Soul Calibur II

Released August 27, 2003

Developed by Namco

Published by Namco

NWR Reviews: 10 - 9.5

Retrospective by Ryan Winterhalter

The GameCube may have had plenty of party games, but trying to get my dorm room buddies pulled away from Halo was difficult, to say the least. For a while, GameCube devotees were forced to say things like, "hey dudes, wanna stop killing and maiming each other for a minute so we can play this cute monkey game I bought?" or the far more efficient and less embarrassing, "free beer in my room!" in order to get their friends to play with them. Then came Soul Calibur II.

More than a handful of late and possibly drunken nights were spent chopping up friends, skipping that annoying announcer's voice, and bitching that Raphael was an overpowered wuss. The game was a masterpiece. Dozens of characters each with their own vast personal arsenal, incredible graphics that lived up the pedigree established by its Dreamcast predecessor, and a fighting system that was fun for both new players and masters. SCII was playable for hour upon drunken hour.

We had access to all three systems back in those days but we chose the GameCube. I’m sure that you, fine reader, have already figured out why. Each version of the game had its own special guest fighter along with the new Necrid character that Todd McFarlane created for the home versions of the game. The Xbox version had Spawn. No one cares about Spawn (or Todd McFarlane for that matter) after 7th grade. The PlayStation 2 version had Tekken’s Heihachi. In 2003, the Tekken series had managed to degrade itself in the eyes of fighting game fans everywhere. Tekken was the fan’s proverbial daughter in a Girls Gone Wild ad. So nobody cared about Heihachi. What people did care about was the most bad-ass fighting game character ever invented and only available on GameCube, Link.

Just a character that looked like Link would have been cool. But he was a genuine Link that was actually fun to play with. He had Hylian-issued bombs and arrows. He had a boomerang. And best of all he had an awesome 90-degree throw that I used to chuck people out of the ring at least three matches out of five. Link could take on any other character in the game, but nobody screamed about balance issues when he was picked.

Link was the cherry on top of the cake that was Soul Calibur II. Thanks to Link, I got to play something other than Halo, and thanks to Link, many GameCube owners didn’t have to feel emasculated when they had a party with the guys.

Steven Rodriguez: "Soul Calibur II was one of those games that made GameCube owners glad they owned the system, because even though Namco gave each version the best possible treatment, the true 'best' version was only available on the Nintendo platform. We had Link. The others didn't. That's all the evidence I need to support that argument. Oh, and I guess it being the home version to one of the greatest arcade fighters ever is kind of important, too."

Jonathan Metts: "Aside from being the only great hardcore fighting game on GameCube (I think Smash Bros. is something different), Soul Calibur II was one of the best selling third-party games on the system and was actually more successful than the PS2 and Xbox versions. Unfortunately, the game did not kick off a revival of GameCube support as we hoped it would at the time."

Jon Lindemann: "I'm not a huge fan of fighting games, but Soul Calibur II skillfully walks the fine line between button-masher and strategic fighter. What I mean is that you don't need to memorize a whole bunch of complicated moves to have fun with it. On top of that, the graphics are top-notch, and the ability to play with Link (who looks like he did in that SpaceWorld 2000 video, I might add) is super-sweet."

Michael Cole: "When Link was announced as a GameCube-exclusive character, Nintendo fans cheered. When sales showed gamers preferred to cut Taki up with the master sword, Nintendo cheered, too. Never mind that SCII is probably the best traditional 3D fighter on Nintendo's lunchbox-that-could--Soul Calibur II ushered in the era of a more approachable Nintendo for third party developers and publishers. Mario in an EA game? Sega making F-Zero? It all began with Soul Calibur II, baby!"

A Dissenting Opinion

David Trammell: "What can I say, I really don't like 3D fighting games in general. The reported quality of Soul Calibur II wasn't enough to overcome my aversion to the genre. I rented the GameCube version once through a Gamefly trial and returned it without even playing it! I recently played the PS2 version of the game for 30 minutes at a friend's house. As I suspected, the endless list of difficult-to-remember moves was just the turn-off I expected. I'll take Super Smash Bros. Melee for my fighting fix any day and get four player action to boot."

Perhaps noticing how well Link's SCII cameo did for sales on the GameCube, Electronic Arts pulled a similar stunt when they included Mario characters in the GameCube versions of NBA Street V3 and SSX On Tour. Mario has starred in his fair share of sports titles, but never has he been featured alongside real NBA stars or seen shredding down a snow-covered mountain. The appearance of the plumber brothers in the games was seen as making up for the lack of GameCube networking features; the Xbox and PS2 versions of both games were playable online. Whether or not we'll ever see Mario show up in more third party games is unknown, but if it does happen again, hopefully it won't be in lieu of online gameplay.