Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

100 or More Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Solid"

SoulCalibur III is the third installment in the SoulCalibur series, the fourth if you count Soul Blade. Being the third game, SoulCalibur III brings you even more modes, characters, and even better graphics than the last one.

Gameplay, 9. The basic concept of this game is like any other fighting game. You fight each other until one of you dies. For the first time in the SoulCalibur series there is an actual story mode, Tales of Souls. This mode isn't really all that much different than the arcade mode, named Quick Play. The differences are that there is an actual narrative between stages and often you'll be allowed decide between two choices as to where you'll go next, most of these are these choices are pretty general and don't differentate very much from other characters. No matter who you play as you'll eventually arive at some unknown location at the Cathederal where you'll fight an event battle against a character who in most cases is heavily linked to the character you are using, then you'll either fight Siegfried or Nightmare, and then the king of the game, Abyss. That isn't to say that there aren't any unusual battles. Sometimes before a battle there will be a cutscene where you'll have to dodge something. Sometimes you will find yourself fighting multiple enemies. The Mission mode has a few special mission for you to play, these don't warrant for a lot of detail in the review. Chronicles of the Sword is a new mode that is pretty much an RTS with a SoulCalibur twist to it. That said it's not that good of a mode and is only good for unlockables. One good addition to the series is the Character Creation mode. This is where you create your very own character, you can choose their sex, fighting style, clothes, face, just about everything except making your own custom move set. The World Competition mode is basically a tournament. The Vs. Mode is where you and a friend can play against each other. There is a basic fight, a special fight where you can go to some of the special stages and use the different weapons with there respective effects. Like in the Single-Player mode there is a World Competition mode where you and many others can compete against each other, along with some computer players if you like.
The gameplay is very good. The Single-Player mode is great other than the Chronicles of the Sword mode. The Vs. Mode is oughta provide you with a good long while's worth of entertainment. The Character Creation mode is very well done. There isn't any online mode unlike many Playstation 2 games released in 2005 but that isn't horrible or anything.

Graphics, 9. Awesome graphics for the Playstation 2. Once again SoulCalibur has shown as amazing graphics. The characters now have more detail to them than ever. The stages look great, even the parts you don't fight on.

Sound, 8. A lot of the music is redone soundtracks from past SoulCalibur games. The voice acting is in English and Japenese, which is nice. The sound effects like two weapons clashing is, as usual, very satisfying to hear.

Value, 10. This game has a lot for you to do. It will take you quite a while to do everything in the Single-Player mode. Then there's the hours of fun and entertainment to be had in the Vs. Mode.

Difficulty, Just Right. The difficulty in most modes isn't set so it's all up to you on how hard you want the game to be.

Tilt, 8. I liked this game a lot. I have always been a big fan of the SoulCalibur series, mostly in part to it consistently impressing me in the pass. Anyone who likes fighting game and still is looking to add game to their Playstation 2 collection should pick up SoulCalibur III.