GAME REVIEW: SOUL CALIBUR II

When I first got my SEGA Dreamcast on its release date of September 9th, 1999, one of the available launch titles was Soul Calibur. When I got that home and played it for the first time, holy cow, was I blown away having come from playing games on the Nintendo 64 and the original Playstation! (Read about it HERE, I originally posted my comments about the SEGA Dreamcast and Soul Calibur on my Final Fantasy VIII site at the time, you can also read my full Review of Soul Calibur) That game truly made you realize you had leaped into the next generation of gaming beyond the 32-64 bit Era. The original Soul Calibur was a work of finesse in the genre of Fighting games beyond compare for any console previous or in comparison to games that were released after it. Soul Calibur is the perfect Fighting game in many ways. I always wondered about a Soul Calibur II, and eventually discovered that it was going to be released this year, and of course like any good game you wait, and wait I did. Now it must be noted that obviously the Dreamcast is done and gone so this sequel will never grace a SEGA produced console, however Soul Calibur II released this late August for all three existing consoles. Essentially the game is identical on all three systems however, there is one character that remains different on each version. For the Microsoft X-Box you get to play as Todd McFarlane's Spawn (One of the best damn comics of all time I might add), on the Sony Playstation 2 you can play as that guy from Tekken, Heiteichi, and on the Nintendo GameCube version you can play as Link, from the Legend of Zelda games. Now which version do you think I bought? Yeah you guessed it - the GameCube version. This review specifically covers the GameCube version, however considering the games are virtually identical if you end up buying it on a different console system based on this review you won't be missing anything aside from playing as Link.

As in the previous game, Soul Calibur II is visually stunning, the characters are rendered very well, and the arenas are we designed with some having very distantly rendered objects in the scenery to give the surroundings a very open and immersive feel with great depth. Of course Link's appearance gave me that good feeling seeing him in his grown form from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, he wields a beautifully rendered Master Sword, and the Hylian Shield by default but he can obtain quite a few other weapons from previous Zelda games like the Mirror Shield, Cane of Byrna, and the Megaton Hammer. The Graphics in this game are very good, however what happened is that the bar that was first raised with the Dreamcast makes me compare this graphically to other games that are more recent, especially those in the fighting genre appearing on all three consoles today. That being the case, these graphics are no where near as revolutionary as they were on the original Soul Calibur on brand new Dreamcast. There is nothing here that raises the bar higher than what it was before or what standards other games are setting, but there are no defects or negative points to detract from the visual quality of the game anywhere. I suppose if I saw more things happening while I was fighting like rain, dust storms, and very ripply reflective realistic water, it might have been inclined to score this at a 9 or 10 in its visual quality. I do notice less extracurricular activities (remember the Rats on Voldo's Stage?) occuring in the ring as opposed to the original Soul Calibur, but chances are you won't notice since you're paying attention to being destroyed (or doing the destroying) by the other fighter. I do miss the cool water stage that had the floating platform on this river in a cave. (maybe I just haven't unlocked it yet in SCII) Soul Calibur II supports HDTV 16:9 Displays.

Soul Calibur has always had some solid in your face sound and tunes, with a very epic orchestral score that exudes sense of the heat of battle and conflict and Soul Calibur II delivers on that prerequisite the previous game set. One feature that has been lacking in just about every game I've played in the last couple years has been the quality of the background musical score. On the GameCube version they even threw in an impressive rendition of the Hyrule Overworld and Hyrule Castle Themes from Zelda. Unlike a decade ago, developers seem to put a lot less emphasis on music and more on graphics, which in many ways has led to the less artistic feel of many games today. Soul Calibur II has wonderful music, and that is a welcome respite from the lacking in other "churn em and burn em" produced games. Many of the fighting sound effects are very similar and carried over from the previous game. The characters can now speak in English and Japanese, but to be honest, the Japanese sounds more like "Fightin' Words" than the sometimes less than adversarial English comments. Mind you they are appropriate for the characters and properly lip synched, but just a little bit off of what our culture dictates. I swear, I used to taunt people that hard edged Japanese I learned from Mitsurugi and they didn't know that I was saying "I would See Them In Hell!" There are more spoken words now in Soul Calibur II in both Languages actually. Furthermore during the fights themselves, the fighters might taunt each other verbally after executing a move on the opponent. You will enjoy this game greatly if you crank the 5.1 Surround Sound.

Of any video game in the Fighting Genre, Soul Calibur wins hands down in terms of depth of gameplay. The controls are smooth and perfect, the execution of each move is flawless and instantaneous. Some of the polygon based Fighters (especially Tekken) of yesterday's consoles and some of today's Fighters often have this little lag before the move was executed and I often found this frustrating and downright annoying to play the game. Soul Calibur maintains fluid and responsive control and a endless multitude of moves and combos that you can execute, as well the abilty to not only block, dodge, counter, and run away or around your opponent is absolutely amazing! Soul Calibur is to modern Fighting games what Street Fighter II was to the 16-bit era. The A.I. seems to also have been improved (that's probably an understatement) over the last version. I used to be able to tear it up on Ultra Hard on the original Soul Calibur, but now this game pretty much tears me a new one and laughs afterwords, on some of the elevated difficulty levels in Soul Calibur II. If you block high, it will hit you low, if you block, it will perform an unblockable attack, if you run, it will run after you. I swear it almost seems unmerciless at times. A new addition to Soul Calibur II over the previous game is that you can now change the character's weapons, however you have to earn these through playing the Weapon Master quest. Playing through Weapon Master allows you to buy new outfits and costumes for the characters, new weapons that may improve the character, and new bonuses, like artwork or character fighting demos. This feature is also more difficult than the prevous game with new "conditions" under which you much defeat the opponent, as well as a grueling "Second Quest" after you get to the 10th Chapter and finish off "Veral." Weapon master is pretty much a very slim kind of Fighting game RPG, with some text explaining what it is you are doing. As well you gain Exp Points and Gold to spend on new weapons and bonus features. Your "Class" also develops as you progress through the Weapon Master quest. I don't see this whole class thing as doing anything for you though, considering I'm now a Platinum Mercenary and so far nothing has changed aside from all the stuff I unlocked with the Gold. This is the most loaded fighting game I've ever played and you'll be busy for a long time, and just try to defeat the CPU on Extremely Hard, just try - your ass will be kicked.

I'll tell you what, the original Soul Calibur was the only fighting game that I was playing 2 YEARS after release, and I still played it in 2003 prior to Soul Calibur II's release, it was just that good, and I don't think there are many video games today that you can say you still play the same game that long without getting bored with it. It became one of my favorite games to torture my friends with, where I often prevailed undefeated. If you want to have only one game from the Fighter Genre in this generation of game consoles, get this one, it just shouldn't be missed, you and your buds will have a ton of fun. Soul Calibur and Soul Calibur II are the unmistakably the best fighting games ever made.

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