Pros: Art direction and cohesive sense of style, uber-precise controls, fun skater customization, chill soundtrack, colors that explode off the screen (especially on the Switch OLED), easy to pick up but tough to master.

Cons: Lots of load screens, slowdown on Switch during many of the later complex stages.

Overall: 4 stars on the Switch, easily 4.5 stars on every other system. That being said, playing this in handheld mode is still a total delight in spite of the technical hiccups. The small analogue sticks make it easier to pull off insane combos. It's one of those games that's easy to pick up and enjoy, but features an extremely high skill ceiling for those willing to put in the time. The extreme challenge might be off-putting for some, but for me I'm good at quitting once I know I've reached my natural limit. Putting in some headphones and just vibing to this game on a sleepy afternoon has been one the highlights of 2023 so far.

If asked with a gun to my head what my favorite genre of video game is, I would probably say JRPG. Despite that, it's also probably the genre I like to complain about the most, because these are the games with the greatest chance of falling flat on their face, buckling under the weight of their own ambition, audience expectation, oftentimes both. But when they knock it out of the park-- when all the pieces land just right-- my GAWD there's nothing else like it in the medium.

This game has the power to change lives.

I'd played fighting games in the 90s on Super Nintendo and in arcades, and while I enjoyed many of them, I never cared enough to devote the required time and effort to develop a mastery. That all changed when I played Soul Calibur at a kiosk in Circuit City and my goddamn brain melted. I immediately sold my N64 and all my games to a close friend, which got me a little over 50% of the required funds to get a Dreamcast (with Soul Calibur and a VMU obviously). The rest of the funds were sourced from a loan with quite unreasonable terms and condition from my brother. I didn't care. Booting this thing up at home was one of the formative experiences of my childhood. It didn't take long before I'd mastered every fighter in the game to the point where I had a hard time convincing anyone to play against me. I had a carrying case with my DC and I'd bring it with me to every friend's house on the off chance that someone would be up to the challenge. No one ever was. I was the SoulCalibur king of that one particular Colorado neighborhood during a glorious run at the turn of the century.

You can't fucking review this game (or any game) in a vacuum. Games don't work that way. 5/5.

I couldn't beat this game without the strategy guide because I was like 11, and some of the game's puzzles would be overly esoteric for me even today. But still, my willingness to parse a confusing unofficial (non-Prima) strategy guide to unpack this confounding and achingly beautiful world simply made this masterpiece accessible to me, and thus changed my world forever. Thanks to that strategy guide I played through this game five or six times, each time in a single unbroken sitting. Oftentimes on my dad's laptop in the back seat of the car on long road trips. It was, in 1997, the most effective escape into a strange world that I knew of. One that didn't require me to be good at anything other than reading the instructions.