Another review saying how good it is. I could just say "Best fighting game evar" and be done with it, but that would waste less time, so here I go.
Soul Calibur is one of the main reasons I bought my Dreamcast. Admittedly I bought it for peanuts the other week because no-one wants them any more, but it still stands. It showcases the Dreamcast's graphical capability perfectly (And none of this slowdown that hits quite a few other 3d games, a la Crazy Taxi, Jet Set/Grind Radio) - the characters are fantastically detailed and individual, although the breasts aren't quite up to DOA, which could be seen as a fault. Will, even. All of em are animated perfectly, and the stages are all lovely too, if a tad similar.
There are five or six assloads of moves per character, which you can read up by pausing and going to the Command List menu. Telling you the moves doesn't ruin anything - mastering them and finally using them in a fight is the difficult bit. There is a funky practice mode to let you try them out, have them demonstrated to you in, too. One bitch about the moves is that half of the characters are pretty much doubles of the others - for each Kilik there's a Seung Mina, if you see what I mean (And I'm sure you do), although they're different enough to be worth it.
Arcade mode can be beaten in 3 minutes. Sounds crap, but then each time you complete it with one character, you unlock a feature. It could be a new character, it could be a level, which ensures that you'll do it with every single one, at least once (Unlocking Inferno by playing with a certain character's certain costume is a prime example). Mission mode is where it's at. Every level has different rules set - it could be that you lose health every second, it could be that you need to hit them 16 times before they hit you, or that you need to knock them over first. Yeah, it's all fighting, but it's cool that there are so many variations. And once again, with the points with you win from the missions you buy art cards. And with these cards you MIGHT unlock another mission, a new level to play in VS mode, or a whole new feature (eg the Martial Arts demos, new costumes, metal mode..). It sounds trivial, but it adds so very much replay value. And when you complete the first mission set, you get a whole new lot that are virtually impossible. Lovely!
The sounds are good, thoug hthe speech isn't translated - they speak in Japanese, with English subtitles. The announcers "This victory strenghtens the soul of.." grates a little after a while.
Blah. A perfect game, with only lacklustre breasts against it. Depth, replay value, entertainment beyond any other fighting game ever, on any system. 5/5, nuff said