This game was a little hard to play. I liked parts of Soul Fighter, but the game needed a better camera. Being a single-player-only game was one of the developers’ dumber decisions.
Beat’em ups are better when you can sit with a friend or play online with a stranger. For a game released in 1999, this is a mind-numbingly stupid decision. It seems like the more I learn about this game, the more I dislike it.
I was looking forward to playing this one, but it was extremely disappointing after I did. I guess Sega was hard-pressed for games on their system at this point because this is pretty bad. This was a small team, and they made some bad decisions.
TLDR: An Extremely Disappointing Beat’em Up.
Narrative
This game has an overly complex story explained in a long and hilarious FMV scene at the beginning of the game. Simply put, there is a kingdom, a bad buy, and a group of three heroes who will save the day.
The king had a son, his son died, and two people tried to restore him by any means. They get kicked out of the kingdom and plan to take their revenge by turning people into beastmen. Our three heroes have to go on a quest to kill an evil dragon to save the day.
There is some nonsense about souls and how you need to free them by beating people up, but it isn’t necessary to play the game. I credit the developers for trying something different with the story, but I think it would be better if the Kingdom of Gomar were destroyed.
Gameplay
The best word I have for the control scheme is awkward. Everything is responsive, but it has that early 3D game awkwardness that you see in games from the mid-1990s. The camera is your biggest enemy, and it kneecaps the gameplay and controls.
The gameplay should be familiar to anyone who has played a beat’em up before. You select from three playable characters, you have special moves, and you have to defeat all the enemies to advance to the next screen/stage. Here are the three characters:
- Atlus – He is the Warrior/ Sword Guy.
- Sayomi – She is the quick strike person.
- Orion – He is the Wizard/Magic Guy.
Soul Fighter is a single-player-only game. This is one of the worst decisions that a company could’ve made. I understand why they did this, but it is extremely disappointing. Beat’em ups are better when they are multi-player.
I have some issues with the gameplay and the controls in this game. If you don’t have the manual, you won’t know all the controls because the game doesn’t explain them. Even the menu screen doesn’t have a complete list of the game’s controls.
I was fighting the camera more than anything. You have some control over it, but not enough. The developers should have emulated the camera from Mario 64. Instead, it feels like the camera switches perspective at inopportune times.
It is possible to overcome the camera, but the awkward control scheme is something else. I needed to alternate between the analog stick and the D-pad to do anything. More often than not, I did something I wasn’t intending to do. The game got a lot easier once I figured out how to pick up items.
Each playable character has a weapon that can be used for a limited amount of time. The manual explains how to use it. Getting the awful controls makes it hard to use the character’s weapons reliably.
There aren’t many positive things I can say about this game. The gameplay is simply bad, and the awful camera only makes it worse. I could go on, but there is little reason to continue pointing out its problems.
Visuals
Soul Fighter looks pretty great. I don’t have any issues with the graphics in this game. The only thing I don’t like is the camera, which is one of the biggest issues with the game.
I know I mentioned this already, but the camera is awful. It has to be mentioned when it causes more problems than it solves or creates issues that shouldn’t be there. It causes problems for the gameplay as far as moving through the level and fighting.
The levels and character models look good for the time. The cutscenes are okay; they use in-game graphics, which isn’t a bad thing. The levels also look alright.
Soul Fighter sometimes gives the player visual cues. There are stages where you have to avoid projectiles, which is fairly easy to do as you can track them. The camera can kneecap you in these parts, but the projectiles also hit your enemies, so I don’t mind it.
The visuals are a mixed bag. Aside from the camera, the game looks good for the time it was released. Unfortunately, the camera kneecaps everything in the game, not just with the visuals but also from a gameplay standpoint.
Reviews at the Time
The reviews at the time were overwhelmingly negative. This didn’t change as the years went on. Sometimes, you see that happen, but in this case, it didn’t. It actually got worse.
I looked at three reviews for Soul Fighter, which came from IGN, Game Informer, and GameSpot. The highest of these three was 5.5/10, and the lowest was 2.5/10. This is a fairly accurate depiction of the way the game was received.
IGN hammered the game for its awful camera, needless backtracking, and terrible enemy placement. I noticed the last one but didn’t think it was a big deal. You run into issues where you have to wander aimlessly through the level until the enemies feel like jumping out at you. Everything said in this article is what I experienced.
I don’t think the Game Informer author played the game. It reads like a press release that focuses on the story. It also comes across as if they didn’t enjoy beat’em ups to begin with, and they don’t mention any specifics about how the game plays. Somehow, they gave the game a 5.5/10, but I can’t find the rationale behind it.
GameSpot gave the game 4.8/10, which isn’t too far off where I’m at for this game. The reviewer raised the same points as IGN but said it might be worth a weekend rental. I could see that happening and how this might ruin someone’s weekend. I do agree with the reviewer when he says “Playing Soul Fighter is a chore.”
One thing I noticed while reading these reviews was that the reviewers didn’t like beat’em ups. That is how the two reviews read to me. It seems odd that the editorial staff would assign this game to people who dislike beat’em ups. I might be off on this, but that is how each article reads. It doesn’t make their opinions untrue; it is simply something I wanted to point out.
4/10. The developers made all the wrong decisions with this game. The camera, controls, and gameplay are all terrible. The only thing that is average to good would be the graphics.
Pros
- Decent Story
- It looks alright
Cons
- Terrible Camera
- Terrible Controls
- Awkward Gameplay
- A lot of “Where do I go?”
- Single-player Only
Conclusion
This is one of the worst Beat’em ups I’ve ever played. I had thought it was an arcade port. It wasn’t unheard of for arcade ports to appear on Sega consoles from third-party developers, but this was made specifically for the Dreamcast, which makes things worse.
When the best part of the game is the FMVs, and I found those to be more funny than I was supposed to be, there is a problem. It wasn’t like Blue Stinger, where it was probably made to be funny; it was simply hilariously bad. They were trying to make it good and failed.
If this was a two-player game, it might have made things better. It still would have been bad, but at least there would have been someone to share the misery with. I’m looking forward to playing a better game after dealing with this,
If you liked this post, please check out my other beat’em up content, such as my review of Dynamite Cop or My Favorite Beat’em Ups.