The third installment of the famous Soul Caliber series. The previous game (Soul Caliber II) was released for the Playstation 2, X-Box, and GameCube, and each system had it's own "guest star" (the Playstation version had Hihatchi, the GameCube version had Link, and the X-Box version had Spawn...for some reason). Unlike the previous game, however, Soul Caliber III was released exclusively for the Playstation 2. Consequentially, the "guest star" trend had to be brought to an end. Soul Caliber III unfortunatley, does not compare favorably to its predecessors.

System: Playstation 2
Genre: RPG
Year made: 2006
Raw Score: 6.5/10

Story

"Tales of Souls" is the closest you'll get to a story mode in this game. Each character moves toward the same gold, for a certain reason, fights Zasalamel twice along the way, and then has a unique ending. This mode feels very repetitive, largely because every single character - no matter his or her goals or motivations - fights Zasalamel twice. That's what the story is: "the heroic tale of how we all fought Zasalamel twice." Even if you play as Zasalamel, you fight Zasalamel - oh, excuse me, Doppelganger Zasalamel - twice. That just strikes me as incredibly lazy. It also doesn't help that most of the character's ending make little sense and seem random.

5/10
Characters

Each character has a vague backstory (in a good way) and is interesting to play as (though some have easily-to-abuse moves that home in on players as they roll). Unfortunately, many of them have endings (in "Tales of Souls" mode) that are uncreative and senseless.

You also have the option to create your own characters. There are quite a few physical customizations you can make. However, each fighting style that you give a custom character corresponds to a style that a bonus character already has. So all you're really doing is re-skinning bonus characters. It's still fun, there's a lot you can do when you start creating. Just don't expect them to bring anything unique to the battlefield.

8/10
Gameplay
Alright, let's do this one more at a time, shall we?

I've pretty much covered "Tales of Souls" mode already. It is the game's single player, story-based mode. It's repetitive, boring, and forces you to deal with AI's that do way too much blocking.

Next is "Soul Arena" mode. This mode lets you do quick play (basically arcade mode) and mission mode which makes you complete various objectives as you fight. This is probably the best single-player mode, since it's not marred by a lazy storyline and the AI isn't quite as annoying.

"Chronicles of the Sword" mode takes the custom characters you've created, and places them in a strategy/RPG/fighting hybrid mode. This mode is fun, but ultimately unrewarding. The point of playing it is to gain new abilities for your custom characters (such as giving "thief" abilities to a "saint"). However, you'll eventually unlock the "weapon master" character type who can use any weapon, so there's not much point. Don't get me wrong, the mode is fun at times, but I didn't feel it was worth playing once I had the weapon master.

Finally, we have versus mode (but not team attack mode, sadly). It's more or less the same as Soul Caliber II's versus mode, but a bit less balanced. Certain characters have moves that sort of home in on you when you're on the ground rolling. This sounds inconsequential, I know, but it actually gives them a huge advantage. These homing moves are very hard to dodge, and a player can dominate a battlefield if he starts spamming them at the right time. It takes a great deal of skill out of battles, and generally makes things less fun.

Also, the problem of certain character being more button-mashing-friendly than others (I freaking hate fighting/using Raphael) remains.
6.5/10
Lasting Appeal
There's no real reason to ever play "Tales of Swords" mode more than once, once you see one player fight Zasalamel you've seen everyone fight Zasalamel. Also, most of the ending seem random and don't make a great deal of sense. "Chronicles of the Sword" becomes irrelevant once you get the weapon master class. "Soul Arena" mode is fun, but also short.

Versus mode is still fun, naturally, but it pales in comparison to Soul Caliber II's versus modes (team battle mode is also missed).

Unless you like character creation (and there are reasons to) you won't find yourself coming back to this game as often as you would any other fighting game.
6.5/10
Visual

The environments and scenery are well-designed, and rich in detail. The character motions are nice and fluid during combat. Also, the opening cinema is quite impressive.

This might be shallow to comment on, but most of the character look really stupid. Many of the character have costumes that make them look absurd (not really funny, just...absurd). Yoshimitsu, for example, has two costumes: one that makes him look like Davey Jones from Pirates of the Caribbean and one that's a chicken suit. I realize that, conceptually, Yoshimitsu in a chicken suit fighting Maxi in a disco suite seem funny, but it really just ends up killing the mood. I can't take anyone in the game seriously, not matter how brutally they fight.

7/10
Audio
Music is good and sound effects are fine. Voice acting is inconsistent, but there isn't much of it to worry about.
8.5/10
Overall
Above average overall, but you would tend to expect more from a Soul Caliber game.

It's a good game, but if you're looking for a nice arcade-style fighting game, you might be happier just buying Soul Caliber II (probably cheaper too). Anyway, I don't want to brush it off too much, because it is an above average fighting game. However, I can not help but feel that, with a few very minor changes, it could have been just as good - if not better - than Soul Caliber II.
6.5/10

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