Soulcalibur II

SoulCalibur II
Flyer of the game's arcade version
Developer(s)	Project Soul
Publisher(s)	Namco
Designer(s)	Hiroaki Yotoriyama
Platform(s)	Arcade, GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox
Release date(s)	Arcade July 30, 2002 (2002-07-30) GameCube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox JP March 27, 2003 (2003-03-27) NA August 27, 2003 (2003-08-27) PAL September 26, 2003 (2003-09-26)
Genre(s)	Fighting game
Mode(s)	Single-player, two-player
Rating(s)	CERO: 12+ ESRB: T OFLC: M PEGI: 16+
Cabinet	Upright
Arcade system	Namco System 246

Soulcalibur II (ソウルキャリバーII, Sōrukyaribā Tsū) is a weapon-based fighting game developed by Project Soul and published by Namco and the third installment in the Soul series. It was originally released for the arcades in 2002, before being ported to Xbox, Nintendo GameCube and PlayStation 2 in 2003.

Story

The game is set in the year 1591, four years after the events of Soulcalibur.

The wave of slaughters that terrorized Europe reached a sudden end. The knight in azure armor, Nightmare, and his followers were successful in collecting enough souls and were about to start the restoring ceremony on the ruins of the once-proud Ostreinsburg Castle. But just as the ceremony was to start, three young warriors assaulted the castle. After an intense battle Nightmare fell, but then the evil soul inside Soul Edge sent the young warriors into a vortex of hellfire and stood to confront them. As a result of Soul Edge's evil aura, Krita-Yuga revealed its true form: that of the Holy Sword, Soul Calibur. The intense battle ended with the victory of the holy sword, but at the collapse of the vortex of Inferno, both swords along with the azure Nightmare were sucked in a void and expelled in another place. Siegfried, recognizing his sins, set out on a journey of atonement. Still the blade held a strong bond, and every night it took control of the body and took souls of those nearby. The efforts made by the young knight were fruitless, and four years later the Azure Knight Nightmare returned.

Around those times various warriors came into contact of the blade's remaining fragments, revealing Soul Edge's ultimate survival after its defeat. Driven either to possess or destroy it, they join a new journey, while Nightmare begins his rampage, seeking souls to restore Soul Edge once again.

Gameplay

Compared to Soulcalibur, Soulcalibur II has improved graphics and introduces new characters, stages, and music.

Key game engine improvements include an easier "step" and "avoid" systems, arena walls (rather than ring-out ability on all sides) and wall-specific moves, a three-step Soul Charge system, a clash system that is used when two attacks would hit each other resulting in a white flash, Guard Break attacks which put a blocking player into a post guard-impact state. just frame moves awarding additional hits to players who could time their command inputs well, and a revised Guard Impact system that removed height-based Impact moves and instead used a more unified system (high and mid attacks are countered using Repels, mid and low attacks are countered using Parries).

Soulcalibur II presents the normal modes from most fighting games: Arcade, Team Battle Mode (similar to arcade, but with teams of up to eight characters and without cutscenes or endings), Time Attack (fight against the clock to gain records), Survival Battle and Training Mode. There are also "Extra" versions of these modes, intended to allow the use of the Extra Weapons. Each character has one according to their story, and are shared by groups of two (for example: Mitsurugi→Taki, Taki→Mitsurugi) with the exception of the console-exclusive characters. As in Soulcalibur, there is a "Museum", containing character artwork, various videos (like Arcade Intro or WMM intro and Ending) and Weapon Exhibition. There is also the "Profile Viewer" (to see character's stories) and "Battle Theater" (to see CPU vs CPU battles).

A returning feature from Soul Edge is the inclusion of extra weapons. Instead of Soul Edge's system of different stats, this one is based on power %, defense % and special abilities (drains energy, pass through defense, etc.). Each character has 12 different weapons, from the standard (basic) weapons for 1P and 2P to the powerful "Ultimate Weapon". Each character was granted a Soul Edge version of their arms and a "Joke Weapon" with bad stats and effect, with unique and funny hit sounds. Each weapon is given a backstory in the "Weapon Gallery". Like before, some characters are granted with a third costume, purchased in Weapon Master Mode. Out of the 25 selectable characters, 13 were granted a third costume: Astaroth, Cassandra, Ivy, Mitsurugi, Nightmare, Raphael, Seung Mina, Sophitia, Taki, Talim, Voldo and Xianghua. Link has four costumes (green, red, blue and lavender) and Assassin, Berserker and Lizardman each have six different costumes (three color edits of their two standard costumes).

The Arcade version has a unique mode called "Conquest Mode" that allows the player to pick an army, fight enemies and gain experience points, allowing it to increase the level of the selected player. "Weapon Master Mode", made in a similar fashion to Soul Edge's "Edge Master Mode" and Soulcalibur's "Mission Mode", takes the core system from "Conquest Mode" and expands upon it. This mode presents a history set in an alternate world, while the player moves in a map divided in "regions" (named after stars) and fights enemies to gain experience points (which raises the "rank" of the character) and money (which can be used to buy weapons, art, costumes and videos). The mode has 10 normal chapters, four sub-chapters and two extra chapters as well as Extra-Missions (alternate version of normal missions). The plot of the mode puts the player into the role of a swordsman searching for Soul Edge, who suddenly is faced against a powerful mad knight named Veral (who takes the form of Nightmare, then Inferno), searching for Soul Edge for his own desires.

Characters

Ivy fighting Link in the GameCube version

Main article: List of characters in the Soul series

Four new characters were introduced in Soulcalibur II: Cassandra, Raphael, Talim and Yun-seong. However, while Cassandra and Yun-seong's fighting styles are derived from established characters Sophitia and Hwang, Raphael and Talim's fighting styles are entirely unique. Charade, like his predecessors Edge Master and Inferno, switches his style to match existing characters' movelists with each individual round of fighting.

The home versions of the game feature Heihachi Mishima from Tekken, Link from The Legend of Zelda, Spawn from the comic book series by Todd McFarlane, and Necrid, a new character created by Todd McFarlane. Each of the first three characters is exclusive to one of the three consoles the game was ported to (the PS2, GameCube, and Xbox, respectively), while Necrid is present in all three home versions.

Hwang, Rock and Edge Master are three character who did not return for Soulcalibur II from the character roster of Soulcalibur. Inferno is in the game, but he is not a playable character. Nightmare's third costume is Siegfried (though he is still referred to as Nightmare), while Assassin and Berserker play extremely similar to Hwang and Rock. Lizardman returns, but is only playable in VS Mode and certain portions of Weapon Master.

Fully returning as playable characters characters are Cervantes, Ivy, Kilik, Maxi, Mitsurugi, Seung Mina, Sophitia, Taki, Voldo, Xianghua and Yoshimitsu.

Reception

Reviews of Soulcalibur II were overwhelmingly favorable, earning it the average scores of 91.3% for the PlayStation 2, 92.3% for the GameCube, and 91.6% for the Xbox. The game has earned a review score of 9.2 out of 10 from IGN and a score of 10/9/10 from Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM's the first reviewer, Shawn Elliott, believed it to be the greatest fighting game ever created, and third reviewer Dan Hsu said that no fighting game "has come close to the depth SC2 has").

Soulcalibur II was awarded the Game Critics Awards' title of the Best Fighting Game at E3 2003. It was also ranked the 18th best game made on any Nintendo system by Nintendo Power in 2006.

See also

• Soulcalibur II Original Soundtrack

External links

• Soulcalibur II at Soulcalibur Wikia