Soul Calibur III Talkback

[Artimus Gigan]

Yeah in a few days this game shall be released. I'm looking forward to the new quest feature that allows you to create your own character and then take a party of warriors with you in the name of world conquest. Supposedly the mode has some RTS features added in...and you can even choose a voice for your character. But I want to see how far and deep the CC feature is, because I dream of re-inacting Duty Heaven Road. And to do that you need a muscular body type.

I was going to get SoC since I enjoyed Ico, but many are saying that this could be one of the most innovative fighters yet...so I'm holding onto my cash until some reviews come in.

[Mog]

A friend of mine has been waiting for this for a while, so I'll probably play it when he buys it. I would buy my own copy, but I'm gonna take a break from spending my money since I bought a DS, Advance Wars, and JumpSS this week.

[Sketch]

I wonder when I'll play this... I don't usually rent games for my PS2 as it barely works... Curse Namco for not releasing this on Gamecube!

[TnAdct1]

I definintely have plans to get this game. However, I'm waiting until my birthday to get it.

[Conekiller]

Played a demo, I'm dissappointed that Kira moves ALOT slower than I though she would :sad:

I'mm gonna have a blast with create-a-character, i get lost in that stuff for hours!

[Artimus Gigan]

Played a demo, I'm dissappointed that Kira moves ALOT slower than I though she would :sad:

I'mm gonna have a blast with create-a-character, i get lost in that stuff for hours!I hope you can change the character's weight and skin color

I want to create a big fat yellow guy and name him Pac-man

[TnAdct1]

I hope you can change the character's weight and skin color

I want to create a big fat yellow guy and name him Pac-man Oh man, I would love to see someone create a Soul Calibur version of either Pac-Man or the King of All Cosmos (from Katamari Damacy).

[unknown hero]

I am looking forward to this new soul caliber, if just for the create a character option.

Does anyone know if there are different weapons for each character that can be unlocked like SC2?

[Sigma]

I played the demo and left it very dissapointed. It seems like it's Soul Calibur 2 with a few new characters and the create a chracter option. It's also dissapointing that there is no online play which IMO is a must in fighting games today. Im also not all that happy about it being a PS2 exclusive either. I own a PS2, but I would much rather play a fighting game on my Xbox. I will rent Soul Calibur III and give it another shot, but im not expecting much.

[Zero Kagayaki]

im gettin it on the 1st day because i pre-order it

[Strider-Man]

Im getting it when the game comes out.Hopefully,it will be better.

[Mynd Hed]

Is anyone else getting mixed messages from merchants (say that three times fast!) on when SC3 is coming out? A week ago, everyone in my area was saying the 25th, which is today. Yesterday, Best Buy was saying today and everyone else was saying tomorrow (the 26th). Today, Best Buy is saying the 27th, Target is saying a week from tomorrow, and everyone else is still saying tomorrow.

Back when SC2 came out, everyone in my area had it at the same time except for Hastings, which never gets video games on time anyway. Movies in theatres and on DVD dependably come out on time, and when a new album comes out, any half-decent record store will stay open until midnight the night before so you can get it nine or ten hours quicker. Why has it suddenly become so hard to maintain standard release dates? Or am I just being picky?

[Kametsou]

im gettin it on the 1st day because i pre-order it
Oh, you should've waited until you heard reviews.

[Artimus Gigan]

Well the game is still the high quality fighter like the previous incarnations. The system is a bit more balanced ouyt than 2, and the ammount of unlockable characters stretches from all the intallments in the series. However my one gripe would be with the Character Creation feature. While you can choose male/female, screw with the colors, change facial features, and wear a ton of clothes(even the clothes of the main characters), the body size and shape are pre-set templates. So you really can't fully create your own character to the extent of some other games(like Everquest 2). Also the types of moves your character can do are just copies of the exisiting characters. But the customization is still pretty good, you could make a Bizzarro version of the exisiting characters.

But it still crushed my dream of a Hardcore Mean-Ass looking yellow skinned fat guy named Pac-Man. But in some extent shards of a twisted dream can still live, supposedly there are clothing items that could be used to make Duty Heaven Road Nintendo Characters....

