Soul Calibur 3 tries to continue this tradition by breaking some new ground. For example, this is the first in the series not to originate as an arcade game; instead it was developed for the PlayStation 2 initially. The game also offers more types of gameplay, including a new "Chronicles of the Sword" option which adds a strategic element to the game. But, does it live up to the expectations set by the previous games in the series?

Story
The plot is a continuation of the story in the previous games. There's a sword called Soul Calibur that is pure evil, a counterpart to the good sword called Soul Edge. In the last game, the swords seemingly destroyed each other, but this seems not to be the case. People want it for various reasons: some want to control it, some want to destroy it, some want revenge on the current wielder, some have found it's the only way to die after foolishly becoming immortal (no, really!). Some people get in the way of others, others meet by chance as they're both looking for the sword. So, they fight.

Okay, so there's a bit more story than that. But, let's face it, it's all just an excuse to get into some intense fights!

Fighting
The Soul Calibur series focuses on weapon combat. Each character has a weapon and a particular fighting style. You have recognizable katana, sword and shield, and staff fighting styles for some characters. Other characters have much more … original… fighting styles. Voldo, for example, is an insane, undead guard wielding twin blades on his hands and generally dressed in bondage gear. It's actually more dangerous to stand behind him if the player knows all his moves due to his fast, agile attacks.

The basic moves are horizontal attacks, vertical attacks, kicks and neutral guards. Vertical attacks are downward or upward slashing attacks that do good damage. You can avoid these attacks by running around the attacker. To hit someone that is running, you can use a horizontal attack, but a vertical attack generally trumps a horizontal attack. Kicks are usually quick, short ranged attacks that can disrupt other attacks. Guards will protect you against all these types of attacks.

In addition there are other special moves. Throws are good for disrupting your enemy if you are close, or for landing an attack on a guarding opponent. Throw escapes allow you to stop a throw already in progress. Guard breaks are moves that take a bit longer to perform, but will break through attacks and stun your opponent momentarily, allowing you to have an upper hand. Guard impacts are special blocks that take precise timing to pull off, but have a large advantage over simple guarding. These guard impacts give the character initiating the move an advantage, usually making the next attack a counter that does increased damage. Finally, you can push all three of your attack buttons to do a "Soul Charge," which allows you to power up and perform special, often unblockable, moves.

For people familiar with previous games in the series, you will find the fighting aspect of the game has changed a bit since previous incarnations of the series. Instead of trying to pull off highly damaging combos to obliterate your opponent, you have to focus on attacks and counter attacks. Just running up to and hacking and slashing at your opponent, especially computer-controlled ones, will be surprisingly ineffective. Instead the focus is more on specialized moves like guard breaks and counters in order to score higher damage. This discourages "button mashing" and encourages smart moves. Weapons offer more variety, giving special abilities. For example, some weapons might automatically guard impact some incoming attacks.

Characters
One of the best parts of the Soul Calibur series of games is the wide variety of characters. You can select from the flamboyant Maxi, the serious Sophitia, or the impossibly flexible Voldo. They each have their own weapons, styles, and quirks. Most of the favorites from earlier games are back in this installment. Many other characters are unlockable as you progress in the game. In total there are 25 named characters you can play in the game.

The newest character is Zasalamel, an outcast from a tribe that used to guard the holy sword, Soul Edge. He wields a large scythe as a weapon that does large amounts of damage but attacks comparatively slowly. This character can move around fairly quickly for his size. For people familiar with the series, you could compare him to Astaroth.

In addition to the named characters, Soul Calibur 3 offers a way to create your own character to play. You can pick a gender and a job, which determines the types of weapons and moves the character can use. Jobs range from the heavily armed Barbarian, the agile Thief, or the unusual Dancer. After that, you can customize the character with clothes, hair, etc. with the ability to select different colors for each option. There is a large amount of variety to customization available the characters once you get everything unlocked. Some of the unlockable options are new classes that you can create new characters with.

The created characters have levels that increase as you play the characters. After you accumulate enough experience, you will gain levels and become more powerful. Some levels will unlock additional weapons that can be used by the character, allowing for more flexibility for the main named characters. In addition, you can only use a created character in the "Chronicles of the Sword" game mode explained below.

Money?
Instead of just unlocking new weapons and options by playing the game, you will need gold pieces to buy the new weapons, special art and other options. Gold pieces are earned from different game modes. After earning money, you can go into a shopping mode in order to buy armor, weapons and items from shopkeepers.

The character creation options are limited until you start spending money in order to unlock new pieces of clothing. You must also buy new weapons for your created characters in addition to weapons for the named characters. It takes a lot of money to get anywhere in the game. After quite a few hours of serious play, mostly focusing on finishing the "Tales of the Sword" story with various characters, I had only just purchased weapons for the characters I had played the most often.

