• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

SoulCalibur - Sega Dreamcast Review

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman


In 1999, Namco released one of the most impressive arcade ports yet seen in gaming. It just so happened to be on Dreamcast.

Episode Notes:

1. Soul Edge(PS1) and SoulCalibur(DC) captured on real hardware.

2. Arcade SoulCalibur captured from MAME.

3. There have now been 6 mainline SoulCalibur games as well as numerous spinoffs.

4. Namco was involved in only 3 more DC games after SoulCalibur.
Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness (2000)
Mr. Driller (2000)
Namco Museum (2000)

5. An Xbox 360 Live Arcade version showed up in 2008, but it's missing some of the features of this version.

6. I had always thought that if SoulCalibur 2 was released on the DC, Joe Musashi from Shinobi would have been Sega's character.

7. Sega advertised and distributed SoulCalibur in Europe.

8. This is one of the better games for the DC visually. I've read that each frame is made up of 30,000 polygons and there are 60fps. All things considered, it really showed the DC had the oomph to do some great next generation visuals.

9. I've seen the arcade SoulCalibur in the wild once in my life. It really was rare in my area.

10. You may notice that all these battles are set to 1 round for the win. I did this so I could capture gameplay for all the fighters. I beat SoulCalibur 17 times for the 2 hours I captured footage.

11. The sound section features two different songs. The first you hear is "The Cursed Image" and the second is "Unblessed Soul".
 

JimmyRustler

Gold Member
Remember we had the arcade in the backroom of the first club I used to go to. Good times. Amazing beat em up too.
 

Fredrik

Member
What a fantastic game! It was the definition of a system seller. It (and the DC) came at the perfect time and literally made everything else look dated. Even long after the more powerful PS2 had been released Soul Calibur on Dreamcast still looked better than everything else. One of my favorite fighting games of all time, played it a ton, as far as I know I 100-percented it, beat the VMU shmup and all, got my brother to buy a DC even though he wasn’t a gamer, and I still have the game and plays it occasionally and it’s still great. 10/10
 

SirTerry-T

Member
Still has something special about it. It's hard to sell the sheer graphical impact this game had when it landed, the texture quality, the character design..( the jiggle)...

"You had to have been there".
 

vanguardian1

poor, homeless and tasteless
Yep, SC1 is (imho) overall best in the series, 3 deserves some kudos for custom character single player campaign, sadly almost everything afterwards is forgettable aside from some of the new characters. I will however exclude 7 from this as I haven't played it yet (forgot to buy dlc on pc when it was on sale, waiting for the chance, will install and play then!
 
Last edited:

SkylineRKR

Member
SC1 has the best aesthetics, but I'd give the nod to SC2 for best game in the franchise. I simply enjoyed SC2 much more in versus play. But in 1999 SC1 was pretty much the most impressive thing I had ever seen.
 

NeoIkaruGAF

Gold Member
My God, what a game. I bought a used Dreamcast in 2002 with Soul Calibur. The game took control of my life for a few days, it was incredible. Texture quality on the Dreamcast was something else, I still remember how SC’s floors looked on a CRT. The game had so much content, and played like a dream. And those attract modes for each character were beyond incredible. SC2 was even better, yes, but the impact of the first game is unforgettable.
 

FeldMonster

Member
Soul Calibur is one of the primary reasons I bought a Dreamcast, and one of the reasons that I am considering the Dreamcast HDMI mod. Such a shame that the Xbox 360 version is missing the single player content.
 

DGrayson

Mod Team and Bat Team
Staff Member
Bought it near launch with Soul Calibur. Hours of entertainment with friends on that one game alone.

SCII surpassed it but SC1 was great.
 
Last edited:

Northeastmonk

Gold Member
Such an iconic cover to the game. I had mine pre-ordered at Babbages at the mall. The Aladdin’s Castle made Tekken Tag Tournament its cabinet up front, but you could always go to the back and play Soul Edge/Soul Calibur. It felt like you were at the arcade. It was a pretty good launch for the Dreamcast. Outside of a couple titles, the console had a hard time hitting that same high note. This was when Final Fantasy VIII first came out. I was playing a couple matches of Soul Calibur and then jumping onto my PS1 to play VIII.


