I reviewed Legend games in SNES and PS 1. However, there’s another Legend game exclusively for Dreamcast. So I grit my teeth and clench my fist as I start up my Dreamcast (emulator). It’s time to play Toka’s Soul Fighter (1999).
That’s some sophisticated logo although I don’t like “R” part. It looks like “S” with ugly adjustment. Apparently, the letter on the center reads “Soul” although I’m not sure whether it’s Japanese or Chinese. You may ask how’s this another Legend game? The title is different. That’s true but I ensure you that this game is made by Toka who also made Legend on PS 1. Besides Toka is Carlo Perconti, Lyes Belaidouni, and friends. Carlo Perconti and Lyes Belaidouni are the developer of Legend on SNES. The stuffs in options menu are not many. There are: 1) Game mode setting between Adventure or Arcade mode. In adventure mode, there’s no time limit but you don’t get any continue. Whereas in arcade mode, time limit is enabled but you get 5 continues. So I suggest you pick arcade mode which is the default setting. 2) Control setting. Finally! They made a game where you can see the controller configuration and you can change it as you like. 3) Audio setting between Mono or Stereo. Something that I can care less.
But before we dive into the game, I want to show you the storytelling by this king named Valmek of Golmar Kingdom. His narration is in bazillion words but I try my best to retell most of it. So King Valmek’s oldest son dies do to some disease which makes the queen and the young prince sad. They’re so sad that they are desperate to bring the oldest prince to live again by seeking help to dark force. I get the story beyond that point, very vaguely. I think they succeed in resurrecting the prince but he becomes evil. The queen also turns evil. Then everyone turn to stone and monsters roam everywhere. There is Altus the knight who’s the leader of Golmar Kingdom’s knight and also King’s personal bodyguard. Then there’s Orion the wizard. Lastly, there’s Sayomi who is a character that can only be described as possessor of magic pendant. What the magic pendant can do? No idea! Orion can break the petrification curse on himself and those two’s. Thus the trio are on quest to vanquish the evil that conquer the kingdom.
Stays true to the narration, the hero you choose will break free from their petrified state. For now, I choose Altus the knight even though he wears something more casual than knight-y. I mean he wear casual short with barely any armor part. See protagonist in either Legend game and you can see what I mean.
After some first person perspective entry and announcer said “Are you ready? Fight!”, I’m allowed to control Altus. The control is: “X” button to punch, “Y” button to kick, “B” button to jump, “A” button for action/block, and L shoulder button to reset camera. The last one is very important because the camera is wobbly. You can make combo out of series of punch or kick button alone. I try mixing them up but the results is not noticeable.
The other thing that makes the game less serviceable besides the wobbly drunken camera, is how you pick up an item. It’s not as simple as pressing a single button like other Beat em up game or even Legend games. Listen carefully because this is very important! To pick up an item, you press down direction and “A” button at the same freaking time! Combine with camera that keep shifting everytime you move, picking up an item become very tedious chore. Even worse, the dropped items don’t last long. Anyway, here I pick up a scroll…
…and it’s in-game tutorial. What fireball, by the way?
Oh, I see. It’s the fireball that launched with seesaw operated by rhino man who’s ordered by fox knight. It’s just me or his body proportion is questionable? Like why he has small flat buttock but muscular big limbs and torso?
Let’s not worry about the fireball for now. Check out Altus’ cool flying kick. Thankfully, the jumping kick is easier to execute than in Legend PS 1 version, where you have to run first before able to do jump kick.
Oh whoops! I get hit by the fireball but at least my enemy also gets hit by it.
One of the food items that you can find is this pig head dubbed as “delicious meat”. I can’t relate it since I’m Moslem and it’s forbidden to eat. Plus, I imagine the pig’s nose still has snot on it and clearly disgusting. Not to mention the tusk. It’s awkward for the pig man over there as Altus eat the pig’s head that may or may not be belong to his cousin. But Altus has to survive.
