This week's XBLA in Brief examines Soulcalibur, the latest release for Xbox Live Arcade. Truly one of the best 3D fighting games ever made, it still shines on XBLA. There's only one problem: it doesn't support online play. Watch this week's episdoe and find out whether or not it's still worth the scratch.
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To be honest, we don't have the time nor the funds to review the full versions of every single XBLA release. XBLA in Brief is really meant to make people aware of games they might like and warn them about games that should be avoided at all costs.
I don't always download the demos. Some games I just dismiss without looking at them, and I've actually purchased a couple after watching some of these videos.
Don't quote me on this, but based on the textures and models shown in the screenshots, it looks like they started with the arcade version of the game as a base and not the dreamcast version. I know bloggers like to call it the dreamcast version that got ported... but I suspect that's just because people forget that Arcades used to be commonplace and games like SC are arcade titles first, home console ports second (at least, when SC first dropped this was the case). Nothing in the press release mentions where the game was ported from however, so who's to say really?
It's certainly not a beefed up port of the arcade version. The arcade version ran off of the same board as Tekken 3, if I'm not mistaken, and looked really, really awful. Raising the resolution on the arcade version would do very little to improve the look of the game.
Plus Lizardman doesn't look like Sophitia with a giant lizard mask on top of her head.
To sum up, it's a high-res port of the Japanese Dreamcast game (no censoring, no english voices). Online play would have been awesome, mission mission mode is missing, music starts over every round (just kind of odd), and the game loads faster (not saying the DC loading was slow, but there is a difference).
I still love the DC version, why would it not look as good? Is this because of the space limitations set forth by XBL? I will try the demo but if it is not as polished as a 9 year game should be, then I might just keep playing the DC version....
I remember walking into Best Buy on Dreamcast launch day, seeing this game running, and instantly buying a DC.
While I love the game to death, I'll point out (I don't remember you mentioning it in your video link above) that it is NOT in widescreen - it's 4:3...not a huge deal, but it should be noted.
"Still think it's worth the 800 points if it suits your situation though."
True.
I'd have picked this up instantly back in my college days (and did for the Dreamcast). As it stands, my wife isn't a big fan of fighting games... so I'll be holding out hope for "Mission Mode" DLC.
Unlike the Dreamcast version, this version of Soul Calibur does not include Weapons Master Mode; everything is unlocked when you boot it up. Also there NEVER was English voice acting in Soul Calibur. Soul Blade on the PlayStation had English, except for Rock, who just grunted. In 480i there isn't really much difference in graphics, but on the Dreamcast though the VGA Box, it does look good in 480p, but on the 360, I'd say SC looks even better in 720p. I don't know about 1080p since my TV doesn't support that.
