Soul Series

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"Transcending history and the world, a tale of souls and swords, eternally retold..."

The Soul series is a series of 3D weapon-based fighting games created by Namco, arriving shortly after the success of its other 3D fighter, Tekken.

All of the games in the series follow an ongoing plot: rumors of a heroic sword of legends known as "Soul Edge" are widespread around 16th century Eurasia. Only a few know the truth; the sword is actually an evil Artifact of Doom with an insatiable thirst for human souls. Some fighters seek it without knowing the truth, others seek to destroy it, while still others know the truth but simply don't care.

At first, the sword falls into the hands of a mad pirate named Cervantes, and it possesses him and turns him into a bloodthirsty killing machine. In later games, the sword is damaged by its "good" counterpart, Soul Calibur, and breaks into fragments, which are spread all over the world, causing misfortune on anyone who found them. By the last game, the sword has recovered all its lost shards and power, and awaits a final confrontation with its equally-powerful rival sword.

The series began in the mid-90s with Soul Edge, one of the first games to feature three-dimensional combat where every character held a weapon. Control was mostly similar to Tekken and Virtua Fighter, where characters could move along the three-dimensional plane, and could be knocked out of the ring if they were careless. Characters could also deflect each other's weapon attacks, or break them and render them useless if hit enough times.

Soul Edge, while mildly successful in arcades (and on the PlayStation as Soul Blade), was largely overshadowed by Soul Calibur, which revamped many of the original game's aspects, including the three-dimensional movement, character combos and timing, and completely removed the breakable weapon aspect. The Dreamcast port of the game rebalanced the gameplay and overhauled the graphics, becoming its system's Killer App in the process. It's often placed among many game critics' "favorite games of all time".

Soul Calibur has since spawned four sequels, which have been ported to a number of home systems. A spinoff Action Adventure title, SoulCalibur Legends, has been released for the Wii; IV has also been ported to the PSP as SoulCalibur: Broken Destiny, which guest stars the God of War himself. No, not Ares; the man who killed him.

As of SoulCalibur III, the series title seems to be SoulCalibur in a reference to Excalibur. Odashima said he wanted SoulCalibur 5 to be named Soul Edge 2, but was rejected.

See also the Character Sheet.

Tropes used in Soul Series include:
  • Action Mom: The Alexandra sisters; Cassandra's main reason to fight was to spare her older sister Sophitia from doing so since she's a mom, but when her kids are affected, Sophitia comes back to fighting against Soul Edge anyway.
    • Taken to a more extreme and utterly cruel angle in IV when Sophitia's daughter Pyrrha is possessed by Soul Edge, forcing Sophitia to kill anyone trying to destroy it.
    • Hilde, as of V.
  • Age-Inappropriate Dress: Amy, Talim, and Leixia.
  • AI Breaker: Anti AI moves in the third game, and Astaroth's Discus Breaker (1AB in community notation) in Soul Calibur IV. Also, lying down facing the edge when fighting Algol on Floor 60. See Artificial Stupidity.
  • Alien Geometries: V has a few infinitely large stages. You can see scenery in the distance, but you can never get any closer to it no matter how far you move.
  • All There in the Manual: Japan released an artbook guide for V that explains what happened to many of the characters that did not make it into the game, and heavily expanded the background for those who did.
  • Amazing Technicolor Battlefield
  • Anachronism Stew: Supposedly, this game takes place during the mid-to-late Renaissance, but there are certain aspects of the series (mostly the costumes and some Steampunk elements coming from llluminati-esque underground cults) that never really conform to a single real-world era.
  • Apologetic Attacker: Sophitia, Pyrrha, and Talim.
    • Siegfried tends to go into this when fighting non-possessed enemies, as they usually go after him for his past deeds as Nightmare. He accepts they have a rightful beef, but he can't die until Soul Edge's done for. So he beats them down, and then apologizes.
  • Appropriated Title: The series was originally called Soul Blade but is now better known as Soul Calibur.
    • More accurately, it was Soul Edge in Japan and Soul Blade in internationally. This was due to copyright troll EDGE Games claiming any and all variations of the word "edge" for themselves.
  • Armed Legs: The Grieve Edge moveset for custom characters in III.
  • Artifact of Doom: Soul Edge
  • Artificial Stupidity: Algol loves to use a certain combo that involves jumping over his opponent's head. He will use this even if his opponent is lying on the ground at the edge of the arena, flinging himself to his doom. Talim also did this a lot with her "Wind Flip" maneuver, particularly in III.
  • Ass Kicks You: Cassandra's Critical Finish, where she literally knocks her foe over with her rear end, then proceeds to violently sit on her opponent's face, the second time using her shield. There is some lampshading when she calls out "You like this kinda stuff?" while she's doing it. Not to mention all the pink hearts. She also has an attack that involves flinging herself butt-first at the enemy (which is her longest-range attack).
    • Rock does this too.
    • Even more disturbingly, Voldo does this, although not as a Critical Finish.
    • Like her sister, Sophitia has two or three of them as well.
  • Awesome but Impractical: Unblockable attacks look very cool, wreathing your weapon(s) in flames for the duration of the attack and darkening everything on-screen aside from the fighters and the HUD, and usually do a good chunk of damage. However, that duration tends to be a few seconds before the attack is actually pulled off, allowing players who notice the attack to generally dodge it with ease. And then punish the attacker right after with an attack of their own. Some of these attacks (such as Ivy's heel drop) leave the attacker open during the prep stages, too, making it very impractical unless the opponent is on the ground. Though one of Sophitia's...
    • Soul Edge in II and III often carries elements of this; while generally more powerful than any other weapon, most of its side effects are negative compared to the many more useful abilities offered by Soul Calibur or other weapons. This is notably absent in SC4, except for certain forms which have the detrimental abilities Slow Feet and Evil Sword Berserk attached.
    • In IV, Algol's 214A+B and 4B+K are awesome when they work, but they never will in a serious match. Nightmare's A+B and his 236A+B are also really cool, but are terrible moves.
    • The Critical Finishes from IV can only be pulled off in very specific situations: you break your opponent's armor, force them into Soul Crush, then hit all four face buttons while they're reeling back. They're harder to pull off than it would seem.
  • Awesome Yet Practical: Guard Break attacks, which coat your weapon in electricity, do boosted damage, and stagger foes if they were guarding. They are barely slower than regular attacks, and plenty are horizontal strikes (which means you can't walk out of the way).
  • Badass: Basically every character in the game.

Algol: "Fighting is my all...it is my existence!"
Nightmare: "Your existence is meaningless!"

