Hopefully you'll get your copy soon Chomo!
Now that I've played a bit more of the game, time to answer some of your questions.
Yes Seong Mi-Na (they changed the spelling her name from Seung Mina to make it more realistic, same with Seong Yun instead of Yun Sung) is playable from the start.
I've unlocked these characters so far:
Sophitia, Lizardman, Cervantes, Rock, Yoshimitsu simply by battling them in the 1p mode.
I've played Setsuka now - she's fast and strings combos together rather than having powerful moves. I struggled a fair bit on her Tales Of Soul mode because she simply couldn't hit them hard enough I felt. Even on Easy, the game doesn't hold back on you, I must of tried 10-15 times to beat Misturugi with Setsuka before he finally got his tuppence worth! But I love her style! But she's not someone who I'm going to be good with unless I work at it. :wink:
Tira is a juggler type with her huge Chakram type weapon. Just think Harley Quinn, Joker's assistant in Batman and you'll get her psychotic personality to a tea! She twists and turns alot and I thought she was more easier to use than Setsuka. I liked her ending:
It's in first person view and she's raiding Sophitia's house..you have two ways to pick. Left or Right. I picked right and Sophitia and Cassandra chucked me out the house! I must use left next time to see what happens!
I haven't played Zazamael yet, but you'll be getting to see alot of him in the Tales of Soul mode. Unfortunately you can't skip the scenes.
Sophitia's style remains unchanged from the previous games with a slight variation on moves. Cassandra has had a bit fo re-working (not much compared to Ivy) and she's better than ever!
Chronicles Of The Sword mode is where you move your created character units and battle others in real time. It reminds me of Battle Ogre but tres stripped down. It's really basic at best because all you need to do is just battle everyone and make sure you win! However it's a fun little side mode - when your sick of getting beat up by Mitsurugi using Setsuka.
You get to unlock lots of character creation stuff this way.
There also some little 'mini games' or rather 'missions' like beating up a Giant statue and getting so much damage within the time limit. Sometimes it's fun to challenge yourself! There's a whole heap of things to unlock like character art, battle demonstrations and other things using your gold. However, I'm rather stingy so I only bought Sophitia and Cassandra's character artwork.
I think Soul Calibur III is the best yet - despite the load times which I'm not use to, having played SCII on the Xbox
It takes everything and makes it better! It was definitely worth the wait!
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THINKMILL