I remember the day well... September 9th, 1999... the day the Dreamcast was released and the day Soul Calibur entered my life. Most people were really looking forward to getting their hands on the game and for good reason. Soul Calibur completely blew me away. Soul Calibur was a launch game and was basically never rivaled on the system. I recently upgraded my cables for my trusty old Dreamcast to the S-video cables and the game looked brand spanking new. Namco, not only made an excellent home conversion of the game, but they also made it a complete single player experience full of gameplay modes and secrets to unlock.

Now here we are, a few years later with the long awaited sequel to one of the most celebrated 3-D fighters on the market. Does Soul Calibur II live up to the original? Is it now cool to hate the series since it is widely available on all three systems? The most important question, however is simple: Are you going to have fun?

I opted for the Gamecube version mainly because of everyone's favorite elf, Link, being the exclusive character. Basically, although I am a huge Spawn fan, Link seemed like the most unique character for the game. Link is certainly ballsy enough to take on the cast of Soul Calibur II. The PS2 version was out of the question since I basically hate Tekken and the diaper wearing guy with no weapons didn't appeal to me at all. Hell, at least Yoshimitsu makes sense! If you want to disregard my review right now due to my disdain for Tekken, please feel free. I'm not going to pretend I'm some fighting game guru out here.

Soul Calibur is one of those great fighting games which is both accessible as well as deep, with gameplay which doesn't require a Master's Degree to feel out and has enough happening on the screen to keep everyone entertained. A lot of people like to call it a mindless button masher, and you know something, a lot of people play the game that way. A lot of people play every damn fighting game that way as well, so I don't see the point. Sure, you can mash away at the buttons, pull off some cool moves and combos and even have a little success, but if you pull that against a pro, you are dust.

Fans of the Dreamcast classic will feel quite comfortable with Soul Calibur II. The basic gameplay remains very similar with a few minor tweaks here and there, especially in the defensive skill sets available to you. You will also find a good bit of the original cast coming back for more action along with new faces such as Raphael, the fencer, and Cassandra, the little sister of Sophitia. There is even a little guest star action with the Todd McFarlane created Necrid character. In conjunction with Namco's newfound apparent relationship with Todd McFarlane, they are developing a Spawn game currently and Todd is releasing Soul Calibur 2 action figures which are actually quite nice. Overall, the character mix is relatively the same as the last game. Hidden palette swap characters return with Lizardman as well as the bland "Assassin" and "Berzerker" characters which you can only play in the Versus modes when you unlock them. Like any fighting game, you will find character you love to use and those who you can't stand.

Overall, it feels like Namco had the game a little more balanced the last time around. For example, Necrid has a surprising amount of speed to go with his relative size and tricky moveset. Link can really be a sleazy character if played a certain way. I'm sure everyone has their own little exploits and quirks, however it just feels like there are a few more of them in the game this time out. I don't think it is going to really ruin anyone's experience with the game, but purists will surely pick up on the differences.

Soul Calibur II looks fabulous. The character models are very detailed and Namco used a lot of color to really give the game a vibrant look. The Gamecube version looks fabulous... simple as that. I don't think anyone out there will say that Soul Calibur 2 is a bad looking game. There is one problem though, it isn't going to blow anyone away. The problem isn't the game, because it is stunning. The problem is that the Dreamcast version blew people away. It was a huge technological leap over what was available at the time and it remained one of the best looking games during the whole run of the Dreamcast's life. Today, we have games fighters like Virtua Fighter 4 and DoA3 which all show off the power of systems like the PS2 and Xbox respectively. Soul Calibur 2 loses a tiny bit of luster just because the competition got up to speed around them. Again, it's not a big deal, since the game looks incredible, it just isn't going to set the world on fire again like it did exactly 4 years ago today.

The sound is also very pleasing in the game. The over the top announcing is back and the lines are worse than ever with quotes such as: "A hero desires a sword, and a sword desires truth." Um... what!? Seriously... what the fuck is that even supposed to mean? I consider it part of the charm of the title. However, I do take issue with Namco giving an English dub to all the characters. I'm not one of those people who believes all Japanese anime should only be watched in Japanese. I'm sorry, the shit that characters say in fighting games is generally pretty stupid. We don't need to hear it being read by voice actors who sound really 'happy' to be there. The game lasted two seconds for me when I first heard Kilik spout out some bland line in English. Luckily, the option to turn the Japanese voices on was there in the options screen and all was well again. The worst thing was that they even made the English voice actors redo the yells, grunts and screams. I can't even begin to describe how horrible those were. Just remember to set the voices to "Japanese" right away before you even have your first fight in the game. You will be thankful you did.

The gameplay modes available in Soul Calibur II are practically overwhelming. Namco threw in a ton of modes from the start of the game and then after playing a little while you pretty much double them. Sure, a lot of them are just slightly tweaked version of the existing modes, but Soul Calibur excels at giving you a great value for your gaming dollar.

In addition to the standard arcade, survival and versus modes, Soul Calibur II introduces the Weapons Master mode, which shares some similarities to the previous "Mission Mode" found in the original. In Weapons Master mode, you play through a 'story' which takes place across a series of gimmick stages. In any given stage, you may have to face a series of opponents in succession, fight an opponent while being handicapped or defeat an enemy with a certain type of move. It tends to put up quite a challenge at some points and it is a great way to test out your skills. The allure of this mode is to earn experience points and money which allows you to unlock further levels, modes, costumes, extra characters and, of course, new weapons which you can actually use.

The extra weapons are a lot of fun and actually have an effect on the gameplay. Some weapons offer you more offense, more defence, health regeneration, etc. The weapons for Link run through a lot of familiar swords and shields which he has used throughout his gaming history. Hell... they even through in joke weapons like the bug catching net for Link and a termite ridden set of chucks for Maxi. For people who just love to unlock stuff, which I tend to get addicted to myself, you will have a lot of fun playing through to unlock that last costume for Talim or finding Nightmare's "Wooden Oar" sword. After your first time through the mode, you then unlock the Extra missions for each stage which provide an even greater challenge.

Soul Calibur II includes a lot of fluff as well, such as the unlockable profiles for each character that gives you access to their voice tests, back story etc. There are a bunch of art galleries which will be fun for people who are into that sort of thing as well as the return of the weapon katas which I really liked in the last game. I'm a little disappointed that we lost the custom intro creation mode from the last game which allowed you to remix the opening game cinematics and such. For some reason, I had way too much fun with that mode and I was sad to not see anything taking it's place in the sequel. I'm sure some goofy people out there will get a few giggles out of the voice test mode making it look like the people are doing dirty stuff since we all know that fighting games are notorious for including fan service type stuff for all the walking hormones out there.

Personally, I feel that Soul Calibur II is the fighting game to own this year, and there hasn't been a huge number of fighters out there to pick from. It's almost a no brainer to me. Despite the fact that it won't knock your socks off like it did 4 years ago, it's still a phenomenal game, it's just evolutionary instead of revolutionary. I would be hard pressed to find a fighter I enjoy more this year and I doubt it is going to happen. Namco has another hit on their hands with Soul Calibur II and the good news is that people will actually get to play it this time around. If you are a fighting game fan, do yourself a favor and drop Mortal Kombat's last piece of shit and pick this game up.