[UberMonkey]

Oh, you should've waited until you heard reviews. Uhm, what reviews have you been reading? Metacritic says it has a positive 87% rating based on average scores from various sources.

Besides, it's not impossible to like a game more than a reviewer - especially if you're a hardcore fan. It's healthy to have your own opinions than to just take other people's word for it all the time.

[krazymed]

Shipping has a lot to do with release date problems. The other, sadly, is that many games are rushed from going gold (means that the game functions well enough to release to the public) to manufacture only a week or two from the release dates handed down from the publisher/distributor.

[Invader_Spooch]

Just picked it up a moment ago. Any worries as to wether or not it is worth it, out the window. Awesome.

Quick question: Is there anywhere that has a list of the American VAs? Sigfried seems to be voiced by either Crispin Freeman or Marc Diraison (Guts from Berserk, "Zollo" from One Piece), but I can't tell for sure. :sweat:

[Duke]

Quick question: Is there anywhere that has a list of the American VAs? Sigfried seems to be voiced by either Crispin Freeman or Marc Diraison (Guts from Berserk, "Zollo" from One Piece), but I can't tell for sure. :sweat:
In SCII, there was an option to list the VAs in each character's profile. Dunno if it's in SCIII though.

Considering that Wendee Lee is Xianghua, I'd expect that it would be Freeman in III.

[Keiichi]

They say 3rd times the charm and that certainly applys to SC III. I'm alot more impressed with it that than I was with SC II. To me the Graphics seem way better than SC II (esp the Background Stages) also theres tons of stuff to unlock ala SC. What I really like most of all A brand new final boss

[Nin-Nin69]

The stages, graphics, and overall look is incredible. Yet I'm finding it more tedious playing through the game.

Such as the QTE mode during the cut scenes which almost never get pulled off when I press them. It would also help if the comand was shown dead center on the screen instead of being tucked away in the corner.

Also Nightmare, Lizard Man, and Kilik I've noticed have become extremely cheap to play against the CPU. Nightmare is even harder than ever thanks to that DBZ charge up move they gave him. All you have to do is knock down a guy close to the edge, then do that to knock them off before they can get up. It can't be blocked for some reason when you get up and I found that to be extremly unfair.

So far I'm not very intrested in the create a character mode, but I'm guessing I'll find more stuff as time goes on.

[Keiichi]

Such as the QTE mode during the cut scenes which almost never get pulled off when I press them. It would also help if the comand was shown dead center on the screen instead of being tucked away in the corner.

Yeah this is the one thing I HATE about SC III. You don't see it coming at all and its annoying when your paying attention to the cut scean going on and not that little action command in the corner.

[unknown hero]

This game rocks. The graphics are simply breathtaking, with beautifully rendered backgrounds and amazing details. I am very surprised exactly how much you need to unlock, from the weapons to costume items. It will keep me busy for a long while.

[Mynd Hed]

Random thoughts:

The graphics are incredibly shiny; the character models (in the non-created characters, anyway) are just as detailed as SCII, while the attack effects and backgrounds are a marked improvement. On the other hand, the frame rate and loading times are even more problematic than in the PS2 version of SCII, proving once again why the PS2 was a poor choice if Namco felt like they HAD to go the exclusivity route.

Abyss is cool and all, and his design is wicked sweet, but I prefer Inferno as an end boss. I like the idea of the final boss just being every character in the game + one or two extra special moves + (ideally) really good A.I. A souped-up Zalasamasadingdong with a cool design doesn't quite stack up.

On a related note, did Namco REALLY have to make up yet ANOTHER randomly-uses-ever-weapon-in-the-game character? Ooh, he's just like Edge Master, Charade, and Inferno, but now he's got an OWL HEAD! Lame.

For that matter, where are the playable versions of Edge Master and Inferno? Granted, they're not really necessary when we've got Owl-Head-Man, but this game has everything else, and darn it, I LIKE Edge Master. Guess I'll have to make my own after I've unlocked some more stuff.

