Dreamcast Game #11: Soul Fighter

ソウルファイター, Soru Faitā

Soul Fighter is a single-player 3D beat-’em-up video game developed by the now-defunct French company Toka (founded by Carlo Perconti and Lyes Belaidouni) and published by the now-defunct Red Orb Entertainment (NA release only) and Mindscape (EU release only). It was released in late 1999, around two months after Dreamcast’s official launch. Unlike many video games that are still Japan-release first, this game does not have a release in Japan.

Piggyback consulted with a Japanese publisher at one point to transform Soul Fighter into an arcade game; the company had also considered a version for the PlayStation 2, which sadly didn’t happen. A planned port of the game for the GameCube was announced but eventually canceled.

There’s nothing much to talk about this game, except the game’s plot reads (copied from Wikipedia):

An evil spell of Queen Antea has fallen on the Kingdom of Gomar. As a mysterious mist envelops the kingdom, the inhabitants turn into vicious creatures. A fearless warrior (Atlus), a female spy (Sayomi), and a powerful wizard (Orion) have escaped the fate of their fellow villagers. They must now search for and capture souls to reverse the curse.

As I didn’t physically own the game back in the days since I had a Dreamcast, the game received mostly unfavorable reviews, such as IGN’s (2.5 “Painful”), GameSpot’s (4.8 “a chore, thanks to the tedious gameplay and even worse control”), and Game Revolution’s (“simplistic gameplay and lack of a multiplayer mode”) reviews.

Red Orb Entertainment called it quits in March 2001, weeks before Sega withdrew the console business and restructured itself as a third-party publisher. Toka later called it quits in late September/early October 2001, and the Soul Fighter trademark later expired. This is a very short review. I would rather avoid this game… unless I got something for you.