Soul Calibur 2
Does the soul still burn on the Xbox?
Tags: Soul Calibur II Categories: Reviews, Xbox Reviews
Posted by Jeff Shedden on Sep 14th, 2003
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Soul Calibur II (title page) | |||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| Action | No | ||
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Boy, were we Dreamcast owners lucky. Right at launch, we got one of the best looking and best playing games to ever come out for the sadly short-lived system. Soul Calibur got steady play from yours truly all the way up until May of this year. Then Namco was gracious enough to finally release the highly anticipated sequel for all three major platforms. However, this was the Japanese release, and the rest of us would have to wait until now to play the English version. The lack of understanding the Japanese language didn’t deter me, though, and I made sure to get my greedy little mitts on the Japanese version as soon as I could. Play, play, play, that’s all I did for weeks. It even managed to involve itself in some late night tournaments in my hotel room at E3 this year.
Now that the English version is out, it basically meant having to start over, but knowing what the text meant this time made this less of a chore. If you’ve played the original Soul Calibur, the sequel doesn’t really bring anything new to the plate. There are a few new characters, plus system specific characters. In the case of the Xbox, the new character is Spawn. The gist of the game is, the evil sword known as the Soul Edge has once reappeared in the world and is threatening to wreak havoc all over the place. Your mission is to recover the blade and do with it what you will, depending on the character. But who are we kidding? It’s a fighting game! You want to fight, and forget all the story hoo-hah, right?
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The modes are basically the same as the original. There’s an arcade mode, in which you fight through a bunch of opponents, eventually reaching the final boss (Inferno, who is sadly NOT playable in SC2), and winning back the Soul Edge from him. There’s the obligatory timed and survival battles, which are exactly what they sound like. Then there’s Weapon Master mode, which is basically the same as the original’s Mission Mode. Here you have goals set to move from one “level” to the other, in order to find the Soul Edge, and defeat several rivals. There’s actually a lot of story here, and once you complete it, you can play through it again with a whole new set of much harder goals. Weapon Master mode is actually where you will do nearly all of the unlocking of special features, such as new characters, new arenas, new modes, etc. Also a new feature has been added, where you can purchase new weapons for each character. Each character has ten weapons they can have, and each has its own strengths and weaknesses.
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Many of the original characters have returned, and a few new ones have been added. Spawn is actually a lot more awesome than I had previously expected. He weilds an axe, and has a lot of aerial and projectile attacks, which is uncommon for the series. As for the rest of the new characters, I found them to be a little boring or weak or both. Talim especially. To be quite frank, her repertoire of moves sucks. There, I said it. Nearly all of the returning characters use the same basic moves and combos from the original, but they’ve been balanced out a little better. Cervantes is a lot less tough in SC2 than he was previously, which really cuts back on the cheap attacks some players have been known to use over and over.
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On the downside, the graphics could have been better. I realize that they developed all the versions simultaneously, but the only thing the Xbox version has to brag about is a high-definition mode that ends up looking a little weird, and no slowdown. Soul Calibur was probably the best looking game on the Dreamcast, but its sequel is just one of the good looking games on the Xbox. I realize we’re not playing the graphics here, and the lower quality doesn’t affect the game at all, but Dead or Alive 3 looked amazing and played amazing, so it is possible to have both. The character models still look really good, don’t get me wrong, and the faces have a little more detail now. Oh right, and the other details. AHEM. For a good example, select Taki and choose her red outfit. People had been talking about the boobage in Dead or Alive for years, but Taki puts all of this to shame. Oh, and apparently she’s perpetually cold. Take that as you will.
The music is standard fare. Orchestral instrumental stuff. None of it’s truly memorable, but then it’s hard to focus on the game when you’re listening to the music. Part of the localization effort was rerecording the voices in the game to English. This was unecessary. Out of all of them, Spawn’s is the best sounding. The rest seem to have problems emphasizing the right words or syllables. I recommend switching to the Japanese language “track” for the game. The lips synch up better to it anyway.
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Soul Calibur 2 is still the same Soul Calibur we’ve come to know and love. It doesn’t really bring anything new to the table, but it’s still hard not to like it. It’s a worthy substitute for anyone who never got to play the original, and it’s a worthy replacement for those who have. It took a little longer to localize than many of us would have liked, especially considering the main change was making some of the unselectable playable characters playable. For example, you can play as Lizardman from SC1 in a couple of the Weapon Master levels, but he wasn’t a selectable/unlockable character until now. It’s kind of pointless though, since he doesn’t have a move list, nor does he have a story arc in arcade mode. In fact, he’s only selectable in the multiplayer modes. The same goes for the other characters. I think we could have lived without them. Regardless, the wait is over, and the game is finally here. Buy it. It will give you and your friends many many nights of beer-laced enjoyment.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
|
Solid Gameplay Many Features |
8.8 |
| What Doesn't | |
|
Graphics are a little lackluster The changes for the US version were unecessary Weapon Master mode may cause broken controllers |
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| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| Get it? She's cold all the time? I say this because her nipples are visible! Get it?? | |
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Tags: Soul Calibur II
Posted by Jeff Shedden on Sep 14th, 2003 and is filed under Reviews, Xbox Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