  • Bishonen: Kilik, Maxi, Siegfried, and Yun Seong are pretty boys, but also quite buff.
  • The Blade Always Lands Pointy End In: In the intro.
  • Blood Knight: Mitsurugi and Algol.
  • Bloodless Carnage: You'd think with all the blades flying around, someone would get at least a small cut.
  • Body Horror: Soul Edge can twist the human body quite grotesquely, best seen in the number it did to Siegfried's right arm. The same corruption later happens to poor Pyrrha.
  • Bonus Mode Of Hell: Edge Master Mode, Mission Mode, Weapon Master Mode, Chronicles of the Sword, Tower of Lost Souls, and Legendary Souls, in chronological order.
  • Bottomless Pits: Some arenas have cliffs, chasms, or are being hoisted into the air by an Egyptian construction crane. These are some of the most common forms of "Ring Out".
  • Bowdlerise: In countries (specifically, Korea) that discouraged references to Samurai due to their histories with WWII-era Japan as well as various invasions from the 1590s, Mitsurugi was replaced twice: first with Hwang in the Korean arcade version of Soul Edge, and then in SC with an English-born, Japan-raised "samurai" named Arthur, who sported an Eyepatch of Power and wielded a katana. The former became a main by the 2nd arcade revision, the later became an unlockable bonus character in III as well as making cameos in the introduction for Weaponmaster in II and The Gauntlet in Broken Destiny.
    • Interestingly enough, the backstories of the Korean characters involve those very same 16th-century conflicts, so you'd think the Korean audience would cherish being able to beat up a hardened samurai warrior with their national heroes.
    • Also, the PAL release of 'Soul Blade changes the weapons of Li Long from Nunchaku into Three-Sectional Staffs because of the legal status of the former in the U.K. and other countries.
  • Brainwashed and Crazy: The majority of Soul Edge's victims end up this. Tira is an especially notable example.
  • Breakable Weapons: Soul Edge only, although IV and V have breakable armor.
    • In the story mode of III, this becomes the excuse for having a character use Soul Edge or Soul Calibur. Abyss will toss his scythe at you, requiring a quicktime event to block it. If the character is scripted to end up fighting with one of the Soul weapons, the strike will break the weapon the character is holding no matter what, and then one of the Soul weapons will be launched at the character, which they pick up to finish the fight.
  • Canon Immigrant: Sort of... A character named Yoshimitsu appears in all four Calibur games as a secret character; he's similar to the Yoshimitsu from Tekken, but may not be the same person.
    • According to his story, "Yoshimitsu" is actually the name of the sword he wields, as well as a title given to the strongest Ninja in his clan (the Yoshimitsu in Soul Calibur is the founder and the Yoshimitsu of Tekken is the current leader); the personality and fighting style are adopted to give the impression that he is immortal (Legacy Immortality, as popularized by The Phantom). However, Yoshimitsu is the same guy in the first 4 Soul Calibur games, as his story makes constant references to his development in past games; he is replaced by a new swordsman in the events leading up to V. The Tekken games all feature a single Yoshimitsu as well.
    • The Tekken 3 booklet's bio of Yoshimitsu says something like "He may have existed since the 18th Century". If this is true (it's nowhere mentioned in the NTSC-U english manual), it's only an addition of the English translator, as no such mention appears in any of the Japanese profiles.
    • Staying within the confines of the series itself, we have Hwang and Arthur. In both cases, the characters were conceived as alternates to Mitsurugi for the Korean market (who have a high distaste for samurai due to their bad history), Hwang for Soul Edge and Arthur for SoulCalibur. Later on, a second revision for Soul Edge was released and Hwang was canonized as a real character for all regions and given his own story. Likewise, in III, Arthur was given some back story and added as a bonus character. Arthur has little relevance to anything in the narrative but Hwang has been a prominent player through the first two titles.
  • Canon Welding: Possibly implied with Tekken at the end of Zasalamel's story in IV, which depicts him reincarnated in modern New York.
  • Celibate Hero: Ivy. No, seriously. She knows that she has "cursed blood", thanks to Soul Edge (her blood type is even listed as "Soul Edge"), so she has taken a vow to never have children, lest they too be cursed.
    • Also Kilik. By IV, he returns Xianghua's love, but says it can never be because he plans to throw away his life to become a hermit/the eternal guardian of both swords, and wants Xianghua to continue and live a full life rather than do the same just for him. She eventually moves on and has a daughter of her own named Lexia.
  • Character Customization: The Create-a-Fighter mode in III, IV, and V.
  • Character Development: Siegfried turns from a deluded young man, into the Big Bad, and finally into The Atoner and the arguable protagonist/hero of the games. Similarly, Ivy has moved from evil to good. Most of the characters undergo some level of character development between games.
  • Character Roster Global Warming: Soul Calibur has four "big" characters (Astaroth, Nightmare, Siegfried, Rock) compared to more than twenty others.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: As Algol is the hero king who was able to wield Soul Edge and created Soul Calibur, he has been mentioned since the beginning, they just gave him a name in IV. But to those unfamiliar with the backstory, he would appear to be a Giant Space Flea From Nowhere.
  • Cherry Tapping: The Joke Weapons since II. All of them make a light squeak sound effect when they makes contact with the opponent. Cherry Tapping indeed.
  • Chivalrous Pervert: Raphael and Dampierre both fight over Amy dolls and constantly make Double Entendres in Broken Destiny, while trying to keep their honor.
    • Maccoi, in the same game, makes thinly veiled promises of chikan, but still gives you hints and tips when fighting him.
  • Clothing Damage: IV has this in spades, for all characters with the exceptions of the bonus characters and the Star Wars exclusives. Kratos in Broken Destiny is also an exception.
  • Comeback Mechanic: IV allows players to assign skills to custom created characters. Among them are "will power" and "hysterical strength". Both are passive abilities that activate when the player's health dips below a certain point. "Will power" requires the player to be in critical status (low health) and causes the character to glow red, when active. It sharply increases the user's stats for the remainder of the round. "Hysterical strength" - only requires that player's health drop below half and only offers a boost in attack power; noted by a greenish yellow glow when active.
  • Comic Book Time: Although a conflict of this nature would take copious amounts of time, not a single character has celebrated a birthday since II. In fact, II, III, and IV all take place within the same year.
    • Averted in the first three games, which took place in real time, as the passage of years between the plots (3 and 4) coincided with the games' initial releases (1995-1998-2002).
    • Also averted with V, which takes place 17 years after IV.
  • Confusion Fu: Voldo, Yoshimitsu, and Dampierre. Xianghua and her daughter's movesets also rely on feints to a much lesser extent.
    • The rock-paper-scissors-style game mechanics (guards and sidestepping can only null certain types of attacks each) encourage mix-up tactics in general.
  • Cool Sword: Soul Edge and Soul Calibur.
  • Counter Attack: Several characters have these. Some attacks just have frames at the beginning that cause a Guard Impact, which would make the rest of the attack sort of like a Counter Attack, but there are moves that genuinely won't do anything unless the opponent lands an attack at the proper frame of the animation. All attacks do more damage if they hit during the start-up or cool-down frames of an opponent's attack.
