I was so in love that I skipped classes to play with friends, and nearly became a college statistic (and not on the graduating end). Luckily, I got my head on straight and limited myself to playing after classes, not during them. None the less, I was hooked (and did manage to graduate!)
Fast-forward seven years into the future. After the first Dreamcast port, we’ve seen Soul Calibur II, III, III Arcade Edition and Soul Calibur IV. There have been many different versions of the same style of game-play, why mess with a good thing right?
However, eventually a franchise will attempt to take a big chance to draw in a larger audience or just to keep their series fresh. In some cases that pays off: World of Warcraft makes more money than many developing nations. The folks at Rockstar Games sit on beanbag chairs stuffed with Benjamins after making the decision to take their Grand Theft Auto series in a new three-dimensional direction.
In other cases, games have flopped harder than a fat man on a high dive: Sim Ant, Chrono Cross, and anything branded “Fallout” after Fallout 2 all make fans cringe.
From a creative standpoint, it’s nice to have the opportunity to expand a bit on the histories and relationships between established characters. Fans often crave this sort of expansion, which is shown by the large amount of fan fiction you’ll find surrounding any successful series all over the web.
From a business standpoint, it makes a lot of sense to use already successful franchises to create new titles. You have a built in customer base who will buy your product whether it’s a gem or a flop (Just look at George Lucas! He’s milked the Star Wars franchise to the point that even his most hard core followers have to step back and laugh at some of the crap he’s churned out.)
With such a potent mix of potential for success and total failure, Soul Calibur Legends is like lighting an old firework; it’s either going to make an incredible boom, or it’s going to be a total dud. Don’t stand around and wait to see if it explodes, keep reading and I’ll give you the total scoop.
The thing that makes Soul Calibur Legends unique is that it’s not a traditional fighter in the same sense as every other game in the franchise. Instead, it’s an RPG/adventure style game with heavy action elements.
The game’s story is based around Siegfried becoming Nightmare (a sequel to Soul Edge, but a prequel to the more popular Soul Calibur). There are seven playable characters, plus some appearances from a few familiar faces woven into the story.
The story was really not as compelling as it could have been given so much potential from the previous games, but the Soul Calibur series was never really about story, it was more about the action elements of the game.
I hated the controls. If you like button mashers like Dynasty Warriors, you’ll probably really dig this game. I don’t. Waiving my Wii-mote and button mashing so redundantly, I felt like I was going to get carpel tunnel. Granted, the controls were pretty crisp. I was slightly worried that they wouldn’t be responsive. Jumping on platforms and navigating some maze-like areas was pretty easy to do. Were the controls a little more dynamic, I would have enjoyed game play a lot more.
One thing immediately that really turned me off was the redundancy of character models. It was like Maximum Carnage, where every enemy in a given room was the exact same character model. I am less forgiving of this idea than I was for Maximum Carnage, because that game came out in 1993, this one came out in 2007 (14 years later!) Any willing suspension of disbelief that I might even be inclined to lend to this title is shot in the head by the fact that you fight an army of cloned game sprites everywhere you go.
The model for game play was also redundant. Enter an area, kill the bad guys, and then enter the new area; rinse then repeat. While this concept works well for games like Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, it just didn’t fit this game so well. Perhaps my expectations set by so many other Soul Calibur games skewed my vision for the way game play should play out, but I suspect any preconceptions that I brought with me were as unbiased as any other person playing this would be.
In an attempt to spice up the very redundant “action” of this title, you are given “puzzles”. The puzzles steal some of the most basic RPG puzzle ideas from other games, and come off just as lame and redundant as the action sequences that lace the whole product together.
The story felt forced. Some injections of characters into the story were so forced that I felt like I needed a spoon full of sugar to help ease it down. I appreciated seeing the characters that I love from other Soul Calibur games, but not at the expense of this game. I’d rather see some new characters that advance the plot and make sense than see some poorly done cameos.
Presentation isn’t horrible. The anime splash screens that are used to advance the story work well for the series. When the game first started, I was actually expecting a fairly fun experience. Had I agreed more with the story and action elements, this would have laced things together quite nicely.
The addition of a multiplayer mode for game play was also nice. Titles like this are often limited by the fact that only one person can play them at a time. Growing up, I had a twin brother, and I can tell you that any game which will allow kids to play together gets bonus points for any gamer who has to share a console (or for any parent trying to maintain the peace!)
Overall, this title just missed its mark. The story left a lot to be desired, the game play was redundant and lacked dimension. Graphically I felt like this title should have come out for an older generation system, the constant recycling of sprites was insulting. To me this title felt like a child wearing his father’s military uniform, he may have the name and wear the clothes but he isn’t the same soldier.