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Review - Gamecube - Soul Calibur II

 

01-08-12 04:44 PM
alexanyways is Offline
| ID: 527687 | 1923 Words

alexanyways
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Hello, Vizzed, this is my review of Soul Calibur II for the Nintendo GameCube.
Let’s get it started.
This is the sequel to Soul Calibur for the Sega Dreamcast, which was given a 10/10 on IGN/many other websites, and was called “The perfect fighting game” and one of the best available games on the Sega Dreamcast, it was one of the bestselling games in 1999, which is great, mainly because it was on a doomed system.
This game (Soul Calibur II) has been released on the Xbox, Playstation 2 and the GameCube. But I don’t have it for the PS2 or Xbox, and I personally think that the GameCube version is the best.
I’ve played the original game on my Dreamcast, and I have to say that it much hasn’t really changed, which is good because the original game was awesome. Soul Calibur II has most of the original characters, their weapons, and moves, and gameplay modes that were in the first game. Nevertheless, on its own, Soul Calibur II is a great fighting game, and they’ve done a fine job of making a sequel to what was originally “flawless”.
For a lot of people who played both games, the biggest difference between Soul Calibur II and its predecessor will be cosmetic, though the visuals haven't been completely renovated. The returning characters all look different and the stages are all new, but many of the animations (even for the new characters) are pretty much the same as the previous game, as is the flow and feel of a typical match. As before, gameplay involves four buttons, corresponding to your character's horizontal slash, vertical slash, kick, and guard. Using various combinations of these and the directional pad, you can make your characters unleash dozens of different moves. A number of the characters even have alternate fighting stances, which they can readily switch between to vary up their attacks.
There's a two-tiered rock-paper-scissors system here that's more or less identical to the system that worked so well in Soul Calibur: Low attacks hit high-blocking opponents, mid attacks hit low-blocking opponents, and high attacks tend to beat out mid attacks. Additionally, vertical slashes tend to have priority over horizontal slashes but can be dodged laterally, while horizontal slashes can counter an opponent who's sidestepping too often. Add in guard impact moves, which all characters can use to deflect their foes' attacks, and soul charge moves, which all characters can use to power up their attacks, and you've got a deep, tried-and-true combat system. The gameplay has been tweaked since Soul Calibur, to account for some of the issues that highly experienced players of the previous game picked up on. However, most players won't really notice the different properties of crouching or of lateral movement or things like that. Of further note, the game controls well using the GameCube controller. I have heard that the PS2 controller is best suited for the game, and the GameCube's d pad is too small, but it’s still very responsive with the game.
All of the Soul Calibur cast is back either in form or in spirit. From the samurai Mitsurugi to the undead pirate Cervantes (He looks like Captain Morgan, but dead), from the nunchuck-wielding Maxi to the girl ninja Taki, from the weird-ass Voldo (He’s just plain old creepy) to the aptly named Nightmare, most all the old characters are back, each with a ton of new moves. Some have changed more than others, but for the most part, tactics and combos that were great in the first Soul Calibur still work well here. There are a number of new characters in the game, aside from the exclusive character, only two characters are completely new: Raphael, a fencer whose feints and ripostes suitably capture the elegance and effectiveness of this fighting style, and Talim, a young girl who has speed and two blades to make up for her small stance.
The special-guest characters in each version of the game are well done in their own right and are about as fully realized as the rest of the cast. The other systems get a Marvel hero and a Tekken character, but the best of all of them is how the GameCube version gets Link from the Legend of Zelda, which is pretty much the only reason I bought this game, being the huge fan of Zelda that I am. Link doesn’t really fit in with the other characters in Soul Calibur II, but he has his own story that ties him into the story, his character looks great, his screams don’t really fit in, but sounds about as great as he ever sounded, and he has his own fighting style. Link's got all his classic moves and all his classic weapons, including the boomerang, the bow, and the bombs. They don’t really do that much if you don’t have the time to do the button combinations to get him in the stance.
Link is my most used character in this game, next to Ivy.
Another character that is new to Soul Calibur II is Necrid, a creation specifically designed for this game. Necrid is really fast and powerful and fights with a ghostly weapon that mimics the other fighters' techniques. But this hunched-over, bloated action figure of a fighting game character seems like he was ripped out of some other game and thrown in here. Surely, it's great to have as many characters as possible in a fighting game. But there's also something to be said for having a cohesive look and style across all the characters. Each fighter in Soul Calibur for the Dreamcast, though remarkably different, at least looked like he or she belonged in the same game as all the other fighters in the lineup. Necrid doesn’t seem to fit in, kind of like Link.
