23.8.2005

This game is so underrated it is unbelievable. It really is one of the best fighting games I have ever played (which have included street fighter, mortal kombat and the tekken series).First off, the number of moves available in this game is huge as there are around 15 characters, each boasting 100+ moves. The weapon-based fighting really makes it a lot more exciting than the regular punch, kick, and grab combos. you can fight with swords huge and small, nunchuks, staffs, blades, daggers, axes, and loads more. The different characters are great. They all look different and play extremely well, some better than others. As always, the women are generally faster than men yet weaker.Instead of buttons being assigned to punch, kick, and other things, they are assigned to horizontal attack, vertical attack, kick, and block. The attacks work in a sort of rock, paper, scissors system which you soon get used to. This means you have to think fast, and rewards people who are good at spotting the most common attack moves in enemies, enabling them to initiate a quick counter move. Despite this, button bashers can still manage to beat the skilled gamers, which sometimes can be frustrating when playing against your friends. The AI is excellent with many different difficulty settings. The arenas are all great and so is the music. The graphics are just stunning to look at. You can also play in training mode where you can simply practice moves for each character and you can make it so that the computer just stands there and lets you perform your moves on them, or the enemy always tries to perform grabs, or vertical attacks. You can make it so that you can practice just one part of your game. This is a great feature. The weapon master mode is really good and involves a story about finding a legendary sword. Each battle has something to do with the storyline, although the amount of pre-fight text to read can sometimes be quite heavy. As you go through the game you earn money which you can use to unlock so many things. There really are just too many things to unlock. Mainly weapons for each character. There are around 10 per character I think. Other than that, there are arenas, new characters, additional costumes, art galleries, movie theaters, new game modes and tons of other stuff as well. Each match in the story mode will have special conditions. For example in one of them, you have a bomb on your body so you are not allowed to get knocked down other wise you die. And on another one there is a strong wind which will continue to blow you towards the edge of the arena. These conditions are sometimes tough but they are a great twist. The music and voiceovers are also great.The only minor things I can find wrong with the game are the button basher problem, the fact that it's not xbox live enabled, and that there is a little too much text regarding the story in weapon master mode. On the whole though, these problems are minor. If the game was online enabled it really would make the game that much better.

25.11.2003

For me, finding a game that lasts for more then two days is a big problem. For example, I completed Medal of Honor: Allied Assault for the PC in less than two days, as I did Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Tides of War, and Half-Life in three days. There's always the extra difficulty levels to play of course, as well as multiplayer in most cases, but they don't really offer the same amount of excitement as going through the game for the first time.I've never owned a beat-em-up game before, but having read a review which gave it five stars and played a demo on the Offical Xbox Magazine disk on Soul Calibur II, I decided that hitting people over the head with swords was too tempting.So I risked it and bought it online. I was impressed as soon as my Xbox started up, great intro sequence! Every good game needs one, anyway, after a few bouts of multiplayer with my brother (which is excellent) I started playing the Weapon Master Mode.By the fourth day, I realised that this game had lasted longer then any game I'd played for a long time. There are loads of extra characters, weapons, costumes, game modes, art galleries, film sequences, etc that can be unlocked, (about 86 of them, I believe) as well as thousands of special moves for each character, of whom no two are both the same. When I finally beat the evil flame monster on the final level, I thought "great, game over." Then I realised that there were loads of extra missions, and I've only just discovered hidden routes in Weapon Master Mode, where there are no doubt other things to unlock.The computer-controlled characters are challanging, especially on later difficulty levels and this encourages you to use Practice Mode more often to find out your character's strengths, weaknesses, special moves, and extra weapons. My button-bashing skills won't work here! The ability to but or earn weapons, then use then against human opponents, ensures many joyous evenings of multiplayer fun.If you have my problem, of never finding a game that lasts longer then 48 hours, buy this game! I planned to complete it as soon as possible so I could get back to coursework at school, a week later, and I've still only unlocked around half the secrets. There are still many secrets buried deep within this game that need discovering, the disk hasn't left my Xbox CD drive, and it's looking increasingly clear that it won't leave for a very long time.I don't know how this game compares with other beat-em-ups, but I haven't enjoyed a game as much as this for a long time, and I'm still being suprised at the depth of this game. I've managed to persuade myself that one sad day, this game will end, but when that happens, I'll delete the save from my Xbox and start all over again! Overall, an excellent use of £30.

7.10.2003

After reading several reviews from www.amazon.com and understanding the passion that went into writing them. I too have decided on embarking on the mission to give you the best review possible. But not quite the 934 word masterpieces that I have read. Or quite simply laughed at.First of all I had the dilemma of deciding which platform I should buy it for. Would it be the PS2, Gamecube or X-Box? The decision was tough but I decided on the X-Box. My reasons, well, I don't own a PS2 or Gamecube.The game itself is fantastic. It quite simply knocks every other fighting game off the shelf. Dead or Alive 3 is outdated and Tao Feng ... well the word limited springs to mind as well as what happened to arcade mode?!?!?!?