  • Covers Always Lie: Usually in game covers, ads, and merchandise, Ivy is usually shown lined up with the other villainous characters, because of her rather interesting appearance. Even though at one point she committed murders in the sword's name, she's been trying to destroy it for most of the series.
    • Soul Edge's cover shows Mitsurugi duel-wielding katanas. He has never done this in any game in the series.
  • The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: The AI of III blatantly reads your controller inputs, leading to things like a nigh-100% success rate in parrying basic throws (where there should be a 50% chance of failure), the ability to guard impact any attack, and never reacting incorrectly to any mixup or cancelled attack. This makes anti-AI attacks a necessity to use.
    • There is one challenge in II where, in order to get to one of the special areas, you have to break your opponent's guard within a certain amount of time. Taki re-guards too fast after breaking her guard.
    • Back with a vengeance in V (at least in Legendary Souls mode and the harder opponents in Quick Battle). In addition to reading inputs, being immune to mixups, and abusing it's own lack of needing input by executing complex moves faster than a human could ever do it, this AI will also flawlessly space your characters (staying close to long range characters and keeping away from short range ones) and perfectly confound all attempts at horizontal containment.
  • Crossover: II includes Heihachi, Spawn, or Link, depending on which console you use.
    • IV includes Star Wars characters Darth Vader and Yoda, as well as the Apprentice from The Force Unleashed.[1]
    • V actually includes a character who makes sense within the context of the series' story and time period: Ezio Auditore, from the Assassin's Creed games.
      • Well, story maybe, but time period, most certainly not; V takes place over a century after the Assassin's Creed games (specifically II and Brotherhood, which star Ezio, who is in about his 30's there; ergo, he should already be dead by the time the game's story rolled by).
  • Crystal Prison: Soul Calibur likes to pull this as of IV whenever it trumps Soul Edge in certain character endings.
  • Damn You, Muscle Memory!: Namco LOVES this trope. Voldo is a particularly Egregious example; from II to III, his moveset remained the same, but the inputs changed.
  • Darker and Edgier: IV has many formerly-good characters—not to mention the pure Soul Calibur—take a swing into the dark side. These include Sophitia (forced to protect Soul Edge, with deadly force if necessary, to save her daughter's life), Maxi (driven to wield Soul Edge to destroy Astaroth by Tira), Taki (her ending has her murder Siegfried to prevent his attempt to create a utopia going horribly wrong), and Siegfried himself (his own storyline presents him as becoming increasingly suicidal, and his ending implies that Soul Calibur may have frozen the entire human population in crystal stasis, not to mention killing him).
    • V deals with the massacre and persecution of those who are and are accused of being 'Malfested'.
  • Difficult but Awesome: Guard Impacts. The requirement (pushing forward and guard right as an opponent's attack is about to hit, plus knowing what height to use) plus the consequence (there is no 'fallback' if you miss, you will take damage) are demanding but execute one and your opponent's only response will be to do one of their own, bound by the same condition.
    • Several characters fall into this as well; Ivy and Setsuka are both extremely difficult to learn but utterly devastating when mastered. The Grieve Edge style from III could be considered this, too, as it was heavily reliant on expert timing for attacks and Guard Impacts but was extremely powerful when executed with proper precision, in addition to looking really awesome.
  • Ditto Fighter: Edge Master, Charade's II incarnation, and Olcadan. Inferno also acts this way in his appearances, save for his very first one (where he was just a pumped up Cervantes named SoulEdge). In II, he switches styles in the middle of the fight and has a super move regardless of style.
    • In V, Edge Master returns as a mimic character, along with Kilik and newcomer Elysium. The difference between the three is that Edge Master can mimic all characters (needs confirmation for more special characters like Ezio or Devil Jin) while Kilik and Elysium can only mimic male and female characters respectively.
  • Divine Chessboard: Soul Edge versus Soul Calibur.
  • Dojikko: Talim becomes this when you use her running "kick" attack, which is more of a "trip and fall" attack. One of Xianghua's attacks when she is on the ground has her throw a tantrum. Dampierre is prone to falling in some of his attacks (when intended), and blocking will often get him to fall over in pain. In fact, in The Gauntlet, he's constantly accidentally activating his daggers into his own flesh. In Broken Destiny, the first assassin sent to try and kill you is so clumsy that your character starts to get hit out of pity for her.
  • Drop the Hammer: Some of Astaroth's weapons, as well as Rock's maces, include hammer-like weapons.
  • Dropped a Bridge on Him: Poor Sophitia. While most of the old cast that don't appear were merely Put on a Bus, Sophitia herself was stated to be killed off casually by a Malfested in the past, thus it's not just on Patroklos' mind that she's dead.
  • Dual-Wielding: Cervantes, Kratos, Lloyd Irving, and Shura all dual-wield swords, as well as Talim, who dual wields Tonfas. Taki and Natsu dual-wield daggers for certain attacks, and Algol's hands transform into Soul Edge and Soul Calibur, as well as double bubble cannons. Maxi can dual-wield nunchaku as an extra kata in Soul Calibur.
    • Aeon Calcos (Lizardman), as of V, duel-wields axes.
  • Dummied Out: Daishi Odashima, the game's director, reported that SCV's Story Mode was supposed to be 4 times bigger than that of the released product, and each character would have its own chronicle instead of just focusing on Patrokolos and Pyrrha; time constraints and lack of staff made the plan go down under. They even had full voiced lines ready for the extensive Story Mode that, in the end, weren't used.
  • Early-Bird Cameo: The Apprentice/Starkiller/Galen Marek from Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, in IV. Amy makes a short cameo in the second game's intro.
  • Early Installment Weirdness: Soul Edge features concepts like the Weapon Break meter and the Critical Edge combo, stuff that was never revisited in later installments of the series. It also lacked the 8-way Run movement system that would become the trademark of the later games and as a whole, was slower and played closer to Tekken 2.
    • A move called the Critical Finish showed up in IV, but seems to be unrelated. The Critical Edge itself returns in V.
      • In Name Only. The Critical Edge in V is a conventional super move, governed by a gauge, instead of a long string of attacks.
  • Easter Egg: V's Quick Battle mode gives players the chance to fight Katsuhiro Harada, the producer of Tekken. Harada uses a Create-A-Soul exclusive Devil Jin (manga) fighting style. Defeating him allows the use of the Devil Jin style for created characters.
    • It's also possible to to assemble KOS-MOS in III's Character Creation.
  • Eldritch Location: Astral Chaos, the dimension that Soul Edge retreats into whenever it gets too damaged.
  • Elegant Gothic Lolita: Amy. And then IV has Setsuka's alternate outfit and Ashlotte, a robotic clockwork gothic lolita.
  • Empathic Weapon: Soul Edge and Soul Calibur. Ivy's Valentine Whip Sword is also alive, which is why it can do all those improbable things in battle. Yoshimitsu's katana is shown to have a a level of sentience as well, especially in his II ending.
  • Enemy Within: Inferno
  • Enemy Without: Nightmare to Siegfried, after a point.
