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Soul Calibur II Sparks Subdued Joy

Posted by simoniker on from the love-it-but-seen-it-before dept.

Thanks to GameSpy for their (similar, and in descending score order) Xbox, Gamecube, and PlayStation 2 reviews of the newly-released Soul Calibur II, plus a detailed Soul Calibur II: Pile-On! article, where-in "...a battle royale of GameSpy's biggest SCII fans pick apart a hit." Opinions? One editor suggests: "It's a fabulous game, but the original Soul Calibur wasn't just an excellent game: it started a new age for fighters. On the other hand, SCII - no matter how good it is - is just an incremental upgrade, a fairly routine fighter sequel."

1 of 51 comments (clear)

  1. It's a great fighter but... by analog_line · · Score: 5, Informative

    ...frankly, it's not that much better than the first. New characters, yes, but the textures, at least on the Xbox version (which is the only one I've seen, as it's the one my local game store has the demo for) on the characters are really really flat. The models themselves are smooth, and move just as gracefully as ever, but they look like they're molded out of liquid plastic. Hard to explain, but it feels like they either tried to make it "cooler looking" either out of overzealousness or intentionally. The change is simmilar to the change in the models between Tekken Tag Tournament and Tekken 4.

    It plays EXACTLY the same as SoulCalibur, which again isn't a bad thing, because SoulCalibur is the best fighting game ever, IMHO. I don't blame them for not messing with a proven formula, but I vainly hoped that Namco would switch things up a bit like they did with Tekken 4's gameplay (which is my favorite of the series, by far the most balanced Tekken game yet).

    All in all, I'm certainly going to be buying it, but it's not something I simply must have now now please now gimme now. F-Zero GX on the other hand...

    *watches phone waiting for the game store to call about my preorder*