In the world of 3-D fighting, three franchises come to mind: Virtua Fighter, Tekken, and Soul Calibur. The first game pioneered the genre, the third introduced complex weapon-based fighting to the tried and true conventions. Tekken may not have had the impact on the genre that the other two did, but it still deserves to be mentioned in the same breath. After 4 solid entries (including Tag Tournament), the series took a step back with Tekken 4, when a frustrating wall fighting system and the attempted insertion of more Soul Calibur-like foot movement turned many players off. Last year, with Tekken 5, Namco revitalized the franchise in a major way. A handful of new characters were added to the Tekken mythos, and the moveset of every returning character recieved a major overhaul. Speaking of returning characters, nearly every character from the past Tekken games shows up. The graphics are some of the best seen on Playstation 2, and there are lots of extras in the game. As an added bonus, the arcade versions of Tekken 1, 2, and 3 have been included for players who want to see how far the series has come.

In an interview with Chief Producer at Bandai Namco Daisuke Uchiyama , about a forthcoming DragonBall Z game, he speaks of his wish to have had the Tekken of Soul Calibur teams work on the title before the merger.

However, it was not possible since Tekken 6 is already in production (as shown in PS3 “visual target” demos), and apparently Soul Calibur 4 is moving ahead as well.

No date, no system, no nothing announced.  But its likely this will be a big Next-Gen jump for what has historically been one of the best looking fighters on the market.

I don’t know nothing about Naruto, but if last weekend at NoBrandCon was any indication, its a really popular anime. Kotaku has screens from the lastest Naruto fighting game to be imported.
What a shameless way to increase traffic on my part.

In Soul Calibur II, Cassandra had an unlockable third costume, remembered for its winged helmet. General opinon was that it looked goofy, though not unlikable. The outfit returned in Soul Calibur III as individually-purchased articles of clothing. In my browsing of tiny anime girl figurines, I’ve found multiple sculpts of this odd secret costume and wondered why. When I saw that it was back again in merchandise for Namco X Capcom, I got suspicious. After some research, I found Valkyrie. I love an obscure cameo, and this one ranks in with the Ice Climbers.