  • Epic Fail: Admit it, anyone who has played this game was able to ring themselves out by accident at least once.
  • Evil Only Has to Win Once: So far, Soul Edge has been shattered or destroyed at least three times (Soul Edge, Soul Calibur, Soul Calibur II), twice by Soul Calibur. What happens each time? The sword just breaks into pieces (each one every bit as evil as the whole sword) and eventually reforms itself, stronger than before. Now, what happens in every ending where the Soul Edge wins instead? The world gets hosed, that's what. Even worse, in IV, we learn that Soul Calibur is actually just as evil, but with a penchant for order rather than chaos.
  • Evil Weapon: Soul Edge. Soul Calibur during the period where it was corrupted by Soul Edge's evil; it's normally a holy sword meant to oppose Soul Edge. IV reveals that Soul Calibur can actually be considered just as evil, when it reaches its full power and sentience. Unlike Edge, which revels in chaos, destruction, death, and torment, Calibur wants peace, harmony, and safety -- by freezing the entire world so that no one can move.
  • Expy: In V, many characters deemed too old or are dead are replaced with characters who have the same fighting style. Examples include Natsu for Taki and Pyrrha for Sophitia.
  • Fan Nickname: There are quiet a lot of these made up by the fandom -- "Sieg/Sieggy", "Soph/Sophie", "Cass/Cassie", "Raph", and "Mitsu" are some prominent examples. Xianghua is often just called "X" due to the difficulty in spelling her name.
    • In V, fans came up with "Petsuka" for Alpha Patroklos and "Oprah" for Pyrrha Omega.
  • Fan Service: Most female characters' breasts were enlarged for IV, for no apparent reason other than probably this trope. The only thing keeping IV from full-on Panty Fighter status is the presence of men.
    • It's been there since the beginning. In Soul Edge, Sophitia appears naked in the opening (censored overseas, of course) and Taki has Jiggle Physics. On the original PlayStation. Which is hilarious.
  • Finishing Move: The Critical Finish in IV. Don't expect to pull this one off all the time; it's mostly there to keep people from spamming guard the whole match. The fanciness is lost on Yoda though, who is too short for most of the animations, and thus Critical Finishes on him are simply the character performing an unblockable attack on him.
  • Fixed-Floor Fighting
  • Flynning: Can be seen in the attract mode for III.
  • Fragile Speedster: Taki and Maxi.
  • Gaiden Game: Broken Destiny's story mode starts by stating that its plot is based on "obscure fables" and therefore isn't canon. Legends was also referred as such in the early press releases.
  • Gainaxing: Very much.
  • Game Breaking Bug: III. Save file wipe. If you moved or deleted any other save file on your memory card, it's impossible to save in Chronicles of the Sword (and therefore to play that mode properly).
  • Good Scars, Evil Scars: Siegfried and Kilik.
  • Glass Cannon: Possible in IV with custom characters. Several characters have weapons with extremely high damage but low health.
  • Gratuitous German: With bad grammar.
  • Groin Attack: Sophitia, Kilik, and Seung Mina.
    • Note that the Alexandra sisters have a tendency to attack using their groins.
  • Guest Fighter: Heihachi, Link, and Spawn, who were each a console-specific character in one of the versions of II; Lloyd Irving in Legends; Darth Vader, Yoda, and the Apprentice in IV; Kratos in Broken Destiny, and Ezio Auditore in V.
    • Product Placement: Adding the Apprentice from Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, a game that was going to come out a month after IV, was totally this.
    • Also, a bunch of anime/manga designers were hired to create an original character—and by "original character" we mean "they look different". Each of their individual fighting styles are copied from another character. They don't even have their own voice sets (using the ones from Create-a-Character mode instead).
  • Guns Are Useless: The only firearm in the game (Cervantes' "pistol sword"); while the strongest attack that uses it deals decent damage (between a 4th and 3rd of health), it is very telegraphed, and can be dodged by simply moving to the side once. Back in II, the only attack that involved it was a weak, easy to miss, anti-air attack grab (which is as useless as it sounds).
  • Hey, It's That Voice!:
  • Hit and Run Tactics: Conceivably possible with Spawn's signature fire/acid ball move. Any competent human or AI will be able to sidestep the fireballs, but against the easy and the inexperienced, you may be able to wipe the enemy health gauge clean before the enemy can so much as close for combat. Same goes for Link in the same game (except in the Gamecube version only). Can also be attempted with Ivy's whip and Kilik's staff to a lesser extent.
  • Hot Chick with a Sword: Quite a few. In III and IV, you can make your own!
  • Hoist Hero Over Head: One of Darth Vader's grappling moves in IV. Two of Hilde's throws also do this.
  • Horny Vikings: The Viking Helm in IV is an example of this.
  • Impossibly Low Neckline: Many of the girl's outfits, including Amy and Ivy.
  • Improbable Weapon User: Plenty, even without counting anyone's Joke Weapon. Tambourines, anyone?!
  • Infinity+1 Sword: Each character has one; also inverted in Soul Edge itself, which may count as an Awesome but Impractical Infinity-1 Sword, as it often drains the health of its possessor.
  • Instrument of Murder: Talim of IV uses a pair of ocarinas as her joke weapons.
  • Jail Bait: Talim is 15 years old, and gets more and more sexualized in each game. She is now straddling people with her thighs while wearing translucent pants.
    • Amy, who's probably younger than her.
    • And then we have Leixia and Natsu in V.
  • Jiggle Physics:
    • Almost all female characters, especially Taki and Ivy (although there are exceptions).
    • In IV, Cassandra's alternate costume applies this to her thighs.
    • III also has Valeria the shopkeeper, and more of the girls have this in IV, including Sophitia, Setsuka, and pretty much every female Create-A-Character, especially since they'll end up in their underwear anyway. Astaroth has chest jiggle physics, and Xianghua has ass jiggle physics.
    • Jiggle Physics is even customizable for custom characters, where (reasonably) undergarment choice affects bounce. The strapless bra will have more jiggle than what is essentially a leather sports bra.
  • Joke Item: Each character has one.
  • Kicking Ass in All Her Finery: Several outfits the ladies wear are very fancy and elegant.
  • Lampshade Hanging: Seung Mina + bladed weapon + Groin Attack + "Bye bye" = not pleasant™.
  • Large Ham: Nightmare's taunts before a battle and after winning a match. His lines could be very scary, if he didn't sound like he was trying so hard. "Have a taste of my darkness!" Also The Narrator at times.
    • Kratos in Broken Destiny, even more than in his own series.
    • Cervantes is extremely hammy as well.
    • Abyss in III actually has some pre-battle lines that are so lengthy that they get cut off/run into the other fighter's!
    • Everything Astaroth says is incredibly melodramatic.
  • Leotard of Power: Ivy, particularly in II. Cassandra in IV has a coat on over one of these.
  • Lighter and Softer: Broken Destiny's Gauntlet mode contains massive amounts of Lampshade Hanging (ranging from one of the wild creatures asking why their wolf protector is suddenly walking around on two legs, to the characters constantly asking each other, and themselves, why they keep giving hints to the player when they fail a mission), a few personality changes, starting with Cassandra being a Genki Girl, no one getting killed, aside from the wolf you eat in the beginning, Nightmare becoming a good guy, anime-style illustrations (including a Yukkuri shiteitte ne! cameo), with all the standard visual gags.
  • Light Is Not Good: The titular blade, Soul Calibur. It was shown in IV that it wants to freeze the world in crystal, thus creating a World of Silence. Soul Calibur's justification is that if nobody can move, there won't be any more war. Granted, it's still insane.
