Soul Calibur III to be PS2 exclusive..

DantesInferno · Post by **DantesInferno** » Thu Mar 24, 2005 8:49 pm

Head over to www.ign.com and check it out..

Soul Calibur III is apparently a PS2 exclusive, and on the one hand, I am EXCITED..it's a new Soul Calibur, on the downside..The XBOX and GC versions kicked some serious tail...I also think that maybe this one should have waited for next-gen systems..nonetheless..It's looking gooood.

alpha5099 · Post by **alpha5099** » Thu Mar 24, 2005 9:31 pm

But unlike previous installments, the game will only be available for the PlayStation 2 when it arrives later this year. It will mark the first time the series has been exclusive to a single console since the first Soul Calibur was released for the Sega Dreamcast in 1999.

What a weird way to phrase it. There've been two previous games (and Soul Blade). One was exclusive. The other was cross-platform. And yet GameSpot makes it almost sound like Namco's move is a change of pace.

icepick · Post by **icepick** » Thu Mar 24, 2005 9:46 pm

alpha5099 wrote:What a weird way to phrase it.

Ha ha; I hadn't noticed that!

"This is the first time in the history of mankind that Namco has made a Soul Calibur title platform-exclusive, after making one that was cross-platform and one that was platform-exclusive! Groundbreaking!"

Start the presses!

The n00b · Post by **The n00b** » Thu Mar 24, 2005 10:10 pm

Long load times and jaggarific graphics, here I come! I love the soul calibur series but the gameplay better be damn good if they are going to pull this crap. I'm talking soul calibur 1 level here.

TVG · Post by **TVG** » Thu Mar 24, 2005 10:42 pm

The n00b wrote:Long load times and jaggarific graphics, here I come! I love the soul calibur series but the gameplay better be damn good if they are going to pull this crap. I'm talking soul calibur 1 level here.

hahaha.
i give up.

Nuke · Post by **Nuke** » Fri Mar 25, 2005 12:32 am

Will it be in 2D? 'Caus if not, It'll look worse than it's 1999's cousin....

dementia · Post by **dementia** » Fri Mar 25, 2005 1:27 am

I would have been nice showing everyone on Xbox live how much I suck

joshschw · Post by **joshschw** » Fri Mar 25, 2005 1:31 am

Gamecube version outsold the PS2 version of SCII in sales also.

must have been Sony dollars in this case. Xbox version also only sold a bit less then the PS2 version.

BrianC · Post by **BrianC** » Fri Mar 25, 2005 2:06 am

The game is definatly going to be 3D. Some screens of the new characters have been revealed. They look pretty cool, though that one girl needs to either learn how to dress or how to properly use her weapon. The odd thing about this announcment is that it's only for US release and no mention of any arcade version.

gameoverDude · Post by **gameoverDude** » Fri Mar 25, 2005 4:21 am

I was hoping that SC3 would've been a new System 258 arcade release. Given that Tekken 5 is perfect on PS2, that must mean there's a good deal of power in 258 that Namco has yet to use.

Going all-out on System 258 with SC3 would probably nix the chance of a perfect PS2 port, but the game could then be saved for PS3 and come out with enhanced graphics.

Surely they'll be putting in Progressive Scan? Tekken 5 supports it after all.

kong · Post by **kong** » Fri Mar 25, 2005 1:49 pm

Why will it look terrible? Have you people even played Tekken 5 or God of War? Those games both look fantastic. Developers have learned to finally push the system past the clunky graphics of the earlier generation ps2 titles. I just hope they concentrate on tweaking the gameplay, since the first Soul Calibur plays alot better than the sequel.

The n00b · Post by **The n00b** » Fri Mar 25, 2005 2:34 pm

Kong, it's like playing Splinter Cell on the xbox and then playing the ps2 version. Sure the ps2 version looks "okay" but you get used to the short load times and graphic enhancements that come along with owning a gamecube or xbox.

SheSaidDutch · Post by **SheSaidDutch** » Fri Mar 25, 2005 3:51 pm

I still prefer Soulblade or Soul Calibur over Soul Calibur, SC2 felt like SC 1.5 IMO.

Diabollokus · Post by **Diabollokus** » Fri Mar 25, 2005 6:11 pm

Yeah I felt dissapointed with sc2 compared to my dreamcast original (which i still play) some of the new areans where cool with ice on floors but no it just didn't feel right in playability or fun factor.

heck sony can keep sc3.

