Namco, at the time of the Playstation, had imposed the bases of the new generation fighting game. Resolutely technical access, the Tekken series moved away from Street Fighter and other King Of Fighter thanks to a range of impressive moves. From then on, competition started on all media. To stand out again, Namco tried his hand at stabbing with SoulBlade or SoulEdge on Playstation. In 1999, Namco defaulted on Sony by releasing a second opus on Dreamcast titled SoulCalibur. One of the best fighting games was born on 128 bits, still rivaling Tekken 4, Dead Or Alive 3 or Virtua Fighter 4. It took 4 years for Namco to bring us the third issue of the series: SoulCalibur II. Obviously, SoulCalibur II is no exception to the rule that propelled SoulBlade or SoulCalibur to the podium of the best fighting games.
A Legend Will Never Die
First of all with regard to the game modes, we find what makes the charm of the saga: the Missions mode renamed for the occasion: Master of Arms. As the name suggests, it is a quest for weapons through many missions. For what purpose will you tell me, in order to recover the supreme weapon desired by all... Soul Edge. First of all you will start with a tutorial which teaches you the different techniques of SoulCalibur II: stabbing, kicking, throwing, blocking. Afterwards, your journey begins around the world. But to achieve your goals, you will have to complete many missions of the most diverse. It starts with a silly and nasty fight, then a series of opponents to eliminate. Sometimes you will have to knock your enemy off the fighting platform to hopefully win the match or land them 30 blows in the time limit or knock them out with simple melee grapples. A fortiori, we have the impression that Namco really wanted to put a spoke in our wheels especially when the opponent regains health or is invisible, when the ground is mined or when the wind blows in the direction of a precipice . It is sure that there is something to do, especially with a difficulty going crescendo which can have harmful effects on the controller. Small novelty, we are entitled to labyrinthine dungeons where each room conceals an enemy until the supreme room where hoard and boss are at the rendezvous.
At the end of each match, you win a certain amount of money (whether you win or not) and experience points. The money will come in handy when you go to the Shop. This one offers you weapons for all the characters of the game but also game modes, artworks or videos. As for the experience points, these make you stronger during the next missions in order to become Master of Arms… And God knows that you would need it. Obviously it is thanks in particular to this game mode that you will be able to unlock new characters, new arenas and even more game modes. Let's talk about these game modes. At the beginning, there are 7: the Master of Weapons, an Arcade Mode (allowing to see the end of each character), a Versus Mode, a Practice, a Time Trial (with 3 sub-modes), a Survival and a Team Battle. To this will be added the Bonus option which will increase the duration in particular for the Arcade, Survival, Against the Clock or Team Fight modes which will allow you to use the weapons purchased in the Story mode. Even if all this does not seem very original, these modes will allow you to increase your earnings for the Story mode. 
SoulCalibur II is similar to SoulBlade by reusing the choice of weapons for the characters, something that SoulCalibur first of the name lacked. With more than 200 weapons, there will be enough to equip the characters accessible at the start. SoulCalibur II features 6 new fighters: Yunsung, Cassandra, Raphael, Talim, Necrid and of course for this Gamecube version: Link from the Legend Of Zelda saga. From these seven, you take a few elders like Mitsurugi, Astaroth, Voldo, Ivy, Nightmare, Kilik, Maxi, Xianghua or Taki. And if these fifteen characters were not enough for you, well know that Yoshimitsu, Sophitia, Cervantes, Seung Mina, Inferno or Charade (and presto! Another new one) can be unlocked. In short, it's a beautiful world! Obviously everyone has his own weapon ranging from the ax to the claws, from the mace to the foil, from the saber to the sharp fan. There is something for every taste. Link remains the main attraction of this Gamecube version of SoulCalibur II. The green cap kokiri uses his legendary sword, his bow, his grappling hook and his bombs to obtain Soul Edge. What a pleasure to have adult graphics, far from Super Smash Bros Melee.
A well-used Gamecube pad despite its ergonomics
On the maneuverability side, SoulCalibur II does honor to the saga, namely an instinctive playability that responds to the finger and the eye. Those who already know the first two games, they will hardly be lost. That is to say that the X and the A share the sword strikes. The Y is used for kicks, the B for blocking and countering. The L, R and Z flipper buttons are used both for the Soul Charge, to block and of course are customizable in order to put combination shortcuts. Without forgetting the devastating projections achievable thanks to the B+A and B+X duos for example. However, some combinations remain difficult to execute because of the importance of A. This is reflected on the B+X projection where finger gymnastics is necessary, as for X+Y. Finally, the L and R still have as much beat which is damaging during fast fights. The music fits perfectly with this medieval, gothic universe. From the intro scene in computer generated images, we fall under the spell. And during the fights, we take full ears. Between the power of the shocks, the atmosphere of the arenas, the voices (English or Japanese), in short, we are dazzled by the eardrums. We could well reproach SoulCalibur II for not benefiting from computer graphics like SoulBlade to present the end of each character or for having in the Master-at-Arms mode non-playable fighters like Berseker (a lookalike of Astaroth ) or Assassin. But on the other hand, we are entitled to a Museum mode in which we can see the descriptions, the arenas specific to each character, hakas, drawings, a gallery of weapons...