There’s also running attack executed by pressing punch or kick after running even if it’s just 3 steps. Running punch is generally shorter than running kick. Altus does the running back kick as the running kick. As fans of Capcom’s beat em up games, I’m immediately reminded of Captain Commando from Captain Commando (in middle picture) and Cyber Blue from Battle Circuit (in right picture). Who does it better? I let you decide.
Unlike the Legend games with linear stage map, Soul Fighterimplements large map with branching path and looping way. It may sound brilliant idea. But the fact I have to search every crook and nook for enemies, the sandbox map makes the game tedious. Note that killing every enemy in available area is mandatory to make progress. Moreover, there are some enemies who refuse to spawn even though I have killed their friends nearby. Anyway, see that bridge section with waterfall? It reminds me something.
Why, of course. It reminds me of that section of first stage in Legend. I told you already that Soul Fighter is another Legend game. Not only Toka reuse some level’s section and enemies but also music and sound effect. Another difference is crocodile men ambushed me in Legend whereas in Soul Fighter I get ambushed by mermen who are apparently mage type enemy because they can fire fireball once in a while.
After killing every enemy in this section, the heroes go to locked gate and Orion casts a spell to make them float past the gate. Demoman_sf12_goodmagic04.wav
The inside of the gate is more enemies and this time is lots harder to deal with. Usually, I don’t get problem when dealing up to 2 enemies. But when I have to deal with 3 or 4 of them, that’s where the problem kicks me. The cause of this is the bad camera. Here you see 2 enemies however in fact there are 3 of them. One is outside of the camera. You can see the real number of enemies from the map, marked with skeleton icon. It’s hard to keep an eye on those enemies especially when the camera is terrible at doing its work. It goes without saying that my direction input is affected by the wobbly camera. So you can imagine how hard for me to pick up food item which involves unnecessarily tedious input command. Luckily, so far dead enemies often drop food item. I like to point out that besides the announcer says “good shoot!” or “outstanding!” when you can make combo without getting hit, he also says “Oh no!” everytime you get knocked out. Should you try to play this game one day, you should get used to hear “Oh no!” pretty often.
After killing those enemies, the boss appears! He’s bear man. There are 3 things that make him very formidable opponent. 1) His health is big which is quite trivial. 2) He has bigger intelligence to block more often than his subordinates. 3) He has that tremendous club which provides him with bigger attack range, attack power, and ability to make powerful ground explosion.
From this screenshot, it seems I can fight him without problem. Actually, it takes like 5 retries before I can do this well without spending any continue. On very first level if I may add! The key to success in this game is to running kick enemy before they get up and do that over and over again although the running kick only inflicts so-so damage. However you have to time it right especially against this first boss. If you kick him too early, it will miss and he can get up with no problem. If you kick him too late, he will get up instantly and swing his club which inflict very heavy damage upon you. But the strategy leaves some important question: how do you make the enemy fall for the first time or when they can get up successfully? Usually I accomplish that by using running punch/kick. It’s not 100% chance of success especially against this boss.
I try to use the super combo to fight the boss safely and it doesn’t work well. Somehow he can interrupt my special combo. Or its duration was shorter than I thought because some of the hits don’t connect because the boss is in interruptible attacking animation. Anyway, there’s still super combo like in Legend with simpler input: push both punch and kick button at the same time while the power bar is fully filled. However unlike in Legend where the power bar regenerates over time, you have to fill the power bar by yourself either by hitting enemies and blocking attack. Good luck filling the power bar with the latter method because it requires you to memorize all of attacking animation for every single type of enemies and there are like dozens of them. More over blocking enemy’s attack become nigh impossible if you get surrounded from every direction.
Eventually, I fell the bear man without spending any continue. I don’t like this camera angle during stage clear scene. Maybe Toka want to make the hero high and might with this perspective but to me I feel uneasy because Altus crotch is way too close to camera. Come to think of it, in king’s narration there’s this kind of camera angle and I also don’t like it. Scout_jeers08.wav
Something that Toka fix for this game is: you’re allowed to change character after clearing a stage. Unlike Legend where you can’t change character at all. For this playthrough I keep sticking to Altus because I reckon he’s the Strength type character that has biggest attack power. But don’t worry I will showcase other characters too later.
