Here I am, having finished up the whole of Mission Mode, looking at the gold title screen you unlock for doing so, satisfied. This was the game, in my opinion, that ended the arcade as a viable business option in North America. For possibly the first time, a console game surpassed the arcade counterpart in terms of graphics, sound, and gameplay. I can't stress enough how amazing this game looked in 1999. It still looks pretty good now.

Soulcalibur combines an interesting story for a fighting game, fun combo game, a decent meta, and lots of cool and interesting modes and unlockables. About the only thing I haven't tried yet is playing multiplayer with more people than just friends or family. Thankfully, this is one game that can be played on Fightcade, so I will definitely be checking it out. This is my favorite fighting game franchise ever, and given how much I liked its sequels, it is amazing just how much this one got right. Play it any way you can, but I do recommend the Dreamcast version for the Mission Mode and the unlockables.

The legend will never die.

Game still holds up today and has some surprisingly really fun singleplayer content. Mission Mode is pretty cool altho not as interesting as it was in Soul Edge/Soul Blade, but the challenges are at least a lot less annoying than the "execute all critical arts" missions from Soul Edge. Arcade mode runs are also generally short and take around 5-mins ish for each character so do give each one a go. This game has probably made me wanna get super into the whole series and it's shaping up to possibly be my future fav FG series. Definitely give it a go.

Uma nota bem pessoal pois, não tenho paciencia para me aprimorar nos jogos de luta, liberar tudo etc, acredito que se jogasse mais, ou se tivesse o game na epoca seria uma nota melhor, peguei para jogar pois nunca tinha jogado nada do dreamcast, terminei a história com um personagem e devo dizer, uou, esse game envelheceu muito bem, é maravilhoso, imagino como foi em 1998 ver esse jogo rodando num console caseiro, a gameplay tmb é divertida, um bom jogo de luta, diria quem um dos melhores 3d pré anos 2000, talvez o ponto negativo fica para os personagens, visto que não achei tão carismaticos e a historia tmb não é grande coisas ( e tudo bem, é um jogo de luta). Recomendo muito para quem curte o genero ou queira jogar um bom jogo de luta.

Definitivamente passaria mais tempo nesse aqui. Eu que tinha pulado a cutscene inicial, tomei um susto ao começar a gameplay, já que é basicamente um Tekken de espadas feito pela Namco. O que é excelente!

Sério, esse jogo NÃO envelheceu, a jogabilidade é impressionante até hoje. Combos fluidos, personagens legais, cenários interessantes.... Um jogo que talvez eu volte no futuro para me aprofundar um pouco mais e liberar tudo que tiver. Os combos se encaixam até para quem é iniciante, transformando o modo arcade em algo divertido até numa blind run.

Sempre ouvi falar sobre SoulCalibur e não tinha dado a mínima, mas agora com essa iniciação, com certeza ficarei de olho nesse Tekkenzão das espadas malucas.

A friend of mine recently threw a party where we had the Dreamcast on in the living room. Most people politely tolerated the console's presence; they would come in, watch 5 minutes of a game, ask how old it was, and then leave.

But as soon as we switched to SoulCalibur, something changed. Everyone's passing curiosity turned into WWE arena levels of emotional investment. We passed the controllers around to would-be champions. We yelled. We cried. Complete strangers complimented my Lizardman's blocking ability. It was beautiful.

While I'd annoyingly argue that SoulCalibur II is the peak of the series, SoulCalibur (1?) remains one of the most transportive games on the Dreamcast. Sega's pitch of having the arcade at home feels fully crystalized when choosing your champion over the iconic orchestral character select theme.

While it's hard to remember the days when 3D fighters were being pitched as the next big thing, when you're playing SoulCalibur, that nostalgic excitement for a prospective future remains.

Take any of my ratings of non-Smash fighting games with a grain of salt, as they're usually based off a single run or two through the arcade ladder and general surface impressions.

Even with that in mind, I think I need to spend more time with this to say for sure where I'm at. I'm used to grinding out arcade ladders for the better part of an hour, if not more. This I beat in under 8 minutes, across 3 credits. Hell, I beat Inferno on my first try. I have no idea if I legitimately got good at the video game after grinding out Soul Blade, or if Sophitia improved THAT much between games, or if the arcade ladder was dumbed down that much, or what - but it was weird.

Alright, a major contributing factor is definitely the game speed. Holy crap, is there a huge night-and-day difference between Soul Blade and this. This is the cadence I remember from my encounters with SoulCaliburs 2 and 3. I actually have to wonder if the big reason this was such a hit was because of how fast it was - this gameplay feels conducive for button-mashing, which would be VERY newbie-friendly compared to a lot of the headliner fighting games to this point.

My score is a reflection of mixed thoughts. Because I blitzed through the arcade ladder, the game didn't have much time to leave an impression on me. It felt good to play well, but it also felt disappointing that there wasn't more the game had to offer. But I'm never really experiencing the soul (heh) of these fighting games just by charging through the arcade ladder, so... hard to say. I'm willing to take on faith that the game is good, so I'll lean in favor of a more positive score rather than right down the middle.

Man, I genuinely don't think this game will ever stop being fun! I've had this game on dreamcast ever since I remember. It's honestly is amongst the first games I ever played and if I wasn't lucky enough we also had the arcade machine at the theater only 3 blocks away!!! Gameplay is still every bit as kinetic and intuitive as ever. I love how cheesy the whole package is and as far as I'm concerned it still looks great even to this day. I'm completely biased here, the rose tinted glasses are THICK when it comes to this game but I don't care, it's SoulCalibur! As far as I'm concerned everyone should play this game at least once in their life!