Retro|Spective 119: Soul Calibur

[teddymeow]

SC2 on the GameCube.

End of.

[Dogg Thang]

Soul Calibur was and still is amazing. It looked incredible and played incredible. The visual design was outstanding. It was a thing of wonder back in the day and it can still impress. For me, it’s easily the pinnacle of the series by a long way.

SC2 looked and sounded gorgeous. The backgrounds are beautiful and some of the costume design is lovely. And yes, Link was the best guest character. But I found it didn’t quite flow as well as the first. I don’t know enough about it to know exactly what changed but I could look way more impressive on the first SC than in 2. Maxi, for example, I could keep in constant motion in the first but I couldn’t in the sequel.

And then SC3 happened and two things became apparent. One was that the design was changing. New characters looked almost Mortal Kombat like and the costumes for old characters were over designed in some kind of western comic book way. I didn’t like how it looked. And the other thing was that it seemed like Namco didn’t believe the core game was enough and so started throwing in a bunch of extra stuff... at the expense of the main game experience. That is something that would only get worse. If I remember correctly, the game also got harder in this one and not in a fun way. I think it was something to do with the block mechanic but I honestly can’t remember the details.

And SC4 just compounded that stuff and that was the last SC for me. I was done. I no longer recognised the game I liked.

[monel]

Soul Edge was a lot of fun. back when I really wanted arcade type games on the PS. Edge master mode, I think, was different to how they implemented it in any of the sequels. The day I saw Soul Calibur at a friends, I decided to buy the Dreamcast, I went home and Tekken 3 instantly aged about 5 years.

People always rave about Soul Calibur 2, but like others in this thread I didn't enjoy it as much. After years I played the third and the speed makes it a lot of fun, if you play it with a decent lead on a good screen I think it looks pretty good for it's age, not sure about the art and design.... The fourth game was trash I bought it, hated the Star Wars cross over, must have played it 2 hours max.

The fifth was incomplete, that's all it felt like. Overall, with the first two games in the series they had something special but since then it's almost as though they don't want to outshine Tekken or something, or they just mismanaged and made bad decisions. I'd like to play the sixth but I don't play any games any more really, and with each new console cycle I feel I buy the same games over and over. I'd buy a PS5 for Ridge Racer, though.

ps- I love art but Ivy makes gaming look dodgy and childish to this day.

[Neon Ignition]

Ivy reminds me of the other bell curve the series took. When Soul Calibur launched the talk about the game was about how it exceeded the arcade version as a technical showcase. When Soul Calibur V launched the talk had become focused on whether Taki's chest size was increasing or decreasing with each entry which reflects how much they lost focus on it. As sexualised as Ivy was the series should never have entered the same discussion circle as Dead or Alive.


Clue for RS120: Inbound Monster Attack

[endo]

Football Manager!

[wakka]

Yes I'd certainly agree that Ivy gave a few young 'uns the old bell curve. Sorry, what?

[dvdx2]

for me the DC version was the best - still plays great and i regularly go back to it; Edge is abit clunky though and hasnt held up to well.

the rest are forgettable, although III is decent too

[Mayhem]

SC2 on the GameCube.

End of.

Still got my two Cube sticks for this heh.

[Neon Ignition]

Biggest concern with SC is that solid as SC6 was it still suggested Namco wasn't sure what to do with the franchise moving forward

[samanosuke]

For those who were unimpressed by SC2, did anyone play in on XBox in 720p? Was mightily impressive back in the day and wasn’t a million miles off PS3/360 graphics.

[Asura]

For those who were unimpressed by SC2, did anyone play in on XBox in 720p? Was mightily impressive back in the day and wasn’t a million miles off PS3/360 graphics.

I never played it in 720p, but I did play it in native widescreen, which was awesome. The Xbox version was probably the best one overall of those three; I think it even had surround-sound support. Link was probably the best guest character (with Heihachi the worst) but Spawn was pretty good, just broken for competitive play.

[Dogg Thang]

I can’t imagine visuals were a main problem for anyone with SC2. It looked gorgeous.

[Asura]

I can’t imagine visuals were a main problem for anyone with SC2. It looked gorgeous.

I seem to recall the PS2 version not looking great. The PS2 always seemed to struggle with the bold and brightly coloured titles; I'm not sure why but I'm sure there's a technical reason. Those games always looked better on Dreamcast, Xbox or GameCube for some reason.

[samanosuke]

I can’t imagine visuals were a main problem for anyone with SC2. It looked gorgeous.

I don’t disagree, but for those of us spoilt by the original SC on Dreamcast, it didn’t have that same jaw-drop moment upon loading it up for the first time. For me that changed when I first saw the XBox version running in 720p.