Actually, it's pretty darn good

I was a bit surprised to see all the negative reviews of Soul Fighter here at Epinions. I was even more surprised when I looked at a couple of professional reviews which trashed this title shortly after it was released for the Dreamcast. While this game has more than a few warts, it's a pretty darn good three-dimensional fighting game. Sure, it's not one that will captivate you for months on end, but it's a great way to kill time when you're in the mood for a mindless beat 'em up, action title.

I won't go very much into the storyline in this game because, frankly, no one playing this game will care about it for long. Essentially, this takes place in the middle ages and the player is charged with the task of (gasp) fighting a great evil. Actually, that's Evil with an upper-case "E" in the manual. I suppose evil is just plain bad, while Evil is really, really bad. So, what is this Evil? Humans have been turned into Evil animals and the only way to save them is to beat them senseless and release their souls (the ol' "it'll either cure you or kill you" tactic, see). The player goes through five, large worlds of animal-beating prior to reaching the ultimate bosses of the game. Naturally, there are stinky bosses thrown in here and there, too.

Like I said, however, the story doesn't matter one whit. This is a button-mashing, beat 'em up. If something moves, go over and hit it. Hit it a lot, in fact. If you have a knife or other ranged weapon, throw junk at the sword-wielding fox (or whatever) to soften it up some and then go hit it.

The player is given the choice of three characters. There's not a whole lot of differences between them, although one is supposed to be the muscled-up, tough guy, another is the token female (who runs around quickly while beating up animals) and the older, wiser warrior. You've got some different combo moves with each character and there are some differences, but they are all gifted in the art of the beat-down, so you really can't go wrong with any of them.

The graphics in this thing are impressive, particularly when you consider Soul Fighter was one of the launch titles for the system. The playfield is a bit on the dark side, but the three-dimensional world is rendered well and the animation is great. What's wonderful about this fighter (at least for someone who grew up on two-dimensional fighters such as Mortal Combat) is that it takes place in an honest-to-goodness, three-dimensional environment. The player can run all over the blasted place, and that's just dandy.

Dandy, yes. But, there is a problem -- the camera angles go wacky at times, making it hard to spin around and take on various enemies when there are four or five of them on the screen. More than once, I've thought, "This fight wouldn't be so hard if I could, you know, actually see them as well as they can see me." Indeed, the computer-generated enemies have a distinct advantage -- they have no problem swarming the player and can see him quite well. The unfortunate character, however, can get confused easily in a battle and wind up with his back turned to enemies.

That's a major drag because this game gets tough in a hurry. It's hard enough fending off the Evil animals without having issues with camera angles. Still, that's not an uncommon problem in 3D games, and it's not that bad to deal with after you've played the game a few times.

The combat system is pretty good, too. The player can swing a fist, kick a baddie (and, yes, kicking them when they're down and on the ground is fun), block attacks or jump. Hitting an enemy a couple of times in a row results in a nice combo and does some major damage to an enemy. Better yet, a "combo meter" fills when the player scores continuous hits. Once that is full, major attacks can be released. Pretty nifty.

Another meter to follow is the "weapons" bar. For example, let's say you choose to play Altus, a muscled-up guy. He carries a sword. However, using the sword diminishes the weapons bar, and it must be put away if the bar is drained. The bar is recharged as one goes through the game. Some planning is required here, see, as Altus' sword packs a pretty mean punch, and it's horrible to have to put it away in the middle of a particularly fierce battle.

Several power-ups are available too, ranging from ranged weapons (arrows and the like) to food which is needed to replenish damage done during battles. There's a problem, however. While a lot of the items are found in chests, an enemy will almost always drop an item after he's been defeated. The item doesn't remain on the screen forever (I guess food spoils after a few seconds), and a sure-fire way to get the crud beaten out of you in the middle of a battle is to concentrate on grabbing a chicken or whatever instead of beating up the Evil guys. That drives me nuts because items such as food are essential in upper levels of the game, and it doesn't seem fair to be given the choice of running to get it before it vanishes or finishing a fight against a group of enemies.

The range weapons are pretty good, too. If you catch an Evil animal napping or a ways off, you can simply aim the weapon and do some damage before it's even in range.

So, we've got good graphics and a good combat system. After all, it's fun to watch enemies fly all over the place to a ridiculous degree after they've been beaten up good and proper. Also, the animation is silky-smooth, and the game is plagued with framerate drops even when the action is fast and furious. Yeah, the inability to get to some items before they vanish and the flaky camera angles are annoying, but I can live with them. The sound is pretty good, too -- there's some voice acting and the "clank, clank" of weapons and the "Hollywood" sound of fists and feet making contact are both effective. As for control, I hated it at first, but was able to get around pretty well in a fight after I got used to it (the camera angles are the main culprits here -- it's hard to get out of the way of an enemy when you have a difficult time figuring out where you're going).

There are a couple of modes in this. One is the "arcade" mode in which the player is given five continues (i.e., after you get five fighters killed, the game ends). An adventure mode gives the player but one character per level. Also, in arcade mode, the player can change fighters between levels.

A mode that is sorely missing, however, is the head-to-head mode. This is one player only, but it by gum ought to allow two players to square off and beat the crud out of each other. That's pretty standard in fighting games, isn't it?

Like I said, this game has its flaws. Overall, however, it's a great-looking game that offers a lot of challenge to fans of the fighting genre.