A week or two ago, I received a Direct Message Tweet from the Boss-Man…

ttffdale: I am so jealous. Soulcalibur PSP sent here. Sending it your way. Like fighting games?

To which I responded…

RMGreg: Depends on the game. Wolverine didn’t float my boat. More into games that I can play with the boys.

And so a short time later I was putting Bandai Namco Games’s Soulcalibur Broken Destiny through its paces on my Sony PSP. So, what did I think? Well, it’s a lot like Mortal Kombat. Now please don’t ‘Flame Me’ because of that off-handed remark. Truth be told, I’ve never played Mortal Kombat either.

Rapier of Death

Soulcalibur Broken Destiny is the latest in a line of Soulcalibur games. It is a fighting game, as defined by Wikipedia, where, if I may borrow a line from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, “Two men enter, one man leaves.” This means that you battle and attempt to defeat your opponent in either a ‘Best of 3’ or ‘Best of 5’ series of rounds played out in an Arena of Death.

What was a pleasant surprise to me, having never played any of the Soulcalibur games, was that I could play pretty much any of the 28 characters at any time during the game. I wasn’t required to pick my champion from day one, and then spend the rest of the game improving his/her skills. Each character differs in their fighting styles and weaponry, allowing the player to broaden their game play and not get stuck using the same keystroke-button-attack. Of course, I soon found myself selecting and sticking with a certain character because I became quite adept at using his keystroke-button-attack.

The game also allows you to create 16 additional characters based on the fighting styles of some the already established characters. At first I thought this feature was rather neat until I realized that it simply served the purpose of keeping the player engaged in a game that’s basically a one trick pony. In other words, when asked to describe the game you can say, “You battle against various characters in an Arena of Death… Oh, and you can create new characters to battle in the Arena of Death.”

Broad Sword of Death

In addition to (Character) Creation, the game also has the Quick Match, which allows the player to battle the computer in various ‘Best of 5’ matches; the Gauntlet, which is the tutorial mode… a feature I found very useful; Trials, which is broken down into Trial of Attack, Trial of Defense, and Endless Trial, in which you battle various characters in ‘Best of 3’ matches focusing on learning and developing certain skills; Versus, which allows you to battle other nearby PSP players through Ad-Hoc multiplayer gaming… a chance to ‘Talk Smack’ at something other than your PSP; and finally, Training, which is your basic practice mode.

Lightning Zapping Sword of Death (which could never exist in the physical world)

Soulcalibur Broken Destiny game play is fast and exciting. The graphics and sound are great. I’ll have to admit that game play did require me to learn a set of button strikes for special attacks and blocks, but they weren’t too taxing on my brain. As a matter of fact, I liked the rush I got whenever I was able to get my character to connect with a devastating-sword-reeling-body-spinning- blow to my opponent. In a nutshell, the game was quite easy to pick up.

And in that same nutshell, the game was also quite easy to put down. If I were to fault Soulcalibur Broken Destiny on one thing, it would be its inability to really engage the player. Oh sure, you can collect titles, better your skills, and unlock bonus features as you play the game, however, what the game truly lacks is a sense of quest. After playing for a while, the only sense I got out of game was that I was basically training for my next fight.

Overall Impression

Soulcalibur Broken Destiny is a nice distraction that didn’t force me to invest a lot of time for quick satisfaction. This means that in the future, if I’ve got some time to kill (or time for killing), I can pick up Soulcalibur and go to town… Unfortunately for the game, I can just as easily pick up a Sudoku Puzzle. So with that in mind, I’m giving Soulcalibur Broken Destiny 6 out of 8 Dancing Elephants, because even for a distraction, it is a pretty decent one.

Parting Thoughts

My wife, Tonya, took fencing in college, so I know for a fact that like lightsabers, Lighting Zapping Swords of Death don’t exist in the Real World, much to her disappointment.

In the Interest of Full Disclosure: We received a free copy of this game for review purposes.