Gameitall Bandai Namco’s celebrated weapon fighter, SoulCaliber, turned 20 this month and what would be a great way to celebrate the series? Whiel a new game in the franchise would normally be the best answer to this; instead, they pulled a Konami and turned one of their beloved franchises into a Pachislot machine.
The Soulcalibur franchise was first introduced as Soul Edge back in 1996, and while the series had seen success in the arcades, it wasn’t until Soulcalibur released on Dreamcast that the series caught fighting enthusiasts attention along with being the hot game to own on the doomed Sega Console. It’s sequel, Soulcalibur 2, quickly rose the series to be a household name thanks to the special guest fighters that appeared on each console including Tekken’s Heiachi for PS2, Spawn for Xbox and Legend of Zelda’s Link for Gamecube. The last game to be released in the series was Soulcalibur Lost Swords, a free-to-play fighter released in 2014. Since then, the series remained quiet.
Popular franchises getting turned into gambling machines is nothing new, as series like Silent Hill, Castlevania and Metal Gear have all seen Pachinko machines based on their properties, however it is never good to see this happen on a 20th anniversary. At least it’s better then what Nintendo did for Metroid.
