Soul Calibur II
Soul Calibur for the Dreamcast console is widely regarded as one of the best fighting games ever created. For the sequel, Namco ups the ante with updated graphics, new characters and a tweaked battle engine, but is it enough?
Fighting games aren't usually known for their deep storylines, but I'll be happy to tell you that Soul Calibur II has quite an interesting one. It's been four years since Soul Edge was supposedly defeated. However, strange metal pieces are showing up around the world. Those that encountered it before immediately identify them as shards of the cursed blade. After discovering that the swords still exists, warriors from around the world go off searching for it for their own reason. Each character in the game has his or her own back-story and purpose for their search for the Soul Edge. Some are driven by pure evil, like Cervantes, but others are trying to find the sword with pure intentions in their hearts, like Talim, a character that wasn't in the Dreamcast original.
Soul Calibur won numerous awards on the Dreamcast for pushing the system's limits and raising the bar on what the current generation was expected of. Heck, Soul Calibur still stands high today as a very good-looking game. So what did Namco bring to the table for the sequel? Well, naturally, all the characters look superb. They aren't eye-popping standing still (though each are nice looking enough), but when you see them in motion, your jaw will drop. The animations of each character are so fluid and full of life that you'll doubt that these types of graphics can be achieved on a home console. Soul Calibur II is, hands down, the best-looking 3D fighter to date.
While games like Dead or Alive 3 may boast impressive shading and character models, none of them animate as fluidly as the characters in Soul Calibur II. The character and weapon designs are also flawless. You'll never see such a great-looking, diverse cast of fighters. You have the basic designs like Mitsurugi, you have the odd ones, like Voldo, and then you have the insanely cool ones, like Nightmare and Astaroth. Even the new characters are a joy to behold. I'd say the only new character that looks a tad uninspired is Cassandra, who looks very, very similar to Sophitia. But then again, the two are sisters, so I guess they should look like each other.
Next up are the backgrounds, and I must say, they are a step above the rest. You will fight through numerous locations all over the world, and each stage has a gorgeous background. Stages like the Eurydice Shrine and the Imperial Capital Ayutthaya are absolutely amazing. You will really appreciate the little things in these stages, like the grass in Ayutthaya with its little patches of brown, as well as the nice texture work on the carpet in the mansion level. The stages aren't just like a castle in the background, either. Each stage features beautiful scenery to look at including mountains, seas, landscape, etc. They look absolutely gorgeous.
So, with all this good, is there any bad? Sadly, yes. There is a tiny bit of frame stuttering in a few places, but not enough for you to go bananas over. Also, you will see a lot of clipping, especially with the hair and clothes. They will routinely clip through walls and floors. It's also worth noting that they look exactly like they did in Soul Calibur. Whether or not Namco tweaked the effects for the sequel isn't clear, but if they did, they look very similar to the original's effects and this, at times, seems out of place since the rest of the graphics are a step up while the waving capes and hair look a bit "last generation."
Another complaint is the weak splashing water effects. It looks exactly how it did in Soul Calibur, which is to say that they look very poor. Couldn't they at least have made the splash look a little more real instead of tiny droplets of water flying up? It just clashes with the otherwise superb looking game. And another big complaint is a slight glitch when your characters fall down near the edge of the stage. Sometimes characters will literally "sink" into and through the edge of a stage, effectively ringing them out. But other times they will just sit there with their legs dangling over the edge.
Soul Calibur II continues with the tradition set by Soul Edge with an illustrious symphonic sounding soundtrack. Unlike most fighting games that have a mix of rock and techno, Soul Calibur II brings to the table some really nice tunes. Each stage has its own background music to it, and it really fits the mood. Inside the mansion library, for example, the music turns into a classic, upper-class kind of music, while in the China stage, you hear music being played by traditional Chinese instruments. The soundtrack as a whole is superb and is probably the best fighting game score ever. The same type of production values RPG soundtracks get probably went into this one. And you can't forget the fact that if you play as or against Link in Cassandra's stage, you get to hear a complete orchestration of the Zelda theme!
The sound effects are also a cut above the rest. Some weapons have their own distinct clinging noise as the move around. Raphael's rapier, for example, has a light 'whish' sound as he swishes the thin blade through the air, while Nightmare's gigantic sword, Soul Edge, makes appropriate, loud, swooshing noises. Stab effects are your average stabbing noises and don't really do anything different from the first game. But hey, how do you make stab effects sound better or worse?
Voice acting is actually not bad. The English dub is decent, and I actually really like most of the voices. The only horrid one is probably Mitsurugi's. It just sounds way too stilted and scripted. Other characters are borderline, while others still are pretty good. Nightmare, Astaroth and Raphael, for example, are all done perfectly. It would have been awesome though, if they gave characters like Ivy and Raphael their appropriate accents or have them speak their own languages all together. Some dialogues work nicely, but others are horrible. The worst, again, is Mitsurugi's conversation with Taki. It goes something like this:
Mitsu: You again? I've had enough!
Taki: Hahaha! Haven't you had enough?
Again, other dialogues sound perfectly fine. But if English dub isn't your thing, there is an option to turn it to Japanese, which sounds cool too.
