We’ve got tons of Soul Calibur III stuff for you in this issue, but that’s only the beginning. Look for “Soul Calibur III” under “EGM Extras” on egm.1UP.com for exclusive screens, videos, documentaries, retrospectives, and lots more. Plus, see how the EGM editors did against the chumps at 1UP.com, Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine, and even Computer Gaming World in our interoffice Soul Calibur II tournament. It ain’t pretty.

It’s all perspective. In the samurai cinema classic Rashomon—a tragic tale told four ways by as many witnesses—who’s doing the watching makes all the difference. Take one storyteller’s word for it, and the sword fight at the center of the yarn is the stuff of legend, choreographed combat like in the movies. Listen to another, and it’s a bumbling embarrassment—thwack, thwack, whiff, and the participants are as ready to run away as they are to risk their necks. Same story with blade-based fighting franchise Soul Calibur. No, seriously.

To casual viewers, Soul Calibur’s combatants stab and slice, sock and block the same as those in any other game in the genre. Whomp on buttons, and with a little luck you’ll win—no moves to memorize, no science to sweat, and somehow still a giddy good time with a good-looking game. Not so, say the vets. Accident is actually miscalculation; it’s more chess at a hundred moves a minute, an elaborate series of psych-outs and counter-psych-outs made possible only when you know your warrior as well as the person you’re playing against. To the pro, solo play is for practice. Nothing tops going toe-to-toe in head-to-head. No brawler series is better.

Who’s right? Both if PS2-exclusive sequel Soul Calibur III’s creators have anything to say about it.

Playing it safe

“Once you’ve established a series like Soul Calibur,” says Director Jin Okubo, “you can’t change the core components. The challenge is to build on what works, to bring something new and innovative to the table while staying true to the formula and to the characters that fans have come to identify with.” To wit, this is a safe sequel. “It’s not a revolution,” says Producer Hiroaki Yotoriyama. “Instead, we’re tweaking and refining for an easier-to-play and even more intuitive product.”

In versus mode that means tighter venues. Walls, waist-high barriers, a surrounding abyss—you’re never more than a few feet from a lickety-split loss. As before, back-to-the-wall beatdowns sap big stamina, whereas being forced from the ring means forfeiting the round. The barriers—rock and wood railings—are all new and add to the strategy: Some attacks send opponents sailing up and over ’em, others put ’em clean through in a cloud of splinters and sheared stone.

The trick is to guess where the other guy is going, to drive him in specific directions while he tries to do the same. “Soul Calibur’s system (see sidebar: High-caliber education) has always rewarded reading your opponent,” says Yotoriyama. “If you’re holding a small sword and someone comes at you with a huge sword, you instinctively want to sway to the side or step away. It’s a natural response, and it’s where Eight-Way Run [which frees you to move in any direction while still facing your foe] comes from. Also, duels have a definitive timing, a pattern of thrust, parry, and feint, which is where we get Guard Impact and move faking.”

Mo’ modes

Don’t fret if the nuances seem daunting: Yotoriyama and company have newbies covered. In fact, Soul Arena mode—a variety of bouts with special victory conditions—is designed not only to draw the casual crowd, but to convert them into hardcore fighting fans in the bargain. “When a duel requires you to do this or that to do damage” Yotoriyama says, “it’s also teaching you new tricks.”

Other parts are plain fun. Coin Collector matches (also part of Soul Arena mode) involve beating the change out of baddies like a schoolyard bully, then scooping up the loot as it scatters. Soul Squash is about bouncing an adversary between walls racquetball-style. Wisp Shoot fills the arena with wandering spirits, which you can absorb and fire at your foe. Finally, Dancing Statue pits players against a granite colossus in a David and Goliath–style duel. While Yotoriyama won’t say whether we’ll walk tall as the giant himself, it’s possible he’s among the game’s whopping cast of 30 playable characters—a lineup that includes every warrior to lift a sword in the series, along with a trio of new bruisers: hula gal Tira, scythe dude Zasalamel, and parasol-blade prima donna Setsuka. (“We always start with a weapon,” says Motion Design Chief Kento Kojima, “then determine what sort of movement fits that weapon, and what kind of character fits the movement.”)

Soul Calibur II’s console-specific characters Link (GameCube), Heihachi (PlayStation 2), and Spawn (Xbox), however, aren’t reprising their roles, and no new Sony-appropriate stars are standing in. “But we think we’re offering something better,” says Yotoriyama. “Instead of a single guest character, we’re giving you tools to create your own.”