This game supports Progressive Scan if you want extra quality in the game.
A really great feature to this game is that you are able to switch the language from the kind of poor English voiceovers over to the original Japanese language, like in Dead or Alive. The game's announcer speaks fluent English no matter what and has some embarrassingly melodramatic lines to describe the fighters. However, many of the character voices, such as for Mitsurugi and Raphael, are much better in the Japanese language track, especially since some of the English translations are nonsensical. For example, Nightmare, a ferocious half-man possessed by the evil spirit contained in the sword known as Soul Edge, might viciously defeat his foe, only to declare: "Go away!" , doesn’t seem like it fits with his character.
I’ve tried out the Weapon Master mode, which is a fun part of the game, mainly like a story mode, which is alright, but it gets tiring after a while. It does add some time to the game, which would otherwise be really short. The missions themselves are pretty good. You'll need to defeat your opponents while taking heed of certain conditions, such as maybe a downward spiraling health meter (you've been poisoned!) or gale-force winds that threaten to send either you or your opponent flying off the edge of the ring. In between missions, though, you'll get lots of long-winded text that details the mission mode's storyline. It’s not really needed as they may have just as easily spoken it out. As you pass missions, you unlock some new modes of play and some not-so-hidden characters, and you also earn "gold" that can be used to "buy" new weapons for all the various fighters and some other unlockables. It’s one of the main places where you get unlockables like weapons (From whips for Ivy, to the Megaton Hammer for Link, which is one of the best damaging weapons in the game.)
The ability to acquire and use different weapons for each character is actually a throwback to the home version of Soul Calibur's predecessor, Soul Blade (also known as Soul Edge), which wasn’t as popular, but spawned the Soul Calibur series as a bit of a second chance for Namco’s fighting series . The various weapons have special properties, perhaps having greater offensive power at the cost of some defensive power, or allowing the wielder to perform soul charges faster than normal. But these don't change the character's fighting style or anything, and, in keeping with the design theme of Soul Calibur II, they are mostly just graphical replacements. Still, having a variety of different weapons for each character along with unlockable art galleries, character profiles, alternate outfits, and other such things. It really could have used some online play, which quite possibly would have been the revolutionary step that Soul Calibur II needed to truly live up to its predecessor's legendary reputation.
Soul Calibur II's artificial intelligence is pretty good. At higher levels of difficulty, the computer delivers relentless competition, and it knows how to turn the tables in situations where it's getting close to being knocked out of the ring, though, in time, you'll probably pick up on some moves and patterns that the AI can't effectively contend with, and with the right timing and knowledge of their movements, you’ll know their algorithms and easily be able to throw them off of the ring or knock them out. Of course, fighting games are best when played against other human players of equivalent skill, and in these situations, Soul Calibur II can be just as entertaining as the previous installment in the series. The gameplay is as accessible as ever, just pick a fighter like Maxi or Kilik, and jam on the slash buttons to witness their impressive combat styles. Alternatively, you can settle down and learn all the moves in a character's arsenal by going through the practice mode, which doesn't really teach you anything about how to play the game but at least lets you work on your moves.
This is a highly impressive game from a visual standpoint. Every once in a while, you might detect a very slight hitch in the frame rate at some times, but for the most part the game runs at a perfectly smooth 60 frames per second and features lifelike character models that have all been expertly motion captured. Of further note, though this is a weapon fighting game, there is blood or dismemberment or anything. As mentioned, Soul Calibur II's English voice-over, enabled by default, is pretty spotty, though the Japanese is better. An awesome soundtrack adds plenty of epic flair to the proceedings and is probably the strongest part of the audio. Most of the game's actual sound effects--sword slashes and such are reused from Soul Calibur, which were in turn reused from Soul Blade.
If nothing else, Soul Calibur II is proof of how completely amazing the original Soul Calibur really was. Like the original, this sequel can provide countless hours of fast-paced, great looking battles even though if you played a lot of the previous Soul Calibur game, you'll be hard-pressed to sustain or even muster up the same level of enthusiasm over this update. That's not to say Soul Calibur II doesn't pack in any thrills of its own. It's certainly one of the most refined, most accessible, and best-looking 3D fighting games from this generation, and it is by far the best fighting game on the GameCube. (That isn’t Super Smash Bros. Melee)
It’s a great game, it plays great, it sounds great, and the characters are awesome.
If you see it anywhere, and you're a fan of fighting games, buy it.