The only bad point about this game is that the gameplay is largely unchanged from Soul Calibur. BUT, SC was considered perfect, and it still is. It is VERY hard to improve on perfection, but Namco at least tried, right?
SCII for the arcades was initially a shock because so many characters from the first game had been removed. All palette swaps were gone including Seung Mina and Sophitia, who were two of the most popular female fighters from the first game. Namco heard the cries of the world and put the two back into the Japanese version of the game, and the world was once again happy. But Namco decided it wanted to be extra nice and released the American version with Lizardman, Assassin (sorta like Hwang), and Berserker (sorta like Rock) as playable versus characters. This means the North American release has every single character from Soul Calibur barring Edge Master, Inferno and Sigfried (though Sigfried is available as a costume for Nightmare). The console versions also include Necrid, and a console specific character, and as you all probably know, the GameCube version gets Link from The Legend of Zelda.
Each character has a unique fighting style that is all their own, except for a few characters who move similarly, but are still different enough for you to choose one over the other. Soul Calibur was touted as a very balanced fighter and SCII continues that tradition (exempt from this are the console specific characters and Necrid). Each character has a different weapon, and though a lightweight like Talim may seem like she's no match against someone like the giant Astaroth, she can hold her own if used by a skilled player. Each character has strengths and weaknesses that must be used in order to overcome tougher challenges.
The fighting engine from SC is ported over with a few minor changes. Now everyone can move while blocking, there are different levels of soul charge, and something called a guard crush was added. The soul charge tweak is definitely something that was really improved. In SC, most people's answer to 'What's soul charge for?' was usually: 'It's to give your opponent a free hit'. But now soul charges are very useful. Their effects on certain moves are very apparent as they turn some moves into guard crushes and some into unblockables. They also give some moves added priority and properties. For example, one of Mitsurugi's moves, under a full soul charge (there are now 3 levels of soul charge depending on when you cancel the charge) can bounce the opponent into the air, setting them up for an air combo.
Soul Calibur's famous 8-way-run system, of course, makes its way into the sequel. 8WR is basically a system designed to create a much more free-flowing 3D fighter. Unlike other 3D fighters like Rival Schools or Tekken, where you have to tap the joystick up or down to move in 3D space, in SCII, you can actually move freely in all 8 directions just by holding your joystick in that direction. Press up and you will start to move into the background. Press up-left and you will start to move diagonally into the background. What's more is that you can do more than just a quick dodge to the left or right. You can actually keep moving in 3D space as long as you wish. This creates such smooth gameplay that fights begin to look like the characters are dancing.
I could probably go on for a while telling about the little details like high, mid, and low attacks, ways to block, counters, fakes, unblockables, guard impacts, etc, but there are too many things to say. The best way to discover how impeccable this game is, is to go out and play it.
Soul Calibur II features a wealth of extras, most of which can be unlocked by playing through the excruciatingly long Weapon Master mode, Namco's attempt at fusing a great single player experience with a fighting game. Weapon Master mode is where you create a character (name, that is - you must select from the existing characters that you have unlocked) and fight around the globe in your own quest for Soul Edge. It's a lot like Mission Mode in the first game. Actually, it's almost exactly like it, except for the fact that it's about two to three times as long. Once you think you've finished all the levels, they unlock again and once you finish those, more levels appear. And you will grow to fear the dungeons. They are basically room after room of fighting insanely simple AI characters. It becomes more of a chore than something you're doing for fun. But the good thing is that after gaining enough money, you can buy cool stuff like costumes, exhibition shows, art, and weapons for your characters. The coolest of these, of course, are the weapons. Each character has around 10 different weapons total. Each one (except for their original) has different properties. Mitsurugi's Damascus sword, for example, does almost twice the damage of his regular sword, makes him take half damage, but he can't block. Each weapon is like this, with its own strengths and weaknesses. Each character also gets a joke weapon that does pathetic damage, but makes funny noises and looks hilarious. Raphael gets a Gentleman's' Cane, Maxi gets a pair of termite eaten nunchakus, etc.
There are, of course, the usual Time Attack and Survival Modes, as well. Also some nice museum content is here, but it's a total letdown compared to Soul Calibur's museum content. SC's art gallery set the standard for art galleries. It contained hundreds or well-drawn art and even some told stories. SCII's is a piece of junk compared to it. It just has CG portraits of each character, a couple of hand-drawn illustrations, and a "special" gallery of a few pictures. There are only a few pictures in here that I'd pin up on my wall, but it's still appreciated that they still even have an art gallery. Another huge disappointment is that all the characters from Soul Calibur have the exact same exhibition theater. It would have been much cooler if Namco had changed it up, especially considering that some of the old characters have changed quite a bit.
What else can I say? This takes the engine of Soul Calibur and improves on it. Though very little, I honestly can't think of any other way they could do more. Perhaps a little refining of the graphics, a better art gallery and new exhibitions for the old characters, but that's just being nitpicky. This game is already the one of the best fighters out there and it'll probably reign as king for a while just like its daddy did back on the Dreamcast. If you own the original and think that SCII is exactly the same, think again. This is NOT a rehash of an older game. It stands alone and proudly at that. Pick this game up right away or you will never forgive yourself.
Review by Kevin Chao on 10 Sep 2004
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Members review score: 9.3