Anniversary: Soulcalibur II Turns 20, And It’s Nintendo’s Best Cameo
Today in Japan, Bandai Namco’s Soulcalibur II turns 20 years old. The classic fighting game is a continuation of what many already considered one of the best fighting games ever, soulcalibur Dreamcast – Launched March 27, 2003 in Japan for the GameCube, Xbox, and PlayStation 2.
But come on, we all know that the GameCube version was the best version, and for one big reason – Hero of Time.
Not only is Soulcalibur II adored by fighting game fans around the world (I and II regularly compete to see who’s the best in the series), but each console version brought a specific cameo character to the game at a time when cameo characters were more of a novelty than an expectation ( Noctis and Negan from Final Fantasy XV the walking Dead V Tekken 7? Certainly).
The Xbox version gave us comic book anti-hero Todd McFarlane Spawn, while the PlayStation 2 was playable as Tekken’s Heihachi Mishima. Both fun crossover characters, of course. However, the GameCube received V A link from The Legend of Zelda, and it really doesn’t compare.
Link in Soulcalibur II was equipped with everything you’d expect – the Hylian Shield and the Master Sword; boomerang; bombs; his bow and arrows. It was the adult Link as you knew him, thrown into the alternate history fantasy world of Soulcalibur. And it was beautiful. Link also just doesn’t speak – so when a character tries to talk to him in arcade or story mode, it’s a bit of fun.
Brilliant crossovers aside, Soulcalibur II is simply an outstanding fighting game. It has a solid single-player campaign, tons of characters to play and unlock, and very fast paced and intense gameplay. It’s easy to learn, hard to master, and even today it looks absolutely amazing. In fact, it builds on everything that made its Dreamcast predecessor great and polishes it to a shine.
As of this writing, there are only two games in the Soulcalibur series, which began in 1996. Soul Edge (or Soul Blade) – were on Nintendo systems: Soulcalibur II and SoulCalibur Legends on Wii. And despite getting hd online re-released back in 2013 (which is now delisted from both the Microsoft Store and PSN), Soulcalibur II has never been re-released on a Nintendo system. This means that Link’s cameo is stuck on the GameCube.
But now we’re in the midst of a GameCube renaissance – Metroid Prime Remastered, Tales of Symphonia Remastered (despite some questionable quality issues), and Resident Evil 4 the remakes are all from that era and have been released in the last two months. And recently rumors of a remaster/compilation have reared their heads again. So please pay attention to Switch, Bandai Namco?