BrianC · Post by **BrianC** » Fri Mar 25, 2005 6:25 pm

I'm still interested in this game and I'm wondering why the game was only announced for US. I have a feeling that the game may not be PS2 exclusive in Japan. However, I heard that the PS2 Soul Calibur 2 isn't a bad port (though not as good as other versions) and it's annoying that SCIII is considered DoA just becuase it's coming to PS2. Doesn't the idea of character creation in a fighting game interest you? According to the info, SCIII will have full blown character creation. That alone has me wanting to keep an eye on this game to see how it turns out.

The n00b · Post by **The n00b** » Fri Mar 25, 2005 6:52 pm

I'm more worried by the fact that Namco has yet to announce an arcade release for SC3. That and the ps2 exclusivity has me pronouncing it DOA unless I'm convinced otherwise. The whole thing really just smacks of MS4 as of now. Like Namco is just calling it in to reel in Sony dollars and get another game in the franchise out there.

TVG · Post by **TVG** » Fri Mar 25, 2005 8:34 pm

BrianC wrote:I'm still interested in this game and I'm wondering why the game was only announced for US. I have a feeling that the game may not be PS2 exclusive in Japan. However, I heard that the PS2 Soul Calibur 2 isn't a bad port (though not as good as other versions) and it's annoying that SCIII is considered DoA just becuase it's coming to PS2. Doesn't the idea of character creation in a fighting game interest you? According to the info, SCIII will have full blown character creation. That alone has me wanting to keep an eye on this game to see how it turns out.

believe me, there were hardly any differences between the 3 versions of sc2.
some older ps2 made the game slowdown a bit, and some slowdown was also present on the GCN version, but not in the same spots as the ps2 version. the ps2 slowdowl pretty much only occured if you dis some ivy moves on the clocktower stage, the GC slowdown happens during one of asta throws.

that and XBOX supports progressive mode.

as for the sales, the GCN only outsold the ps2 version (by a very small margin) because link was on the cover, you may believe it or not, its the truth.

either way, sc2 was dog shit. it also didnt do well in the arcades.
tekken 5 does mighty fine in the arcades worldwide, and is a very solid game as far as competitive gaming goes.

now, the fanb...people doubting that ps2 can do good stuff, just take a look at tekken 5.

i think, given the atrocity that was sc2 to anyone serious about it, namco tought it was wise to take it this way: make tekken 5 a competitive refined arcade game, and make sc3 more of a casual gamer console game, with lots of extras and create your character options.
this is speculation, but i think its accurate.

The n00b · Post by **The n00b** » Fri Mar 25, 2005 8:46 pm

Well Namco pretty much owed their ps2 fanbase a Tekken 5 after the atrocity that was Tekken 4.

TVG · Post by **TVG** » Fri Mar 25, 2005 8:51 pm

yea, but ive read in various mags that t4 was an atrocity mainly because they had to cut the developpement short in order to save founds for sc2.
and sc2 turned into another atrocity, cept t4 was at least somewhat fun to play once you got over the negative aspects of the game.

The n00b · Post by **The n00b** » Fri Mar 25, 2005 9:09 pm

Well Tekken 4 was bland, unbalanced, and just not very fun to play. The Tekken community pretty much turned on itself with guys who stood by Tekken Tag on one side and guys who resigned themselves to it on the other side.

SC2 was really more like SC1.5 except it felt really bland. The AI tourney arcade thing was cool but the console versions got a boring mission mode with those stupid stupid mazes. It was a balanced game but the sidestep became too powerful and turned high level play into a poke fest.

About the only thing that made me prefer SC2 over Tekken 4 was that I've always liked soul calibur and the Tekken franchise, at the time, had gone kind of tepid after Tekken 3.

Really I'm just hoping for another fighter like the first soul calibur for those of us who are not Tekken's biggest fans. As for the "casual" fighter comments, the Tekken series(all of them I don't care what the Tekken 3, Tekken Tag, or Tekken 5 fans will claim), DOA series(again all of them), and Soul Calibur series are all "casual" fighters. If anyone wanted to pretend to be hardcore, we'd be playing nothing but the VirtuaFighter series.

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Fri Mar 25, 2005 10:27 pm

Did Namco give up on an arcade version? Not a bad idea. No 3D fighting games make much loot in the arcades VF4 basically dominates that market. I remember when SC2 came out. They'd have one vs. cab next to 4-5 fully queued VF4 vs cabs.

