Pros: great graphics, awesome gameplay, 200+ weapons, lots of modes, very addicting
Cons: poor translations at times
The Bottom Line: Soul Calibur II is the most original and best fighting game that I have ever played in my life. This game dwarfs every other fighting game.
Soul Calibur, the original game, was released a few years ago for the Dreamcast. Unfortunately, I never got a chance to play it as I only played the Dreamcast a few times. Before the sequel was released, there was a lot of hype that Soul Calibur II will be an awesome fighting game, and that it is a must-known. Well, after reading the previews, I became a victim of the hype, and picked up a copy of Soul Calibur II for the Xbox on the day that my Blockbuster received its shipment.
Soul Calibur II isn't like any average fighting game. What separates it from games such as the Tekken series is the fact that Soul Calibur is a weapons based fighting game. That means that instead of punching and kicking, various weapons such as swords, nun chucks and rapiers are used to inflict damage. In Soul Calibur II, you can not only move left and right, but in every possible direction. The controls are great. The X button performs a horizontal swing of the bottom, while the Y button is for vertical attacks. The B button is for kicking and the A button is the block function. You control your player with the left thumbstick. All of the other buttons do basically the same thing, except the black button. The black button executes a combo move, and it is considered to be a bit like cheating, and I stayed away from it as it made the game somewhat easier. Combos can be achieved by pressing different buttons at the same time, or by changing the direction. You can perform a Soul Charge, which is basically a short power-up by holding the X+Y+B buttons or the right trigger. Also, by pressing A+X or A+Y when you are close to an opponent, you can perform a throw. A throw is a special move that is unique to each character, and during a throw your opponent loses control of themselves while you bash them with an ultra cool move. It takes away about 0.25-0.33 of a total life, and I think that throws are the coolest looking moves in the game. To win a match, you must either knock out your opponent by making his health meter fall all the way down, or, by making a Ring Out, which means to throw an opponent out of the arena. The term Ring Out is a pretty bad translation, but it is understandable.
There are 24 characters in total in this game, and only one, Inferno, is unlockable. In the beginning, 15 characters are available, but you can unlock the other later on. And, yes, Lizardman, Berserker and Assassin are all unlockable, as I have done so myself. Each character has a different type of weapon, different moves and combos, and different fighting styles. One of my original favorites was Raphael, who wields a rapier, due to the fact that his Y attack is extremely quick, does a lot of damage and is easy to master. But after a while, I got sick of him and began to explore the others. There is Maxi, who wields nun chucks, but is a bit cheap and button masher friendly. Mitsurugi is very powerful, average speed, and carries a samurai sword. He is very good if you know how to use him. Yoshimitsu is a little freak that seems extremely weird and weak at first, but this sword touting maniac came perform a sword pogo move, can become a helicopter and bash his opponent, and do other weird tricks. If he wins, he might even begin to clap his feet together. Astaroth and Berserker are huge guys with axes the size of a horse, but they are extremely slow. Voldo is my most hated character, as he is a mix of a reptile and human, and his movement is so freaky that it makes you cringe. Another cool character is Kilik, who has a staff, and therefore he keeps his opponents at a distance, although some consider him cheap. Other characters include Necrid, who uses virtual weapons, Charade, a weird character that borrows other characters weapons for a fight, Cervantes, a dead pirate with two swords, a bunch of girls, such as Ivy, Taki, Talim, Cassandra, Sophitia, as well as some other characters. Mastering each character is challenging but very fun and rewarding. Finally, each console has an exclusive character, and the character for the Xbox is Spawn, a powerful character that wields huge axes, can fly and perform necro blasts.
The number of modes in this game is simply amazing. The heart of Soul Calibur II is the Weapons Master mode, where you traverse across many lands in an ultimate quest to find the Soul Edge sword, rumored to be the ultimate weapon. In this mode, you can switch characters at any time that you want. There are many, many missions. Some tasks include: going through a dungeon full of opponents, defeating enemies with a Ring Out only, fighting five enemies in a row, while you have low health and your health bar doesn't recover. There are so many different missions that you will never expect what is being asked of you. If you beat the game once, you will be able to play it again, although the missions will get tougher. After beating the game twice, then you have fully won. It took me four days of heavy playing to achieve this. There are 10 chapters, a few subchapters and two extra chapters full of missions. After a fight, you gain experience and gold. Experience is used to unlock places, as well as to heighten you level. When I finished, I was a Level 76 Edgemaster. Gold is used to buy new weapons for chapters, as well as other unlockables for characters. There are over 200 weapons total, and most characters have 12 weapons. The last weapon is a joke weapon, and 10 are normal weapons with few differences. Some weapons absorb life while others might do more damage. However, each character can get a Soul Edge weapon, but the only bad thing is that although this is the 'ultimate weapon', it absorbs your own life.
