Fighting games are a joy to watch, for the most part, even if you're useless when it comes to the details - like me. I've seen an awful lot more than I've played, but I must admit that I've seen barely anything of SoulCalibur II, and the SoulCalibur series as a whole.
I know of a few of its characters, of course (with measurements like they have, who hasn't?), and I may have once played a demo, but I'm just not sure. This is, effectively, a blind entry into Tekken with swords. Is it even right to call it Tekken with swords? I've no idea.
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| Whoa, hang on. What the hell are you doing here? |
Fun Times
A polished CG intro introduces us to a bunch of characters, with the most recognisable to me being a certain Heihachi, clearly finding himself in the wrong fighting game. This would be because I'm playing the PlayStation 2 port, with each console version having a guest character familiar to players on that console - Link from Zelda on the GameCube and... Spawn from Spawn on the Xbox. Obviously.
The only other character I can actually name is Ivy, who we'll get to later on. Why I can name her and nobody else, I don't know...
Right. I need to get something out of the way before we continue. A couple of somethings, actually.
If I'm somewhat familiar with Tekken, and SoulCalibur II is going to give me a Tekken character, I might as well try and get a feel for the controls with Heihachi. With no changes to the default difficulty, I dove into the Arcade mode to see where I stood.
Yeah, so, the Tekken way of doing things doesn't quite translate, but the game does feel suitably chunky and robust, which I can get behind. What I can't quite get behind are the graphical errors from emulation. You'll see them crop up in a few images here, and some screenshots will be of lower quality as I switched back and forth between various renderers, or whatever the term I'm looking for is, but rest assured that I have now fixed the problem and can enjoy the game as intended.
I could put the disc into my PS2 as well but... eh... all the way over there.
SoulCalibur II can be thought of as Tekken with swords, so long as you know that the Tekken side of the analogy mainly comes from dancing and dodging into and out of the plane you're fighting in, and the 'with swords' bit comes from the controls focusing on different ways to strike with your weapons.
There are two basic strike buttons, one for horizontal attacks and the other for vertical, and one more for kicks. A dedicated guard button will put your character into a blocking stance, though it appears to be more effective when correctly timed, rather than held. Grabs and fancier moves can be pulled off with various button presses and shoulder button inputs, though truth be told I'm still not entirely sure what the shoulder buttons do, save for making my character glow green.
You'll glow all kinds of colours in SoulCalibur II, as weapons often leave trails of light behind them, and solid hits are shown by magical flashes of bright light. I associate it with Tekken because that's where I first remember seeing it, but if glowing balls of light to confirm hits came from a time before that, then it is to that that I owe my thanks. Those effects, including the crunchy sound effects, make it a joy to play, win or lose.
And obviously, I'm going to lose. The normal difficulty ramps up over the course of three fights or so, with a whole load more before I complete the arcade mode I'm sure. Button mashing, like always, isn't going to cut it. Maybe I need to think about my strikes as though I'm playing Bushido Blade. Oh damn, Bushido Blade! I need to go back to that for a five-minute blast sometime.
I chose Ivy for my next attempt at the Arcade mode. Many other modes are available to keep you entertained, but I'm just happy to play this game full stop. I'm only four fights in, and I like what I see, and I don't mean Ivy's costume. I'll get to that later.
It wasn't until much later that I read that Ivy is one of the harder characters to get to grips with, and while I definitely wasn't pulling off any ridiculous combos and fancy moves, I wasn't doing that for any character anyway. I was happy thrusting and slashing my way through my opponents with basic attacks and blindly entered combos.
There's no way I'll make it to the end of the Arcade mode with basic moves, though. I wanted to understand the controls, but without having to exit the game and go learn about them somewhere. That clearly sounded like effort. I don't want effort. I want fun, and inelegant fun was what I was already getting.
I was, indeed, satisfied with SoulCalibur II. I wish I was better at it and was able to follow along with what was going on half of the time, in terms of reading incoming attacks and whatnot, but it was so easy to watch an hour of playtime go by without realising it.
But there are a few little niggles. More distractions than anything, really.