Soul mates

If you’re prone to coordinate colors and flatter facial features with hip hairstyles, outfitting a hero in character-creation mode can take hours. Even if you aren’t the choosy sort, you still might find yourself asking, “Does that kimono complement these clogs?” It all starts with a specialization. The profession you pick determines strength (the damage your attacks do), vitality (the extent to which the enemies hurt you), hit points (total health), and agility (how fast your fighter runs around the ring). Next, you’ll need to settle on facial structure and skin tone, tweaking eyebrows, lips, and the like until the suave swordsman or grizzled samurai geezer of your fantasies springs to life. Then comes clothing, a head-to-toe assortment of shoulder pads, helmets, shoes, belts, hats, sashes, armor, and accessories—all of which can be layered and colored as you like. Adjustments aren’t all superficial either. Stick to a bright palette and your disposition will be outgoing; go for an ominous look and it’ll get darker, as reflected in dialogue and victory dances between rounds. Your character will continue to evolve in Soul Calibur III’s Chronicles of the Sword story/ strategy mode (see sidebar). “You can make most any character imaginable,” Yotoriyama says. “And, of course, we think it’s a great way to introduce new players to the game, people who aren’t normally into the genre.”

Everybody wins

Yotoriyama’s strategy seems sound: Let the fanatics fight one another at the expense of studies, social lives, work schedules, and friendships, while offering everyone else an outlet to enjoy the experience at their own level of understanding. It’s that same reluctance to leave anyone out to which he attributes the series’ continuing lack of online play: “We’re very interested in [it], but at the same time, what the worldwide research we conducted showed was that the infrastructure is uneven, that not everyone has [high-speed Internet access]. So rather than implement online play which isn’t something everyone would be able to enjoy, we felt expanding the single-player content and delivering an extremely compelling product would be the wiser direction to go with SC3.” At some point, however, we have to wonder to what extent the producer is picking and choosing answers. What about the PS2-exclusivity part, for instance? Won’t that alienate the hundreds of thousands who supported SC2 on Nintendo’s and Microsoft’s hardware? “It’s a timing issue as well,” he says. “When we looked at the extent of the content we were determined to deliver and the time frame in which we wanted to deliver it, we knew we’d have to concentrate on a single platform.”

The team’s tight schedule carries other consequences, too. This SC looks a lot like the last—certifiably stunning, with flashes that follow blades as they arc through the air and almost artistic animation, but somehow less so than you’d expect from a sequel in a series that has just gotten more gorgeous with each installment. Ditto for design: You can’t complain about the way one of the genre’s finest games works, except to say that it’s too little you haven’t seen before. Whether or not it’s all enough, of course, is another matter of perspective.

High-Caliber Education

Four reasons newbies should play this series

Guard Impact

Any fighter can deflect an incoming attack, opening up his opponent to retaliation. Timing is crucial, and there’s a heavy price to pay for predictable parrying, but the strategy doesn’t stop there. Although your foe is stunned once you interrupt his strike, he can still stop your counterattack with a Guard Impact of his own. Get good, and you’ll exchange well-timed parries for a cinematic stalemate of clashing swords.

Eight-Way Run

Soul Calibur characters can both sidestep and move freely in any direction while still facing down their opponents. This feature made SC the first fighter to feel truly 3D and means matches don’t seem like they’re happening within the confines of an invisible corridor.

Air Control

Here, when someone pops you into the air, you aren’t a helpless pincushion, watching passively as your opponent practices combos on your soon-to-be corpse. Air Control allows you to shift your weight in midair to either avoid your enemy’s cleaver or remain in the ring.

Ring Out

Landing outside the arena is an instant loss. While some less-experienced fighters will call this cheap, it’s very strategic. Characters have different moves to send foes sailing over the side. Conversely, Eight-Way Run, Air Control, and Guard Impact give you options to avoid going out.

New Challengers

SC3 Producer Hiroaki Yotoriyama sounds off on the game’s newcomers...

Zasalamel

“With that deadly scythe he has in his hands, Zasalamel can pull opponents in or push them away. He’s a well-balanced character who most anybody can handle.”

Setsuka

“Setsuka specializes in counterattacks. Her reach is rather short, but she’s speedy. It’s safe to say that she’s aimed toward advanced players.”

Tira

“We call Tira’s weapon the ring blade. She’s a well-rounded and able-bodied assassin, ideal for the intermediate-level player, and appears as though she’s dancing when doing various moves.”

Soul Exceptions

The ones that didn’t make it

Past gossip pegged Devil May Cry star Dante as a bonus brawler. After all, Soul Calibur II had guest characters from other companies, so why wouldn’t its sequel? Putting the rumor to rest, Producer Hiroaki Yotoriyama assures us that “Dante will not be in Soul Calibur III.” Where did the scuttlebutt originate? “The Internet,” answers the producer, laughing so hard and long that we suspect something’s been lost in translation.

