it ''Soul Edge 2'' in order to have a fresh start and take the series in a new direction. The name ''Soulcalibur'' is a portmanteau

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