    • Reinforced in V when its spirit presents itself as Sophitia to manipulate Patroklos into killing Soul Edge's wielder, his sister Pyrrha.
  • Lightning Bruiser: Siegfried and Nightmare hit hard and fast naturally. Ashlotte, Astaroth, and other slow-but-strong characters can be modified into this through the Step Speed Up and Run Speed Up abilities. Hilde's movement is among the fastest in the game, and she also has the two most powerful attacks (her 30 second charge attacks), both of which are near one hit K.O.s.
    • Darth Vader in IV, which is rather true to his portrayal in the Star Wars universe.
  • Limit Break: The Critical Edge attacks in the upcoming V, complete with their super meter.
  • Malevolent Architecture: Abound in Legends, where even Leonardo da Vinci's house is full of swinging blades, rolling boulders, and puzzles.
  • Mana Meter: V has one (with multiple stocks at that), and it's used to power the Brave Edge and Critical Edge moves.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Zasalamel in III manipulates Nightmare, Siegfried, Ivy, and a bunch of Mooks as part of his plan to raise both swords' powers back to full. Also, in each character's own story mode, there's one path in which he baits said character into his clock tower, tests him/her in battle, and then either directs him/her to Nightmare (so he gets a chance to feed the sword with a strong soul) or curse him so he'd not become a nuisance later.
    • Also Tira in IV, as she convinces many of the characters to seek out Soul Edge to meet their goals, most notably manipulating Sophitia into working for the side of Nightmare by saying that her daughter was at risk if Soul Edge was destroyed.
    • Dampierre in Broken Destiny. To get two men into his service, one of which attempted to shoot him earlier, he reveals his hideout to the police, and later saves them when they are cornered. This act, plus a claim of greatness and his impressive counterfeit collection, are enough to turn them into his lackeys.
    • Iska in Legends fits this trope perfectly as he makes the character do the whole story then attempts to kill them.
  • Meaningful Name: Pyrrha, Sophitia's daughter. You just know there's only one way for that whole mess to end.
    • Doesn't help when her other child is named Patroklos, as in the man who wore Achilles's armor in the Trojan War.
    • Also Amy, coming from the old French Amee, means "beloved"; this is played up with the mission you need to complete to unlock her in III, named 'Beloved'.
  • Meido: Lynette, one of the three shopkeepers in III. In IV, we also have Marienbard and Jacqueline, Raphael's servants.
    • You can also create characters with maid costumes in III and IV, though in the latter case it requires a DLC to do so.
    • Pamela in Broken Destiny, who also serves as an assassin. A really bad one.
    • Pyrrha worked as a meido until she was implicated in a murder probably the first example for a main character in Soul Calibur.
  • Mighty Glacier: Astaroth, Rock, and Ashlotte.
  • Mighty Whitey: Subverted with Setsuka; she's a woman of European heritage, who was orphaned and ended up being raised in Japan. Because of her appearance, however, she was shunned and distrusted by the majority of the native people around her.
    • Played a little straighter with Rock, an English boy lost in a shipwreck who grew up in America, who became a fearsome giant. Still mistrusted and feared though, because, y'know, GIANT.
      • Despite this Rock isn't even all that big, Standing at only 175 cm and weighing 85 kg. Cervantes in SCV is both taller and heavier.
    • Arthur as well: an orphan who ended up in the care of a Japanese merchant and was raised in Japan. He was despised by his peers, which made him the prefered target for projectiles in the battlefield.
  • Mini-Dress of Power: Sophitia, Cassandra, and Amy.
  • Mismatched Eyes: Zasalamel's golden eye.
  • Morph Weapon: Soul Edge and Soul Calibur. Normally, they take the shape of a really big sword and a jian, respectively, but they can morph to fit just about any weapon shape. In II, three characters (Xianghua, Nightmare, and Talim) could use Soul Calibur, and every character had a Soul Edge version of their weapon (Nightmare had three: Soul Edge, Soul Edge [Growth], and Soul Edge [Complete]). By III, Siegfried has Soul Calibur, and it too becomes a BFS.
  • Mortality Ensues: In his input ending of III, Zasalamel succeeds in becoming mortal and spends the rest of his life as a scholar, chronicling everything he experienced.
  • Ninja: Taki and Yoshimitsu; Yoshimitsu's fighting style is classified as that of a Samurai, but his backstory indicates that he was part of a Ninja clan.
  • No Sidepaths, No Exploration, No Freedom: Granted, we don't expect those things from the main fighting games, but it seems like a cop-out in Legends.
  • Ominous Pipe Organ: Hellfire begins with one. Also, Forsaken Sanctuary is full of it.
  • One-Handed Zweihander: Nightmare uses his sword like this. Averted by Siegfried, who uses both hands to swing his BFS. Most of the time.
  • One-Man Army: Mitsurugi in his backstory and certain endings, Nightmare in the introduction to III as well as a character with a discipline with a good anti AI move in Chronicles of the Sword.
  • One Steve Limit: Averted. III contains both Eurydice Shrine (a stage) and Eurydice, a character in the Chronicles of the Sword subgame.
  • Only a Flesh Wound: Siegfried sometimes makes the claim "I avoided your vitals. You'll live," after winning a fight in III. Apparently the brain isn't a vital area.
  • Opera Gloves
  • Order Versus Chaos: If Soul Calibur's own ambition to freeze the world in crystal is its actual motivation, then the battle between Soul Calibur and Soul Edge is more this than good VS evil. Both will do bad things to the world, it all comes down to how they bring it about (Edge wants violence and terror, Calibur wants order and serenity through nothingness).
  • Painted-On Pants: Very possible in Character Creation, and is pretty much your only alternative to fighting in underwear after Clothing Damage in IV.
  • Panty Shot: Female characters wearing skirts tend to expose their panties as they move and fight. Sophitia, who wears a short skirt in every Souls game, even became a running gag for how often her panties could be seen in combat, and certain games allow you to change the colour of her (and subsequently, the other girls') panties.
  • Patriotic Fervor: Figures into the backstory for all of the Korean characters in the Soul Series. Hwang is a soldier in the Imperial Navy seeking Soul Edge in order to stop Japan's invasion of his country. Seung Mina is trying to prove that females can be as capable soldiers as male recruits, and Yun Seong's out to prove his worth to Hwang and his country. In later games, they realize that the sword is evil and instead fight to destroy it, with the side goal of proving the nation's strength.
    • Yun Seong, in his III pre-boss fight (the one where you fight someone who has to do with the character's backstory), has him walking into the room, taking one look at Mitsurugi, whom he has never seen before, and yelling something along the lines of "Enemy of my homeland, prepare to die!"
    • Ivy also exhibits this, but visually. In her IV costume, her shoulder pauldron and the various metal clasps on her costume incorporate the Tudor Rose of England motif, which is a traditional symbol of her native England and also probably serves as a medieval example of Wearing a Flag on Your Head.
  • Personality Blood Types: Blood types are listed in the character profiles.
  • Pimped-Out Dress: Quite a few of the outfits.
  • Pirate: Cervantes. Maxi may not look the part, but he's a pirate from Ryukyu.
  • Pretty in Mink: A few outfits with fur trim. Amy's outfit in IV has a fur neckline.
  • Princess Curls: Amy, Ashlotte, Viola, and Abelia.
  • Publisher Chosen Title: Supposedly what transpired after producer Daishi Odashima tried to name SoulCalibur V "Soul Edge II".
