Good morrow, my friends. Today I shall review one of the greatest weapon-based fighting games released for the Nintendo Gamecube, Soulcalibur II. In the year 2003, Namco released this fighter on all of the major consoles, the NGC, the PS2, and the Xbox, with all 3 consoles featuring a character exclusive to one of the said consoles. The Gamecube featured a Nintendo favorite, Link from the Legend of Zelda series, the PS2 version starred Heihachi Mishima from the Tekken series, and the Xbox version included the superhero Spawn. This intuitive marketing strategy amplified the game’s sales so much that they continued to implement this idea by including Star Wars characters in SC IV, Ezio from the Assassin’s Creed series in SC V, and God of War‘s Kratos in SC: Broken Destiny. Aside from the popular cameos, SC II is a well designed game. The controls are smooth and the character roster is very balanced, as each character yields a weapon that yields both strengths and weaknesses.

Premise: As this is a fighting game, the story won’t play that much of a role in the game, but it’s basically about warriors from around the Eastern Hemisphere, ranging from England to Japan, who embark on a journey to seek after one of two magical swords, the Soul Edge and the Soulcalibur. The Soul Edge is a hulking, bloody sword of darkness that possesses its wielder and becomes more powerful with every opponent slaughtered and soul stolen, while the Soulcalibur is a sacred sword of light whose combative properties rival that of the Sou Edge and purifies its wielder. Like many other games, the plot merely serves as an engine to pit fighters against each other. Now onto gameplay. The gameplay consists of two opposing fighters facing off against one another in some sort of arena. Unlike fighting games like Street Fighter, the gameplay is 3D, much like another Namco fighter by the name of Tekken, and fighters can walk forward and backwards as well as sideways. They almost always face each other throughout the fight, with the exception of Voldo (I’ll get more into that later), and must obtain victory by either depleting the opponent’s health bar completely or knocking them out off the stage. The character roster includes Link, a well-rounded fighter with extraneous weapons to combat his opponents from a distance, Mitsurugi, a katana-wielding samurai with quick and smooth sword strikes and powerful kicks, Maxi, a Bruce Lee-like warrior with a pair of nunchuks that can easily string lengthy and lethal combos, Ivy, a seductive fighter wielding a chain-sword that can stretch it self to reach unsuspecting combatants, Astaroth, a burly, muscle-bound executioner bearing a giant ax, Taki, a spandex-clad ninja armed with dual blades and an array of acrobatic maneuvers, Yunsung, a young Korean soldier skilled with an crescent-shaped Chinese war sword and foot-oriented taekwondo, Rafael, a master fencer specializing in quick, lethal stabs, Voldo, a Moonwalking Frankenstein-like monster armed with Wolverine-like claws and can fight regardless of his stance, and a plethora of other characters. There is so much variation and unique fighting styles in between characters that you will want to play through all of them st least once, but so much depth amongst all of them that you will eventually want to specialize in one character, as learning how to their combos effectively will require time and practice.

Sound: To be honest, the voice-actors in this game couldn’t have cared less as they were recording, as they are all over the top, and even in Soulcalibur II, Link doesn’t talk; just grunts and shouts. But what do you expect? It’s a fighter game after all. In all honesty, the best part of the voice acting is the announcer. The while announcer was stoic, his voice was also interesting to listen to. The highlight of the sound is the eloquent soundtrack. The both epic theme song and the character selection song gets you pumped up for the battle of a lifetime. The themes for each stage are well-suited for each other, including a majestic tune fighting in a mountain-top temple in Greece, an exotic and exciting melody on the grounds of a Thai palace, a piratey orchestra on a dockyard, and an erhu-induced ballad at the gates of the Forbidden City. The clashing and slashing of swords may be a little comical, but they generally do justice demonstrating the strength of the weapons in this game.

Visuals: While the graphics look somewhat dated, and this is evident as some objects pass through each other like ghosts, the graphics hold up for the most part, and I would argue that this was one of the better looking Gamecube games. It runs at a smooth 60 FPS and maintains that rate throughout gameplay. The world of Soulcalibur is quite colorful, despite the game’s dark tones, the arenas are as pleasing to look at as they are to fight on and include a pagoda-shaped, multistory Japanese castle surrounded by blooming cherry blossoms shedding pedals onto the arena, an abandoned and ruined castle with a surviving stained-glass window, the fertile garden of a gold-plated Thai palace, a massive library with books lining the walls as far as the eye can see, and a dark, eerie cavern surrounded by frightening structures and a mysterious, green liquid. The character designs are also impressive, as each look imposing  and carry powerful-looking and sometimes over-the-top weapons. Each character has alternative costumes to switch too in case someone doesn’t like the original design. Link wears his traditional green tunic as always and has an alternative red tunic, Mitsurigi has the look of Clint Eastwood turned samurai, Rafael wears the traditional garb of the Renaissance, Nightmare is clad in dark-colored armor with a giant mutated arm carrying a over-sized, freaky-looking sword, and Voldo is just plain creepy. It is also fun to watch the cutscenes before and after the match, as your characters play around with their weapons to get warmed up and pose for victory. One complaint that I do have is the finishing replay, as I felt that though they were satisfying to watch, the timeframe was a little too short.

Controls: The controls are fast, smooth, and fairly simple for a fighter game. There are three attack buttons that serve as attacks, one for light attacks, another for heavier ones, and another for kicking, a fourth for blocking attacks, and various attacks can form with proper timing and tilting the control stick in the proper direction as you are pressing buttons. This button layout works best with the Gamecube, as each buttons has a distinct shape. While this game is easy to pick up, it is difficult to master as multiple advanced combos are needed to be utilized for overpowering the enemy. The C Stick makes pulling off combos much easier, but using said combos at the proper time still requires discipline. While you can charge yourself to enable powerful attacks by using the SC Meter, but be warned, for as you do so you leave yourself vulnerable for attack.

Entertainment: This is a truly entertaining fighting game. It allows you to to pound your friend on the head with a sword without actually hurting him or getting into trouble. It also gives you the impression that you are a master swordsman striving to be the best there ever was. While this can be picked up at ease, it requires a lot of time to truly become masterful.

Replay Value: The game offers a multitude of gameplay options, including a standard gameplay and a Specials gameplay, where characters can use alternative weapons to change things up a little, but to use these weapons, as well as hidden characters, you will have to play through the single-player campaign, Weapon Master. These matches are exhilarating as well as very challenging. Weapon Master challenges can involve defeating enemies while slowly depleting your own vitality from poison, instant death if you fall to the mine-lined floor, and other challenges. The AI is very aggressive and will constantly push you out of your comfort zone for you to prove your fighting skills. I will guarantee that for several challenges you will fail multiple times before passing it, giving you the satisfaction of victory. As you play through Weapon Master, you can unlock new characters and weapons to try out. And of course, it’s fun to play against your friends.

Conclusion: This is one of the best fighting games ever. It has flexible learning curve, yet is challenging, its character roster is balanced and enjoyable to play through, and it has Link from the Legend of Zelda. Hands down. This game is available on the GC, the PS2, and the Xbox, and if you kept these systems, or Wii for the GC version,  around after all these years, then do me a favor and buy this game. It will be very cheap as these consoles are 2 generations old. However, if you just have a 360 or a PS3, there is now an HD version available where you can compete with others online. Do not miss out on SCII! Play it!