SoulCalibur II

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Introduction

SoulCalibur II Logo


Soulcalibur II is a 2002 fighting game developed by Project Soul and published by Namco and the third installment in the Soulcalibur series of weapon-based fighting games. Soulcalibur II was released on the Namco System 246 arcade board in 2002 before being ported to the PlayStation 2, GameCube, and Xbox in 2003.

Like other titles in the Soulcalibur series, the community uses numpad notation.

Story

The wave of slaughters that terrorized Europe reached a sudden end. The knight in azure armor, Nightmare, and his followers were successful in collecting enough souls and were about to start the restoration ceremony on the ruins of the once-proud Osthreinsburg Castle. But just as the ceremony was to start, three young warriors assaulted the castle. In a matter of time the cult was defeated and Nightmare stood in front of the young warriors wielding Soul Edge. After an intense battle Nightmare fell, but then the evil soul inside Soul Edge sent the young warriors into a vortex of hellfire and stood to confront them. As a result of Soul Edge's evil aura, Krita-Yuga revealed its true form: that of the Holy Sword, Soul Calibur.

The intense battle ended with the victory of the holy sword, but at the collapse of the vortex of Inferno, both swords along with the Azure Knight Nightmare were sucked in a void and expelled in another place. Siegfried Schtauffen, who was until a moment before the Azure Knight, reclaimed his own mind. Recognizing his sins, he set on a journey of atonement. Still the blade held a strong bond, and every night it took control of the body and took souls of those nearby. The efforts made by the young knight were fruitless, and four years later the Azure Knight returned.

Around those times various warriors came into contact of the blade's remaining fragments, revealing Soul Edge's ultimate survival. After its defeat the fragments began causing chaos and evil to grow in the world. Driven either to possess or destroy the evil sword, each warrior embarks on a new journey, while Nightmare starts his rampage anew, seeking souls to gain the power to restore Soul Edge once again...

The Characters

Game Mechanics

One life bar=240 Health Points

There are three attack heights

Highs

Can be crouched under. Can be Gaurd Impacted by using forward+gaurd.

Mids

Must be stand guarded. Can be Gaurd Impacted by using forward+gaurd or back+gaurd.

Lows

Must be crouch guarded or jumped over. Can be Gaurd Impacted by using forward+gaurd.

Special Mids

Can be guarded standing or crouching. Some can be jumped over.

There are three attack types

A

Horizontal attacks. It is not guaranteed that these moves will track, sometimes they do.

B

Vertical attacks. These will always beat out A attacks. Even some of these moves track.

K

Kicks.

There are 4 counter hit types

Attack

120% damage as well as special properties such as knockdown, stun, or combo state

8 way run

115% and no properties are added, this is different from later Soulcaliburs and the primary reason why this is a better game :)

Sidestep

118% damage

Backdash

140% damage as well as special added properties, movement is generally safe except backdashing


Moving and Guarding

8 way run exists, it's ok, but you primarily want to use this to enable certain moves. You can evade if you time 8WR against a move correctly, making you invincible to that damage instance. If guard is pressed during a step correctly, you will guard during the step. Advancing guard reduces pushback, retreating guard adds pushback. These properties are dependent of the weight classes of the character.

Throws

Throws are teched with either A or B. All throws look the same, so throws are teched based on riskVreward, such as ringout and damage. TER is a mechanic that gives 14 frames to anyone who presses downforward or downback during throw break scenario

There are 3 soul charge levels

Level 1: Yellow Green

Level 2: Green Blue

Level 3: Blue>Grants backdash counter

Characters have gaurd crushes and unblockables granted from soul charge as well as soul charge cancels. Soul charge unblockables can still be GI'ed

Gaurd Impact

Forward GI gives minor advantage while back GI give major advantage. The only way to defend after being GI'ed is to GI back or to 2G, which opens the 2G'er up to throws and lows.

Basic Strategy

Tier List

Feel free to elaborate/clarify/change/debate this tier list. It has been updated based on MoneyMuffin's tier list.

This list only includes characters available on every console. Spawn, Link, and Heihachi are intentionally left out in this list to maintain consistency.

S-

Lizardman (goes here if his throw glitches are left unbanned)
Ivy

A+

Xianghua
Nightmare

A-

Talim
Sophitia
Mitsurugi
Astaroth
Assassin
Voldo
Yoshimitsu
Cassandra

B+

Cervantes
Berserker

B-

Seong Mina
Kilik
Raphael
Maxi
Taxi

C

Yunsung
Necrid