Kombo’s Review Policy: Our reviews are written for you. Our goal is to write honest, to-the-point reviews that don’t waste your time. This is why we’ve split our reviews into four sections: What the Game’s About, What’s Hot, What’s Not and Final Word, so that you can easily find the information you want from our reviews.
What the Game’s About
The PSP isn’t known for having a vast library of great fighting titles. It has a couple Street Fighter entries, a Power Stone, and a solid Tekken entry. While Tekken was solid 3D fighter for the PSP, the system hasn’t see many since then. Thankfully, Soul Calibur is here to save the day. Essentially acting like a portable version of Soul Calibur 4, Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny has what you’d expect to find in a portable version. To make the bundle all the more appealing to the PSP crowd, Bandai Namco also added Kratos of God of War fame as an exclusive new fighter.
What’s Hot
Soul Calibur is all about a deep and engaging fighting experience. With deep move-sets and a flowing combo system, Broken Destiny is a fighting fans dream. In terms of the fighting system, everything from the console version has made it to the portable version. You can juggle, grab, and deliver devastating combos very easily with either the PSP D-pad or analog stick. If you’ve played either of the console versions of SC4, you may have become accustomed to the analog control on those control pads; thankfully the analog stick works remarkably well here.
The PSP is quite a powerful machine. Replicating the character models of Soul Calibur 4, the graphics of the game are truly amazing. Even though you can clearly tell the graphical sacrifices that were made, the game still looks better than some current console games. Every graphical effect from the console versions will be found in this version, even the boob jiggle.
What’s Not
The single-player content is severely lacking. There’s a Gauntlet mode, which tells a lackluster story after you complete short and meaningless challenges. Aside from Gauntlet, you also have access to an Arcade and Training mode. Arcade mode is fun, but it just doesn’t hold the same appeal when transferred to the handheld scene. It’s a vital part of the game and it is fun for what it is, but the lack of any other deep single-player offerings really hurt the appeal of the game.
To damper the situation even more is the utter luck of online multiplayer. Only offering multiplayer via ad-hoc, you need to know someone with a PSP and the game. Chances are slim both of these things will come true, though. If you have Soul Calibur IV around for either the Xbox 360 or PS3, then you’d be better off just playing that.
I don’t know if this is a problem caused by the game or if it was only happening to me. After starting a new game and saving a game to three memory cards, the game would constantly tell me that no memory card was inserted or while loading the game say there was no save data. I tried this on two PSP units and three different memory cards, but I got the same error at least twice. Whether this is a bug with the save file information or an isolated incident, I don’t know. I’m only making mention of it in case this does happen to you, too.
Final Word
Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny is a solid portable fighter. Even though the lack of a deep single-player mode is disappointing, the fighting system is still very solid and refined. The main problem with the game comes from the lack of any real depth. No online, a lackluster single-player, and scarce multiplayer options, the game just lacks substance. If you just want a solid arcade driven fighter on the PSP then Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny is a winner.
