The Best Soul Calibur?

[buzz909]

Now that the dust has settled on the last installment. Which do people feel is the best Soul Calibur? I have played Soul Calibur 1,3 and 4 but the first one on Dreamcast is the only one I still play. I enjoyed 3 at the time but 4 not so much.

I have totally missed out on SC 2 and 5 though. Would be interested to hear which game people think is the best in the series?

[Asura]

This is a source of a great deal of debate, I find, when it comes up online, as people have quite strong preferences.

Most people will say 1 or 2 in my experience, and I agree with that.

1 was a real eye-opener. It was the first genuinely unmissable Dreamcast game. It looked amazing at the time, with high-res visuals and a smooth 60fps framerate, had amazing 3D backdrops (anyone remember the Venice stage?) and the various modes could keep you playing for literally months. It was also a real sequel to Soul Edge; not merely an update.

2 didn't have anywhere near the effect of the first one, because it wasn't as fresh; there were already other fighters available on the consoles; good ones too. I personally like 2, however, because I felt it was much better balanced (though that may just be my own experience). 1 always felt a bit off; certain characters like Mitsurugi were both easy to use and incredibly powerful, whereas I felt characters like Xiangua were never in the same league. 2 brought the balance closer and we played it for months. It had a few bugs and strange creative decisions though (asymmetrical arenas, for one).

Personally, whilst I loved 1, if you asked which I would like to play right now, it'd be 2. I like to remember 1, but play 2.

[speedlolita]

Back in the day (2005) I had SC2 on Cube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox - just because of the exclusive characters. Would main Nightmare and play CPU up until the hardest difficulty and stay undefeats amongst my friends. This was before I got myself a Dreamcast and a copy of Street Fighter III: Third Strike mind - now I can barely stand 3D fighters.

What I hated most is Soul Calibur 3. They took my beloved Nightmare, chopped him up into Siegfried and "Nightmare" and shared his moves between the two of them. Going back to play Soul Calibur on the Dreamcast I saw that Siegfried was in that game, though I don't think he plays like the one in 3.

4 was kinda of enjoyable around the time I purchased an Xbox 360 - because a decent amount of my friends had it. As a game in itself, I didn't really think much of it though. My ex was interested in SC5 so we eventually got that too. Not much to say on that really, they attempted to add "super" moves of sorts but I don't think anyone actually ever played it online and the single player experience seemed limited at best.

Perhaps it is just a nostalgia thing, but 2 is the hands down winner for me.

[originalbadboy]

Dreamcast all the way ..

It may not have the bells and whistles of the newer entries .. but it is pretty much what you would expect from an SC game.

[shaffy_oppa]

While I can agree that 1 and 2 are great, I actually had the most fun with Soul Edge/Blade. By the time 1 was out my nan had passed away and we'd grown up a bit so I didn't see my cousins as often and thus we never played the later entries together.

Soul Edge/Blade is held in quite high regard by me and my siblings.

[Dogg Thang]

For me it's the Dreamcast SC1. The play felt so fluid to me and the timing seemed perfect. Sure, the newer ones look so much more polished but SC1 just felt right to me. For example, I could keep Maxi in constant motion through a battle on the DC and I could never do that on the later games with whatever they changed.

SC2 is a pretty close second for me though because it still played great but also looked amazing too. The environments are beautiful in that one. Even with newer systems and technical advancements, I don't think they beat the artistic design of these first two.

SC3 is when it all started to fall apart for me. The play mechanics lost all fluidity for me and the design went south, with characters almost looking Mortal Kombatish and losing the great design of the first two. They got into generic random characters in here or SC4 and I declared myself out when Vader and Yoda got involved. I did get the PSP one and it played pretty well and looked great on the system but they neglected to put in a proper single player mode.

[Panta Rhei]

SC1 had the best art direction and a cool Mission Mode, but SC2 is the best one. SC2 was more fun in multiplayer to me, than SC1 was. Looking past all its shortcomings I greatly enjoyed SC2 HD. Its still such a solid 3D fighting game, up there with the very best.