Is it just me, or did they totally nerf Ivy? I don't want to judge before I've played her too much, but it seems like they took away a lot of her moves in the interest of making her more newbie-friendly (which we should all know is the exact opposite of how Ivy should be). Other than that, I'm liking the changed made to established characters.

Kudos for further distinguishing the former-clones from one another.

Grrr. Hwang should've been a standard character, and not this bonus pre-made-create-a-character B.S. I'm glad they brought Rock back, though-- he's a personal favorite from way back. Seems like Astaroth got the lion's share of the good moves, but maybe I just don't know how to use Rock to his full advantage quite yet.

The create-a-character mode passes the test: it allows me with a reasonable degree of accuracy to recreate characters from other franchises. Who else has a Barbarian named Cloud and a Pirate named Steve? (-:

I like how most modes will give you some unlockables; there are boatloads of different modes, but none feel extraneous.

...Maybe I just haven't played it for long enough, but it seems like Chronicles mode doesn't really require a whole lot of strategy. Walk to enemy, beat enemy's head in, walk to next enemy, repeat as necessary. Granted, I've only played up through where you fight General Whats-his-name.

Despite the fact that most of the above is complaints, this game friggin' rocks my world. I've been playing it every minute that I haven't been asleep or at work since it came out.

[unknown hero]

I have a complaint about the rewards of completing the "quick play" mode. It doesn't reward alot of money when you complete it. Compared to what is given in the other modes of play, it is disappointing:sad: . Otherwise everything is balanced out.

[Conekiller]

The "inteactivity" in cutscenes is pissing me off. It's tough to tell if I've pulled it off correctly or not. One time, during the ending, it seemed as if it was telling me to mash the G button, which I did, and it seemed to have no affect and I recieved the "poor" ending.

I had way more fun with Character color edit than I should, but I wish it gave you a few more color options, some characters still have fairly dominant colors that you have to work around since you cna't change them (Seung Mi-Na and Tira, i'm looking at you)

Also, some colors don't translate well, you go to the color select mode, select THE EXACT SAME COLOR as somehting else you want to match, but it won't become that color. How hard is it to desire a completely white shirt, but only have the game make it a shade of grey, no matter what!?

[UberMonkey]

The "inteactivity" in cutscenes is pissing me off. It's tough to tell if I've pulled it off correctly or not. One time, during the ending, it seemed as if it was telling me to mash the G button, which I did, and it seemed to have no affect and I recieved the "poor" ending.You can tell if you it works or not by what color it fades out to. If you get it right, it fades out white, if you miss it, it fades out black.

So what kind of create a character fighters have you guys made? I have a Don Quixote that I think is pretty awesome. I'll see if I can get some screenshots.

[Mynd Hed]

Besides Cloud and Steve the Pirate, I've got a Sub-Zero and a Casca (from the Berserk anime and manga). My girlfriend has recreated some of the Saiyuki boys too-- man she's obsessed with that show. (-:

I wanted to make a Zorro, but I can't find a hat that's just right, and that's one part of his costume that kind of has to be exactly perfect.

Oh, and we've got a Kenshin, that one was a no-brainer, especially considering that you can replicate his facial scar almost perfectly.

[Conekiller]

How does one go about unlocking more Facial designs and Hairstyles?

also, how do you decide the body type you want? What if I want less Talim and more..Tira. Or More Zasalamel and less Kilik. Is that decided by the class type?

[Spike Mcdougal]

How does one go about unlocking more Facial designs and Hairstyles?

also, how do you decide the body type you want? What if I want less Talim and more..Tira. Or More Zasalamel and less Kilik. Is that decided by the class type?
Faces are usually unlocked by playing Chronicles of the Sword mode or when you rack up a certain number of combined one player and vs battles. Hairstyles can be bought at the armor shop, ir unlocked when you get a new character class, these can also be bought

If you're asking about the sizes of the bodies the size is the same for both male and female so you cant make someone the size of Astraroth. You can however unlock their movesets however. These are called "Souls of *Insert name here*

[Conekiller]

I have yet to encounter any hairstyles in the armor shop, but I have gotten a few new classes and hairstyles to go with them.

