5/5 ★ – RawMetal's review of SoulCalibur III.

System: PlayStation 2 Started: 2014 Ended: August 11, 2014 Flashback Review Throughout my childhood years, I always wanted to get Soulcalibur III, and I had the PlayStation 2 console at the time. The reason I did not get this gem was because I made a prediction that it's a timed exclusive, and Soulcalibur III could be available on the GameCube and Xbox or even on the next-generation consoles of Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Sadly, it never happened, but it got an arcade port in 2006. I finally grabbed a copy of this game at a local comic bookstore in the mid-2010s for a bargain price. Soulcalibur III is another outstanding game in the franchise. Soulcalibur II will always be loved by many thanks to its availability for Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft. But as for Soulcalibur III, only PlayStation 2 owners are lucky to have this. At the time, Soulcalibur III offered bigger and better modes and a roster of characters that you could spend endless hours on. New characters such as Zasalamel, Tira, and Setsuka are well received and eventually been into later games in the series, and Olcadan, who is not only the new character but can also help you through tutorial mode, even returning characters from Soulcalibur II are in this game, including one who hasn't been around since the very first game, Soul Edge, and that is Li Long. Tales of Souls is Arcade Mode except with a twist: You pick your selectable character and play through multiple stages to get to the end boss. The newest thing they added to this mode is a choose-your-own-adventure story that lets you pick a path after a match, and there will be cutscenes that force you to do a quick-time event. Failure on these QTEs can affect the battle, mostly losing a chunk of your health before your fight begins. Not only are the QTEs only in the middle of arcade mode but also at the very end of the game, and you better have quick instinct, or else you get an embarrassing ending. It does add replay to this mode just to see what happens if you succeed or fail at the ending QTE. Soulcalibur III enhances the world-building with its numerous in-game cutscenes, immersing players deeper into the game's universe. The Chronicles of the Sword mode is arguably my favorite single-player mode in the franchise. It has a mix of real-time strategy in a fighting game as you command a unit on a large-scale grid map, complete objectives of capturing bases and eventually fight a popular Soulcalibur character who is a higher level than you. You can also add more custom characters in the games, and an interesting way to bring your friends to play this game in co-op style is by passing the controller whenever their turn is up. If I had to say anything bad about this game, it is that Soulcalibur III AI can be a mixed bag, particularly when going for the 100% completion. There are moments in this game that have a mix of easy to a sudden hellish difficulty spike that you have to abide by the game’s difficulty spike and not be too pissed off since if you keep dying, the difficulty will be lowered. This game also has this one notorious glitch that corrupts your save file. If you delete some game data on your memory card that contains your Soulcalibur III data, your save file for Soulcalibur III will be corrupted. Now if you have the “Greatest Hits” version, this should be fixed, but the original, black PS2 label version will have that glitch. So you must be careful on where to place the Soulcalibur III Data on your PS2 Memory Card. There are even guides on the Internet on how to avoid file corruption. With this much content, Soulcalibur III is worth the full price when it first came out, and I can see why there are fans who consider this their favorite. There is so much to do in this game, with even bigger content than the second and possibly the best single-player mode with an expanded character creation. In fact, it's my second favorite game in the franchise so far. Soulcalibur II is still my favorite and holds a special place in my childhood. If you have not played Soulcalibur III, just grab a PlayStation 2 console and find a copy.