9-DA642-DE-0-A98-47-C0-9080-2381454611-A4.png
 
One of the best games ever made. SC 2 is to this day, the best fighting game ever made. We played this for hours every single day with huge groups of friends.

We were literally going to the arcade to play this, and then combined all our money to buy a Dreamcast near launch with SC, Ready 2 Rumble, and Sonic Adventure. That was the day arcades finally died for us, and a superior version was at home with unlimited playtime. We had friends we only knew from the arcades coming over regularly for tournaments. One of the best periods for gaming in my life.
 

Caio

Member


I loved it on my SegaDreamcast, it still looks sexy :D what an incredible showcase of the DreamCast hardware, I miss Namco of the old days. Games like Tekken1,2,3, Ridge Racer, Soulcalibur will remain in my heart for ever.
 

Life

Member
I can't belive this franchise STILL has ringouts. I mean c'mon, it's not Sumo wrestling where the only special move is PUSH.
 
Soul calibur for dreamcast has the most silky smooth 60fps motion captured movement of any soul calibur game to date. This was done with only 16MB of MAIN RAM and 8MB of VRAM. It also has a great sound track.

 
I can't belive this franchise STILL has ringouts. I mean c'mon, it's not Sumo wrestling where the only special move is PUSH.
It's because it's the only fighting game that actually emphasizes fluid 3D movement. Be aware of your surroundings and use movement and positioning to gain an advantage, instead of fighting on a flat 2D plane with a few limited quicksteps.
 
Haven't watched the video yet but will later today, thanks for the link (and the thread) OP.

SoulCalibur remains, to me, the most impressive launch title I have witnessed in my life. And how amazing of a game it is, with only about 10 unique characters (remember, it seems that the unlockable characters in the top row are largely clone (or clone-like) versions of the starting (bottom row) cast, with the exception of Cervantes of course).

It's my favorite 3D fighting game of all time. Even more than SC2, which actually plays better.
 
Last edited:

Life

Member
It's because it's the only fighting game that actually emphasizes fluid 3D movement. Be aware of your surroundings and use movement and positioning to gain an advantage, instead of fighting on a flat 2D plane with a few limited quicksteps.
Movement doesn't matter when you get combod into ringouts. Game would be much less random without them. If you're close to the edge and you block enough times, maybe it should lead to guard crush or a similar mechanic. Losing the round completely is just not fun.
 
The Dreamcast was the First console I went out and bought on day one on my own without my brothers. After playing PS1 and N64 for so many years, playing Soul Calibur was like being teleported years into the future. Easily the biggest single leap in visuals I've experienced. Later when I got my PS2 I felt in some ways some things looked a bit worse.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Never had DC, but I played it. Phenomenal game. although it looked dumb when someone fell off the raft. Couldn't believe how good the graphics were. NFL2k was great too, except it had a shit running game.
 
Last edited:

Naked Lunch

Member
I normally really like the creator of this video (Sega Lord X) - but he really didnt hit home just how far advanced Soul Calibur 1 was in comparison to everything else in gaming at that point of time. It was clearly a generation ahead of anything. A true killer app system seller. It made the Dreamcast a must buy and was worth it for SC alone.

Even today the game is stunning to look at and play. Its still the best in the series.
 
Last edited:
Can't agree with Mr SEGA Lord X. Not only was VF3TB a totally brilliant and near-perfect port, he needed to remember AM#2 were up to their eyeballs with not only various Arcade games but trying to complete Shenmue.
I can understand why it was given out to Genki, more so as the group was almost all former AM#2 staff at the time
 
Movement doesn't matter when you get combod into ringouts. Game would be much less random without them. If you're close to the edge and you block enough times, maybe it should lead to guard crush or a similar mechanic. Losing the round completely is just not fun.
Agree to disagree I guess. It was influenced by Virtua Fighter, which also had ringouts. I always liked it.

They added guard crush in future games by the way. Turtling was a little abused in SC1 and 2.
 

Jaxcellent

Member
Sega Lord X is an awesome guy, i have watched all vids, SC on DC was amazing, i remember waiting for the PAL release a few months after launch, but the version we got was glorious inc 60hz option. Good times.
 
Top Bottom