Soul Calibur 2 Impressions

I'm a scrub in both the VF and SC worlds, but anyway,

- juggling damage scaling

Yeah I know. And the faq on this site regarding is appreciated. I think this scaling occurs in most other games, too. But you see, this is still dependant on the juggler, and not the jugglee. I'm talking about something that the jugglee can actively do (asides from choosing a heavy and trying not to get hit with a floater).


- realism

I agree there on how too much realism can make a dull game. I love SF (as it prob shows), and I sure am not complaining about the inclusion of the fireball in the series. And I'm not one of those folks yelling about how VF is "unrealistic depiction of martial arts". Because it is not, nor was it meant to be. Gameplay should have priority over realism, anyday. That said, some realism should, and can be easily translated into the gameplay, imho.


- TR et al

Yeah, it's great.


- VF4 system design

I recognize what you mean. But no game is perfect, and innovation is always good, and keeps the game from getting old. One thing that I never liked in the SC community was how they were always proclaiming that SC was "perfect". They still do.


- 8WR

I think the best way to describe it is, that in SC, 3D movement is practically another stance, imho. In VF4, you have your one std dodge attack. In SC, you get a number of options. And yes, both games allow doing nothing during your dodge, and then following that up with something else.


- range games

As vague as I may have been, you got my point, I think. I dunno, I like distance attacks. Matter of preference, I suppose. Keep away games don't have to be broken to the point of CE Bison. Yamazaki, Chang, Dhalsim in CVS2 are good examples. They have good keep away games, but they aren't broken, nor are they boring to play with or against. I realize that a smaller scale of such exist in VF4, but true long range attacks in VF4 are limited and very risky, as you've noted.


- attack inertia

So it's attack specific in VF4 as well, huh. Good to know. I wish it was a bit more obvious, though.

 

Hahahaha funny.
Maxi banned over a DoA2 argument I had with him.
i had just had an intervieuw with Itagaki back then where Itagaki had confirmed to me that yes DoA2 was running on a single Naomi board and DC rev would look exactly the same
He however claimed that he had just returned from Japan where he was toured around by Tecmo and had seen DoA2 running on dual Naomi boards, he further belittled me, questioned my credentials and had all the fanboys at the SC forum and the SC chat at his hands off course, two weeks later DoA2 went on test release and it was indeed running on single Naomi, he set himself up for mayor abuse and when it came couldnt handle what he had caused himself.
No particular assholenes on my part or annything, just the guy acting like a jerk and making up stuff and then being a big baby about it.

 

Oh BTW Kageh, you are right, I misread youre post, sorry bout that.

 

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
One thing that I never liked in the SC community was how they were always proclaiming that SC was "perfect". They still do.

[/ QUOTE ]It's perfect in the sense that tossing out the old system and installing a new engine's not going to accomplish much anymore. Lotsa people were whining that SC2 played like SC1 in a lot of ways. Well, duh. VF has taken a similar approach, but nobody really seems to mind there. (Shrug)

OTOH, lots of people were upset that SC2 hadn't added stuff that so far hasn't innovated the genre as a whole much at all. (Limb dismemberments, 3d obsticles, uneven terrain, DOA style non ringout ringouts etc...)

Those types deserve to be blown off IMO.

SC was balanced at least, and it had a solid engine that induced lots o yomi in high level play. Really can't ask for much more than that in a fighter right now. Short of adding something truly new like realtime physics, the genre doesn't have much room for growth anymore.

 

That's why I thought AM2 were such geniuses. Many of us also wondered how the fighting game genre could be "revolutionized" beyond VF3 the way VF2 revolutionized VF1, and VF1 to the genre in general.

AM2's answer: VF.net

Awesome baby!

Now I wonder what they can do to VF5...

 

I don't think that many will argue that SC wasn't a great game that was very fun to play. But on a personal level, I never did think that it was that balanced (Mitsu and Taki come to my mind), but I understand that at high levels of play, the game does become more balanced. And from what ice-9 is saying, it appears that this initial hump to overcome to reach a balanced state, is even higher in SC2.

I think the genere still has room for improvement. Btw, imho, asides from VF.net, Kumite in PS2 VF4, although looked upon with disdain by many hardcore VF players, _is_ a solid innovation. It really is the best that a single player fighter has come at the moment.

