Soulcalibur
There are a total of seven main installments and various media spin-offs, including music albums and a series of manga books in the Soulcalibur series. The first game in the series, Soul Edge (or Soul Blade outside Japan), was released as an arcade game in 1995 and was later ported to consoles. The widespread success of its second main installment, Soulcalibur, in
1998 led to Soulcalibur becoming the name of the franchise, with all subsequent installments also using the name onwards. More recent games in the series have been released for consoles only and have evolved to include online playing modes.
The central motif of the series, set in a historical fantasy version of the late 16th and early 17th centuries, revolves around mythical swords: the evil weapon called “Soul Edge” and the subsequent sword used to oppose this evil, “Soul Calibur” (parsed as two words, while the series’ title is written as a single word). While the series has evolved over its various iterations, some characters and gameplay elements have remained consistent throughout.
Project Soul was the internal Namco development group responsible for the Soulcalibur franchise after the release of Soulcalibur II. Although the games are usually credited to Namco itself, the team established its name to highlight the group’s combined accomplishments. The group was dissolved following the completion of Soulcalibur V. Development for the series has been dormant after support for Soulcalibur VI ended and its producer, Motohiro Okubo, departed Bandai Namco.
Games
All games in the series before Soulcalibur III were originally released as arcade games, and subsequently ported to home consoles. The ported versions are known for their extra features, including characters, weapons, costumes, art galleries, martial arts demonstrations and involved single-player modes, when compared to the original arcade versions. For example, Seung Han Myong (Romanized in later games as Seong Han-myeong)
is not featured in the arcade version of Soul Edge and in home versions there is a role-playing-type mode titled “Edge Master” where the player can unlock various items including weapons for the default characters.
Main series
The first installment, titled Soul Edge, was released for arcade, and was later updated to Soul Edge Ver. II. This enhanced version was then ported to the PlayStation, where it was renamed Soul Blade outside Japan. Set in the late sixteenth century, the game follows nine warriors in a quest, each of whom has their own reasons for joining the quest but they all share a common goal: to obtain the legendary sword, called ‘Soul Edge’. After appearing in arcade, the game was made available for PlayStation in 1996. Along with its soundtrack, it has been
The series has been praised for being innovative yet traditional to the fighting game genre. With Versus (one-on-one battle mode), Survival (taking on a gauntlet of opponents until the player can no longer continue), Time Attack, Team Battle (where a selection of combatants takes on an opposing group, with a victor announced when the last remaining member of a team is defeated), and Training modes, the console port also introduced Edge Master. In Edge Master, a single-player mode, the player guides one of the ten main characters in a story-like manner while obtaining a variety of weapons for use.
Gameplay
All the games in the Soulcalibur series retain some specific features while others features vary from game to game. The basic button layout for the series launches two weapon attacks (horizontally and vertically aligned strikes), a kick button, and a guard button for blocking. Two features that have been kept in the series since its inception are the Guard Impact defense system and the Ring Out condition of victory.
In the first game (Soul Edge/Blade), the Guard Impact system is a repelling technique that allows the player to check an incoming strike and push it back to allow a free hit. A Guard Impact requires precise timing (with the player pressing forward and guarding at the instant an opponent strikes) but it results in tactical advantage for the defender. The opposing player is able to counter a Guard Impact with their own and this can result in a stalemate until one of the players misjudges the timing on a subsequent Guard Impact.
As the series progressed, the Guard Impact system was developed further. In Soulcalibur, Namco introduced new Guard Impact techniques: Parry and Weapon Strip, while the original repelling technique was renamed Repelling. These different Guard Impact types have been kept in subsequent installments of the game. In the fifth game, Guard Impacts were slightly altered by giving the Parry maneuver the new property of slamming opponents to the ground rather than just easing their weapon off course. Repels still work in the same way as they have in previous Soulcalibur series games.
Ring Outs occur when one of the fighters is forcibly removed from the game’s arena (or ring), instantly ending the round and resulting in a round point for their opponent. The idea of Ring Outs in 3D fighting games was originally conceived by the Virtua Fighter series of fighting games and adopted by Namco for Soul Edge. A combatant cannot be knocked out of the ring without being eliminated by some effort from themselves or by their
opponent. Later games introduced new ring designs that modified the way Ring Outs were handled (Soulcalibur allowed rings to take different shapes instead of a basic square, Soulcalibur II introduced stages with walls that blocked off parts of the ring and made Ring Outs possible only in certain parts of the stage or removing that condition altogether, and Soulcalibur III introduced low walls that can be destroyed to create a Ring Out opportunity).
Soulcalibur V introduced a new aspect of Ring Outs; if a Ring Out is declared on certain stages, the battle will continue in a new location that is below the point where the Ring Out occurred. V also includes infinite stages (the stages have no edges of any kind, allowing the battle to continue in any direction with no limit) for the first time in the history of the series.
Soul Edge is unique in the series as it is the only game to feature the Weapon Meter; a sword-shaped meter under the characters’ vitality bars that determined how much damage a weapon could sustain. As a character blocked attacks; the meter would deplete until it emptied which resulted in a weapon breaking (the player would also have to pay half the Weapon Meter to perform a
Critical Edge combo). Once the character’s weapon was broken, they were forced to fight bare-handed until the end of the round. The Weapon Meter was designed to promote consistent offense and deter constant defense (other fighters have adopted similar means to deter over-defending; Street Fighter Alpha 3‘s Guard Meter is an example of such a device).
The Weapon Meter was abandoned following Soul Edge and instead replaced with Soulcalibur‘s trademark 8-Way Run system. The 8-Way Run allowed players to walk in any direction at any time instead of using a specific command to sidestep. This kept the fights truly three-dimensional and made it easier to maneuver around attacks or away from ring edges (as well as launch specific 8-Way Run attacks). Each of the sequels to Soulcalibur has used the 8-Way Run movement system.
In Soulcalibur IV, Namco introduced a new variation of the Critical Edge combo, called the Critical Finish. Rather than being a combo, a Critical Finish is more of a finishing move which involves an elaborate move that defeats opponents in a single attack. This new attack is tied to the Soul Gauge that works similarly to the Guard Break meter in Street Fighter Alpha 3 (the meter decreases whenever the player blocks an attack and is replenished by landing attacks on the opponent, it also refills slowly over time).
Also tied to the Soul Gauge is the concept of destructible character armor (akin to Fighting Vipers) that can be smashed off characters to weaken their resistance to attacks. The Critical Finish itself replaces the Soul Charge from the other three Soulcalibur games (a supercharge-like move that can give a character counter properties for the duration of its charge).
Characters
The Soulcalibur series features a wide variety of characters hailing from various countries, backgrounds, and disciplines. Most characters typically have their own reasons in partaking their journey, although they frequently meet and interact with each other and most also share a common goal; finding either the cursed sword Soul Edge or its holy counterpart, Soul Calibur.
As the game is set in the late 16th century, many real-life events during that period often influence the story, one example being Oda Nobunaga as the initiator for Yoshimitsu’s journey to find Soul Edge.
Out of all the characters in the series, four have appeared in all nine games so far: Cervantes, Mitsurugi, Siegfried, and Nightmare, the latter two making one appearance each as an alternate costume for the other. Four characters—Astaroth, Ivy, Sophitia, and Taki—have appeared in eight games. Other characters who do not appear often make cameos or are referenced in-game. While the character lineup is continuously revised in each game, it generally remains consistent until Soulcalibur V, which features a major time skip and significant changes to the roster, with former mainstays replaced by their younger successors.