From the arcades of 2002 and soon after, a port to the PS2, original Xbox and Gamecube, Soulcalibur II makes it’s inevitable leap to the times of HD. The PS3 and the Xbox 360 play host to one of Namco Bandai’s all time classics, but can it still hold it’s own against the modern day fighters as the king of the hill?
For the uninitiated, the Soulcalibur plotline, such as it is, revolves around each character’s goal to either destroy, or use the ‘Soul Edge’ for their own nefarious deeds. Each character has their own extensive biography to read through if you desire. Despite being fairly interesting, the brick’s of text for each character, and unlockable weapons, are painfully uninspiring to browse. The game offers little in the way of cutscenes to explain what’s going on either, so if you like a little plot development with your characters, you’ll have to go digging.
Fortunately, the pure, all out brawling makes up for the lack of narrative on offer. With all the original modes to pore through, something is bound to tickle your fancy. Along with the standard Arcade mode, the ever addictive, if not slightly infuriating, Weapon Master mode makes it’s appearance. Essentially the story mode, it pits you against enemies with occasionally unfathomable odds, such as defeating four opponents with the same bar of health. Other, less irritating, sometimes inventive conditions also appear, a constant gust of wind pushing you sarcastically backwards for example, or only being able to do meaningful amounts of damage by striking them against the edge of the arena. Whilst fun in their own right, unless you know the specific ins and outs of your character, caveman like button mashing will suffice for most of the encounters.
In terms of the actual fighting mechanics, nothing has changed from it’s previous incarnations, of which I’m sure is peace of mind for the Soulcalibur veterans. Horizontal and vertical attacks still function in their intended roles; blocks and counters are still gleefully satisfying and there are no convoluted button inputs to wrap your head, and hands, around. Timing and knowledge of characters should still win over the Neanderthal’s methods, yet you don’t have to be a pro gamer to accomplish a basic grasp of the mechanics. Which is a good job seeing as the tutorial in Soulcalibur II, like a vast majority of fighting games, is plain awful. The game tells you what each of the moves are called; then proceeds to thrash the life out of you for the remainder of the game until you learn.
Unfortunately, one of the games largest draws, nostalgia aside, is the inclusion of online multiplayer. The problem being, is that it’s not only fraught with problems in the netcode, but also lacks any sort of commonplace features such as a spectator mode or a party of friends. It feels cold, clinical and even when you can get into a lag filled mess of a bout, it kindly kicks you to the main menu once you’ve finished. Rude.
At least there’s still the old pass-the-pad fun to be had. Couch play is still and always will be the most fun to be had in this genre for me, no lag, jovial banter and many other perfect world factors that don’t require the internet can all be yours. With a diverse multitude of characters, of which some are only available after progression in the Weapon Master mode, plenty of unique weapons with not only different damage and defence modifiers but also their own entries in the aforementioned ‘brick of text’, there’s no shortage of content to unlock. Another nice gesture being that two of the previous system exclusive characters, Heihachi Mishima from Tekken fame and Todd McFarlane’s Spawn are also both playable in this version. No word on Link but hey, you can’t have everything.
The other main downside, also mentioned in the title of the game, is the HD part. Yes, it’s upscaled and looks crisp enough, but the menus, the text; even the small thumbnails on the arena select screen look vastly aged and bland. It’s not only the looks that have aged either, little things crop up every now and again that just infuriate. For example, when you fail a particularly irksome battle in Weapon Master mode, and you will, there is no restart button. Instead, it takes you back to the stage select screen, making you endure yet another surprisingly long loading screen.
In the end, Soulcalibur II HD Online fails on several important levels, conversely it also maintains the success of which the original created. The mechanics are sound, the roster plentiful and the fun is still there to be had. The issue really being is whether or not it deserves it’s rather steep price tag for essentially the same game but with iffy online multiplayer and slightly shinier graphics. For the truly nostalgic only.
Reviewed on PS3, also available on Xbox 360.