  • Rainbow Pimp Gear: To get the best possible statistics in IV's CAS mode, your fighter will be horribly mismatched. Just go with it.
    • To be fair, you can still color-change most of the clothing, so you can make it less horrible.
  • Recurring Riff: "Path of Destiny", titled "Recollection" in its first appearance, is the ending theme to all four Calibur games.
  • Revenue Enhancing Devices: Incredibly, Namco managed to restrain themselves in this regard. IV has costume packs and the Soul Calibur soundtrack available for DLC, plus Play Station 3 owners can download Yoda and Xbox owners can download Vader. Now, why couldn't they have offered the custom weapon disciplines from III and some more characters...
  • Road Cone: Every character's ending inevitably ends with them doing something with Soul Edge and/or Soul Calibur. Soul Calibur takes elements from a handful of the endings of Soul Edge, Sophitia gets her ending where she breaks one of Cervantes's Soul Edge swords, but becomes injured in the process, leaving Taki to come in and finish Cervantes off, at which point Sigfried shows up and gets his ending where he becomes Nightmare. II takes mainly from Xianghua, with elements from Kilik (he fights Nightmare and his mirror breaks) and Nightmare (Siegfried recovers his senses after facing his dad in a dream). III takes the basic setup from Nightmare's ending (Siegfried recovers his mind, but seals Soul Edge with Soul Calibur instead of throwing it down a dark pit); as well as a bit of Raphael's ending (he pierced Soul Edge's eye).
  • Samurai: Mitsurugi. Arthur is an interesting case: being an England-born orphan, he was raised and trained to serve as a samurai by his Japanese master (who previously bought him).
  • Scenery Porn: A lot of the stages.
  • Sculpted Physique
  • Series Continuity Error: During a flashback in V of Tira kidnapping Pyrrha, Pyrrha is shown as a baby when she should have been three years old.
  • Ship Sinking: When Leixia's profile was released, many a Kilik/Xianghua fan panicked that Project Soul was doing this, due to the news that Xianghua had married a general of the Ming Empire and had two children with him. Possibly averted by later information which implied that she was forced into the marriage and that she still loved Kilik; later, it was truthfuly averted with the Japanese official artbook, which revealed Xiba as being their son, so by proxy Kilik and Xianghua had upgraded their relationship, even for a bried moment.
  • Ship Tease: Someone on the team noticed that the fans really dug on LinkxTalim. So much so that in IV, Talim's joke weapon is a pair of ocarinas.
  • Shockwave Stomp: Night Terror when he stabs the ground. A few other characters have ground stabbing moves that make one, and Xianghua has an actual stomp.
  • Shoo the Dog: Kilik tries several times to keep Xianghua from following him, because he doesn't plan for his quest to end well. This is also the case for Hwang in Soul Edge and the first Calibur, who keeps sending Seong Mina home when she follows him out.
  • Shout-Out: Gameplay-wise, most of the new additions and systems in V come from Daishi Odashima being a fan of Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike.
    • The Just Guard system, however, is more or less the Just Defend system from Garou: Mark of the Wolves.
      • The whole Time Skip setting of V seems to be a Shout-Out to both games.
    • Several characters in II have costumes that reference characters from other video games:
      • Mitsurugi's 2P costume makes him strongly resemble Haohmaru.
      • Sophitia's bonus costume is a shout-out to Princess Ki.
      • Cassandra's bonus costume is a shout-out to the eponymous heroine of yet another Namco game, The Legend of Valkyrie.
      • Voldo's bonus costume looks a lot like an Alien.
      • Ivy's bonus costume is a shout-out to Anna Williams.
      • Raphael's IV 1P costume resembles Alucard.
    • Iska in Legends mentions learning/using alchemy in some of the dialouge sequences; he's even voiced by Edward Elric.
    • In V, there's a Quick Battle opponent named Diego Umeharez, as in Daigo Umehara.
      • More specifically, it's the screen name used by a Daigo impersonator.
  • Skill Gate Character: For the most part, averted; a number of the easy-to-learn characters like Talim, Kilik, and Mitsurugi are so deadly because they're even worse to fight against when mastered. Those that don't consider Necrid completely broken argue he falls more into this category, since the majority of people play him for his stupidly cheap spam attacks without regard for how poorly this fares against players that know what they're doing.
  • SNK Boss: Night Terror, Algol, and the Apprentice in Arcade Mode.
  • Soul Cutting Blade: Soul Edge
  • Spell My Name with an "S": Seung Mina and Yun Seung? You mean Seong Mi-Na and Yun Seong?
  • Split Personality: Tira in IV switches between Slasher Smiling psycho to Kubrick Staring psycho when her health is half-depleted (or by using Gestalt Madness -A + K-), as a side-effect of prolonged exposure to Soul Edge.
    • She was also a lot like Harley Quinn in her first appearance, except oddly, switching between grinning and not at random.
    • Also, oddly enough, Soul Calibur is like a split personality of Soul Edge, since it was created from Soul Edge—one's a Knight Templar and one is The Heartless.
  • Story Breadcrumbs: Single-player modes do spill some of the story, but it's hard to separate the canon from the "we needed a few more scenarios for Character A, so we put him in Character B's role" scenarios, and almost every character's ending contradicts the bulk of the cast's. Practically all of the story information comes from story, weapon, and stage profiles and the official site, and those still require some context work to piece together.
  • The Starscream: Astaroth, in IV, as detailed in his Story Mode profile. This started as far back as the first Calibur game, where he joined Nightmare to help him restore the sword just so he could claim it in perfect shape for his true master.
  • Steampunk: Most specifically "Clock Punk". Clockwork cogs are theme in many arenas. The character Yoshimitsu has a clockwork cybernetic arm, while the character Ashlotte in IV is a clockwork robot.
  • Stripperiffic: Women wear everything from skirts that flip up at the slightest provocation, to battle thongs, to ornate dental floss, with heels being standard. Men tend to go shirtless but are otherwise adequately dressed.
  • Sudden Sequel Heel Syndrome: This happens to Sophitia Alexandra in IV, where she's made to defend Soul Edge in order to save her daughter's life.
  • Surrounded by Idiots: Hilde (and you) in Broken Destiny.
  • Take That: Dampierre's reactions to Sophitia's married status in The Gauntlet mode of Broken Destiny could be seen as this to those who refuse to accept that she has a husband.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks: In Universe Example: Tira's reaction in V to the new Nightmare being a manipulative warmonger instead of the sociopath One-Man Army it previously was.
  • Thong of Shielding: Several of Ivy's costumes.
  • Time Skip: A major feature of V's story, which is 17 years forward of the events of the last canon installment.
  • Title Scream: A random character or the announcer will do this.
  • Titling Around Trademarks: The reason Soul Edge was renamed Soul Blade—and the reason the series eventually became Soul Calibur—was Tim Langdell's questionable (and now invalidated) trademark on the word "Edge" in relation to video games. After the trademark was invalidated, V's director wanted to rename the game to Soul Edge 2; Namco executives wouldn't let him.
  • Together in Death: Kilik is determined to destroy Soul Edge even if it costs him his life. Xianghua makes it clear that if he succeeds, he won't be alone.
  • Took a Level in Jerkass: Taki becomes a bitch between III and IV. Her treatment of Ivy and Siegfried, who have both become The Atoner by this point, is particularly grating.