Good news, Mynd Hed, That owl dude is unlockable and his second costume is more Edgemaster-ish.

What's the easiest mission to get lots of money (and which charaacter to use, I've been defaulting to Nightmare due to his cheap attacks)

[Swonker]

What's the easiest mission to get lots of money (and which charaacter to use, I've been defaulting to Nightmare due to his cheap attacks)
Turntable hard mode with Nightmare. Just use the O button until Taki falls out. Repeat until challenge is completed, win 40,000 gold. (With a great score)

[Artimus Gigan]

Apparently there is a way to buy up the entire shop without spending a dime, you need a certain ammount of cash IIRC it sorta works like the BoF1 trick of 99999 gold or somthing

[Gaspard]

I hope you can change the character's weight and skin color

I want to create a big fat yellow guy and name him Pac-man
Well I got this game on the first day.
And you can change the color of skin but no not the weight.

[Dark Fact]

I've played this game at my anime club and me and the rest of the club members discovered an interesting feature in Vs mode. If both players select the random option near the center of the screen, the game will create original pre-rendered fighters using features from the customization system, each with their own unique clothes and skills. Try it out every time in Vs mode. Guaranteed replayability! ;)

It's even more fun in a room full of people! :)

[Conekiller]

I was just going post about that. Ramdomly generated characters almost always = hilarity! Factor in a one-hit kill system and this is fun for hours!

[Gaspard]

Okay I have a question.
How do you unlock costumes for normal characters.

[Keiichi]

*EDIT*

NVM here's anouther one. How do you unlock other job classes.

[Conekiller]

Job classes can be bought int he items shop, in the same submenu as the Soul Arena missions. once you buy some, jsut re enter the busty red-head's shop and buy some more, swordmaster caan use any trades.

How do you get more weapon "souls"?

[Spike Mcdougal]

Job classes can be bought int he items shop, in the same submenu as the Soul Arena missions. once you buy some, jsut re enter the busty red-head's shop and buy some more, swordmaster caan use any trades.

How do you get more weapon "souls"?The quickest and cheapest way to do this is the following

1. Create two characters with the same class
2. Start a VS standard match with those two characters and set the health level to 0. This way the fight will end in one hit.
3. Play the same match and win 50 times then you'll unlock the other two weapons classes and the two weapon souls for that character class. So if you did let's say two monks you'll have Kilik and Maxi's moves

[Conekiller]

Will that work with swordmaster class (and thereby unlocking everthing for all the other classes)? or is there some kind of block in there that forces you to go though all the tediousness?

I'm having the hardest time fighting the Shop Girls, getting there without losing is no biggie, but only having one shot at beatting all three is grating on my nerves. Especially since I've unlocked 2 of them already by match count alone -__-

I beat the "Quick Play" with Valeria (busty redhead with the kicks) already, she's fun to play with.

[Keiichi]

How you unlock Swordmaster? I bought up all the others but the shop does'nt have Samurai and Swordmaster. Yeah the shop girls a real pain esp the item shop girl.

[Swonker]

How you unlock Swordmaster? I bought up all the others but the shop does'nt have Samurai and Swordmaster. Yeah the shop girls a real pain esp the item shop girl.
Play 610 battles overall. There's another way that involves getting every class to level 50 or so in Chronicles of the Sword, but I wouldn't go for it. You'll reach that many battles a lot sooner than you think. ;)

[Conekiller]

Try leaving the shop and comming back in I've heard that new ones appear as soon as you buy previous ones.

If not, that, vs. mode with 0% sounds like a qick way to rack up a high battle count (hell I reached some high stuff jsut by playing normal mode, I must've gotten close to 200 alone between Setsuka, Siegfried Mitsurugi and Abyss)

[Keiichi]

Play 610 battles overall. There's another way that involves getting every class to level 50 or so in Chronicles of the Sword, but I wouldn't go for it. You'll reach that many battles a lot sooner than you think. ;)
Well I'm at the 610 mark I think. According to the Strategy guide (which does'nt really help) I need 610 battles to unlock Soul Caliber for Sophita and I just unlocked it plus Samurai and Knight. Still no Sword master.

