Soulcalibur II Revisited

Soulcalibur II is probably my favorite fighting game and one of the best of all time in its genre. The game is based around a tournament of souls as they battle for the mystical sword. Soulcalibur II was a massive improvement from its arcade origins and one of the first perfect fighting games to come from the arcade to consoles. This game was absolutely incredible whether you were battling it out against the AI or fighting a local friend. It had a wide range of modes including Arcade, Team Battle, Time Attack, Survival and Extra (more intense stuff). This was built upon with the Weapon Master mode where you could travel the lands collecting better gear and served as the story element.

Soulcalibur II originally launched in 2002 for Xbox, Playstation 2 and Gamecube. It was also remastered for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 with the game becoming Xbox Backwards Compatible for Xbox One as well. The game featured some slight variations between the versions with the remasters supporting online multiplayer and some consoles featuring unique characters. The highlight of this was obviously Link for Gamecube and he was awesome to play as. Not only was the character unique in style, but he fit well with the rest of the cast.


Soulcalibur II was a very impressive game for its time and one that has stuck with me through the years. It was nice to recently revisit it and with the remaster port it holds up very well. The character models particularly stood the test of time whereas the background does seem fairly aged. That being said, the visuals for reflections and particle effects are impressive. It still feels very smooth and much easier than I recall since I found easy tricks to manipulate the AI within a couple matches.

Still, it was almost too fun to play as I've wasted a few hours just working through Arcade or battling with various characters. I'm not sure why I left this game for so long as it was always fun to play. I do however miss seeing Link in the roster, but suppose Spawn is alright. When coming back I definitely enjoyed playing Xianghua and Sophita in replacement of Link. Soulcalibur II is still an incredible game and so fun to play. It's amazing that the game still looks so good with just minor improvements to get it rendering at a HD standard and is still a blast. It runs smooth with combat that's completely fluid, intense and most of all fun to fight with.

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