"You're your father's daughter after all."

    • Though worth noting, Taki has no reason to know that they become atoners. Ivy and Taki especially have a history of not getting along very well.
  • Tragic Irony: Siegfried frees himself from the control of Soul Edge, cleansing himself of his sins. Then he takes Soul Calibur, believing it to be a holy weapon of pure good to counter Soul Edge's evil. Unbeknownst to him, Soul Calibur is a Knight Templar that intends not only to freeze him and Nightmare into crystal, but the rest of the world as well, and Siegfried's adamant claim "never again will I bend to anyone's will" has been subverted without him realizing it.
  • Underwear of Power: Though none of the main characters use this (even Ivy just wears a very, very skimpy leotard), this can be done in character creation, and is a must in IV, where clothing damage often reverts characters to their underwear anyway.
  • Unexpected Gameplay Change: The Gauntlet, Broken Destiny's campaign mode, is pretty much a memory/timing puzzle, except with fighting. It's strangely addicting.
  • Unreliable Narrator: When confronting Tira in V's Story Mode as Patroklos, the narrator refers to her as "your mother's murderer" seemingly confirming that Tira killed Sophitia. This was later disproven in the official sourcebook.
  • Unusual Ears: IV bonus characters Kamikirimusi and Scheherazade.
  • Variable-Length Chain
  • Virtual Paper Doll
  • Walking the Earth: Every characters travels all over Europe and Asia in search of the Soul Edge for their personal reasons.
  • What Could Have Been: Dante was supposed to be a guest fighter in III.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: Raphael's life was saved by a little girl named Amy. After they appear to get vampiric symptoms, he attempts to change the world by spreading it since it doesn't accept them, as opposed to attempting to cure themselves.
    • Zasalamel can be seen as this in IV, since in order to attain his goal of "leading humanity into a bright future", he's more than willing to torture, murder, or destroy the life of anyone, either for obstructing him or because it helps move his plan along.
    • Soul Calibur itself is a holy weapon created by Algol to keep the evil Soul Edge sword in check. However, the sentience granted to Soul Calibur has allowed it to come to the conclusion that the world is full of chaos and violence and the only way to save humanity from itself is to crystallize the world and all its inhabitants.
  • Who Wants to Live Forever?: The whole reason why Zasalamel brings the two swords together—he's tired of living forever. Reversed in IV, when Zasalamel decides he does want to live forever after seeing humanity's future, which apparently is so awesome that he also performs a Heel Face Turn. He's still a Jerkass, however. There's a odd kind of Moral Dissonance to his speeches on human potential versus his Heroic Sociopath comments before fights. He also has a tendency to make people fight those who were important to them before they died, like Siegfried's father Friederich, Kilik's adoptive sister Xianglian, and Algol's son, THEN fight completely-dead versions of them.
  • Weapon of Choice: Every character has his/her own trademark weapon:
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: The Story Mode for V focuses, for the first time, on the actions and destinies of only a few characters. As a result, many characters never have their reasons for being in the game stated and some, like Zasalamel and Cassandra (who's the aunt of both the main characters no less), have disappeared entirely without explanation.
    • What Could Have Been: V, whilst praised for its great gameplay and visuals, was met with criticsm (justifiably so) for the fact that the story mode only concentrated on and showcased the fate of a handful of characters. Even arcade mode has no endings for any of the characters, leaving a good deal of storyline elements hanging. Annoyingly, when this was brought up in an interview with game director Daishi, he stated that - "Our first plan on the storyboard was that we had every character's story, and actually we do have it in the studio, but time-wise, man power-wise we weren’t able to do it and only one fourth of what we planned to do is in the game"...
  • World of Ham
  • Wrestler in All of Us: Astaroth's powerbomb and Nightmare's dropkick.
  • Yet Another Stupid Death: If you beat the Colossus in III, do not just stand there!
  • Yin-Yang Bomb: The Soul Embrace (which is what happens when Soul Calibur and Soul Edge merge) in III and IV, and Kilik's weapon Kali-Yuga which absorbs both good and evil energies.
  • You Go, Girl!: Seung Mina
  • You Killed My Father: Siegfried's original motivation. Although in this case it's more like I Killed My Father.
    • In V, Patroklos seeks revenge on the Malfested for his mother's death.