[Beat]

I've always have trouble with character design modes. This is off or this hat doesn't work. I guess I'll have to wait till the next-gen consoles to make a pixel-perfect version of the Knights who say Ni...

[Mynd Hed]

Okay I have a question.
How do you unlock costumes for normal characters.

As far as I can tell, there aren't any unlockable costumes, just the two standard ones and the color edits. Which kind of bites-- I'd hoped that they'd make an unlockable third costume standard for all characters this time around instead of only on certain characters like last time. Isn't the whole point of a sequel to expand the options from the previous versions, and not the other way around?

Has anyone here fought Night Terror yet? Gamefaqs has the character paths to get to him, but I can never make it without getting killed.

[Conekiller]

No, but if you beat the game with Nightmare, and get the "good" ending (one where you mash the G button rapidly when commanded) you can see Night Terror. yay.

That blows about the no 3rd costume, Theres a model for old-style lizardman minus the stupid feathers and dome head in the game. I WANT that lizardman!

[Keiichi]

Has anyone here fought Night Terror yet?
*cough* yes now let us never speak of him again...

[NinjaJack]

So I chose the left path for Tira`s ending, I had the subtitles on, so what exactly happend?


EDIT:Sorry, I meant I dudb`t have the subtitles on and it was the Japanese voice track.

[krazymed]

DON'T buy this game. There is fatal bug in the game that will corrupt save data for Chronicles of the Sword. Not only does it corrupt SC3 data, it affects other games on the same card. It just happened to me after I tried to load a saved game, and to many others. Something is wrong with the autosave feature and the end level feature. It isn't dependant of memory card or system, something in the game is broken. Namco so far hasn't said a peep. To be blunt, the game should have never been released with this error (and there's no way a tester or programmer would have missed it with the high frequency), and should be recalled ASAP.

Somehow, I don't think the game on an Xbox, (more memory to save and a faster processor), would have had this problem.

[BigLouMan20]

No bugs for me so far. Thanks for the heads up though.

[Speedy Boris]

Soul Calibur II is better. Not being an RPG/RTS fan, I never played that one mode. Story mode was needlessly harder than it should've been at times, thanks to cheap A.I. (sometimes I was stuck on the same opponent for over half an hour because they blocked EVERYTHING. It was like the mode was set to "Hard" difficulty). No way to skip cinemas that you've seen oodles of times. A lot of characters feel just.... sluggish. Unlockables are much the same as SCII, and not a lot to get excited about. Ditto for many of the missions.

On the plus side, great graphics, music (as always), and overall atmosphere.

[Artimus Gigan]

DON'T buy this game. There is fatal bug in the game that will corrupt save data for Chronicles of the Sword. Not only does it corrupt SC3 data, it affects other games on the same card. It just happened to me after I tried to load a saved game, and to many others. Something is wrong with the autosave feature and the end level feature. It isn't dependant of memory card or system, something in the game is broken. Namco so far hasn't said a peep. To be blunt, the game should have never been released with this error (and there's no way a tester or programmer would have missed it with the high frequency), and should be recalled ASAP.

Somehow, I don't think the game on an Xbox, (more memory to save and a faster processor), would have had this problem.

are you using an offical memory card or a 2nd or 3rd party one?

[Pretentious]

are you using an offical memory card or a 2nd or 3rd party one?Doesn't matter. It's a bug in the game save itself. It tends to happen if you save too much in such a short time (like, say, having autosave on) OR if you delete files off your memory card. And sometimes, it just seems to happen at random. Unfortunately, that means having to erase your entire save and start from scratch if it happens. And Namco either has no clue as to how the bug exists or hasn't been bothered to actually check it. Either way, a bug this major existing in a game this big is ridiculous, and just furthers the fact this game was nothing but a rush job.