The 2nd stage takes place in dark gloomy town. What do you know? Legend’s 2nd stage also set in dark gloomy town. The difference is: the wolf man enemies armed with knife on each their hand instead of crossbow. The rat man is the one armed with crossbow here. According to tutorial that I find in random scroll in this stage, “The rat man fires 3 arrows consecutively but they can be blocked”. Sounds good but I just jump kick him instead of waiting for him to fire the arrow to block.
With enemy has consciousness to block attack, it may seems good idea if you have ability to throw. There’s a throw move which is Irish whip to my back direction that inflict very little damage, just like I do here. Although enemies will fall to ground if you throw them like this, the throw move is not worth to do because our hero takes quite long time before actually grabbing their opponent. If you’re curious, the input for this Irish Whip move is the same as pick up item: pressing both down direction and block buttons (default: “A” button).
Pressing R shoulder button to bring this first
person mode but you can’t move around while in this mode. In this mode, you can
use throwing knife, throwing axe and arrow that you obtained. The crosshair has
some intuitive lock on to it so you can aim at the enemy with ease. I don’t
think you should use the ranged weapon to finish off enemies because that’s
very costly (although you can. I’m not your parents anyway). I suggest using
the ranged weapon to bait enemy away from their friends so you can fight them
one by one. Similar to cowardly valid strategy in Demon Soul or Dark Soul, which
predates it by 10 years. In this first person camera mode: use directional to
move the aim, press punch button (default: “X” button) to use the selected ranged weapon, press block
button (default: “A” button) to change the weapon. You can see the golden branch icon above the
throwing knife. It is called magic leaves. Although it’s enlisted in the list
of ranged weapons, you can’t use it with the same way like them. I will tell you
how to use the magic leaves. Much much later.
Although I pick the enemies one by one like I said, there’s still a chance that get to fall on my backside like this. Nice looking horse, by the way.
There’s also crow man as enemy in this level. He reminds me of that weird bird person in Dark Soul 2. This crow guy is the first winged enemy who’s able to fly and later dive attack you. But you can jump kick him while flying before he can do that.
Look at this git thinking so high of himself just because he can fly. One throwing knife coming up! Throwing knife is the most common ranged weapon you get but deal the least damage. Like 10%. Arrow travels the fastest and deal 15% damage. But because it travels in straight line, it won’t hit enemy that moving around taunt you from distance. Lastly, there’s throwing axe that travels the slowest but deal damage the most, like 25%.
After I slain all enemy in alleyways, I arrive at a tavern to continue kill these evil creatures. If I press both punch and kick button when the power meter is not full, I execute spinning kick instead. But it costs a small amount of health! But it’s still useful for emergency situation.
One wolf man stand on table while another sits on floor. See why I call them evil creatures? They don’t have proper table manner.
After killing 54 enemies which is very tedious thing to do in this game, there’s cutscene where a bomb rolls toward us and explodes. At least there’s no very difficult boss fight.
Luckily we survive, somehow. We end up at the back of tavern that leads to this small harbor. There’s new enemy here: it’s a walrus sailor. Nice stripped shirt there, buddy.
Next level takes place in a ship on previous screenshot. There are more walrus sailors for me to kick. I forget to mention that there’s OTG (on the ground) attack. It’s activated by simply press either punch or kick button toward grounded enemy but the hero only can do it once so you can’t abuse the OTG attack repeatedly.
After killing all the sailors, this cutscene plays. Altus laughs over Orion having seasick and suddenly the boss appears! It’s a shark pirate captain. Darn! Shark pirate captain is such a powerful boss in a ship. If you as sailor crew make mistake, you don’t get punished with walk in a plank when the shark is on board and he’s your freaking captain! He will straight bite your arse immediately.
The boss is not easy like the bear man. You have to be very carefully with his bite specifically because it comes very fast and he make devastating combo out of it. There’s barely any telegraph animation when he’s about to bite you. It just happens very fast!