Hello, Vizzed, this is my review of Soul Calibur II for the Nintendo GameCube.
Let’s get it started.
This is the sequel to Soul Calibur for the Sega Dreamcast, which was given a 10/10 on IGN/many other websites, and was called “The perfect fighting game” and one of the best available games on the Sega Dreamcast, it was one of the bestselling games in 1999, which is great, mainly because it was on a doomed system.
This game (Soul Calibur II) has been released on the Xbox, Playstation 2 and the GameCube. But I don’t have it for the PS2 or Xbox, and I personally think that the GameCube version is the best.
I’ve played the original game on my Dreamcast, and I have to say that it much hasn’t really changed, which is good because the original game was awesome. Soul Calibur II has most of the original characters, their weapons, and moves, and gameplay modes that were in the first game. Nevertheless, on its own, Soul Calibur II is a great fighting game, and they’ve done a fine job of making a sequel to what was originally “flawless”.
For a lot of people who played both games, the biggest difference between Soul Calibur II and its predecessor will be cosmetic, though the visuals haven't been completely renovated. The returning characters all look different and the stages are all new, but many of the animations (even for the new characters) are pretty much the same as the previous game, as is the flow and feel of a typical match. As before, gameplay involves four buttons, corresponding to your character's horizontal slash, vertical slash, kick, and guard. Using various combinations of these and the directional pad, you can make your characters unleash dozens of different moves. A number of the characters even have alternate fighting stances, which they can readily switch between to vary up their attacks.
There's a two-tiered rock-paper-scissors system here that's more or less identical to the system that worked so well in Soul Calibur: Low attacks hit high-blocking opponents, mid attacks hit low-blocking opponents, and high attacks tend to beat out mid attacks. Additionally, vertical slashes tend to have priority over horizontal slashes but can be dodged laterally, while horizontal slashes can counter an opponent who's sidestepping too often. Add in guard impact moves, which all characters can use to deflect their foes' attacks, and soul charge moves, which all characters can use to power up their attacks, and you've got a deep, tried-and-true combat system. The gameplay has been tweaked since Soul Calibur, to account for some of the issues that highly experienced players of the previous game picked up on. However, most players won't really notice the different properties of crouching or of lateral movement or things like that. Of further note, the game controls well using the GameCube controller. I have heard that the PS2 controller is best suited for the game, and the GameCube's d pad is too small, but it’s still very responsive with the game.
All of the Soul Calibur cast is back either in form or in spirit. From the samurai Mitsurugi to the undead pirate Cervantes (He looks like Captain Morgan, but dead), from the nunchuck-wielding Maxi to the girl ninja Taki, from the weird-ass Voldo (He’s just plain old creepy) to the aptly named Nightmare, most all the old characters are back, each with a ton of new moves. Some have changed more than others, but for the most part, tactics and combos that were great in the first Soul Calibur still work well here. There are a number of new characters in the game, aside from the exclusive character, only two characters are completely new: Raphael, a fencer whose feints and ripostes suitably capture the elegance and effectiveness of this fighting style, and Talim, a young girl who has speed and two blades to make up for her small stance.
The special-guest characters in each version of the game are well done in their own right and are about as fully realized as the rest of the cast. The other systems get a Marvel hero and a Tekken character, but the best of all of them is how the GameCube version gets Link from the Legend of Zelda, which is pretty much the only reason I bought this game, being the huge fan of Zelda that I am. Link doesn’t really fit in with the other characters in Soul Calibur II, but he has his own story that ties him into the story, his character looks great, his screams don’t really fit in, but sounds about as great as he ever sounded, and he has his own fighting style. Link's got all his classic moves and all his classic weapons, including the boomerang, the bow, and the bombs. They don’t really do that much if you don’t have the time to do the button combinations to get him in the stance.
Link is my most used character in this game, next to Ivy.
Another character that is new to Soul Calibur II is Necrid, a creation specifically designed for this game. Necrid is really fast and powerful and fights with a ghostly weapon that mimics the other fighters' techniques. But this hunched-over, bloated action figure of a fighting game character seems like he was ripped out of some other game and thrown in here. Surely, it's great to have as many characters as possible in a fighting game. But there's also something to be said for having a cohesive look and style across all the characters. Each fighter in Soul Calibur for the Dreamcast, though remarkably different, at least looked like he or she belonged in the same game as all the other fighters in the lineup. Necrid doesn’t seem to fit in, kind of like Link.
This game supports Progressive Scan if you want extra quality in the game.
A really great feature to this game is that you are able to switch the language from the kind of poor English voiceovers over to the original Japanese language, like in Dead or Alive. The game's announcer speaks fluent English no matter what and has some embarrassingly melodramatic lines to describe the fighters. However, many of the character voices, such as for Mitsurugi and Raphael, are much better in the Japanese language track, especially since some of the English translations are nonsensical. For example, Nightmare, a ferocious half-man possessed by the evil spirit contained in the sword known as Soul Edge, might viciously defeat his foe, only to declare: "Go away!" , doesn’t seem like it fits with his character.