4.12.2006

What do you think of when you think of a fighting game? I bet Mortal Kombat comes straight to your mind? Think again. I'm not usually into fighting games, im more of a Racing/ FPS person, but when i stumbled upon this game (purely by impulse buying at the game store) i was amazed. The storyline sounded a bit cheesy to me, your this fighter and you have to find the almighty sword called Soul Calibur.. Ok, big deal this game is for babies. Somehow though i was intrigued and played it anyway. The graphics are superb, nice ragdoll like physics and reflections mirrored galore, personal detail is typical of what arcade fighters are like. Ok, so gore is reduced to a minimum if any,

17.9.2003

Having my chosen character suffer repeated beatings whilst I'm busy watching the scenery isn't perhaps the best way to fully appreciate "Soul Caliber 2"...but, you know, it took me quite some time to concentrate on actually putting up a fight.Openly applauding my human opponent for perfect execution of spine crunching finishing moves probably wasn't the best way to get into the whole spirit of the game...pausing mid-action and asking to be shown power combinations probably wasn't doing me any favours either.But, it can't be helped. The graphics power and frame-rate flow of the game (XBOX) leave you incapacitated in the finger area...and you look on helplessly as your poor character gets their jaw realigned...again!

1.9.2007

I payed the original, and i rated it as one of the most original fighting games ever - using weapons instead of fists really does give each fighter a unique style all their own. So when i patched my Xbox360 in order to play the sequel - it was with great anticipation that i sat down to play.The basics are the same - each fighter has their weapon and fighting style and there are a host of new characters available. But it is the little things that were left out (from the original) which i found disappointing :1) When you block/guard - you weapon no longer takes damage. This in the original was a superb feature : a player was often forced to go on the offensive as their blade came close to breaking - i am mystified as to why this was dropped.2)

3.6.2003

Having recently received my imported copy of this game from Japan i felt i should share my thoughts on this game with the rest of you.Brilliant. This is a brilliant game. Following on from the game that proved that the dreamcast was a far superior machine to the PS2 is a sequal which beats any other fighting game currently available. Yet again it boast fast fluid moition with lushous graphics and a huge range of moves. Amazing looking acharacters each with their own personalities, fighting styles, strengths and weaknesses. This is the greatest fighting game in the world. ButIt fails to develop the game much further than its predecessor and that is the games only flaw.

31.8.2004

Simply put, this is amazing. Soul calibur 2 is the second best fighter ever, second only to the dreamcast prequel. In this game there are literally hundreds of things to do in this game, but the best thing is you have to work for them, complete arcade mode to unlock extra arcade ect. The weponmaster mode is best idea i've ever seen in a fighter, this see's you travelling the world undergoing challenges (only the enemy's weapon is visible for exaple) these get harder as you go along, if you have an anger problem LEAVE THIS GAME ALONE! Some of the challenges are unbeliveably hard. younger, less experienced players should also leave the xbox version well alone, and get the gamecube version,

24.9.2014

forget the guard impact and other complicated fighting methods that are too difficult to do on the joypad. you also do not need to use the 'guard', 'kick' or 'jump' commands too much. just concentrate on just moving your character and using the basic horizontal and vertical slash attacks repeatedly. good choice of characters to begin with. you can also uncover hidden characters as you become more experienced at the game. not yet got round to playing even once on the arcade mode as the survival and time attack modes (original and extra versions) are that good. detailed records kept such as character usage and total time played i also like. only drawback is the high score screens do not necessarily show the highest scores or total rounds survived,

28.9.2003

Soul Calibur 1 was outstanding and had never been beaten. Only this sequel could. Soul Calibur 2 improves the game graphically as well as in playability. Not so much of a game for sharing, the special modes are a lot more single player based than a multi-person effort like Soul Calibur 1. However, the wide range of new characters, weapons, outfits and levels make a class act of a game. This is also not a game for those who get frustrated easily, (myself included) but its a game you always go back to. If you like fighters you will like this, and anyone who thinks otherwise has seen white coats or should have

18.9.2017

since i decided to make a old school travel remembering good feelings, i purchased an old xbox and i searched for games that always bring good memories. Soul calibur 2 was available for this console and i wanted to know if this version was as good as in my old PS2 and i am more than happy to see that is better. The loading times are almost inexistent and the movements are suprisingly fluid for a machine of this characteristics .i'm more than happy with this purchase, This is one of the very best fighting games in the history of all consoles. a must have

18.4.2005

that is right the best fighting game is here soul calibur 2 has it all style good looks fluid gameplay new characters and the old ones it is amazing what each individual character can do there are so many attacking movements and combos you can do with them it will leave you dizzy and sore thumbs, the sore thumbs i can vouch for this game has what other fighting games lack and that you will have to find out for yourself you want action supberb graphics and kick butt moves then this is the daddy just buy it go on you know you want to go on.....

26.3.2005

Just like the title says the best fighter ever,i got to play the first 1 on ps1 when it was called soul blade, and now the new 1 is even better, part to do with the power of the xbox.There are so many characters to choose from but there are more to unlock in the game,also there is a good few game types to play like time attack and story where u can also get extra weapons and different cloths for your fighters.Waste no more time buy it now and start fighting

22.4.2014

The game is clean looking, the xbox version got spawn, which was not as interesting as the gamecube and ps2 versions,but the xbox version benefits from being cleaner graphically, in comparison to Soul Calibur 1, it has a more rounded cartoony look to the charactors. If you like the series, it is well worth buying.

14.12.2012

I bought this game because I have played it for many hours years ago. Then, it suddenly just vanished and I wasnt able to find it anywhere. Thanks to you, I can enjoy my xbox again. And it was delivered much more sooner then expected! Thanks again

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