Shaman King: Soul Fight
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| Shaman King: Soul Fight | |
|---|---|
| Cover art Cover art | |
| Developer(s) | Tuning Electronic |
| Publisher(s) | Bandai |
| Platform(s) | Nintendo GameCube |
| Genre(s) | 3D Fighting |
| Mode(s) | Single-player, multiplayer |
'Shaman King: Soul Fight!' is a fighting and strategy game for the Nintendo Gamecube developed by Tuning Electronic, and published by Bandai. It is based upon the anime and manga Shaman King, written by Hiroyuki Takei. It follows the journey of Yoh Asakura and his friends in the quest to become Shaman King. There are 26 characters and 5 game modes to choose from: Story Mode, Shaman Fight Mode, Tutorial Mode, Shaman King Mode, and Omake Mode. Soul Fight is one of the only console games developed by Tuning Electronic, a company that has developed a small amount of low-budget arcade games.
This game sold well in Japan and even gained a "Bandai The Best" version, but never made it to the US. One of the reasons was possibly because 4kids Entertainment, the English Anime dub version producers, didn't want to license the Shaman King games from more than one company. They eventually chose Konami to make their own games, and never gained the rights for Soul Fight. Shaman King: Soul Fight is hard to find nowadays, even on Ebay, due to the lack of info available on it, and the fact that it was believed that Konami would release it under a special license from Bandai.
Gameplay
The game features colorful cel-shaded graphics and strategy/fighting style gameplay. During a battle, either a rock, paper, or scissors based attack can be chosen to fight with, and the final outcome in the attack sequence is determined based on the type of attacks chosen. During the fights, energy crystals will be saved up for each successful attack. These activate cinematic special attacks unique to the character, depending on the number of crystals gained.(Max.3) Full voice acting is also featured during Story Mode, directly from the Japanese version anime. Story Mode is played out as Yoh Asakura through the anime's story line. Shaman Fight Mode is a free-play fight option, Shaman King Mode is a survival mode option where you choose three characters out of eight to fight through 4 random battles, and level them up for play in one of the Shaman Fight modes. The 4th battle is always Hao Asakura in this mode.