Arcade mode is the other big mode. In this mode, you choose one character and stick with him. You must go through eight opponents, with the last one being Inferno. You must win 2 out of 3 battles against every character, but the battle against Inferno is a single battle. If you lose at any point, you can still continue. If you defeat everyone, you will see a character ending, and his or her profile will be unlocked. An unlocked profile lets you view statistics, their life story, their arena, hear all of their voice samples and fun stuff like that. The other modes are straight forward. There is Practice Mode, you choose two characters and control one while the other is stable. This is good for testing and learning moves. There is VS Mode, where two players pick characters and go head-to-head. This is very fun and addicting. There is a Team Mode, where you choose a number of characters per team, and then fight against other teams, so it is like Arcade Mode. Even VS Team Mode is included. Time Attack Mode is exactly like Arcade Mode only it is timed. Finally, there is Survival Mode. In this mode, you choose a character, and then keep fighting characters one battle at a time until you health depletes to zero. Your high scores will be recorded.
There are many unlockables in this game. Most of them are unlocked while playing Weapon Master Mode, but some are not. Aside from the 200+ weapons, there are 86 other unlockables. These include extra arenas, different costumes for characters, character profiles, characters and other stuff. There is a Museum feature, and for it you can unlock or purchase galleries. Galleries include weapon galleries, character art, character endings and hi-resolution art. But that is not all. You can unlock more than ten extra modes. Most of these modes are just like the original, but the only difference is that you can use weapons that you purchased in Weapons Master Mode. Also, there are more variations of each mode. For example, in Extra Survival Mode, you can choose one hit kill or no health regeneration at all. These unlockables add a lot of replay value to the game.
The final interesting thing about the gameplay is the arena variety. Although there isn't a huge amount of arenas, they are all very diversified. Mostly all of them have a place to "Ring Out" a person. Each arena has a different feeling to it: one is located in a zen garden, another is near a castle, another is high in the area, others are near sewage or inside a luxurious castle. One particularly interesting arena has quicksand, so if you don't move quickly, you sink a little. If your opponent sank, a high attack won't hit him. Another personal favorite of mine has a ring of fire around the edge, and if you are in the fire for some time, you lose health. Some arenas, usually against dungeon bosses, have cages to prevent "Ring Outs". Therefore, I felt that the arena diversification is a good thing and makes the game more appealing to me.
The graphics are splendid. The first thing that I noticed right away was how much detail there was. One arena had melting snow, and you could clearly see drops of water trickling down. All of the characters are unique and original, and each costume is extremely detailed. Every weapon has its own look, therefore no weapon looks the same as another. They may be similar, but no the same at all. The character animations are all very fluid, and there are hundreds, maybe thousands of different animations. Each character has about a hundred moves, and they all look different. I did not experience any lag at all while playing Soul Calibur II and loading matches took a second or two.
This game was developed in Japan, and you can tell this clearly by the audio. For example, "Ring Out" makes no sense in English. I understand the concept, and it makes a little sense, but it is a poor translation. All of the characters lines, and there are nearly 100 per character, have been translated, but some still sound quite Japanese. The translation doesn’t make too much sense too much, but this is not the most important part of the game. It can get quite annoying when characters shout the same word after every swing of their weapon, but you get used to it. The music is pretty good, and it feels sort of epic. I can't really describe the genre of music, but it is classical in the same sense that the Lord of the Rings soundtrack is. All that I can say is that it fits in well with the gameplay and that is the most important thing.
Overall, Soul Calibur II is an awesome experience. Honestly, I would have to say that this is the best fighting game that I have ever played in my life. I rented this game, but know I really wish that I had bought it right away. I am pretty sure that I will buy it soon. I recommend it to everyone, and I mean everyone, and fans of the fighting genre must own this game. It can get pretty difficult at times, and I have had to repeat a fight more than twenty times before I succeeded in beating it, but all of the challenges are beatable. You will get frustrated at times, but with patience and strategy, you will succeed. Some critics said that this game is not much better than the original, and if that is true, then the original must have been one heck of a game. I say that Soul Calibur II is one of the best games of 2003, and no matter what console you own, give it a try, and you will love it.
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