SoulCalibur II

"Great gameplay, but could have used a few extras"

Introduction: This is the first arcade style fighting game I've played since Virtua Fighter 2 for the Sega Saturn. Things have improved considerably since them, and this game shows that easily.

Gameplay: The gameplay is great. The basic moves are easy to pick up, but the more advanced can be pretty difficult to perform. This is to be expected, I would think. There's not too much I can say about the gameplay, as it's more or less a button masher, combined with a few combos and simple strategies. Nonetheless, it's a really fun game.

The only thing I'd improve about this would be to make the environments more interactive, instead of just fighting on a platform that may or may not have walls surrounding it.

One other drawback from the gameplay, although I can't say if it's necessarily good or bad (it can be good for you, or terrible, at any given time), is that whoever got the last hit has the upperhand. This is the sense that you can kick them sometimes ten times in a row without them being able to prevent it. Same thing the other way; they can hit you twice, knock you to the ground, whack you with their weapon twice, then when you get up, do it all over again, and you can't do anything about it. This is, in a sense, more realistic, though, but it can get annoying.
Gameplay: 10/10

Misc. Gameplay notes: Learning the moves can be quite difficult at first. I don't mean to contradict myself from what I said before. The reading of the buttons to press is hard, the performing-through-experience is fairly easy. The bad thing is that they give you a list of all your moves and how to perform them, but their button combinations for performing them are written out in a very bad way.

They don't say press A,X,down,back,Y, or whatever. They'll say press horizontal attack button, the vertical attack button, etc.

But, they do have a feature in practice mode where you can see every move of the character performed in front of you. This a great thing to have, as you see everything that's needed to perform it, and what it looks like.

Story: This is what I had trouble with. It's not so much that I didn't like the story, more that I didn't know what the story was about. The game's only cinematics are a few seconds before and after each fight. Everything else, i.e. the entire storyline, is given to you in page after page of text. Press A to go to next page. If I wanted to read a story, I'd get a book, not a game. Also, to add to this, the background of the main story part can be difficult to read text on top of. So now I'm forced to read the story on top of a picture that detracts greatly from the text's visibility. This game really could have used cutscenes, or, at the very least, somebody to read the pages to me. Not that I'm lazy, I just don't think this is beyond their capabilities.

From what I could make out of the story, I think it's decent. Not exactly something from an RPG, but if I were to be able to get the story easier, I'd be hooked. I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt.
Story: 4/10

Graphics: The graphics here are incredible. Given that there's a certain graphic quality for sports games, a different one for Sci-Fi, etc, this game's graphics match the game-style perfectly. You fight within rich environments and with and against a very good looking character model.

All in all, the characters, environments, effects, etc. all look great.
Graphics: 10/10

Sound: The sound is great, but repetitive. The voice acting is all done very well, and there are a number of different sound snippets for each character (about 80 per). The only real problem is it's repetitiveness. Each character is set to say a certain thing when a certain move is performed. However, if you use this move any more than three times during a fight, you'll be sick of hearing it by the end. What makes it worse is when they say the same thing over and over at the end of a fight, especially when you're losing consistently. Take Cassandra for instance. If you're having trouble beating an enemy, you'll be hearing ''This must be some kind of mistake'' more often than you can handle.
Sound: 6.5/10

Playtime/Replayability: I can't say for certain how long this game will keep you occupied. I spent most of the day playing the Weapon Master (story) mode the first day I got it. After beating that, I'm moving on the arcade style, and then back to the Weapon Master to improve my rankings there. I don't have anything numerical, but I'd say the playtime is sufficient.

You have the main story mode, arcade fighting (1 vs 1), team battles, unlockable features, unlockable weapons, unlockable characters, extra missions after completing the story mode, etc. There's a lot to do.
This category: 8/10

Final Recommendation: I'd say, if you like this genre, definitely get it. If you like fighting games in general, get it. If you kind of like, or don't really like, arcade style fighting, at least give it a rental.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 10/14/03