Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny (PSP)
Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny is an odd attempt to take the weapon-based fighting game series to a portable gaming console for the first time. Featuring much of the content and even gameplay found in Soulcalibur IV, the game might have actually been better off just releasing as a port with the expected downgrades to visuals than what we ended up getting. Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny wanted to create new game modes for its single-player offerings though, but it doesn’t feel like much thought was put into them despite their existence seemingly being more important to the designers than including online multiplayer play.
Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny takes place in a world of medieval fantasy where a sword of evil and a sword of light lead to constant conflict. The Soul Edge and Soul Calibur are usually the driving force behind a Soulcalibur game’s story, but for Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny, it seems the two blades are finally out of the picture. However, the game’s story mode, The Gauntlet, actually leads with a disclaimer that its plot is not meant to be taken seriously as part of the series timeline, something that would probably become apparent pretty quickly even if you weren’t primed for some of the strange directions it takes. The Gauntlet tells the story of Princess Hilde who seeks a cure for her ill father, and while she is still a mostly dignified warrior despite a sleep-battling stint that gets a little silly at one point, she recruits the young and bubbly warrior Cassandra as her companion for this adventure. The two end up discovering the player at a tournament, the player allowed to play as any character they please including Hilde or Cassandra in this mode, but you’ll always be referred to as just a helpful warrior they rely on for much of the fighting.
In general, The Gauntlet’s plot is surprisingly ridiculous on the whole. Soulcalibur has always had its stranger or goofier elements, characters like the masked ninja Yoshimitsu eccentric and the hissing contortionist in leather Voldo certainly odd, but a lot more outright comedy is written into Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny’s story. The focus on being wacky really kicks into gear when the core trio gets a new member, Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny introducing a new fighter in the form of Dampierre, a thief who purposely acts goofy so he can surprise people with hidden blades. Once Dampierre is part of the traveling group, the game practically becomes a farce, the ingredients needed for the cure for the king leading to strange scenarios that even corrupt the usually straight-laced characters of the franchise. Zasalamel, an immortal man, now uses his future sight to see anime and hipsters. The usually fearsome and ferocious embodiment of evil Nightmare goes from a monstrous knight to someone who talks more like a shy little boy when you meet him. Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny’s story is outright trying to be comedic, almost a parody of the series at times, and even the failure screens will have unique jokes that are a bit of a shame to miss out on just because you’re doing well. Characters even outright acknowledge the fact they’re in a video game at times, such as calling out the special treatment this game’s guest character, Kratos from the God of War series, gets.
Sadly, the very amusing writing of The Gauntlet is tied to a grueling approach to combat that begins first as tutorial and then just becomes about learning character specific counters mostly through guess work. When The Gauntlet begins, the first few chapters are purely about getting you used to the mechanics at play in this fighting game, an understandable and probably smart approach but not exactly entertaining if viewed purely from a gameplay perspective. However, once you have left the broad general tutorials (that for some reason completely fail to mention the existence of the game’s Critical Finishes, a set of super moves meant to punish players who guard too much), the rest of The Gauntlet’s hefty count of 34 chapters with 2 to 4 missions each just becomes a series of tests to see if you can defend against certain characters well. This can serve as a way to prepare players still, learning how to counter unusual attacks like Lizardman’s floor crawling moves will certainly help a player if they face him in regular battle, but even the format gets in the way of this information really sticking. You’ll only be told the proper counter after failing a test once, you’ll only know what you’re up against in these character tutorials once it’s already happening so you often will fail because you don’t know what to expect, and there’s a count-in that often just gives you a split second to even input your attempted counter. The comedy can only blunt the cutting blade of the tedium and hollowness of this mode’s supposed “training”, especially since such a concept for training for you character-specific maneuvers would be better off in the game’s actual training mode where it could be practiced more freely and without constant interruption. It would be much easier to repeat that training there too rather than being moved on immediately to the next one whether you really comprehended the lesson or not.
The delightfully strange writing of Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny’s main story mode is let down by a monotonous and poorly structured mission system, but when you’re actually participating in a normal battle, the fighting system is excellently designed. The game’s 28 characters plus any custom characters you make that borrow their moves from a main character have three main attack types, vertical slashes, horizontal slashes, and kicks. You can move around in eight directions in the 3D battle arenas that all have some fairly good music to accompany their sights that still look impressive on the PSP, and different moves can penetrate your opponent’s guard so things like guarding high, low, or just moving out of the way become important to survival. The weapons help with visually identifying what kind of attack is coming your way, but even beyond intentional deceptions like those Dampierre relies on, you have a vast array of attacking types in this game’s roster. The undead pirate Cervantes fights with a pair of blades that have guns built in their hilts so he’s lethal at any range, but Ivy’s chain sword that can shift between blade and whip can wind around in unexpected ways to cover her options. A character like the martial artist Kilik undoubtedly has a range advantage with his long staff, but reach can sometimes come at the price of strength or predictability so a character like Maxi who swings his nunchaku around in hard to track ways can still hold his own against such a warrior.