Game Modes
The game supports a wide variety of game modes. These modes include traditional vs. matches against other players. These fights are pretty standard, allowing each player to select a character and fight in an arena. In addition the competitive modes, there are many single-player modes that allow you to unlock additional bonuses or earn money to buy more items.

The most interesting single-player mode is the "Tales of the Sword" game. This allows you to select a character and play through his or her story. After certain fights, you may be able to select an option that determines the next fight. Some paths lead to bonus areas that allow you to fight against enemies in order to unlock them as playable characters. This mode is comparable to the "Weapons Master" modes in previous games, although there isn't as much variety in the levels. Most levels are just straight-up fights between characters, with only a few requiring any sort of special conditions like "only air attacks." Between the fights there are some times cutscenes that require a certain button combination to be entered, similar to the special character endings in the original Soul Edge game; however, these can be very frustrating as you have to react quickly. You can usually expect to have to go through a scene a few times to know the button combination required and enter it in time.

Another mode is the "Chronicles of the Sword" mode, which combines a strategic element to the fights. Before the level, you can control a number of characters and assign them a special type that gives them certain abilities. For example, the Knight class allows the character to attack strongholds faster and defend in combat well, at the expense of slow movement and an average attack. In each battle, you must move your characters along the paths and attack enemy strongholds. Once you have worn down the defensive value of the stronghold, you enter a one-on-one combat with the leader of the area that plays out like a normal fight. If you win, you take the stronghold! This was an interesting idea, however the loading times really slow down the pace of this mode, and make it almost unplayable to everyone besides people with a lot of patience. Unfortunately, a lot of the character customization is earned by playing this mode.

"Soul Arena" mode brings back a lot of the special conditions found in the "Weapons Master" modes in previous games. In this mode, you can play a single mission and fight against an opponent. For example, in the "Soul Smash" mission, you barely do damage to your opponent unless you knock them against the walls; however, knockback in this mode is greatly increased, making it easier to do this type of damage. There are different levels of difficulty, and harder levels can be unlocked by beating the previous levels within certain time (or other) limits. Personally, I enjoyed these special types of missions, but wished they were in the main storyline instead of just a diversion.

Bugs Alert
Now, this is a bit unusual: talking about bugs in a console game. However, there have been reports a fairly major bug with Soul Calibur 3. If you delete or move some types of save files off of the Playstation 2 memory card, even files unrelated to the game, it has the possibility of corrupting the save file for Soul Calibur 3. This can be a devastating bug for people who play many games and regularly delete game information. It's a bit unfortunate that this bug exists, since it can really detract form the experience of this game.

Breakdown
My opinions of the various areas of the game:

Graphics: Very Good. The graphics are clear and very interesting. Quite a bit of attention went into creating the characters, with some nice flourishes, and the customizable characters look very sharp. There were no notable camera problems, so it's always easy to see what's going on in the fight. The graphics are about what you would expect from a Soul Calibur game: nothing new, but still very good.

Sound: Good. The music is always good for the Soul Calibur games, and this one is no exception. The songs are interesting and not too repetitive, nor do they distract from the game. Again, similar quality to what has been seen in previous versions of the game.

Control: Very responsive. This game focuses heavily on reacting to your opponent, and the controls are up to the task. The game is pretty fast paced in some parts, but the controls keep up just fine. The game rewards smart moves instead of simple "button mashing," though, so new players might find the learning curve daunting.

Challenge: Difficult. After playing Soul Calibur II, this game was quite a change of pace. Instead of a fearsome offensive onslaught being the key to victory, you really had to be smart and focus on attacks and counters in order to win. The AI is smart and very responsive, making even an experienced fighting game player have some troubles in single-player mode. On the other hand, the "Tales of Souls" mode was generally a bit easier than "Weapons Master" modes in previous games, due to fewer special types of fights.

Game Modes: Okay. The "Tales of Souls" mode was a bit less fun than previous incarnations, since most were straight-forward fights instead of requiring special conditions for victory. The "Chronicles of the Swords" strategy mode was neat in concept, but the long loading times really killed much of my enthusiasm for the mode. The character creation was interesting, but it took a while to build up a decent amount of cash to really get good customization options; I preferred to get new weapons for the existing named characters first, personally.

Overall: Sometimes a new addition can have a hard time living up to the amazing expectations set by previous games. The Soul Calibur games are some of my favorites, but truthfully this version wasn't quite as amazing as the previous games. To give it some credit, however, this new version does introduce some new concepts while staying true to the core gameplay established by the previous titles. The fighting is solid, and great fun to play against other players, and the characters are as interesting as ever. However, the new modes didn't seem quite as fun as the previous incarnations, which is a bit of a disappointment. Overall, this is a good fighting game for fans looking for some variation on the familiar themes of previous Soul Calibur games.