TVG · Post by **TVG** » Fri Mar 25, 2005 10:54 pm

The n00b wrote:Well Tekken 4 was bland, unbalanced, and just not very fun to play. The Tekken community pretty much turned on itself with guys who stood by Tekken Tag on one side and guys who resigned themselves to it on the other side.

bland? no. unbalanced, yes.
the level of technical skill required in order to competee in T4 was pretty high, the only thing that ruined it was screwed priorities, some not so welcome additions (wallpush was stupid broke, uneven terrain was lame and added nothing but a crappy randomness factor) and well...jin. not only he's much better than the rest of the chars, but his ease of use was pretty dumb.
that and kind of supbar graphics and design.

The n00b wrote:SC2 was really more like SC1.5 except it felt really bland. The AI tourney arcade thing was cool but the console versions got a boring mission mode with those stupid stupid mazes. It was a balanced game but the sidestep became too powerful and turned high level play into a poke fest.

you're pretty much spot on, cept it was more of a turtle fest than a pokefest, the latter is t4.

The n00b wrote:About the only thing that made me prefer SC2 over Tekken 4 was that I've always liked soul calibur and the Tekken franchise, at the time, had gone kind of tepid after Tekken 3.

tekken tag (arcade version) was damn good, but thats a whole other subject, lets leave it at that.

The n00b wrote:Really I'm just hoping for another fighter like the first soul calibur for those of us who are not Tekken's biggest fans. As for the "casual" fighter comments, the Tekken series(all of them I don't care what the Tekken 3, Tekken Tag, or Tekken 5 fans will claim), DOA series(again all of them), and Soul Calibur series are all "casual" fighters. If anyone wanted to pretend to be hardcore, we'd be playing nothing but the VirtuaFighter series.

i dont know anything about "hardcore", but all these people that travel and do tourneys might qualify as "competitive". you could always be "hardcore" and play VF, but since, unless you're in japan, youll be playing with yourself or 1-2 friends, whats the point of being "hardcore"?
i still stand by my prediction, SC3 will be more geared toward casual players with a lot of extras, no arcade release and a huge single player mode, while tekken 5 has a solid fighting engine and is made to appeal old tekken fans, or fighting game fans in general, now i may be wrong about the engine part, scIII might actually be good and all, who knows.

gaijinpunch:
i dont know if you're in japan now, but last time i checked, VF:FT is overshadowed by T5 as far as arcade play goes. thats not to say "omg tekken pwnz vf ROTFLOL" just to point out the fact that t5 is popular in the arcades, however, this is what ive read here and there, so i could be wrong.
however, japan is not the only country in the world, and all i know, tekken 5 does very good in the arcades in asia, europe and the USA (there wont ever be a fighting game as popular as tekken in, say, korea)

Ganelon · Post by **Ganelon** » Fri Mar 25, 2005 11:39 pm

The vagrant wrote:i dont know anything about "hardcore", but all these people that travel and do tourneys might qualify as "competitive". you could always be "hardcore" and play VF, but since, unless you're in japan, youll be playing with yourself or 1-2 friends, whats the point of being "hardcore"?

You could always happen to live in SoCal or Texas where you do have actual world-class competition (well, still not enough to beat the Japanese in VF).

however, japan is not the only country in the world, and all i know, tekken 5 does very good in the arcades in asia, europe and the USA (there wont ever be a fighting game as popular as tekken in, say, korea)

If I'm not mistaken, KOF is the most popular fighter in Korea. At least there's a lot more videos of tournaments coming from there. Tekken is undeniably hot there as well though.

Anyway, it's funny how SCII was practically ignored by the Japanese. However, IIRC, Tekken 3 was a bigger hit than VF3 and Tekken Tag was certainly far more popular than VF3tb.

jp · Post by jp » Sat Mar 26, 2005 12:46 am

Good job Namco. Maybe we should start calling you "Sega2".

BrianC · Post by **BrianC** » Sat Mar 26, 2005 12:58 am

The vagrant wrote: now, the fanb...people doubting that ps2 can do good stuff, just take a look at tekken 5.

I need to get that game. I have VF4 Evo and that is also proof that the PS2 can do some good stuff. I like SC2 quite a bit, but I would be lying if I said I didn't like the first SC and VF4 better. I think I like the gameplay of Tekken 2 and 3 better too. I think Tekken 5 sounds the best value of the series. Arcade ports of Tekken 1, Tekken 2, Tekken 3, and Starblade, another Tekken Force like mode, a VF4 Evo style arcade tournament mode, and some cool new characters. Oh yeah!

chtimi-CLA · Post by **chtimi-CLA** » Sun Mar 27, 2005 7:03 pm

no arcade version means no successive balancing steps. i hope it will be more like sc1 than 2 but i doubt it.