The shark boss also has ability to summon swordfishes to rain down the deck, hopefully hitting me. I can see why they so obedient to the shark pirate. If they don’t do as he said, they and their family will be eaten. The shark won’t hesitate to swim there right at their home under the sea and eat them all. There’s another perk of being shark pirate captain.
Eventually I manage to defeat the shark captain with the super combo although I have to use 2 continues for this tedious boss fight.
For some reason, the ship is stranded in the desert. Perhaps it’s not good idea to kill the shark captain who knows about sailing the ship while our heroes barely know about anything about ship. Most likely they interpret “Poop Deck” as toilet.
Anyway, there’s insect man as enemy here. In addition to what the crow man can do, the insect man can fire spikes while flying. I don’t know why this guy reminds me of that insect creature in Resident Evil 4. You know what creature I’m talking about.
Of course, there’s skeleton enemy. Every skeleton enemy in Legend, King of Dragon, and Golden Axe fond on blocking attack and this guy is no exception. I don’t like them.
Another annoying thing in this desert level is this creature so called Sand Mouth. They appear very suddenly and bite my leg. The hint says that “As long as you memorize the spot where sand mouth ambushes, you will be fine”. How the heck I’m supposed to memorize sand mouth’s spot which no different than any spot in this freaking stage?
By the way, check out those mermen chilling in the oasis. They have the best time on their life. I hope so because I will enjoy end their life once I escape from this desert bastard!
It’s quite nice that there’s fiery explosion as I respawn although it doesn’t hit all enemies around me. That goat/horse/cow man armed with American Gladiators’ stick is so far the most dangerous lesser enemy because his attack range and combo chains are pretty long.
After killing all enemies in desert, suddenly a Minotaur knocks all of our heroes with single swipe. What baffles me is how they don’t have reaction to dodge that attack. It’s not like the Minotaur ambushed them from hiding spot, no. He just appears in a plain sight for love of God! Anyway, our heroes end up in a prison. Luckily, Altus is a muscle brain with a brilliant solution regarding locked door or prison: he punches the scrap out of it. Isn’t Sayomi is the rogue/thief of the group? Shouldn’t she know how to pick lock or something? But that doesn’t matter as they already break free from the prison.
The security in this prison is terrible. I mean look at those enemies sleeping in the dirty floor of a dungeon instead of actually guarding the prisoners. I will rudely wake them with axe on their head!
Look at this poor git. Altus can do nothing about his imprisonment. He can break any door or gate with his fist. But cell bars? Tough luck. Altus’s muscular brain can’t think how to break them open. Besides, that prisoner probably already dead by dysentery or something.
Listen to me carefully as I tell the biggest secret of this game! It’s about the magic leaves that I mentioned long time ago. Activating the magic leaves will unleash powerful magic that hit enemies randomly. I assume they hit with fixed number of magical hit, each hit inflict fix amount of damage. So, to activate the magic leaves: you need at least 2 magic leaves and full power bar. Once the requirements are met, simply press the block button twice. I activated the magic leaves accidentally twice because I repeatedly press block button when I tried to pick up item! I should just waste the power bar back then. It save the magic leaves which is the rarest item in this game.
The thing that I don’t like about this level is: enemies will appear in the spot where I secured before. They didn’t do that in previous levels! >:I
Anyway, a new enemy type is here. It’s tiger man with claw weapon. Or he’s distant cousin of Armor King from Tekken.
On the outside of dungeon, there’s arena with hazards such as spiked ball and pendulum blade, much like in Legend. Look at this idiot keep charging at me and getting hit with the swinging pendulum blade. Scout_misc09.wav
Next level takes place in another part of arena where we eventually meet our captor. Time for revenge! Heavy_meleedare03.wav
The first I do in this boss fight is activating the magic leaves. He deserves that. Heavy_sf13_influx_big05.wav
Ok. He can make bigger explosion than the bear man can. Heavy_negativevocalization02.wav
Eventually, I kill the Minotaur with my short sword. Revenge is fulfilled. Huzzah!
