To retain the link to Soul Edge and to stress the weapon-based combat, he decided to call the new game Soulcalibur (a portmanteau of soul from Soul Edge, and calibur from King Arthur’s legendary sword Excalibur). Given the revolutionary new movement mechanic, Soulcalibur’s producer, Hiroaki Yotoriyama, felt a fresh start to the series would be helpful. The team was instantly surprised at how well it meshed with the fighting system and decided to build the sequel to Soul Edge around this new eight-way movement system. When Soulcalibur series producers saw this prototype, an idea struck to implement its movement mechanic in a fighting game. This prototype allowed a 3D character to run openly in a field. An internal Namco prototype had been developed independent of the Soulcalibur franchise. Development and Gameplayįollowing the success of 1995’s arcade fighting game Soul Edge, Namco evaluated what had made Soul Edge a success before launching into development of its sequel. At the time when I first saw it, Soulcalibur was easily the best fighting game I’d ever seen. The moves list was extensive and perfecting our moves required real skill and practice. The character designs varied between the weird, the conventional, the grotesque, and the beautiful, and each character had a story and personality. Soulcalibur wasn’t a totally new revelation (3D fighting games had been around for years), but the weapon-based fighter improved on the things which made many other fighting games so great. The eight-way directional 3D arenas gave us another way to attack, dodge, and outmaneuver our opponents. The action was fast, the combat frantic and varied. But no game was as strikingly smooth, fast, and fluid as Namco’s Soulcalibur. They arrested the eye with their vibrancy and their unbelievably smooth frame-rates. All of these games were stunning, visually. The ubiquitous Sonic Adventure, the frantic Powerstone (usually played against another shopper), the wet and wild Hydro Thunder. I saw and played plenty of Dreamcast launch games on that demo kiosk’s bulbous CRT monitor while I languished through those Dreamcast-less months. In a front corner of the store sat a Dreamcast demo kiosk, positioned strategically to allow perfect viewing for anyone in the store (and for shoppers passing by in the mall proper). I wouldn’t own a Dreamcast for another couple of months (my first SEGA Dreamcast was a Christmas present in 1999), and so I spent countless hours between the system’s launch day and the holiday greedily drooling over whatever Dreamcast accessories and games happened to be sitting on the shelves at the local Software Etc. It was a few weeks after the launch of the console (the US Dreamcast launched on September 9, 1999). I clearly remember the day when I first played Soulcalibur for the SEGA Dreamcast. Sequels - Soulcalibur II, Soulcalibur III, Soulcalibur Legends, Soulcalibur IV, Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny, Soulcalibur Mobile, Soulcalibur V, Soulcalibur II HD Online, Soulcalibur: Lost Swords, Soulcalibur: Unbreakable Soul, Soulcalibur VI Game Designers - Tetsuya Akatsuka, Tsuyoshi KiuchiĬomposers - Junichi Nakatsuru, Yoshihito Yano, Akitaka Tohyama, Takanori Otsukaĭreamcast Release Dates - Console Launch, Septem(North America) Aug(Japan) Decem(Europe)Īdditional Releases - Namco System 12 Arcade (July 30, 1998) Xbox 360 Xbox Live Arcade (2008) iOS (2012) Android (2013) Producers - Yasuhiro Noguchi, Hiroaka Yotoriyama Developer - Project Soul (a team within Namco)
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