In fact, if you can spot a player’s intent well, you can even Guard Impact them, this special parry leaving them open to a follow up attack but it requires great timing to actually get the reward since failing it instead leaves you open to damage. Some characters like the giant Astaroth rely more on landing heavy hits while an agile and quick character like Xianghua will want to combo many moves together, but both battle types are valid and both can be susceptible to the equalizer that is the Guard Impact system. Grabs also allow players to get throw opponents who guard too much, but in turn, pressing the right button when grabbed can lead to a quick escape to avoid the otherwise guaranteed damage. The depth of counterplay means throwing out random moves or relying on the same tricks will not net you long term success, the pace of the battle quick but still dependent on mind games as you try to find openings while making sure you can have your own defensive options ready when necessary. The roster size leads to a wide range of weapons and gimmicks as well, a character like Tira using a bladed hoop like a dancer but also fighting differently based on whether she’s jolly or gloomy. You’ll have a more straightforward character like the gentlemanly fencer Raphael or samurai Mitsurugi to help get to grips with the battle system, but then you can play as the ninja Taki who leaps and rolls around as part of her attacks. There are characters to cater to simpler and more advanced play styles, and when you can find other people with copies of Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny, you can have some intense and exciting multiplayer battles thanks to the range of character types and the strong interplay between the universal fundamentals.
If you can’t play with other owners of the game, something made harder to arrange by the lack of online play, you’re either stuck with The Gauntlet or left to play some fairly basic single-player modes. Quick Match has you selecting from a list of computer controlled opponents where you only see their supposed win/loss record and a title before fighting them, and you just keep picking from this list rather than really building towards much beyond a trove of “titles” that can display in multiplayer. The three Trial modes are a bit better, actually presenting a sequence of fights with long term goals. Trial of Attack, Trial of Defense, and the Endless Trial are mostly different in their difficulty and length and just throw you at new opponents rather than trying to tell a story or cater to your character of choice, but they do have a scoring system that can make things a bit different than it just being a quest to win every match. In these trials, if you land attacks you’ll earn points as well as a boost to a multiplier, and if you take damage or whiff an attack, your multiplier and points go down. These are there for a local leaderboard mostly, but you can at least try to alter your play style to better suit this system if you do want something out of these modes beyond a sequence of battles. There are also Honors to unlock that mostly mark your success in doing certain actions or doing well in the different game modes, these almost not worth mentioning beyond the fact that each honor comes with a small snippet of information on the new character Dampierre that fleshes him out a bit since the character profiles are a bit too focused on a person’s gameplay over their character history and personality.
THE VERDICT: The unexpected and delightful wackiness of Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny’s story mode is a welcome concept for fans of the broader series who know the characters well, but unfortunately it is tacked onto an awful concept for the game’s largest single player offering. Constant tutorials that aren’t even structured the best for their purpose makes it a slog despite the silliness and the Trials and Quick Match are a bit too straightforward to really make Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny worth owning since Soulcalibur IV is superior in all measures. At the same time, porting over Soulcalibur IV’s excellent gameplay design still means that when you’re in a normal fight you can still have a wonderful time, especially if you do know of other people with the game willing to play with you. It’s not the first fighting game that squeaks by as good because of its multiplayer component, but it is baffling that the game seemed to barely cater to a solo player looking for something to do.
And so, I give Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny for PlayStation Portable…
A GOOD rating. There are some fighting games, especially in the early years of the genre, where the single player modes outright read your button presses or used other cheap tricks, making solo play miserable and unfair. Still, those games are looked back on fondly and praised purely because of their mechanics working well when playing against another person in multiplayer. Soulcalibur on home systems has usually been smarter about its single-player offerings so that you can have a good time whether you have another person to play with or not, but Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny seems to have the wrong idea about how portable gaming systems work. Yes, you can run into another player with the game potentially and quickly play it, and having a component to train you not just on basics but on specific character techniques would help you be prepared for these potentially brief but still exciting and skillful encounters. At the same time, a lot of portable gaming derives from someone having a bit of downtime and pulling out their system for a quick entertaining diversion, and while Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny can provide that on a basic level with Quick Match or the simplistic Trials, the meatier mode on offer is just an extended tutorial that isn’t even built well for retaining what you’ve learned. Trials let you unlock new weapons but they are just a change of appearance and even the Honors that help you learn about Dampierre depend on multiplayer to some degree, Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny really seeming like it’s a game meant for multiplayer that had some tacked on single player components.
Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny feels like a game that had little heart put into it save for the absurdity found in the writing of The Gauntlet. It’s so strange that the poor “learn by losing” format of the glorified tutorial is paired with such lively and silly character dialogue, but it’s hardly enough to make playing through that story mode worth it. Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny is a game likely best missed by this point. Most content of note was already found in the more fleshed out Soulcalibur IV, Dampierre would reappear in later games, so it’s mostly just Kratos’s guest appearance and the strange writing of The Gauntlet that feels unique. You still technically have a good game if you do get Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny because the fighting is well designed for amateurs and pros alike on top of the creative fighting styles featured, but the overall game structure means its best treated as a curiosity rather than a legitimate way to enjoy a generally great fighting game series.