‘SoulCalibur’ Review - A Solid Port of a Classic, If You Don’t Mind Playing Solo
Back in the arcade fighting game heyday of the ‘90s, 2D heavyweights like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat had to contend with a new brand of brawler on the block: the 3D fighter. Games like Virtua Fighter and Tekken forewent 2D sprites and single-plane gameplay in favor of 3D polygonal character models and a full range of movement within the combat arenas. Happily, it turned out that there was room for both kinds of fighters to coexist, with gamers enjoying 2D and 3D fighting games in harmony. One of the most popular 3D fighting franchises to come out of this era was Namco’s Soul Edge , and more prominently its sequel SoulCalibur , both of which were noteworthy for their focus on weapon-based combat. SoulCalibur hit arcades in 1998, and was then ported to the Sega Dreamcast to launch alongside that system in 1999. The Dreamcast version was remarkable, featuring even better graphics than the arcade version and a wealth of additional modes and characters. In 2008 SoulCalibur was again resurrected for Xbox Live Arcade, boasting a high definition makeover but lacking any sort of online play. And now in 2012, almost a decade and a half after the original arcade release, SoulCalibur [ $11.99 ] is now available in the palm of our hands on iOS devices. The iOS version appears to be based off of the most recent XBLA version, utilizing those excellent high definition visuals for Retina Display and iPad screens. The framerate and animation is also incredibly smooth, another hallmark of SoulCalibur , and everything looks bright and crisp running on iOS. For those that didn’t already know, you would never guess that this was actually an almost 14 year old game. However, just because it looks pretty doesn’t mean the iOS version doesn’t have its share of drawbacks. Most glaring is the lack of any sort of multiplayer mode, an integral component of any good fighting game. I can’t for the life of me figure out why Namco Bandai would omit such a feature, but the iTunes description does state that additional modes are planned so I’m still holding out hope for multiplayer sometime in the future. For now though, it’s sorely missed
