Well upon getting the game and popping it into my GameCube to see what all the talk was about, the curiosity to see how the game would perform and the story line for a single play would be like was starting to tingle in my mind. Then I was very well pleased during the intro-video of the game, watching the players do they?re poses and everything.
Upon the end of the intro I was quite intrigued and continued on to venture through the menu?s to play a little practice to see if I still had it within myself to play a fighting game like I used to. At this point I was very happy with the control responses and that there were no slow down?s at all.
At this point I was realizing how great the graphics are going to be without a slow-down, I was very highly pleased that we are now in the days of 3D games that if there?s a round object its actually going to be round! This is a highly detailed game for its kind, I?ve never seen this before in a fighting game and I have a feeling that it won?t be seen again for a long time in this quality for a fighting game.
As I continued to venture through the menus I noticed an option of ?Weapon Master? so I went to this and saw that it was the single player play through. I right away started a game and wasn?t to pleased about how fast the text disappeared from when it appeared, I thought I was able to read pretty fast but this was ridiculous, I could only skim the pages before they disappeared.
Then the page turned and then I was able to see that I was on training and about to start a quest for the Soul Edge, during the training it went over a basic tutorial on how to control the characters and un-lock they?re special moves. After the tutorial lesson it sent me on to another stage where I got to try out these moves on a computer, I was pleased to see that the characters only did they?re basic moves until later on into the game, which it also has star ratings for the difficulty of the stage your about to accomplish.
While I would?ve rather enjoyed voices telling me the texts that were written or there would be a video to show what was happening, I still became immensely interested within the story line. As I got further in the game there were two other characters going after the Soul Edge as well, this I realized at the time will pose some challenges along the way in my fights.
Skipping the three subchapters and the story about getting kidnapped, to the end of the game now, I was somewhat expecting the last match to be a really true challenge in the game, but I found myself being frustrated with the boss more then being challenged. It seemed to prove that if you didn?t get the first major hits on him, you would most likely lose the match. I also found the cut-scenes during this match to get annoying after the 3rd attempts to beat this boss.
All-in-all Soul Calibur 2 is a worthwhile game for both the fighter loving gamers and even the people who usually stay away from the fighter?s like Mortal Kombat. I highly recommend this game for those of you who need a quick 4-hour fix (That?s how long my total first time through took me) on the un-bloody violence of a game like this.
