Retro Let's Play for kick ass November 2022 is "Soul Calibur"

Retro Let's Play for kick arse November 2022 is Dreamcast's Soul Calibur!​

Though not the only star in this month's "Let's Play", but more of that later, preceded by Soul Edge in December 1995. Namco originally released it in arcades on July 30, 1998, it ran on the Namco System 12 hardware. developt by Project Soul, it was ported to the Dreamcast in 1999 and absolute kick ass port it was. It doesn't happen often that the home port of an arcade conversion is actually better than its arcade counterpart. (like NEVER!!) As one of the launch games for the DC, it ensured the launch success of the platform and to this day is still listed as Metacritic best #4 game of all time.​

The Dreamcast version is remarkable, featuring even better graphics than the arcade version and a wealth of additional modes and characters. Youll find different scores here and there, but Soul Calibur comes in at around 98% on most review sites. It set the goal so far ahead of the competition at the time, that even to this day, the game holds up extremely well.

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Namco delivered their weapon-based fighter to arcades way back in 1998 and it blew our minds. It was amazingly beautiful, ran at a solid 60 frames per second, and you were able to sidestep attacks allowing for strategies that seemed light years ahead of the competition at the time.

The plot is set two–three years after the first game. The title is derived from Soul Calibur, a legendary weapon which opposes the evil of Soul Edge. Though retaining elements of its predecessor, Soulcalibur incorporated an extensive number of new features, including the "8-Way Run". The title Soulcalibur became a trademark title to be used throughout the series since.



The other star of this show is of course the Sega Dreamcast, An absolutely amazing (at the time) game console that came out in November 1998. here's a quick rehash.

the real star of this hardware was the absolutely gob smacking amazing tile generator knows as the NEC PowerVR2, and the Yamaha AICA for its sound capabilities. (pun intended )

A personal note: I bought the Dreamcast on release at Walmart while working cargo in Tucson, the US, sharing a house with 2 guys. 3 games we bought, Sega Rally, Blue Stinger, Soul Calibur and an extra controller. By far the most played game in our house, Soul Calibur (mostly Asteroth) burned itself into our memory and to this day i can still exactly remember the absolute chaos it was on the lounge when we were playing this game.. so much fun...

Various versions of the jewel case art:







These days there are various ways you can play, but i would strongly suggest, if you have the means and equipment to play it on original (modified) hardware. My original disc, although still in one piece, hasn't been recognized by any of my Dreamcast's in many years.

I use one of these, and it runs perfect on the OG DC. I would also recommend if you have the means, to play this on a huge frikking TV, it wont do justice on a small pc monitor, and if you have 2 of these joysticks, your absolutely rocking it.
I play this a lot with my kids, they love it a lot. We run a Akura, from Beharbros,and comes highly recommended, its a little expensive for a hdmi convertor, but the picture quality is amazing, with minimal lag.
Akura | Beharbros , you can ofcourse run a multitude of other convertors, like the OSSC, ill leave the selection up to yourself.

Okay that all sounds fun, but where do i get the game?

Various places, like ebay, Amazon or Gamestop, You wont find it at EB Games, they dont carry stuff this far back. You can ofcourse also find it on many uncle torrent sites.

Various Dreamcast emulators out there

Redream redream - Dreamcast Emulator
Flycast Flycast Download for Windows, Android, macOS (technogone.com)
NullDC nullDC - Sega Retro

Youll need bios files for them to work, which again, you can find on various sites.

It really is such a great game, and even better with a mate or girlfriend/boyfriend.



Let me know how you go, if you need help with any bios files or getting an original dreamcast, more than happy to help, and just remeber, The soul still burns!!

Game ON!!

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The legend will never die!
I cannot like the post enough. Nor put into words how awesome the game still is.

No arcade sticks anymore here, but hope to dig out the console, VGA box and game for some fun even if I don't remember all the combos anymore. Fortunately for any new players you can go Kilik and just spam I think left and X for the long range prod that can overcome most of the other characters played by most people with actual skills and knowledge quite easily.

Some of the games throws (A + B from memory) are simply beautiful. An absolute must have for any Dreamcast owner. Still plays as good as ever, even if my disc is so worn it usually freezes at the title screen.

 

what an awesome choice!

For anyone who's ever wondered just how much there is to unlock in this classic on DC checkout this completionist video!!

 

OMG Vanne suggesting and playing a Dreamcast title.

 

I would have expected Soul Calibur II on the GC!!

 

I never got into this game, I much preferred SF series personally.

 

What fascinates me about this title is that it's one of the first where the home port was a MASSIVE improvement to the arcade original. Not a whole lot of titles like that out there.

The arcade original came on Namco System 12 hardware. The Namco System 11 (immediately prior to the System 12) was pretty much a PS1 in a box with ROM based games (instead of an optical drive like the home console). The Namco System 12 took the PS1's 33MHz MIPS R3000A processor and upped it to 48MHz, and the very basic GPU enhanced to be able to do Z-buffering (no more PS1 wobbly polygons) and full texture shading at 24bit colour (unlike the PS1's notorious 16bit dithering and rough texture work). Specs say it could run at around 30 MIPS (Millions of Instructions per Second, which isn't a good real-world benchmark for anything, but keep that number in mind. Also not to be confused with the company MIPS, who made the R3000A CPU).