Appearing in all three versions of Soul Calibur II, Necrid (created by comic book and toy mogul Todd McFarlane) was neither a true guest character nor the greatest idea—the mock He-Man villain mimicked a variety of the cast’s best moves, breaking the game’s balance in the process. Where’s the big lug now? “Necrid?” Producer Yotoriyama muses, “Necrid has gone on vacation.”

What’s the Story?

Why did all these people decide to beat on each other? Producer Yotoriyama sums it up superquickly: “Soul Blade (PS1) was about the existence of an evil, soul-stealing sword called the Soul Edge. Soul Calibur (Dreamcast) introduced its foil, a good sword. Soul Calibur II told the story of the evil sword’s return and how it took over the Soul Calibur. Soul Calibur III is essentially about what happens next.” More significant than the two weapons, however, are the warriors who encounter them. “The most important part of a fighting game is the characters who are fighting, and it’s crucial to give them motivation—why are they fighting, what are the stakes, what are their places in the big picture? SC3 provides that.”

Strategizing by the Sword

Consider Soul Calibur III’s Chronicles of the Sword mode a test of sorts. If players take to its combination of real-time strategy and Soul Calibur combat, series creators say they’ll consider spinning a role-playing game off the series. Here’s how this potentially fun genre-bender works:

Missions unfold on finely detailed, top-down maps. Starting with a handful of fighters, your created character included, you’ll move each around fortresses and over open terrain on a network of trails. Mission objectives range from annihilating a rival army to rescuing a stranded unit; here, you’ll capture a series of strongholds.

Come into contact with free-roaming opposing forces and you’re forced to fight. Winning the standard Soul Calibur duel that follows earns you experience points, which—depending on your profession—power-up either speed, toughness, strength, or stamina. Success in Chronicles of the Sword also earns you additional weapons and clothing options for character creation.

To seize a stronghold, you’ll need to stand on it for a set amount of time. Assign two or three soldiers to the spot and the enemy will have to take them all on, one at a time. Note that while losing once won’t knock you out of the mission, it will reduce your total hit points for the remainder of it.

With two soldiers overtaking one stronghold, it might be wise to move your custom warrior to another. Before assaulting the fort, you can scan the garrison guarding it—seeing, for instance, that the assassin with a short sword there is a less-than-ideal match for your lance—and strategize accordingly.

Each character in Chronicles of the Sword is also counted as cavalry, infantry, knight, or bandit (i.e., in addition to his assigned profession). This designation determines a warrior’s strengths and weaknesses on the mission map—how fast he can cross certain types of terrain (cavalry and infantry), how efficiently he can turn strongholds (knights), and whether he can pass through occupied bases (bandit). “To figure out the best battle strategy,” says Producer Hiroaki Yotoriyama, “you must be able to base decisions on conditions that change from moment to moment.”

Dressed to Kill

Build a better swordsman in character creation mode

Hair

From the traditional topknot to Prince Valiant’s bangs to Princess Leia’s buns, hairstyles come but never go.

Underwear

Armor chafes. Cover your character’s sensitive spots in anything from functional chain mail to frilly peek-a-boo panties.

Face

First, select a facial structure from a staggering assortment encompassing most every ethnicity and age. Then independently change the color of eyebrows, eyes, and lips.

Gender

Man and woman are created equal in Soul Calibur. Why not make separate characters of each sex?

Job

The profession you pick (10 possible in all) determines which weapons your character can wield (ninjas, for example, use kunai or the katana-and-shuriken combo) and his stats (slow-moving barbarians rely on brute strength).

Upper and mid torso

Apply clothing and accessories in layers, dressing parts of the torso differently as desired. Masks, necklaces, collars, scarves, and sashes are available as well.

Finishing touches

Now that you’ve created and fully clothed your fighter, he needs a sword of some sort (see below).

Shoulders and arms

Producer Hiroaki Yotoriyama made sure his dynasty warrior’s duds matched. If you’d rather your pirate rocked ninja arm guards, go right ahead.

Sword Play

Which one of the character creation mode’s 10 stock weapons you decide on (completing Chronicles of the Sword’s many missions unlocks others) will determine the attacks at your disposal. So far, each style (bo staff, sword and buckler, etc.) seems derived from Soul Calibur’s existing cast, but the developer explains that it’s still working on each weapon’s arsenal.

Legs and hips

Socks and shoes go on separately; same goes for the gear on your shins, waist, and legs. Also, changing the color of each piece of apparel alters your personality.

Copyright © 2005 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in Electronic Gaming Monthly.