I LOVE the SoulCalibur games. I really, really do.

I liked the Soul Edge, when it came out, but can't play it anymore, because with todays standards it plays horrible. Still it was a nice game at the time it got released. It only got 12 different characters, but it had the fantastic Edge Master Mode, where you unlocked the weapons for each character. Unlike later versions this one had a seperate story for each character, which was really nice.

Soul Calibur on the DreamCast was actually the reason I bought the machine and the game I played most on it. It featured more characters and superb graphics. Instead of the Edge Master Mode there was the Mission Mode, that instead of the great stories told in Soul Edge, had a generic story. Still it was fun to play.

At the moment Soul Calibur II was announced I nearly went crazy with excitement. The bonus characters were rather meh, but the gameplay was a lot quicker in this one and the movesets of the characters were improved as well. The weapon master mode featured another generic story I couldn't care less about.

Soul Calibur III was more of the same, but had some serious problems. There is a huge amount of characters as well as custom characters in this game. The battles and were as superb as ever, but they messed up the game modes. The Tales of Souls mode takes the place of the normal Arcade Mode. In this mode you move through a nonlinear story with each of the main characters, the problem with this is, that the story is really bad, the decisions you make have nothing to do with the story and there were stupid QuickTimeEvents. In the Chronicles of the Sword mode you unlocked most of the unlockables. In concept it sounds like a nice idea, that you level up your characters while playing a strategy kinda game, but once you play it, it isn't much fun. On top of that there was a bug in the game, that corrupted your memory card. Also most of the random custom looked and played horrible.

Don't get me started on Soul Calibur Legends. It's terrible and shouldn't be played by anyone. But since I won the game at the last TGS, I somehow felt like I owed it to NamcoBandai to play the game. In the end I didn't enjoy it.

Now Soul Calibur IV is getting released sometime this year and I can't wait. There are already 31 characters plus custom characters announced. What gripes me though, is the lack of new Soul Calibur characters. Beside the guest characters, there is only ONE new original character announced. Soul Calibur III had at least 3 new characters.