The Soul still burns!
Soul Calibur II's fighting style is pretty much exactly the same to the one featured in the original game, with a few minor alterations, such as improved timing on parries and dodging. For those who never had the opportunity to play Soul Blade or Soul Calibur, the fighting style consists of three attacks - horizontal, vertical and kick, three levels of attack - high, medium and low and three defense types - block, parry and dodge. Soul Calibur implemented the Soul Charge, which would allow your character to charge up a little energy, leaving them temporarily vulnerable, and perform a more powerful attack, and the Guard Impact moves which allow for a powerful deflection of an incoming attack. Throw all these elements into a blender, press the button and you've got yourself a nice deep little fighter.
The entire cast of Soul Calibur return in some form, be it either body or spirit. A lot of new moves have been added, some of which will change the way you fight as that particular character, especially when it comes to working out new combos. There are only four truly new characters in the game - Raphael, Talim, Link (substitute with Heihachi or Spawn) and Necrid. The other new characters, Cassandra and Yunsung share fighting styles with Sophitia and Hwang (who doesn't make an appearance, unfortunately) respectively. Raphael is a fencer with an elegant but quick and deadly fighting style. Talim utilizes a pair of twin blades, and while she is small and weak, her outrageous speed makes up for her lack of power.
The new characters exclusive to the home version, Link and Necrid, don't quite fit in with the rest of the characters in the game. While its good to have a wide variety of characters in a fighting game, its necessary to have consistency across the board. Necrid has been designed specifically for the game by famous comic artist/writer Todd McFarlane. He's surprisingly fast and packs a mean punch thanks to the fact that his moves are shadow versions of moves from other fighters. However, due to his decidedly Western design, he doesn't really fit in. Link comes into Soul Calibur 2 packing all the various forms of attacks you'd expect to see in a Legend of Zelda game, including his bow, boomerang and the ability to use bombs. These attacks give him somewhat of an unfair advantage in certain situations and also contribute to the reasons why he isn't totally suited to the game at hand.
Soul Calibur II sees the return of the Weapons Master mode from Soul Blade, where your chosen character treks around the countryside, fighting battles with varying stipulations (draining energy meters, altered gravity, etc.), earning money and purchasing new weapons, costumes, art and much more. Each of the new weapons you purchase has its own attributes, advantages and disadvantages. On top of Weapon Master mode, Soul Calibur II has all the standard fighting game modes - Arcade, survival, team battle, training and so on. Extra versions of these modes have been provided if you wish to use your special weapons.
Artificial intelligence is one area where Soul Calibur II has substantially improved over its predecessor, as the computer controlled players reacted to your attacks based on their position in the ring. When playing on higher difficulty levels, the AI is almost obsessed with your destruction, and will pull out all the stops to achieve victory. Of course, playing against human opponents is still more satisfying, and it is Soul Calibur II's multiplayer experience which helps ensure its longevity long after you've completed the extensive Weapon Master mode, beaten the arcade mode with 20 characters, and unlocked all the weapons and art.
Swords with eyes
Soul Calibur II is no slouch when it comes to visual presentation. While it's not leaps and bounds ahead of the competition like its predecessor was, it's a very impressive game, and a logical progression from the Dreamcast brawler. All of the character models are modeled with excellent precision, though facial detail on some fighters isn't as strong as it has been in other recent fighting titles. The impressive animation and cloth physics from the original game have made their return with some slight enhancements to make for more realistic and believable motion.
The environments in which the fights take place feature some pretty architecture and texturing, but just don't seem as impressive as the backgrounds did in the original game back in 1999. Some of the environmental effects such as wind and sand are very impressive, while others, such as the water splashes, are highly mediocre. The frame rate during the course of the game is a constant 60 frames per second, though there have been reports of slight hiccups in the Playstation 2 and Xbox versions during the final boss fight. Soul Calibur II supports 60 Hz display mode for full speed play, and 16:9 support for those with widescreen televisions.
Namco has delivered an impressive aural experience in Soul Calibur II, with a very good orchestral score replacing the standardized heavy guitar rock soundtracks which fill fighting games these days. Each level has its own track which helps better establish a mood for that level. English voice acting has always been lacking in quality in fighting games, and Soul Calibur II isn't really an exception to this rule. Thankfully, the option to listen to the original Japanese vocal tracks with subtitles has been included. The sound effects consist mainly of samples used in both the preceding games, so fans of the series should feel right at home. Soul Calibur II also supports Dolby Pro Logic II for those with high tech sound setups.
Evolution, not revolution
It was quite impossible for Namco to produce a title that could recreate the same experiences we felt when we played Soul Calibur for the first time. Soul Calibur II is definitely a solid game in all respects, and while it doesn't do anything drastically different from its predecessor, it manages to continue a proud tradition of weapons based fighters by producing an attractive, deep and outright fun game to play. It's the best fighting game on the current lineup of consoles.
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