Soul Calibur 2

Soul Calibur 2 is weapons-based fighting game, and for this reason the controls are generally broken into vertical and horizontal melee attacks, with the kick button, and of course guard, adding a bit of variety. Once your reaction speed gets better you can even use your weapon to recoil or parry incoming attacks in order to get a strategic advantage. Characters can walk anywhere in the arena and have varying attack ranges depending on their weapon. Although there are fewer characters than were selectable in the prequel, this is no bad thing as all the characters have a unique style.

Raphael and Talim are the most notable new fighters. The former is a swash-buckling Spaniard (fluent in Japanese mind) and prances around like a Musketeer. Talim is your typical impossibly cute babe who just happens to wield a couple of riot-police style batons. Some supposedly new characters are actually new skins, Cassandra is essentially Sophitia from Soul Calibur for example. Necrid is a new character that is only available in the console versions of the game. Designed by comic artist extraordinaire Todd McFarlane (of Spider-Man fame) Necrid certainly proves to posses interesting fighting skills, and a quite freaky morphing limb that can shape itself into all manner of weapons.

Each console version of the game also has one exclusive character. The Xbox version features Spawn, another McFarlane design based on the popular comic-book anti-hero. Spawn is also fluent in Japanese it seems, and a dab hand at weapons based fighting too, which cannot be said of the PS2's Hiehachi. The Old Mishima warrior plays essentially identical to his Tekken style and does not wield a weapon (apart from his meaty fists) which just seems like a missed opportunity, and dare I say lazy programming from Namco in my opinion.

Arguably the best exclusive character is Link on the Gamecube version, wielding his trusty sword, with shield at the defensive ready, although his attacks share a little too much with Cassandra's moves for my liking. One other small point worth mentioning is the weird ageing process of some characters. For example Kilick looks nothing like he did in the prequel, it's like he's had massive amounts of facial surgery. Weird.

A good beat'em up will provide endless two-player thrills, but you still need a decent single player game for when you're all on your lonesome. Thankfully there are plenty of modes to add a bit of depth to proceedings, the usual arcade and two-player are complimented with time attack, survival, versus team battle and practise options. Of these the versus team battle mode is noteworthy because it adds a nice dimension to multiplayer gaming, especially if you can gather a couple of teams of four players for epic group battles! The practise mode is a godsend for newbies wanting to hone their skills, but it is no real improvement over the Dreamcast version of Soul Calibur, proving to be a bit limited in scope. This is a big disappointment considering the practise modes of games like VF4, that are packed with options to teach you the games nuances.

Once again the weapon master mode returns to add a bit of RPG flavour to proceedings. The further you progress in this mode, the better your character becomes, hence the RPG similarities. You can increase in stamina for example or improve your weapon attributes, further along you will actually unlock new weapons that you can use. This leads me neatly to some new segments that you can unlock. By completing the arcade or other modes you unlock 'extra' variants. These variants are essentially the same game modes but allow you to use your weapons master characters in battle instead. So for example extra versus battle allows you to load your bespoke characters from memory card (or hard disk) instead of using the standard versions.

Other areas that are unlocked include a 'museum' that holds the character profiles and games endings. The profiles allow you to examine a character in detail, allowing you to zoom and pan around your fighter and their arena, as well as getting them to shout out all their signature phrases, Dreamcast Soul Calibur owners will remember similar goodies being unlocked in the original game. The endings may be a bit of a let down for people expecting Tekken style CGI movies. They're of the static 2D picture and text variety, but the illustrations do have a classy anime edge to them. All in all there isn't enough here to keep you playing for long and a good couple of days of play should see you unlock all the games secrets.

But this is a beat'em up right? If the fight engine is good who gives a fig about all these see-em-once-never-again modes? I don't for a start. A good fighting game lets me be as one with my chosen character. I am the stupendously good looking samurai, wielding my sword with grace and conviction, I have no care for paying the bills or what's cooking in the microwave, I just wanna slice this ugly barbarian dude up, and look cool doing it. Soul Calibur 2 delivers this by the bucket-load, the simple controls allow you to pull off swish moves, and the resulting on-screen pyrotechnics bring a smile to the face.

"Namco deserve the success because this is a mass-market game, beautiful to look and easy to play."

But, and there is a but, sometimes it feels like all these fancy moves don't amount to much in real battles. Remember those Soul Calibur 2 experts mentioned earlier? Well watching them battle should be fun, right? Actually it's more exciting watching people new to the game duel. They use all the fancy attacks and cool movement. Experts however stick to short, safe attacks. Why? Because they beat all the fancy moves, they are all you need to win. I know this because I watched the experts playing and faced them, and sure enough simple attacks are the order of the day. A quick dodge and a stab of the B button, not too difficult to pull off, but one of the strongest attack sequences in the game, I'm not making this up, sometimes it only needs to be that simple! And that is one of the main problems with Soul Calibur 2, the original suffered similar gripes and it seems they haven't been ironed out in this sequel. Don't get me wrong, it can still be an incredibly fun game to play, but the better you get, the more time you put in slowly unlocks the truth, the flash die quickly, safety is the order of the day, now where's the fun in that?

The sad thing is this game will be massive in the west, I predict it will easily outsell the like of VF4 Evolution, but I have to admit that Namco deserve that success because this is a mass-market game, beautiful to look and easy to play. There is definitely a decent fighting game here, but to me it just doesn't offer the depth I've come to expect from Sega's flagship fighting series. If you are a true beat'em up fiend than stick with Sega's superlative fighting game, it's hardcore baby! Oh, wait that sorts out PS2 owners, unfortunately Gamecube and Xbox owners don't have that luxury.

Kikizo would like to thank cex.co.uk for arranging the safe arrival of import Soul Calibur II.

Graphics Sound Gameplay Depth Presentation OVERALL 9.5 9.0 7.5 7.0 8.0 7.0

THE VERDICT: Soul Calibur 2 ain't half bad and is certainly one of the better fighting games around, and since the Xbox and GameCube formats don't have many great fighting games, you can't do much better than snapping this up. Of course I'd tell you to shell out for a PS2 and a copy of VF4E to realise what you're missing, but that could prove expensive! Or you could do what one Kikizo reader suggested to us: buy a second hand Dreamcast and a copy of the original Soul Calibur...

Video Coverage (Latest Videos & Video FAQ)
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Description	Dur.	Size	Details
Soul Calibur II Lots of footage showing Link from the GameCube version.	0.55m	6.14 MB	MPG
Soul Calibur II Teaser Trailer	1.29min	10.1MB	MPG