Picture it: you're a young shitling with limited fighting game experience, yet to have owned one. You've played SoulCalibur 2 on a few occasions and you see an ad for its sequel, promising to be bigger and better. And it goes above and beyond all your expectations in every way.


I think that it's not too controversial to state that, unless you're playing competitively, most fighting games end up falling into either the 2D or 3D arena camps, with only your preference in coat of paint being the determining factor for which is your favorite. Probably why a classic fantasy theme and characters with a wide selection of weapons to choose from would appeal to an RPG fan such as myself. But to be this high on the list, SoulCalibur 3 must doing something differently and REALLY well, even in its own series.

I can't be exactly sure that SC3 falls into the 'Proper Sequel' category, but what little I've played of SC2 makes me lean on that: if it ain't broke, don't fix it, and the general consensus was that SC2 already optimized most of the combat; leaving SC3 to build upon that steady foundation with a larger roster of characters using different fighting styles, each with up to eight weapons and six distinct approaches to combat.

That's already one of the reasons why SC3 comes on top of subsequent entries, that weapons have active effects that provide bonuses or impairments to a character using them (such as longer/shorter range, regen, life stealer, higher damage, bleed, guard break, etc...). SC4 decided that it wanted to go with number increases to stats that don't have the same impact in a fighting game as in an RPG; with SC5 and SC6 keeping the weapons as merely cosmetic changes. I get it, especially with 5, you want to appeal more to the competitive scene, so that you can focus more on a character's moveset and innate abilities... but you still had the option to toggle weapon effects on/off in SC3. So you're just removing options in what managed to be a great way to 'increase' the playable roster.

That's not the only way SC3 increases the character roster, because with its Create-a-Soul mode also came a job system for your created characters, with thirteen disciplines to choose from, all of which have access to not only the weapons of the original roster, but seventeen extra weapon types. And each character class is represented by a new fighter constructed via Create-a-Soul, which you can unlock in the game's combat modes.

But that's not all! SoulCalibur 3 is also leagues above most of the schlock that's come out in the past decade when it comes to progression rewards. You see, there's this thing in the game called "Shops", where you can exchange in-game currency to attain cosmetics, weapons, arenas, music themes, artwork,... and it's all at a set amount that YOU, as the player, can get just by playing the game, and buy whatever you want, as long as it's unlocked on the Shops. I know, a novel concept, to have a deluge of content all inside a game the moment you buy it, with real-world money never again coming into the equation, and without an artificially-lengthening luck-based system stonewalling you from unlocking the rewards YOU worked hard for.

If that's not enough, there's also Chronicles of the Sword: a secondary game mode where you use your player-created character to go through a much more consistent story, by way of mixing RTS elements in you leading armies across somewhat simple maps, and getting into arena fights with several of the established characters you can have access to. Not that big of a deal at first, but consider that this is an additional single player mode that extends your playtime naturally and gives you more content to unlock beyond the Story Mode (and rewarding you handsomely for it). It's indicative of a time when these games weren't just grindstones, completely sustained by an online multiplayer community and the competitive scene, and that the Project Soul devs actually cared to ensure that you had as many reasons to remain playing, even by yourself. And given how Luna is bae, I definitely did. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

It's not all sunshine and rose-themed weapons choking a bitch, however. I mentioned it already, that Chronicles of the Sword has a more consistent story than the STORY Mode in SC3, which isn't bad, but it's also the conventional, 'each character has their own multiverse storyline' dealio, and given it's a fighting game, is mostly done through text or quick and silly pre/post fight cutscenes. Although considering the Story Mode in SC5, I'm not gonna complain too much.

The biggest point of contention, the reason why this game blocked others from going further up the list, is unfortunately how my access to it is nigh-on unexistent. It's PS2-exclusive, and I'm certain that never in a million years would Bandai Namco rerelease it for other systems, as it would get in the way of them selling you the more recent entries in the franchise. So I'd have to get a PS2, a screen to attach it to, and the room to use it for this game alone. Because wouldn't you know it, SoulCalibur 3 just so happens to be one of the hardest games to emulate (and for a FIGHTING GAME, precision and stable performance matters quite a bit).

Maybe there'll be a time where I can do the thing, and maybe it'll kick SC3 down the list after I've replayed it this long since the first time. But until then, it's earned the #4 spot on the Top Ten. Raise your swords in its name!


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edit: Another one bites the dust from Redbubble, hurray! Guess Bandai Namco is too chicken-shit to rerelease the original SoulCalibur trilogy on current platforms, and got salty over my commentary!