I will never forget the day my father took me to the movie theaters off Lee Hwy in Merrified, Virginia, where I saw a Soulcalibur arcade cabinet for the first time.
I had always been a big fan of Namco for their work on Time Crisis and the music that played when fighting the antagonist Wild Dog in the game's final act. What I saw when I first played Soulcalibur was unlike anything I had played before. I had played fighting games such as Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, and Tekken, however this seemed very different because each character was using a unique melee weapon for combat, and not fists or feet. The closest thing I had seen to this was Midway's Mortal Kombat 4, where characters pulled out a weapon after pressing certain button combos, however these weapons were easily disarmed if your opponent landed a hit on you. Soulcalibur's fighters and weapons were diverse and created a lasting impression on first time players. There were knights, a female ninja, two samurai, a nunchaku guy, and a giant lizard!
Because I was obsessed with Reptile from Mortal Kombat and the fight choreography from the 1995 film, as well as the owner of two leopard geckos, I chose Lizardman as the character I would play first. I was controlling a humanoid lizard that wielded a shield and sword. From that moment, to the game's sequel that provided a unique bonus character depending on the console you purchased the game for, for example Link from The Legend of Zelda was a fighter on the Nintendo Gamecube, I knew that the Soulcalibur franchise of games had cemented itself in the fighting genre as something unique and original. It was here to stay.
Today Bandai Namco has released the first in a series of documentary videos about Soulcalibur as a franchise, titled Swords and Souls: The Rise of Soulcalibur. Whether you are a video game history buff, or a die hard fan of the series. This documentary is worth a watch if for nothing else, to catch a glimpse into one of the most interesting fighting games of all time. Part one is enclosed above.