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Sun Mar 27, 2005 7:46 pm

gaijinpunch:
i dont know if you're in japan now, but last time i checked, VF:FT is overshadowed by T5 as far as arcade play goes. thats not to say "omg tekken pwnz vf ROTFLOL" just to point out the fact that t5 is popular in the arcades, however, this is what ive read here and there, so i could be wrong.
however, japan is not the only country in the world, and all i know, tekken 5 does very good in the arcades in asia, europe and the USA (there wont ever be a fighting game as popular as tekken in, say, korea)

I'm not in Japan at the moment. Tekken 5 wasn't out when I left, but VF:FT was going just as strong as Evo did when I left. VF4 trompped all over Tekken 4, so I would be shocked if Tekken 5 was leading in gameplay. Until someone makes something like VF.net, and I don't think VF is going anywhere. That's not to say Tekken didn't get any play... you just wouldn't see a game center with more Tekken cabs than VF cabs.

As for Korea... they've got a pretty big VF following as well. They even had a psuedo VF.net. Wasn't as good as the Japanese one by a stretch, but was a lot better than US/UK got. I only went to one arcade when I was in Korea, so can't really comment.

There are enough people here that are currently in Japan.... we could ask them. I could always fire a mail off to my old VF buddies, which I should've done by now anyway.

TVG · Post by **TVG** » Sun Mar 27, 2005 11:49 pm

GaijinPunch wrote:
gaijinpunch:
i dont know if you're in japan now, but last time i checked, VF:FT is overshadowed by T5 as far as arcade play goes. thats not to say "omg tekken pwnz vf ROTFLOL" just to point out the fact that t5 is popular in the arcades, however, this is what ive read here and there, so i could be wrong.
however, japan is not the only country in the world, and all i know, tekken 5 does very good in the arcades in asia, europe and the USA (there wont ever be a fighting game as popular as tekken in, say, korea)
I'm not in Japan at the moment. Tekken 5 wasn't out when I left, but VF:FT was going just as strong as Evo did when I left. VF4 trompped all over Tekken 4, so I would be shocked if Tekken 5 was leading in gameplay. Until someone makes something like VF.net, and I don't think VF is going anywhere. That's not to say Tekken didn't get any play... you just wouldn't see a game center with more Tekken cabs than VF cabs.

As for Korea... they've got a pretty big VF following as well. They even had a psuedo VF.net. Wasn't as good as the Japanese one by a stretch, but was a lot better than US/UK got. I only went to one arcade when I was in Korea, so can't really comment.

There are enough people here that are currently in Japan.... we could ask them. I could always fire a mail off to my old VF buddies, which I should've done by now anyway.

well, a single game =/= series.
remember how vf3 was garbage and tekken 3 was good? anyway.
there is a tekken.net dude...its made in collaboration with sega members that did vf.net...
i dont really need to ask for feedback from people in japan, ive read plenty already. arcadia has listed T5 as the most popular arcade game for months now (or fighting game, cant remember) famitsu gave it a 39/40, and it was listed among the top 5 awaited games for 2005.
im not saying the tekken 5 craze will be as big as the VF4 craze, however, i dont think so.

lastly, korea backed off a bit from t4, but believe me, in the TTT days korea was THE country for tekken, there was even tournament coverage on the tv (it happens with other games in korea, tho)
korea was dominating both japan and us, the level wasnt even close,
they were still the best at T4, just not by that much.
(they also dominated VF3 IIRC)
think of US and MVC2.

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 4:02 am

remember how vf3 was garbage and tekken 3 was good? anyway

Not really. I don't think any VF has done bad in Japan... besides maybe the DC port of VF3.

Koreans get respect for their gaming skills. There's quite a few that come over from Korea to Japan for high level VF tournaments. Not a ton of players, but quite a few. They not only hold their own, but do quite a bit of ass-kicking. I know dick about Tekken though... or any other fighting game for that matter. In all honesty, they're not really my thing. VF just sucked me in.

I do not keep up with Arcadia at all. If Tekken now has a saveable item/rank system, I could see it doing very well in the arcades... better than VF:FT. Afterall, FT is just a touch-up to a now very old game. A lot of VF fans (this one included) were a bit pissed at the release of FT... especially since Sega charged the price of a new game.

If I'm not mistaken though, VF4 came out several months after Tekken 4 (that's a long time ago though). I didn't actively go to arcades until VF4 came out, at which point it was very apparent what the most played fighting game was. The only other one I can remember coming out during VF's reign was Soul Calibur II which didn't really do so hot... relatively speaking.

Out of curiosity, how does Arcadia get the stats to rank games? Number of cabs sold to game centers?