Anyway, I personally think the genere can use some development in the area of projectiles. Projectiles just add more depth in a fighting game. It's what made MVC2 such a hit, whereas MVC1 was tepid at best. And so far, none of the 3D fighters have quite done it. I've tried Mace, Rival Schools, Star Gladiators or something like that and SFEX (ugh). I realize that it'd take some work to incorporate such into the VF/SC engine, and perhaps it can't be done. But I have some hopes in Capcom Fighting All Stars... http://ps2.ign.com/articles/369/369824p1.html

 

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
I don't think that many will argue that SC wasn't a great game that was very fun to play. But on a personal level, I never did think that it was that balanced (Mitsu and Taki come to my mind), but I understand that at high levels of play, the game does become more balanced.

[/ QUOTE ]Uh, ok...

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
I think the genere still has room for improvement.

[/ QUOTE ]Probably so. It just hasn't been done fairly well if so. Dressing characters up in special costumes seems to be considered an innovation by too many people (sigh)

Cheap band-aid to extend hollow gameplay more often than not.

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
Btw, imho, asides from VF.net, Kumite in PS2 VF4, although looked upon with disdain by many hardcore VF players, _is_ a solid innovation. It really is the best that a single player fighter has come at the moment.

[/ QUOTE ]It's a start. VF2's Expert mode accomplished about the same things though. Just without putting clown noses on Lau in the process. /versus/images/icons/wink.gif

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
Anyway, I personally think the genere can use some development in the area of projectiles.

[/ QUOTE ]Hmm... Personally, I don't want VF to play like MvC2.

I don't call that innovative, I call that retreading terrotory already done to death.

Powerstone did it nicely as far as it goes tho.

 

Hell, no, I don't want VF/SC to play like MVC2, either. I don't even play MVC2. I just pointed that one out, because the popularity disparity between MVC1 and MVC2 is HUGE, and this is largely due to the inclusion of the assists in MVC2, which are basically projectiles.

 

You read a few too many Domination 101 columns... /versus/images/icons/wink.gif

Seth's off his nut when it comes to commenting on 3d games. (Comes from having no real experience with them... )

 

Aye
indeed he is

 

You have to air control in the proper direction to defeat the juggle. (AC's been toned down from SC1 incidently) For that matter, there are combos that are insured provided you do certain things like delay an attack in case they try to air control (some moves track better than ohters etc.)

AC after the second hit allows you to recover in any direction while you're in the air, but it's not a get out of jail free card. There's still hang time to consider etc. OTOH, it can be very helpful IN SC1, Lizardman had a fairly easy to do two hit combo that'd RO you from nearly the center of an arena. You had one direction you could AC that would save the RO. Discouraged the combo's practice, since a proper AC recovery left Lizardman with his back to the opponent...

There's also the G recovery that lets a player in a float to recover standing. The evil, dirty WCM *cough* illustrates the mixup potential of that in the Maxi skill project on www.guardimpact.com. (Which is really quite good, and answers a lot of the questions in this thread. AC, Oki Ura etc are all demonstrated in the vid.)

 

OMG, how embarrassing.

I read that article years ago - I guess it's still floating around, and apparently, it has made an impression on my fragile mind. Egads. But ya know, Seth wrote that article before all the rolling stuff, when fireball traps were still quite dominant, and rush downs not as prevalent. So some of the stuff that in that article is probably antiquated, even by 2D standards.

But whether I was impressioned or otherwise, I still kinda believe that projectiles can help the 3D genere.

I think there was another 2D/3D article written, I think by John Choi, and he was saying that the difference is the general fuzziness of 3D games, as opposed to the more concreteness of 2D. That's not saying that the "fuzziness" is bad, it's just something that many 2D players never got used to. I tend to agree with that article moreso than Seth's.

If _I_ had to write an article regarding, I think the biggest 2D/3D contrasts lie in the block levels. I.e., in 2D terms, ALL mid level attacks in 3D games are "overheads". And in conjunction, you can't throw crouched opponents with a regular throw. These two things mess up a 2D players head like you would not believe. At least for me it did.