The alternate universe single player modes, Weapon Master and Chronicles of the Sword, have examples not found in the main games:

  • All There in the Manual: The Japanese website gives (gave) a good deal of backstory for Chronicles of the Sword.
  • Bonus Boss: Weapon Master has a bonus chapter gained by fighting enough battles to reach the rank of Edgemaster, with four very difficult opponents to fight. Chronicles of The Sword has the main universe characters appear at a rate of 1-3 a chapter, and do not require the player to fight them to finish the level.
  • Boss Dissonance: The Chronicles of The Sword mode in III is a Kirby Type.
  • Defeat Means Friendship: How do you get your old friends back from Soul Edge induced mind control post time skip in Chronicles of the Sword? Befriend them.
    • Also, there are two sets of two possible party members, the one who you beat first joins you. The other waits for New Game+.
  • Dual Boss: Lanbardy and Hobb at the end of the Underground Juno.
  • Five-Bad Band: In Weapon Master we have...
  • Gaiden Game: Neither Weapon Master or Chronicles of the Sword take place in the same world (seeing as how the Soul Series take place on an alternate Earth), but share a few similarities (the presence of Soul Edge and Soul Calibur, for example)
  • Genre Shift: The Chronicles of the Sword sub-game in III mashed strategy and fighting together.
    • That is, unless you're strong enough to crush multiple enemies outright. There is perhaps one chronicle in which strategy is needed: a rescue mission. It's often impossible to do anything else in some levels, as the enemies favor rushing you (while it is their best option, as this forces you to face everyone at once and you can't recover between them, it tends to make the rest of the map fairly boring).
  • Giant Space Flea From Nowhere: In Chronicles of the Sword, on the second-to-last level, the stronghold right next to your main stronghold is guarded by a level 99 Boss in Mook Clothing named Ende. He is never referenced prior to this, is the first enemy to have a purple health meter (the highest CotS goes), and has exactly one line of dialog when you bring his stronghold down, apparently referencing the fact that he is just a mercenary. He also has a unique weapon for the Katana discipline of Character Customization, the Kokuenra. Beating him allows you to use it as well... too bad his stronghold has the habit of slowing your falls, allowing him to juggle you mercilessly with his sword.
  • God Save Us From the Queen: Aurelia is the final boss of the first half of Chronicles of the Sword, has tried to Take Over the World, and wields "Black Widow".
  • Heroic Mime: In both modes, your character will think to themselves between chapters, but never actually say anything.
  • Instant Win Condition: Averted in Chronicles of the Sword, a ring-out will only take a large chunk of a combatant's HP.
    • Played straight on one occasion. There is one stronghold in the game where falling to the floor means instant death. And your opponent is a level 60 character. Thank your lucky stars that he isn't immune to the stage's effect, unlike other occasions in the game.
  • Lethal Joke Character: The Dancer class in Chronicles of the Sword fights with a pair of tambourines as its first weapon. Did we mention the most basic attack from these tambourines utterly breaks the AI? Or that their fast attack rate is paired with a weapon that regenerates health with every swing? Swordmaster using tambourines is better because of much higher stats, but impossible to unlikely to use for a first playthough.
  • Louis Cypher: Wonder what Demuth Beel Zebus Halteese could mean...
  • Luck-Based Mission:
    • Merope Monastery's bonus mission in Weapon Master is dependent entirely on if the AI moves the right way, as you have ~15 seconds to defeat each of the 6 foes, only truly possible with a ring out while over 3/4 of the stage is wall.
    • In chapter 8 of Chronicles of the Sword, you have to rescue at least 3 of 5 allied units on the field from the enemies. Outside of a New Game+ (where you can get through fortresses much quicker with your higher strength units), the AI decides if you can rescue the three named ones that will join you as well as your ability to rescue the two generic ones for bonus points, as if they attack any unit with more than one of theirs, they are going to die.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Chester has three out of the four kingdoms under his strings around the end of the first half, part of his Evil Plan to become king himself.
  • My Country, Right or Wrong: Abelia in Chronicles of the Sword. You befriend this out of her.
  • Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Lanbardy, Marauder of Slaughter
  • New Game+: Chronicles of the Sword; either this or a fresh game is required to get all of the create a character parts (as at least one part will be unlocked by picking one Optional Party Member over the other).
  • Nominal Importance: Averted in Chronicles of the Sword; most named characters are merely elite mooks (opposed to the Red Shirts who are named for their affiliation).
  • One-Man Army: Chronicles of the Sword. It's even lampshaded, with generic soldiers thinking your character is a War God(ess).
  • Perverse Puppet: One appears in Weapon Master that can only be defeated via ring out.
  • Pirate: Alfred, king of pirates in Weapon Master, as well as his crew.
  • Player Mooks: An option for Chronicles of the Sword over preset characters. They are stupidly broken due to the ability to put them into a strong class and use any "reliable" weapon of your choice, plus you don't lose them during the Time Skip.
  • Putting the Band Back Together: You do this Nanoha style post-timeskip in Chronicles of the Sword (see above).
    • Kilik, Xianghua, and Maxi form an ass-kicking trio in II, but they're all separated by the end of that game. Xianghua and Kilik have found each other and split apart again since then, but Maxi lost his memory and has rebuked the offer to join them several times.
  • Quirky Miniboss Squad: Luna and her subordinates in Chronicles of the Sword (named "The Klessirpemdo"). Their quirks only go as far as elemental theming due to a lack of development.
    • Amazon Brigade: All 5 of them are women.
    • Degraded Boss: For a single chapter, all 5 are fought at once, rather then the 4 minibosses and 1 boss fashion they use in their other appearances. They are back to normal in a few chapters.
    • Nakama
  • Recovery Attack: generally averted, but present with Heihachi's guest appearance, since he comes from a series that does have a recovery attack.
  • Risk-Style Map: Weapon Master
  • The Rival: Abelia in Chronicles of the Sword.
  • Rival Turned Evil: Quite a few in Weapon Master. Justified; they were seeking Soul Edge, a sword that has a tendency to turn people evil.
  • Scenery Gorn: The Castle of the Dead, as well as anywhere Veral has been once he acquires Soul Edge.
  • Scenery Porn: Chronicles of the Sword's levels are rather well detailed.
  • Sidequest: A few optional chapters in Weapon Master.
  • The Greatest Story Never Told: The end of Weapon Master tells you that whatever your choice was when confronted with Soul Edge, it was never put into history. Indeed, the Big Bad of Weapon Master is said to have only been a footnote in the Soul Edge's long and colored history, and you're completely forgotten.
  • This Looks Like a Job For Aquaman: Link, for a few of the Weapon Master levels due to his proficiency with ringouts (and for 1 stage, ability to get a high number of hits) he excels, even though he is placed on the bottom of the tier list. (That happens to him a lot.)
    • Obviously, these stages aren't as easily gotten around in the Xbox and PlayStation 2 versions.
  • Time Skip: Chronicles of the Sword
  • Training Boss: The first level of Weapon Master. The first two chapters of Chronicles of The Sword.
  • Twinkle Toes Samurai: Taki has a couple moves like this.
  • "Wake-Up Call" Boss: Luna's first appearance in in Chronicles of the Sword (chapter 3). Before this chapter, the AI is passive and fairly weak. Now they will rush you on multiple fronts with overleveled troops and there is a "main universe" character on the field for the first time (They are level 60 when you are 5 at best, learn to avoid them).
    • Beating them all makes you feel bad-ass. But, if you have enough skill, then you can overcome the level gap and defeat all of them, even without the use of AI breakers, because despite being competent, they don't use any of the A.I. special tactics too much, meaning that they are as defeatable as an average human player.
    • Not to mention that "main universe" character can be exploited, if you know what you're doing. Note that losing still gives you experience... just have one guy protecting your base (Particularly one you're good with), send the rest to fight the level 60. Sure, you'll likely lose easily, but you'll see them gain levels EXTREMELY fast. Not to mention beating said character gives the biggest level-up chain ever for that point. This can quickly become a Game Breaker.
  • War God: One chapter of Chronicles of the Sword has your character note they overheard someone call them this once.
  • Weapons Kitchen Sink: Chronicles of the Sword has katana wielders fighting side by side with people who wield claymores, chinese swords, rapiers, and nunchucks.
  • Weak but Skilled: Soul of Devil Jin. Players will find themselves outclassed in some form against any other character.
  • Worthy Opponent: Luna says you are this during the first fight with her, and her dialog throughout the rest of the game supports it.
  1. ↑ Yoda was initially exclusive to the Xbox360 version, while Darth Vader was originally exclusive to the Play Station 3 version; both eventually became available as DLC for the other version. Starkiller has always been available in both versions.
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