gamespot score:7.5(good)
my score:7.9
(+)Pros:-Roster size is quite big,- great control shceme despite being on the PSP,- visuals aren't half bad,- character customization is a ton of fun,- roster is very well balanced with the exepction of one character.
(-)Cons:-Gaunlet mode is absolutely retarded,-lack of single player content,-Kratos is stupidly overpowered
gameplay time:10-20 hours(Below average)
Played soul calibur? You should have, soul calibur has always been one of namco's most successful titles. The soul calibur franchise has seen no shortage of titles in its series, broken destiny is indeed the 5th soul calibur game, though its just a remake of 4 for the PSP. And like most soul caliburs which included guest characters, broken destiny also introduces Kratos, the infamous god of war, as a playable character. This is enough to draw crowds to play this great game, but as many would have guessed, broken destiny on the PSP is a mite lower in terms of standard compared to all the previous soul caliburs to date.
Broken destiny's story is the same as soul calibur 4, or in fact, same as almost every other soul calibur. It features the battle over the soul edge, and the eternal conflict between the wielder of the soul calibur siegfried, and the wieler of the soul edge, nightmare. Except that this time there is a third party wielding both soul edge and the soul calibur, going by the name of algol. Its incredibly unfortunate that the game doesn't really focus on its epic story background, thanks to the ridiculous gaunlet mode, which does incredibly poor story telling, and rather focuses on other cmedic and stupid stuff. More on that later.
Namco is amazing in roster size when it comes to thier fighters. Tekken 6 had an amazing 40 character roster size. Soul calibur isn't too far behind, with a headcount of 28 characters plus 16 of your own self created characters, the roster can go to as large as 44 characters. Not too shabby indeed. Plus with the insane character creation options, you can go nuts and have a ton of fun when creating your characters. Your female character can dress as sexy as you wish for her to be, and your male character can be made as cool or as knightly as you make him to be. Even better, you can select thier fight styles from the initial available 26 (minus kratos and algol), and choose thier, voice, speech, hair and many more. Its really impressive to see female zassamalel,siegfried,mitsurugi and many more. Though its kinda funny to see a male using a female character's fighting style, since it absolutely doesn't fit. Still, as you unlock better looking armor and equipment as you fight more, your options keep increasing, the character customization just keeps giving. Though as for the initial characters, it wouldnt hurt to save some characters as unlockables, as a self opinion I don't like to have every character in the game unlocked from the get go.
The battle system in broken destiny works as with every other soul calibur game, applying its effective yet enjoyable control scheme to the PSP. Like with all of its previous games, holding back doens really let you block, you have to press X or your specifically set block button to do so. This may prove to be rather uncomfortable at the beginning, but as you play you get used to it and will see that soul calibur is not your average fighting game. Unlike games like street fighter, each of the 28 characters each have distinctly different fight styles and varrying command lists, so playing and experimenting with each and every character is still fun since they are all different. Nightmare and siegfried hit hard and have long range, rapheal and amy do quick but weak strikes, ivy has long range but weak damage, playing with different characters and mastering them will provide you with satisfaction as you finally fight through god knows how many levels in the endless trial.
Now soul calibur looks like it has many things going on in its story, but broken destiny does a bad bad way telling the story. Gaunlet mode is just ridiculous, it spends stupidly long paragraphs of text telling the ridiculous tale of random characters without focusing on any point. Plus its such a pain to actually move on in the gaunlet mode anyway, since the proceeding fights and tasks are such a bore and pain. Not counting gaunlet mode, theres actually not much to do in broken destiny. Sure the trials are good fun, especially endless trial, but quick battle doesnt really satisfy, and training should always be in a fighting game. Other than that theres no proper arcade mode, or perhaps a proper story mode as well (gaunlet mode is.....wtf). Lastly, I know kratos is a guest character and all, but did they have to make him so godamn overpowered? I mean, range,power,mobility,attack variety....he has it all. Everyone using him can pawn the crap out of the AI, its not really fun, and when the AI uses him, he will most likley murder you.
Happy gaming.