One quite important thing that I forget to tell you is how to draw weapon. It’s done by pressing directional up and block together. The heroes have their own weapon. You don’t have to worry if it drops when our hero knocked away because they have death grip on that thing. What you have to worry is the weapon duration that you can see it below power bar. If it’s empty, our hero will automatically sheath the weapon and the weapon bar will slowly refill. Altus short sword provides him with extra attack range and power. However, he swings his damn weapon quite slow for some reason. So you can’t use it for close range because enemy attacks faster. You need just a bit of distance to time the sword swing.
I’m down to my 2 last continues but the game keeps going. Furthermore, I have to eliminate 61 enemies in this level! Sniper_jeers02.wav
But I found new ranged weapon: oil bomb! I use it to blow away that slacking zombie and it feels very satisfying! Demoman_specialcompleted04.wav
I also find a new item: A knight chess piece! I remember it’s on Legend game and it serves as extra life! However when I pick it up, its effect is full heal! I mean full heal is great but I desperately need extra life! If it exists, that is!
Eventually, I can finish that level but at the cost of 1 continue so I’m really on my last continue here. To my surprise, there’s still next level after that and it look same snowy map like the previous map. This hanged skeleton decoration is impressive but not helping me in the slightest.
I get bullied by bat man and cobra man (which is the wizard enemy of this game). This is not going well. Later I get killed another bat man. There’s so much I can do with limited continue. To put salt on injured wound, the enemies drop less food item and drop score point more often. But at least, I have defeated the Minotaur. I should be satisfied with this playthrough.
But then…
I
discover cheat code that allow me to skip level from same FAQ for the basic
control! Credit to Jason Leyanna (JLeyanna) for the FAQ. So here’s how to
bring this cheat: “At the Soul Fighter logo screen, press Left + Y.
Enter the options menu, then exit. If done correctly, the next screen that
appears will be the cheat code screen. Then, enter one of the following codes
to activate the corresponding cheat”. The thing is: which screen described as “Soul
Fighter logo screen”. Is it the main menu or the loading screen before the main
menu? I think it’s the latter. Fortunately, to bring the cheat code is pretty
intuitive/easy to pull off.
Turns out there are 12 levels in total and the last level that I played is the 9th! So I beaten 9 levels with 5 continues (default). That’s very impressive if I must say. Anyway to skip to level 10, I have to input the code: XABBAX.
So level 10 takes place in dark swampy forest which inhibited by gorilla man, vulture man, and hyena woman. I assume the hyena enemies are female because they aren’t bare chest.
You can never go wrong with Sayomi’s knife. It improves her attack power without slowing her attack speed although it’s not as powerful as Altus’ short sword. Apparently this jumping overhead stab can hit flying enemy and also downed enemy.
Sayomi is adept at hitting downed enemy by using her sliding kick. I don’t have to timing it right to hit downed enemy. In fact, if I hit them as early as possible, the sliding kick deals multiple hits! I should pick her from the beginning since I like to abuse the running kick against downed enemy.
The cheat code for level 11: YBYXAB. For this
level 11, I pick Orion the wizard. I’m spontaneously with his super combo while
he wields his magic wand. Unlimited power! Muahahahaha! It goes without saying
that executing super combo while armed is stronger than while unarmed.
His magic wand is strong weapon. But when his weapon is out of juice, Orion is terrible at fighting because his punch combo is so slow which gives enemies time to retaliate or block. The effective way to fight as Orion is to use his magic wand in long distance to ensure his magic attack hits enemies because they’re too busy to run at him and don’t have intelligence to block from long distance. But when his magic wand is unavailable, well tough luck! All I can think is: run around and surprise the chasing enemy with running attack. This trick is not 100% success but it’s better than nothing.
The cheat code for the final level: XBAXBY. So
the final boss is a dragon which more resembles Tyrannosaur Rex with wing on
its back. Honestly, I’m disappointed that the final boss is “just” dragon. I
expected something with more sinister look like demon or genie like in Legend game. But at least, this dragon
is meatier than that skinny pathetic dragon in Legend PS 1 game.
Oh my God! Sorry I was badmouthing you, unkind sir. The hint scroll says “Avoid the dragon’s evil breath!”. No kidding! The fire breath hurts a lot!