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| That doesn't even make sense. Unless you're evil? |
Frustrations
Characters are voiced in English here, with varying degrees of success, I suppose you'd say. Some, like Mitsurugi, skirt the lines of offence by sounding just a little too close to being racist - though maybe that's only to my ears.
Other characters have English voices and what I can only describe as Japanese shrieks and yelps and whatnot, different to the point of me wondering if a voicebox can even change between two radically different sounds in such a short space of time. Taki is particularly annoying in this respect, as she bounces around the screen faster than you can follow, and, if you're playing as her, make use of.
She bounces in other ways too. I know of SoulCalibur II for some of its characters, notably Ivy. I think we all know why I know of Ivy. Exhibit A, please?
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| Exhibit A |
Thank you. Now, characters from all kinds of games have and continue to be sexualised in sometimes physically impossible ways. That's fine, these are games, they need to sell, and sex sells. In the case of Ivy, arguments can be made about her being an absolute powerhouse, a dominatrix of sorts. She towers above her opposition and carries herself with more confidence than you can imagine, and a skimpy outfit is just an expression of that. Is it practical? No. Is SoulCalibur II concerned about practicality? No.
Ivy may show a lot of skin, and if you don't like that, you can use her alternate costume. She has a bit of wiggle too, but that's nothing compared to Taki, who is quite possibly the worst offender for sexing up a character for the sake of getting players to drool over.
There's the suggestion of this and that, and then there's building it straight into the model. Nipples, belly button, butt crack... even Seven of Nine's Voyager catsuit didn't cling to her as much as Taki's red number here, and it doesn't even support her breasts. I'm no expert in that department though.
Long story short, I don't like Taki's character design, so here she is getting destroyed by Astaroth.
Much better. I need to find a character more suited to my playstyle.
Further Fun Times
While not a fan of Kilik as a person, his staff does work wonders. Keeping people at a distance resulted in some perfect rounds and even ring outs, which is another way to come out on top in a contest.
Some stages are walled off almost completely, but others offer an opportunity for a sumo-style victory in short order. I guess it all depends on how good you are with your character, and knowing what moves will lead to a ring-out or not - I was just lucky that it happened.
Only as far as Stage 3 again. Oh well. Get good or drop the difficulty? Drop the difficulty, get good, raise the difficulty, get better. Yeas...
Final Word
I've not talked about the many different modes (because I've not played them), nor have I discussed any gameplay mechanics that further separate SoulCalibur II from other fighters (because I don't know them), and I've waffled far too much about skin-tight clothing than sharp-edged swordplay, but that's all because of one reason: I liked my time with SoulCalibur II too much, and can't compute what I want to say about it.
It's not quite me being giddy and excited, bombarding you with images and insisting you go and play a game as soon as possible, but it's somewhere up there.
You can enjoy fighters without knowing how to get the most out of the gameplay. I enjoy the designs, the stages, the music from all kinds of fighters, even if it turns out that I feel like I'm walking into a brick wall when I get around to playing them. I'd prefer the learning curve to be a little more forgiving in many of them because I want to be able to do all the cool stuff they offer.
SoulCalibur II is no different. I want to do all the cool stuff, with all the cool characters, but I'm not frustrated with it because it is accessible to me. I can jump into it and have a good time, despite knowing very little.
Was I given a helping hand by playing Tekken? I don't know. If yes, great, because I want to explore a series that I haven't explored before. If no, great, because it means I'm likely to be able to explore a series that I haven't explored before without too much difficulty. It's a win-win.
If, for whatever reason, you've not found yourself playing SoulCalibur II, find yourself a way to play it. I don't think it's perfect, but there's plenty on offer to get behind and enjoy, and that's all you want, really. For a good time, call Ivy.
No, I mean...
Ugh.
Fun Facts
Heihachi wasn't the first choice for the PlayStation 2 port's guest spot. Final Fantasy VII's Cloud was in the running until the deal fell through.
SoulCalibur II, developed by Project Soul, first released in 2002.
Version played: PlayStation 2, 2003, via emulation.