So more or less the System 12 was a "PlayStation 1.1" if you will. More powerful than a PS1, but not anywhere close to PS2 level stuff.

Now take the Dreamcast. This thing is a beast. 200MHz Hitachi SH-4 processor (itself a generational leap over the PS1's R3000A thanks to superscalar pipelining and excellent vector processing) with an estimated 360 MIPS (approximate 10x performance improvement relative to the PS1 or System 11/12), plus then on top of that a PowerVR2 GPU (putting it at RivaTNT2/Voodoo3 level graphics power). This thing could literally emulate a PS1 in software at full speed and at double the native resolution (see: "Bleem!").

Soul Calibur's first home port is then to this beast, and the developers go all out. Everything is upgraded to suit the Dreamcast's power.

Honestly, go dig up an arcade longplay, or fire up the original game in MAME. It's night and day difference to what the Dreamcast version looks like.

I struggle to think of any other game that's had this same level of arcade -> home experience massive upgrade. Most other titles are either far worse, or just arcade accurate. Fascinating stuff.

 

The campaign in this was just awesome as well. Heaps of unlockables and interesting fight varitations.

 

out of all the Soul Calibur titles this would easily have been my pic, even though dont have my Gamecube anymore I still own the physical copy of this. but have recently started messing around with the original in Dreamcast on my Rp2+ and Rp3. very good game

 

Crazy Taxi is about the only other port I can think of off the top of my head.
The Dreamcast port was not only arcade perfect (like 90% of all Dreamcast arcade ports were) but it added a whole new city to play along with crazy box driving challenges.
It's not quite as much stuff crammed in as Soul Calibur, but it's up there in that they added more than double the content to the original game. Dreamcast>Arcade sit down>Arcade stand up. And all the other ports are unplayable for various reasons.

But getting back on topic.
I'm not a fan of the other Soul games.
And the reason I don't like the series is because Soul Calibur is just so perfect that even it's sequels and predecessor simply pale to it. I have played every Soul game on every platform up to 5 and didn't bother to try 6 because they simply can't bottle the lightning like they did with this version of this game.

It's not just rose coloured glasses on my love for this game. The rose coloured glasses certainly help, but it's not JUST them.
Many games age horribly in many ways. (Be it graphics or physics or simply a new version coming out and rendering the old one bad) but you could play this game with someone who'd never seen it before just as easily as a veteran fighting game expert and they're both likely to come away appreciating that it's still a good game.

 

Sega Rally 2 was good, apart from the stutter...

 

A few attempts to get the game to load but got there in the end. Training sessions and deciding on which monitor to use to go through the story.

Ignoring Vannes suggestion to play it on a big screen entirely. I will have to see how it translates to a 55" TV one day. I might give the game a go via Svideo on one of my old tubes, but monitors just look so nice.

I couldn't pick between a radiation tube and a Dell 2007FPb, So I'm using both (DC official VGA box into a splitter) Considering the 19" CRT on the left is my absolute favorite daily CRT screen, I can see why people like these Dells for their 1up arcades.

I really should get a DC arcade stick again to play this though, but not worth the cost or the space taken up for a few days of play. Outside of Soul Calibur, Powerstone and Powerstone 2 are the only other fighting games I play exclusively on DC, and they're both fine with a control.

 

as a Sega Rally aficionado the DC port of SR2 if it was my first experience would have completely ruined the game for me. While I am aware of the fps hack this port was really sub-standard and something I never expected from Sega.

Thankfully my first experience was the arcade and my second the PC port, both of which are better.

 

SR2 was the game we purchased with our launch DC in Australia. We traded in our beloved PS1 and N64 for the DC and I remember the console launch being delayed and delayed. We finally got it, with SR2 but no VMU as those were in very low supply on launch. Was an awesome game but the low/unstable FPS hurt the enjoyment greatly.

 

I generally crack it at one of my nephews when he plays Maxi against me while using Kilik. Maxi is a jammy bastard. Time for me to bust out the DC and the old Pyrod 37" TV. I am pretty sure I have pretty much completed this game, Edge Master is great for PVP. Now to find the right VMU and DC.

edit:I forgot yoshimitsu played the similar on the DC and the PS1 (moves wise).

 

I played through a couple of games on MAME tonight (can't get to my Dreamcast currently, stuck with my laptop for a bit).

I was going to capture some video, but this one I found on YouTube is pretty close. YT compression and presumably bilinear filter on the video owner's behalf make it a touch fuzzier, but the resolution is what the native arcade board spits out.



Now compare and contrast to VGA capture off a real Dreamcast:

 

Lolol!! You guys!!

 

I had no idea the Dreamcast existed as a console.

 

Apart from the GC, it's my fave console by far. Most games on it are impeccable, unlike most other consoles who have thier fair share of muck. It did cost a bomb on release though, and was aimed at a more mature audience, thus had more access to coin. Absolute awesome system. Grab one today.

 

Amazing post, and follow up posts. Thanks Vanne, and thanks Elvis.

I had this on the PS1, and it still holds a place dear in my heart, the campaign was utterly stellar for a fighting game. I WISH I'd owned a dreamcast. That port blows my mind. Freaking unheard of.

edit: just watched the vga capture of dreamcast play Elvis posted, holy crap it really is no comparison, the port is just SO MUCH BETTER.

Freakin wow.