There’s alcove nearby filled with chests. I thought the dragon won’t find his way there and I was wrong. He manages to get inside and burns my backside to crisp. From this very close look, the dragon more resembles Hauzer than ever.
I regret pick up Orion for the final boss fight because his punch combo is slow. Hey! I just notice that when using weapon to hit the dragon, my power bar fill a bit. Maybe I can use this for my advantage.
In the end, I just jumping stomp the dragon’s head over and over again. It’s working fairly well as far as I concern. Maybe I can use the ranged weapons that got around this part, but I’m afraid that I’m too slow to bring the first person view mode and use the ranged weapons. Eventually, the dragon dies by repeated magic fireball and jumping stomp.
What’s the epilogue? It’s kind of lame. We’re back to king Valmek narrating the ending. So the evil has been vanquished. Everyone and everything return to normal including the king. He gives the heroes reward of this statue that also serves as reminder not to do evil thing or they will face this trio’s wrath. I hate to say this, king Valmek. But I think the dragon is noticeably downscaled. I’m just saying. What a wild ride! Let’s get on with the calming credit roll, shall we!
Spy_sf12_badmagic03.wav. What in tarnation is this?
My mind is blown! I really didn’t expect this! I’m so baffled! There’s Japanese singing while the credit rolls! It’s like Anime ending! Anyway, see those 2 names Carlo Perconti and Lyes Belaidouni? This is legit proof that this game is another Legend game!
You’re very welcome, Carlo, Lyes and friends!
First opinion about Toka’s Soul Fighter (1999) is: Comparing to Legend in PS 1. It seems they take a step forward but take 3 steps backward. There are so many things done wrong in exchange few things fixed. The special combo input is made it simpler and intuitive but it involves overly complicated input to pick item which is far mandatory thing than the special combo in general sense. Why not make input command for picking up item is just punch button? I know there are some persons who don’t like picking item with punch button in Capcom’s Aliens versus Predator because they’re in section with lots of weapons lying around. When they want to punch enemies, they keep picking up those weapons around instead. But in Soul Fighter’s case there’s alternative attack button besides punch, which is kick button. So you have option between picking up item or kick nearby enemy. Next problem is the camera. For this game or even dozens games around late 90s, they should implement fix camera especially if there’s input command that’s very direction sensitive. Or maybe implement lock on/strafe button. I know that they implement all of buttons in Dreamcast controller and there’s no more button for lock on/strafe. Maybe they should put it in L shoulder button which has function to center camera. If Soul Fighter is put in –for example- Playstation 2 which has more buttons on the controller, the game will be more serviceable in term of control. Even if you successfully line up the camera straight, there’s still disadvantage from that view which is it lack of depth perception. You can barely see the exact distance between you and the enemies if you line up the camera straight. The camera should be higher. In third person shooter game, lack of depth perception is next to no problem. But Soul Fighter is a beat em up game with third person view, it’s highly mandatory for player to know distance in detail. Next problem is about the continue. The best you can get is 5 continues in arcade mode. But with how tedious the combat is (especially the boss fights), it feels lack. The continue number should be unlimited or they should implement save the game progress. Lots of Dreamcast games have save feature, I reckon. Or they can implement password system instead of cheat code. There’s no way to get more continue. Not even by achieving certain amount of score. So, score is pretty much useless.
