History

The Soul Calibur series debuted the arcades in 1995 with it's first installment, aptly titled Soul Edge. As the first ever weapon-based polygon fighter, the game had a fairly huge success and though the fighting engine wasn't much at that time, it's a start for what was to become one of the most innovative fighting game series ever.

The series was reinvented and re-titled Soul Calibur when it was released for Sega Dreamcast in 1999. It was arguably the first game to introduce the Eight-Way Run, whereas previous 3D fighters had limited the movement along the 3rd axis. The game play was also improved with "forgiving buffering". Usually, a player has to execute the input for one move before the character can finish recovering from the previous move, which calls for expert timing. Soul Calibur has a relatively lenient buffering requirements that allow players to focus on strategizing and less on controls. Aside from all that, the game is also considered to have the most realistic application of physics and the smoothes fighting engine to date (which only gets better with each installment).

The surrounding story of the game is set in the 16th century when warriors from around the world pursue an evil, soul-draining sword called Soul Edge, which was said to be the weapon with the powers to render it's wielder unbeatable in battle. Half of the sword was destroyed and it's shards was spread across the world while the remaining half finds itself in the hands of a young German knight named Siegfried. When Soul Edge took over his mind, Siegfried becomes the demonic being known as Nightmare, who terrorizes Europe for three years and slaughtered countless innocents.

Generally, Soul Calibur is a game for every fighting game fan who look for the game that has it all. By that I mean an unmatched fighting engine, realism, variety, stunning visuals and soundtrack etc. you name, SC has it. It's pretty safe to say that this is the game that appeals to every gamer, whether it's in your top 10 favourite fighting games or even if fighting games is not your number one genre, you'll get a kick out of SC.....Unless you suck at it and you're a sore loser.