[NinjaJack]

Hey I was just playing and now my analog light won`t shut off and I can`t lunge or walk forward:sweat:

[krazymed]

I was using an official PS2 Memory Card. And once I heard about the bug, I turned off autosave, and didn't move any files, and it still happened. I wouldn't have believed the scare myself, until it actually happened. It's fairly silly that I now have to buy a different memory card to play the game. I've tested games before, and if something like this happened in the testing phase, the publisher would have never allowed the game to be released. I don't what Namco is thinking (since I know they are fairly gung-ho about making games that work), but I know Sony was banking huge money on the "exclusive" deal, so maybe they let it go in haste. Games get delayed all of the time for things like, the important thing is that these issues get FIXED.

There's a reason that a bunch of SC3 games are sitting on store shelves. Besides the fact that fighting games are a niche market anyway, or that now there is a corrupt save bug that actually kills game progress. This has backfired in the worst way for Sony.

[Artimus Gigan]

I was using an official PS2 Memory Card. And once I heard about the bug, I turned off autosave, and didn't move any files, and it still happened. I wouldn't have believed the scare myself, until it actually happened. It's fairly silly that I now have to buy a different memory card to play the game. I've tested games before, and if something like this happened in the testing phase, the publisher would have never allowed the game to be released. I don't what Namco is thinking (since I know they are fairly gung-ho about making games that work), but I know Sony was banking huge money on the "exclusive" deal, so maybe they let it go in haste. Games get delayed all of the time for things like, the important thing is that these issues get FIXED.

There's a reason that a bunch of SC3 games are sitting on store shelves. Besides the fact that fighting games are a niche market anyway, or that now there is a corrupt save bug that actually kills game progress. This has backfired in the worst way for Sony.
You do realise that Namco plans to have SC3 go to the X-Box 360, right? It's been confirmed for awhile now.

[Speedy Boris]

What if you just delete the Soul Calibur III save block entirely, and don't touch anything else? Does the corruption thing still happen, even if the file is no longer on the memory card?

[Artimus Gigan]

What if you just delete the Soul Calibur III save block entirely, and don't touch anything else? Does the corruption thing still happen, even if the file is no longer on the memory card?I don't think that's even plausable if it's deleted, deleted saves don't return to cause havock

[Speedy Boris]

I don't think that's even plausable if it's deleted, deleted saves don't return to cause havock Well I was more thinking about the possibility that a faulty SCIII save block could "infect" other game's blocks, so that even if you were to delete the SCIII save, the other games would still be infected and/or corrupted. Any chance of that?

[Artimus Gigan]

Well I was more thinking about the possibility that a faulty SCIII save block could "infect" other game's blocks, so that even if you were to delete the SCIII save, the other games would still be infected and/or corrupted. Any chance of that?Under the rare occurance that I've encountered infected saves, it just seems to give the data of that specific game a problem and leaves the other blocks alone.

I mean I had an infected data block on Final Fantasy 5 because the power cut out while it was saving. the file was corrupted and could not be salvaged, but the other save files were fine and still worked even when I transfered them to a new card.

The only thing that could possibly wreck an entire PS2 memorycard would be a powersurge while the system is on and plugged in and the system itself goes out. Either that or the memory card was a lemon to begin with, or one of those "multi-card switch" memory cards which just don't work right ever. It's very rare to have your entire card wiped clean, it hardly ever happens. I mean even game enchancers like Gameshark and such, when something goes wrong using them it's just on the Data block for the game you were just playing. The PS2 card uses flash memory as a way of saving, so it's not exactly like a CPU harddrive which runs differently and reacts differently in situations.

[krazymed]

The thing that irks me about this is that the fix is not all that hard to figure out. Have 2 save files, one for settings that would have all of the unlockables, and the other solely for CotS progress. Other games have done this (Virtua Fighter 4, Marvel Nemesis). The corrupt save comes from allocating too much memory to loading both parts at the same time, especially after a soft reset (Start and Select). Speaking of the soft reset, it is possible to do that while the game is loading data, which is another problem.

And who reported that SC3 was going to be on Xbox 360? As far as I knew that was just a rumor.