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With its slick graphics,
smooth animation, frenetic fighting, and the plethora of extras, the
original Soul Calibur was one of the biggest selling points of the
now defunct Sega Dreamcast. After getting a taste in the arcades of
Akihabara this winter in Japan, I was all jazzed up for this console
release. So thanks to Paypal and a friend teaching English over
there, I had a copy shipped to me as soon as hit the shelves in
Japan.
My Reward For Owning a PS2...an Old Man in a Diaper
So, if you haven't heard yet, the 3 different consoles got different
additional characters in Soul Calibur II. The GameCube got Link, the
XBox got Spawn, and the PS2 is graced with Heihachi. Fantastic.
While I like the idea of giving different characters to the
consoles, I still don't understand why XBox and PS owners get the
shaft here. Link is definitely the coolest of the 3. Spawn doesn't
really fit the theme of the game. The most evil character in the
game is a big thing made out of fire, and Spawn's way darker than he
is. Heihachi doesn't have a weapon and he's not all that quick
either, and they didn't give him any range closing moves that would
allow him to compete effectively. He's just there. These guys both
suck. I mean, if I were Namco, I would have stuck Rygar in the game,
or Pac-Man with a spear. Seriously though, they just made a Rygar
game and having him kick some tail with the DiskArmor would be
pretty sweet, no? GameCube owners definitely got the best end of
this setup.
Hey...Long Time No See.
Well, a lot of the old characters seem like they're missing at
first. After going through various trials in Weapon Master Mode,
you'll unlock a lot of the old characters. Sophitia makes an
appearance, as well as Lizard Man and Seung Mina. (In case you're
wondering, yes, she is every bit as ineffectual as she was in the
first Soul Calibur.) As far as playable characters go, the ones not
initially unlocked will be Sophitia, Seung Mina, Cervantes, Charade,
and Yoshimitsu.
The new guys stepping in to take their place are Yunsung, the
requisite Korean guy who wields a short sword, Cassandra, Sophitia's
daughter who hops around at the beginning of each fight and Raphael,
a rapier wielding pirate-y guy (Arrr!). Siegfried has been
transformed into Nightmare as a result of winning the last
tournament for the Soul Calibur blade. For the home version, the
Todd McFarlane designed character, Necrid is playable. He looks kind
of stupid initially, but after playing him you'll see him
materializing weapons out of midair and discover that in motion he
looks much cooler than he does in any stills.
The Stages of The Stage of History
The levels in Soul Calibur II look a lot cooler this time around. In
addition to the standard square ring, you'll end up with some odd
shaped arenas to do battle in. This includes triangles, cages and
all sorts of craziness. A lot of detail has been placed in the
arenas this time around with functioning windmills, highly detailed
castles and a wide variety of goodness. However, there isn't as much
going on in the fight scenes as there is in Virtua Fighter 4, but I
do appreciate SC2's gameplay more than I do VF4's.
Most of the unique arenas you'll uncover while running through the
Weapon Master mode because you'll end up having to do all sorts of
crazy things there. I'll touch on that part of the game, once I've
reached that part of the review.
The Controlling of the Characters Section
The default controls work like this: “Square” will have your
character use a basic horizontal slash. So, if they're trying to
move out of your plane of vision to the left or right the horizontal
slash will catch them in its arc. “Triangle” does a vertical slash
that will work as an anti-aerial move, and smack people to the
ground. “O” is a kick, and “X” is guard. The two slash buttons and
kick will perform a Soul Charge, and either of the slashes + guard
will have your character perform a throw. Simple enough? Well,
that's just the basics.
You can also move side to side with the analog stick, and you get
different throws depending if you attack from the sides, behind, or
in front. You can also "Guard Impact" which consists of you hitting
the guard and moving in a direction that counters the enemy slash
direction. So, if the slash is coming from the left while you're
holding guard, and if you move to the right at the proper time,
you'll throw them off balance and thus create an opening for a
counterattack.
I Don't Remember Strengthening My Soul Being This Easy
I think SC2 may go down in gaming history as one of the easiest
fighting games of all time. The computer, for some reason, thinks
it's unacceptable to block. While playing Arcade mode on Normal, I
didn't lose a single round going through the entire game. Also, I
beat most of the Weapon Master levels with Xianghua by just walking
up and hitting slash. After four hits, I'd ring them out. It wasn't
even moderately tough.
Granted, I intentionally didn’t play the game at a higher level, in
order to unlock most of the extras in the game right away so I could
do a full review. I can't say that this tops Battle Arena Toshinden
III for easiest game ever. (My friend on the testing team there beat
the game at the highest difficulty while on the phone and just
tapping the hard slash button. When he hung up and looked back, the
end credits were rolling.) However, I figure most people are going
to get their challenge from Soul Calibur II by battling their
friends, or by enjoying the countless hours of beating people down
online.
Oh Wait, There Is No Online Play
So, I have this shipment of two Namco games... Soul Calibur 2 and
Venus & Braves. It makes perfect sense that Venus & Braves is the
one with all the network play options. What I don't understand is
why online play isn't in this game! Namco had all of the groundwork
set up with the
arcade
version of the games’ Conquest Mode. It seemed very likely that
the home version would very easily be able to incorporate the same
system. But, no. There are no hints of network and online play. This
is a sad, sad day for the early adopters of broadband console play.
Heck, I don't even have the broadband adapter, but I was feeling
sorry for the people who do. Broadband gamers are going to feel kind
of gypped for not getting online play, especially when Namco
included it for Venus & Braves...a strategy RPG.
Pick Your Poison
You've got your choice of modes with Soul Calibur II...none of them
online. Aside from no online play, you still have plenty of variety.
Out of the box, you'll have the standard Arcade/Story mode. In
addition, you'll also get a Time Attack Mode, Survival, Team Battle
(with your choice of two or three team members) and a Practice Mode.
Team Battle is probably the most intriguing of the differences in
the modes between SC2 and the first version. Once Team Battle is
selected you will get the choice of either fighting with two or
three characters. During play you don't regain life while on the
bench, but you do regain life at the end of each group of matches.
Once you lose your first character and you're down to your second,
the character lost is gone for good. This is one of the tougher
modes to fight your way through.
Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Extras?
Like its DC predecessor, Soul Calibur II is chock full of nifty
little extras. This time there's an "Extra" mode for each of the
initial modes. The only difference between this mode type and the
others; is that the "Extra" flavor will allow you to use any weapons
you've picked up when you went through the Weapon Master Mode. In
addition to that, you can also unlock a Weapon Gallery to showcase
all of the weapons you've collected. You will also have the chance
to unlock the aforementioned secret characters as well as extra
weapons, stages and costumes. This means you can enter the game as a
lowly newcomer and advance all the way up to a “Platinum Knight of
the something or other”.
While in Weapon Master mode (which is where you'll be doing the
majority of the collecting) you'll also be doing stuff like fighting
your way out of quicksand pits, trying to stave off a Ring Out while
sliding around on an ice stage, or juggling your opponent in order
to do maximum damage to them. Most of the Weapon Master missions
aren't terribly difficult once you figure out what the requirements
are for completing the mission.
Overall
You won't be regretting this trip back to the stage of history, but
you may be pensively looking over at other games and wonder why SC2
skimped on all of those luscious features. I don't understand it all
either, but that doesn't stop me from proclaiming this as the best
3D fighter I've played to date. (Your opinion may vary.) You
shouldn't need too much help with the Japanese to understand what's
going on, so don't let the fact that it's an import stop you from
going out and picking this one up.
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