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Soulcalibur

TitleSoulcalibur
First release1998
DeveloperNamco
PublisherBandai Namco Entertainment
PlatformsArcade, Dreamcast
Genre3D fighting game
Also known asソウルキャリバー
Players1–2 players
Co-opNo
ESRB ratingE Everyone
Releases
Arcade: 1998-01-01
Dreamcast: 1999-08-05 (NTSC-J), 1999-09-09 (NTSC), 1999-12-01 (PAL)
Wikidata IDQ1060715

Soulcalibur (Sōrukyaribā) is a weapon-based 3D fighting game developed by Project Soul and produced by Namco. It is the second game in the Soul series, preceded by Soul Edge (1996). Originally released in arcades in 1998, it ran on the Namco System 12 hardware. The mystical sword of the legends, the "Soul Edge", ended up in the hands of the dreaded pirate Cervantes de Leon of Spain. For the next 25 years he stayed dormant on the remnants of a Spanish port town, taking the souls of those who reached him during their search of the sword. His reign of terror was soon to start, but through the joined efforts of Greek divine warrior Sophitia Alexandra and Japanese ninja Taki, he was stopped and killed, with one of the twin Soul Edge blades being shattered in the process. As it was about to tear itself apart, young Prussian knight Siegfried Schtauffen approached the port town and battled Cervantes, whose corpse had been momentarily reanimated through Soul Edge's will. After emerging victorious, Siegfried's attention turned unto the sword. The moment he took the hilt of the cursed blade, Soul Edge released a bright column of light into the sky. This was known as the "Evil Seed", bound to bring calamity and death in its wake. Three years after those events, Soul Edge uses Siegfried as its host, and now Siegfried is Nightmare, a knight wearing azure armor and sporting a hideously deformed right arm. Europe plunges into a vortex of slaughters as he and his followers claim souls to strengthen the blade in its weakened state. Unknown to them, a group of warriors met on their journey to stop Soul Edge, and with them three sacred weapons join once again.

Description: TheGamesDB (community-contributed, no licence stated; internal use only) Facts from Wikidata (CC0), gaps filled from TheGamesDB and Arcade Database (ADB). Only retro platforms tracked by this site are listed; the year is the earliest release date recorded on Wikidata.
Sources
Wikidata (Q1060715) · last updated 2026-09-27 · CC0
TheGamesDB (36480) · last updated 2026-07-18 · no licence stated · internal use only
TheGamesDB (7767,79162,103173) · last updated 2026-07-18 · no licence stated · internal use only
Arcade Database (ADB) (soulclbr) · last updated 2026-10-05 · CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 · internal use only
Arcade Database ADB
MAME romsetsoulclbr
Title at ADBSoul Calibur (World, SOC12/VER.A2)
ManufacturerNamco
Year1998
GenreFighter / Versus
Players2
MAME driver statusIMPERFECT
Soulcalibur – Flyer
Flyer
Soulcalibur – Marquee
Marquee
Soulcalibur – Cabinet
Cabinet
Soulcalibur – Title
Title
Soulcalibur – In-game
In-game
Artwork: ADB (Arcade Database); artwork © original manufacturer (Namco); snaps by ProgettoSnaps via ADB. Non-free, internal use only (hotlinked, not downloaded).
Scraping using Arcade Database by motoschifo · CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 · romset via Wikidata P2451 (wikidata-qid) · fetched 2026-10-05 05:14 UTC · no fields filled (other sources take precedence)
Image credits
Box art, Screenshots, Logos, Artwork (7): Source: TheGamesDB (user-uploaded) · © Bandai Namco Entertainment · internal use only. TheGamesDB page
Sprites
No sprite sheets yet. Find sprites on The Spriters Resource ↗ /
Videos
Dreamcast Longplay [016] SoulCalibur (US)
World-of-Longplays · Dreamcast version · longplay · 2:41:42auto-matched
Watch on YouTube ↗ · auto:channel-harvest, checked 2026-10-25 18:42 UTC
Arcade Longplay [1094] SoulCalibur (US)
World-of-Longplays · Arcade version · longplay · 26:00auto-matched
Watch on YouTube ↗ · auto:channel-harvest, checked 2026-10-25 18:42 UTC
"Auto-matched" videos were found automatically (title + platform match via the YouTube Data API) and may occasionally be wrong. Videos are hosted by YouTube (embedded via youtube-nocookie.com; nothing loads from YouTube until you press play) and belong to their channels.
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