SC3 and SCIV were crap. SCV is an odd one, the gameplay is great but the game isn't finished and there are lots of characters missing. It could've rivaled 2 if it got an update.

[dvdx2]

The dc version - nothing compares, closely followed by soul edge

[Kit]

Dreamcast all the way ..

It may not have the bells and whistles of the newer entries .. but it is pretty much what you would expect from an SC game.

Yep, still a joy to play and it doesn't have nacrid.

[Asura]

Soul Calibur 3, 4 and 5 are all pretty terrible from my perspective. Just couldn't get into them.

I reserve particular ire for 3, though, because whilst 5 disappointed me a hell of a lot, 3 was the game when all the keraaazy kooky extra modes went overboard and compromised the existing game. It cemented the idea that Namco regard Tekken as their "serious" fighter and Soul Calibur as their more "anything can happen" one; kinda like Capcom with Street Fighter and Darkstalkers back in the Alpha days.

Not sure how many would agree, but I'd prefer they put all that **** in Tekken and focused more on SC as their "prestige" series (for lack of a better term). I've always felt its more fluid fighting style offers far more than Tekken, which I don't feel has moved on much since 3.

[Dogg Thang]

Yeah, I agree. For me all that extra stuff demonstrated a serious lack of faith in the actual core game. Whereas I think the core game was great and all it ever needed was a few new characters, some great backgrounds and maybe a few small extra tricks to justify each new release. I still rate the basic fighter package of story mode with a good ending per character coupled with a two player versus mode.

[Neon Ignition]

For me, to a degree for their time, it's:

SC > SE > SC2 > SC5 > SC4 > SC3

2 never clicked with me like the first two entries did. Series has been hobbling ever since

[Darwock]

Confused by speedlolita's comments... Siegfried and Nightmare have always been separate characters, ever since Soul Edge. Was Siegfried dropped in SC2 only? I dont recall that.

For me, the increasing emphasis on licensed characters and T'n'A killed the series around number 3. The only SC game I have played since then is the current free one, Lost Swords.

[speedlolita]

Siegfried is the alt costume of Nightmare - they share the same moveset and act as the same character.

I actually put some SC2 footage on YouTube 7 years ago.

[Asura]

Confused by speedlolita's comments... Siegfried and Nightmare have always been separate characters, ever since Soul Edge. Was Siegfried dropped in SC2 only? I dont recall that.

Yeah, SpeedLolita is right.

Siegfried was in Soul Edge/Blade

Nightmare and Siegfried were in Soul Calibur.
Siegfriend and Nightmare were closer as characters in SC1, because most of the hidden SC1 characters were largely clones of other characters with some changes, like Xiangua and Hwang, or Astaroth and Rock). Siegfried was a fair bit like Nightmare, but he had certain moves brought over from his appearance in Soul Blade, like his down>down>up vertical 3-hit combo.

Nightmare was in Soul Calibur 2, and had an alternate costume that was like Siegfried.
SC2's Nightmare merged some aspects of SC1's Siegfried and Nightmare with some new moves and general changes. Generally he was more like Nightmare from SC1 overall.

Nightmare and Siegfriend again appeared as separate characters in SC3.
The two characters, whilst notionally similar, were not the same as their SC 1 or 2 incarnations, but again had large changes to their moveset, sometimes actually exchanging moves.

They would go on to be combined and split up in various combinations in future games, but the point is that they're quite inconsistent. One of the "problems" with the SC series in general is that characters change significantly between the games, often with large movelist changes that ruin some of their more fun aspects. Virtua Fighter's characters, for example, change a fair bit each game, but AM2 are pretty good at always keeping what people liked about them each time.

As a Siegfried player, I empathise with Speedlolita on this.

Thing is, I don't really know the solution for Namco on this one, because characters have to change or the game gets stale. I think the problem in the Soul series is that the changes don't always make sense. V, for instance, makes huge changes to the parry/guard impact system which was one of the SC1/2's best gameplay elements. Stuff shouldn't change just for the sake of being different.