Nerd Mentality

PSP REVIEW - Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny

Posted October 12th 2009 by Frankie Aguilar.

Games for the PSP have generally been received as nothing more than ports. Every now and again an original game like Loco Roco comes along and makes the PSP relevant for a few months, only to have it sink back into obscurity. Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny falls somewhere in between these two paradigms. The similarities between this game and Soulcalibur IV are very apparent, but much of what made SCIV fantastic has been lost in the transfer.

One thing you can say about Namco is they know how to make a pretty game. All jokes about jiggle aside, the Soul series has been consistently on the cutting edge of graphics and this outing doesn't disappoint. The PSP has always boasted about its ability to bring PS2 comparable graphics to the hand held platform, and they more than deliver on that bravado with Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny. And at no time does the frame rate suffer from it. You have all the fluid and brilliant game play that you've come to expect from Soul games at you fingertips wherever you go.

I have always been a fan of story modes in games. I like being tricked into playing every character by my thirst for knowledge of what motivates these characters to fight. The stories are usually convoluted and ridiculous but nonetheless, my quest for information allows me to get familiar with almost every character in a game. Broken Destiny doesn't have a game play mode like this. The closest this game comes to a story mode is The Gauntlet, a bloated tutorial which is just a vehicle to familiarize players with the the button layout, and pimp the extent of the character creator. The lack of any standard modes in Broken Destiny is really a detriment. A customary arcade mode is also missing from this game, an important mode for the pick up and play gamer that tends to use portable gaming platforms. Fighting games also depend on their level of replayability to distinguish them from their competition.

The character creator does indeed make its reappearance in this hand held version. The depth of creation doesn't match its console counterparts', but there's enough here for you to create dollar store versions of all your favorite characters that didn't make it into this game. The roster for this game has been trimmed, but the core characters you've come to expect are all here. New comers this time around are the Voldo clone Dampierre, and the God of War himself, Kratos.

Dampierre is really a goofy and unorthodox character that will frustrate you to play with, and against. He dual wields a pair of spring mounted daggers and uses misdirection and feints to launch his attacks. Kratos on the other hand is an all out power house that relies on devastating attacks to make up for his general lack of speed. If you're a juggling style player, Kratos might be a decent reprieve from playing as Ivy. Both of their move sets will be accessible to both veterans and new comers alike because the spectacular controls of the Soul series have transferred over well to the PSP. It's really a shame that it'll be tough to show off your moves to anyone.

Versus mode is the heart and soul of any fighting game. There's no point being great at a fighting game if you can't shove it in your friends faces. One of the biggest complaints about the PSP has been its ad hoc local wireless multiplayer system and it once again lessens this awesomeness of a game. Sony's answer to this in the past has been a game sharing feature allowing people to play against each other with only one copy of the game. Sadly this feature was not added here. Without a true online way to play against other people, the versus mode of this game will uncharacteristically be the least used.

Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny is really for the fighting junkie only. If you can't ride a bus without getting your fighting fix, this is the game for you. Otherwise it's just another port. It's a port of a great game, but in this case, the portability factor doesn't make up for what you lose in the transfer. The lack of a fun, simple versus mode and the absence of a story mode take away one of the biggest selling points for any fighting game: the replayability. Without it, this is just another game that the PSP faithful will buy in hopes of justifying their purchase of the hand held in the first place.

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Tags: soulcalibur, broken destiny

Posted in: Gaming, Reviews

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