SDCC 09: Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny Progress

Kratos, the antihero from the God of War series, has killed a lot of dudes. Soldiers, villagers, deities, and more have fallen to this gray-skinned sucker and his trusty Blades of Chaos. Now, Namco Bandai is inviting you to take the battle to a bunch of virtual fighters that will probably never see it coming.

Kratos is in Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny, and he's pretty frickin' sweet.

Watch Kratos PWN noobs right here.
Now, I'm no fighting game expert; that's Ryan Clements' role here on the IGN PlayStation Team. Luckily, he's written about Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny a couple of times, so if you need a more nuts and bolts approach to how things play out here in this portable fighting game, I'd hit up his work first. I'm just here to talk about how good it felt to smash my blades into unsuspecting combatants.

Alternate between your attack buttons for some simple combos, and Kratos will begin throwing his blades -- complete with that flaming/orange trail from the God of War games -- and wailing on the competition. You can impale an enemy with the blades and drag them to you, and you can also knock opponents off of their feet, break out Icarus' Wings, and juggle the other fighter in mid-air.

I'm a Soulcalibur noob, and I was decimating the computer with ease thanks to Kratos' powerful attacks and award winning smile… OK… maybe there was no smile on Kratos' face, but there was on mine.

Aside from the God of War, my Broken Destiny demo focused on all the modes and stuff you can do in this PSP incarnation of Soulcalibur. You'll have 16 create-a-fighter slots and a system similar to that of Soulcalibur IV so that you can whip up warriors; Gauntlet mode will make up the title's fan fiction-like story; and when you decide to play a Quick Match, you'll go to a lobby list of computer opponents with made up win/loss records so that you can figure out who are the easiest and who are the hardest.

Now, that's a knife.

Beyond all of that and the fact that you can install part of the game to your memory stick to make load times that much faster, my demo was the straight action you'd expect from the 20-plus character title. Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny looks impressive graphically and seems to have a ton of bells and whistles to keep fans happy. It's too early to say if it'll be a worthy purchase, but with the Sept. 1, 2009 release date just around the corner, you won't have to wait long for the final verdict.