I’ve tried out the Weapon Master mode, which is a fun part of the game, mainly like a story mode, which is alright, but it gets tiring after a while. It does add some time to the game, which would otherwise be really short. The missions themselves are pretty good. You'll need to defeat your opponents while taking heed of certain conditions, such as maybe a downward spiraling health meter (you've been poisoned!) or gale-force winds that threaten to send either you or your opponent flying off the edge of the ring. In between missions, though, you'll get lots of long-winded text that details the mission mode's storyline. It’s not really needed as they may have just as easily spoken it out. As you pass missions, you unlock some new modes of play and some not-so-hidden characters, and you also earn "gold" that can be used to "buy" new weapons for all the various fighters and some other unlockables. It’s one of the main places where you get unlockables like weapons (From whips for Ivy, to the Megaton Hammer for Link, which is one of the best damaging weapons in the game.)
The ability to acquire and use different weapons for each character is actually a throwback to the home version of Soul Calibur's predecessor, Soul Blade (also known as Soul Edge), which wasn’t as popular, but spawned the Soul Calibur series as a bit of a second chance for Namco’s fighting series . The various weapons have special properties, perhaps having greater offensive power at the cost of some defensive power, or allowing the wielder to perform soul charges faster than normal. But these don't change the character's fighting style or anything, and, in keeping with the design theme of Soul Calibur II, they are mostly just graphical replacements. Still, having a variety of different weapons for each character along with unlockable art galleries, character profiles, alternate outfits, and other such things. It really could have used some online play, which quite possibly would have been the revolutionary step that Soul Calibur II needed to truly live up to its predecessor's legendary reputation.
Soul Calibur II's artificial intelligence is pretty good. At higher levels of difficulty, the computer delivers relentless competition, and it knows how to turn the tables in situations where it's getting close to being knocked out of the ring, though, in time, you'll probably pick up on some moves and patterns that the AI can't effectively contend with, and with the right timing and knowledge of their movements, you’ll know their algorithms and easily be able to throw them off of the ring or knock them out. Of course, fighting games are best when played against other human players of equivalent skill, and in these situations, Soul Calibur II can be just as entertaining as the previous installment in the series. The gameplay is as accessible as ever, just pick a fighter like Maxi or Kilik, and jam on the slash buttons to witness their impressive combat styles. Alternatively, you can settle down and learn all the moves in a character's arsenal by going through the practice mode, which doesn't really teach you anything about how to play the game but at least lets you work on your moves.
This is a highly impressive game from a visual standpoint. Every once in a while, you might detect a very slight hitch in the frame rate at some times, but for the most part the game runs at a perfectly smooth 60 frames per second and features lifelike character models that have all been expertly motion captured. Of further note, though this is a weapon fighting game, there is blood or dismemberment or anything. As mentioned, Soul Calibur II's English voice-over, enabled by default, is pretty spotty, though the Japanese is better. An awesome soundtrack adds plenty of epic flair to the proceedings and is probably the strongest part of the audio. Most of the game's actual sound effects--sword slashes and such are reused from Soul Calibur, which were in turn reused from Soul Blade.
If nothing else, Soul Calibur II is proof of how completely amazing the original Soul Calibur really was. Like the original, this sequel can provide countless hours of fast-paced, great looking battles even though if you played a lot of the previous Soul Calibur game, you'll be hard-pressed to sustain or even muster up the same level of enthusiasm over this update. That's not to say Soul Calibur II doesn't pack in any thrills of its own. It's certainly one of the most refined, most accessible, and best-looking 3D fighting games from this generation, and it is by far the best fighting game on the GameCube. (That isn’t Super Smash Bros. Melee)
It’s a great game, it plays great, it sounds great, and the characters are awesome.
If you see it anywhere, and you're a fan of fighting games, buy it.

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Registered: 02-24-10
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(edited by alexanyways on 01-08-12 04:44 PM)    

04-02-12 02:36 PM
rcarter2 is Offline
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Even though this isn't a game for the RGR, it is still pretty much a carbon copy of this one with a touch of rewording. It becomes very obvious on your second paragraph that starts out "For a lot of people who played both games....."

http://www.freewebs.com/avery-b/gamereviews.htm
Even though this isn't a game for the RGR, it is still pretty much a carbon copy of this one with a touch of rewording. It becomes very obvious on your second paragraph that starts out "For a lot of people who played both games....."

http://www.freewebs.com/avery-b/gamereviews.htm
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Affected by 'Laziness Syndrome'

Registered: 05-01-11
Location: Kansas
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