Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Soul Calibur II

Soulcalibur II was developed and published Namco, released in late August of 2003 on GameCube, PlayStation 2 and the original Xbox.  Each of the home versions of the game were marketed with their own unique character: GameCube with Link (Legend of Zelda), PlayStation with Heihachi Mishima (Tekken), and Xbox with Spawn (Spawn comic series). 

Now I could go deep into the story (the series does has a fairly in depth story for each character and how they are related to the Soul Calibur and the Soul Edge), but it is a fighting game.  Having a story just means that there is a reason that these people are fighting, but it's quite simple to head completely through the game without even realizing there is a story.  So I'm going ahead with that assumption...

For those who haven't played any of the Soul series, the controls can be relatively simple: you have four buttons (Horizontal, Vertical, Kick and Block) that can be used individually or in conjunction with each other and the direction to use different attacks.  If you hit towards and Horizontal, you do one attack, while away and Horizontal does another.  And to quickly explain the buttons, the Horizontal and Vertical buttons do attacks that are swung either horizontally or vertically (respectively). 

I decided that since I am playing the GameCube version of the game, I might as well start with Link and start with the arcade. I only played a few matches, the first against Yunsung.  The first round was straight forward, me slowing relearning the controls and trying to figure out if I remember any moves what-so-ever (the answer, if you cared, is no).  After a while I eventually remembered I could grab, I ended up defeating him trying to figure out how to grab.  The second round seemed easy enough, I figured out how to grab, but lost.  How did I lose you ask?  I was doing so well, he was barely hitting me... I forgot that if you get knocked out of the ring you lose.  One lucky hit, knock your opponent out of the ring and it's round done.  Ouch... a little harsh but allows you to still be able to win even when behind. 

So the battles continue as such: fight a few matches and such and such.  The game does have a bit of variety, it has the pseudo-story of the Weapon Master mode where you fight through different regions to gain experience and money.  Money is used to buy weapons, alternate costumes, art and videos.  While the alternate costumes are simply a visual change, the new weapons react differently: giving greater damage, increasing your defense, healing you when you strike and so forth.  The plot of the Weapon Master puts you as a wandering swordsman searching for the Soul Edge.

Beyond the Weapon Master, each of the other modes is just another form of combat, from survival to time attack.  The last mode I played in was a team battle, where you get to choose up to three characters and play through them instead of separate rounds.  I grabbed Kilik, the Assassin and Necred randomly and set off to see how I could do after a bit of practice.  The computer proved a much more difficult pairing then expected, I traded with the first rounds and had my Assassin defeated with their second character (Seung Mina) close to defeat.  With only Necrid left, I figured I could get the one hit to defeat Seung Mina and then prove a good fight against the final man.  I was wrong.  Mina whooped my Necrid to about half life before I finally got the one hit needed.  Needless to say that I wasn't to successful against the computer's final man, but t'is a game.

So another game is down and I only have one of the Nintendo home consoles before I'm complete with them.  So tomorrow it shall be a Wii game, don't know which one yet, but I feel like I shall be flailing my arms about tomorrow.  Adios for today though.

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