First Impressions:

Graphics:

Stunning. Absolutely stunning. The character movements are fast, fluid, and very realistic. Soul Calibur blows away other fighting games by far with its excellent graphics. Even the hair and clothing move naturally with the movements of the characters.

There is an exhibition theater in the game that allows you to watch the characters go through all their moves as a regular person would, in case you want to get a better look at their impressive motions.

The backgrounds are also breathtaking. In one notable map, there are weather effects such as snow falling. Another cool one allows you to fight on a raft while floating down an underground river.

The outfits range from sexy to innocent, and armored to regularly clothed. There are a couple of characters (a male and a female) that do follow a sado-masochistic style of dress, however, there is a good variety of fighters to choose from. I am a bit surprised that they do not have any ethnic characters in the game...

Besides that, the characters are diverse and interesting to play. Some characters have recognizable fighting styles and others are completely improvised (I'm still not sure what to make of Voldo! What form of fighting is that??). There are characters who are good and pure, and others who are wicked. You have your fair pick.

Sound/Music:

This part needed more work, on several accounts.

First, I think they could have done more with the sound effects of the game in general. Most of the sound effects seemed pretty canned, and could have been done better.

Secondly, the music sounded like it was from some cheesy soap opera. Yikes!

Third, I also got particularly sick of hearing the same voice say "Ivy was seriously wounded, but the soul still burns..." after playing a hundred or so rounds. I dream about that voice now. *shudder*

Not to mention, when a female character in this game dies, it's this cheesy death sound (in fact, I think they used the same death cry for every female in the game). How come the male characters don't sound so dumb when they die?

Gameplay:

I was very surprised to find that they had tried to incorporate a bit of adventure into a fighting game. They didn't do this very well, but even still, I thought it added to the game and to my enjoyment of it.

There is a mission battle mode of the game that gives you a storyline to follow and participate in. You would have to fight people under different circumstances (ie. fighting someone in quicksand, fighting someone when you could only see their weapon, etc.) to win the level. Unfortunately, the storyline was not animated but rather written in text across the screen. Had they have added more cinematics, I believe it would have been a very nice feature. It still was a nice break from the typical arcadish style of other fighting games. In mission battle mode, you gain points for winning levels and can use those points to unlock art cards in the museum art gallery for Soul Calibur. Every so often, an art card would unlock a new outfit for a character, a new map, or a new mode of gameplay. Some art cards would open new locations on the map, which you could venture to and attempt new levels.

There of course was an arcade mode as well. When you win the arcade mode, you will unlock a new character or a new map. After you win with all the characters you will receive the Edge Master, a character that randomly chooses any weapon in the game.

Survival mode allows you to play opponents until you are defeated. You can unlock an Extra Survival mode which determines the winner based on who falls first. I suggest you play this mode with Kilik and use his Phoenix Thrust move. Rarely does the AI dodge it, making this mode particularly easy.

Practice mode is a great tool as well. Not only does it allow you to look at the characters moves, but you can also have the computer demostrate the moves for you! You can also allow the computer to fight back (if you want him/her to) at different skill levels.

Team battle mode allows you to pick a group of fighters to combat the AI's team. You can pick up to 8 characters for your team. I wish they had allowed the option of having a 2nd human player fight you, I would have appreciated that.

Enjoyment:

I blew a weekend glued to this game until I unlocked everything. I'm hooked. Absolutely hooked. Need I say more?

Multiplayer:

Being a fighting game, of course you can play multiplayer in VS battle mode. Although, only 2 people can play at the same time. It's too bad that other modes of play weren't made with the multiplayer option.

Overall Impression:

It's a solid game made for a solid system, and I definetely believe it's worth the money. A Dreamcast isn't complete without a copy of Soul Calibur to show it off.

Marketing Efforts Towards Women:

The Case - They incorporate a face from one of the female characters on the box in a nice and appealing way. Works for me.

The Characters:

• The death screams drive me up the wall as I mentioned before. Most of the in-game voices aren't bad though.
• The female players would always be fixing something about their clothing right before they were ready to fight (unlike the guys who stretched or readied their weapons). If I were them, I would be getting a good grip on my weapon before facing someone 3 times my size like Asteroth!
• One of the girls would beat her fists and cry after she got knocked to the ground (what male character does that??). Why would a "fighter" persona act like a spoiled brat? I cringed when I saw this one...