Move on to the combat aspect. The main objective is to kill all the enemies within a level but most levels are too big and enemies are too many. Not to mention, the enemy extermination often involves tedious backtracking. The hand “Go!” indicator is often misleading or not reliable perhaps due to its unnecessary rotating animation. The heroes are required to kill the enemies to rescue civilian’s soul which stays true to the king’s story thus the title “Soul Fighter”. I appreciate the coherency between the plot and the gameplay. Generally, punch combo is fast but short ranged. While, kick combo is slow but slightly longer ranged. Kick combo can be used to conserve your weapon. Mixing punch and kick within a combo doesn’t result in noticeably better combo but I could be wrong. The block strict and can only last for a fraction of second and 1 enemy’s attack. The throw is quite useless because it’s slow and does so little damage. Enemies in this game is stricter than in Legend where they like to taunt you a lot which give you chance to hit them cleanly. In addition they don’t taunt, the enemies often block your attack a lot especially in later stages. Moreover, they have uninterruptible attack animation. Player also has invincibility attack animation but only in super combo and the desperation move. With how useless the throw is, there’s few way to bypass enemy’s block. Naturally, attacking them from behind is good way to make clean hit but it’s pretty rare opportunity to do so. It’s not tested but I think any ranged weapon can’t be blocked by enemies. Although switching to first person view mode is fairly slow but probably doable. Enemy can’t block super combo. But with how the power meter filled now, you can’t do more of the super combo as often as in Legend. OTG and jumping attack are pretty easy to pull out although the damage that they inflict feels bit lackluster. The weapon system is pretty neat. The weapons improve the punch combo, OTG attack, jumping attack and running punch but they’re limited to weapon meter. The magic leaves are the most powerful weapon you have. But beware that the magic activation requires 2 magic leaves per cast and they’re extremely rare item.
There are certainly more CGI cutscene than in Legend although 30% of them are unnecessary between-stages or before/after boss fight cutscene. There are some notable ones like the one where our hero get knocked out and end up in prison. Or before boarding the ship, Orion hesitates to get in and Altus rudely pushes him to the ship. Overall graphic is quite good, I think. Much like in Legend, the music is mostly insignificant except for the battle theme. Also the sound is ok quality.
You probably skip to this last thought because how intimidatingly long the previous wall of text and I can’t blame you for that. Long story short, Soul Fighter (1999) is less serviceable and fun than Legend. But I appreciate Toka’s effort to put more CGI, shift the game to fully 3D, and put more established storytelling. They have put their soul and heart into this although the gameplay mostly tedious. I simply can’t recommend this game unless you’re avid fans of Toka. If that’s the case, I won’t stop you. Also I won’t recommend this game if you like all manner of animal man or if you’re furry. I don’t understand myself why the enemies are mostly animal man, besides few undead and a dragon. In Legend, they add demon, Cyclops, and gargoyle into the enemy roster which is more sensible idea.
One thing that make me really impressed is Toka/Carlo Perconti & Lyes Belaidouni manage to make beat em up game with blocking mechanism that is fair and useful. Not even the (former) almighty Capcom with Knights of The Round can achieve that.
But before I end this very freaking long article, I like to make the character analysis for this game. It has been ages since the last time I do this.
First, we have Altus. He’s the brute of the group although I can’t associate knight with high brawn. Perhaps, Barbarian or warrior class is more fitting as brawn character. He likes to punch enemies and door. He punches them hard so that’s why his strength is 4.5/5. His punch combo is fast and can deal most damage among other characters if all of the punches connect. His desperation attack is spinning kick. It’s kind of missed opportunity not to implement spinning lariat instead. I’m sure Zangief or Mike “Metro City (ex-)Mayor” Haggar mind about someone else do spinning lariat. Altus’ weapon of choice is short sword. It’s strong but bit cumbersome. I can see if axe or flanged mace is cumbersome due to its heavy head. But sword shouldn’t be slow to swing unless giant sword. On unrelated note, I’m impressed by myself that I never mistype his name as Atlus.
Second is Orion. It’s easy to analyze him. He’s a wizard, old man of arcane and wisdom. So his primary stat is Intelligence at 4.5/5. I think he use Shaolin Kung Fu style which implies that his dexterity is slightly above average: 3/5. His weapon is magic wand, befitting as a wizard. It’s powerful magic weapon. He can fire magic projectile in almost unlimited distance. At long distance enemy has less tendency to block the magic projectile so taking out enemy from distance is his specialty. But when it comes to melee combat, he’s probably the worst. Since his punch combo is horribly slow, enemy can retaliate or block the combo. That leaves the kick combo which is average, not bad but also not good. In related to plot, Orion is probably the most useful character since he’s the one that able to dispel the stone curse but only limited to the trio.
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