The Best Soul Calibur?

[Nu-Eclipse]

Soul Edge/Blade, SC1 and SC2 are/were my favourites in the series. They felt the freshest in terms of character variety and/or depth and the combat mechanics felt the tightest and worked the best in those games.

Haven't really dabbled much in SC since but every game since SC3 has looked so stale and overbaked.

Personally, I think that Namco should put the franchise out to pasture.

[Wools]

There's no question in my eyes, the original is the finest Soul Calibur.

It had bleeding edge graphics, great character list and a stunning amount of content. Outside of Tekken 3, it's my favourite fighter.

[nakamura]

Soul Edge is the finest.
The music, edge master mode and focussed combat win over.

SC is pretty and looked immense at the time but was the slide into Namco button bashy games.

In fact, I don't think Namco has made a decent fighter since the 90's.

[Mr Ono]

Soul Edge on PS1 was totally awesome and it holds a special place in my heart. Had a superb intro too which I rate as one of the most stirring still.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtF80UCgarY

DC Soul Calibur was literally a system seller me as I just had to buy a DC after I had seen it!

[Colin]

Dreamcast Soul Calibur for me, it was just a phenomenally enjoyable game in my opinion and none of the follow on titles have ever come close to it. Funny thing is that I've been looking at Dreamcasts on ebay for weeks now as I've been hankering for some SC and Powerstone action. Finding it very hard to resist and I'm kind of amazed I have......

[dvdx2]

Dreamcast Soul Calibur for me, it was just a phenomenally enjoyable game in my opinion and none of the follow on titles have ever come close to it. Funny thing is that I've been looking at Dreamcasts on ebay for weeks now as I've been hankering for some SC and Powerstone action. Finding it very hard to resist and I'm kind of amazed I have......

Both those games look sooooo good through VGA.

[Asura]

Probably won't garner much agreement here, but I think what Namco should do with a future Soul Calibur title is go in a very different direction.

If they're not willing for it to be the "traditional" 3D fighter that it's meant to be, and are determined to drag it through the garden with novelty add-ons, I would instead rework it as something closer to Power Stone or Onimusha Blade Warriors.

For me, Soul Calibur's four great additions to the one-on-one fighting genre are its focus on attack reach (with a much larger variety of reaches than in say Tekken), the vertical/horizontal attack split (where the shape of the attack is a critical element), its 8-way run system and freedom of movement, and lastly its parry/guard impact system (which is my favourite implementation of that in any game, even including SF3 and Dead or Alive).

I would take those elements and put the characters in environments that weren't typical fighting stages, so players have to use the location to their advantage, and each character has a simpler moveset where each move is much more distinct. Kind of like a less "berserk" Power Stone.

[Kit]

I give zero ****s about buying hats and clothes for my soul calibur fighter. I'm not playing the ****ing sims. I want epic battles with loads of crazy particle effects and insane backdrops. Imo fighting games are more about pushing the machine to the absolute limit at launch.

[PaTaito]

Soul Edge for me...played that an ungodly amount back in the day.

[buzz909]

Thank you for all the responses. Interesting to read peoples reasons too. For me it's bad in a way that so many people are saying Soul Calibur and SC2, because they were so long ago. You have to wonder why it's so hard just to build on and make a better SC1? If you asked me Tekken I would say 5 or 6 is the best.

Powerstone - another game that sadly hasn't been improved on. *sigh*. Least I have good reasons to keep my Dreamcast...

[Panta Rhei]

Thank you for all the responses. Interesting to read peoples reasons too. For me it's bad in a way that so many people are saying Soul Calibur and SC2, because they were so long ago. You have to wonder why it's so hard just to build on and make a better SC1? If you asked me Tekken I would say 5 or 6 is the best.

Powerstone - another game that sadly hasn't been improved on. *sigh*. Least I have good reasons to keep my Dreamcast...

For me its TTT 1. Tekken went overboard with all those juggles and stuff. TTT 1 was a perfected Tekken 3 with tag and missing T2 characters.

But SC did get progressively worse, moreso than Tekken did. I really liked TTT2 and Dark Resurrection as well, probably my number 2 and 3. Its easy to see that SC started to receive a lower budget with each revision. SC2 was the best for me, but SC3 was a joke and the exclusivity was weird. But GC and Xbox owners shouldn't have been worried about it. SC IV had great graphics, first SC with HD graphics, but it was a bad game with little content. SCV had even less content and clearly an even lower budget and time in the oven although its gameplay was solid.

[Asura]

For me its TTT 1. Tekken went overboard with all those juggles and stuff. TTT 1 was a perfected Tekken 3 with tag and missing T2 characters.

I enjoyed the Tekken series a great deal up until 5, funnily enough.

1 was (and is) still a very good game, where most of the characters share the same dozen or so moves and only have a few specials. 2 was superb at the time, but it does feel a bit redundant now. 3 was amazing. The variety of characters and moves was immense, and the home conversion played brilliantly.

Tekken Tag, as you've said, was something of a "perfected" Tekken 3. One thing many people forget is that the arcade version was actually that; a rework of Tekken 3, with 3's visuals (both Soul Calibur and TTT share that fact - their home conversions actually look significantly better than their arcade originals).

Here's the controversial bit - I really liked Tekken 4. I thought the change to Jin Kazama's fighting style was extremely brave of Namco, the shift to Dead or Alive style backdrops was a refreshing and the "directional throw" finally replaced one of the core problems with Tekken (all characters have at least 2 throws, but they pretty much do the same thing, just look different). It had balance problems (namely that Paul Phoenix was unstoppable in the smaller arenas) but it was bold and different.

Then the fans complained; the collective wail online was practically audible - so Tekken 5 played it safe, went back to basics and was essentially just Tekken 3 again - and that's been going on ever since.

[JU!]

For me Soul Calibur II all the way. While the Dreamcast SC was a brilliant game SC II got a slightly more simplified fight system, and an even more excellent Edge Master style mode. As well as unquestionably the best music of the series. Bar Soul Calibur V I believe SCII has the best fighting mechanics of the series.