( 6 reviews )
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Posted: Oct 29 2007
Soul Calibur 2 is one of those rare games that a casual gamer can pick up and play without know anything about it. But it also is a very deep game for the dedicated gamer to and if you are one of those then this is a must have. When you get the guide and see how big it is you won't believe all SC2 has to offer.
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Posted: Dec 1 2006
Strategy Guides of fighting games are helpful, but not necessary. You can actually look online for guides and walkthroughs written by fellow fans and get more satisfaction. Some of the more grand, epic RPGs practically make it necessary to have a Strategy Guide in order to unlock their best features (Xenosaga and Final Fantasy are guilty of this). Those games, with their captivating but elaborate plot, will be difficult to play without a good quality strategy guide. However, a fighting game is fairly straightforward. Fight enough battles, spend countless hours in Practice Mode, memorize the Command List for your favored character, and you will unlock all of the features. This is a good guide to have for people who like to spend many hours per week playing Soul Calibur 2. It serves as a handy referrence to the needed inputs for each character move. For example, some of the characters have a very long string of inputs that you need to enter to execute their most damaging commands. Ivy is the prime example. In order to perform her best attack, Summon Suffering, the player is required to enter a string of commands within a short period of time. Not only that, but Ivy has to be standing in a particular location, relative to the enemy. It's easy to forget the commands. And having a handy strategy guide can help you find the answer without having to boot up your computer and go to the internet just to look it up. Think of a strategy guide as a luxury item. It's a very handy referrence material that can answer your questions without the inconvenience of having to browse the internet while you're in the middle of your precious gaming time.
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( 6 of 6 found this review helpful ) Posted: Mar 13 2004
First off, note that this is a "Fighter's Guide", not a "Strategy Guide." It includes a section on Weapon Master Mode, mostly to tell you about the weapons. It includes a section on the game features, mostly to tell you about how they affect the characters. The only reason to buy this guide is because of the quality analysis it offers in the character sections. Strengths, Weaknesses, effective tactics, useful combos, and most of the moves that were left out of the official movelist. However, the guide is obviously one author's opinion, and while Lummis has obviously played the game against good competition and knows advice for each character's strengths and weaknesses, he's not as brutal about abusable moves or difficult characters as he could be.As a case study, the guide recommends forward,A,A,A as a good move for Kilik to use when expecting a counter hit, and lists several reasons why this is so. It also includes a handy picture in case you weren't sure which move forward,A was. In the movelist, it includes forward,A,A:B+K, a superior followup on counter hit which is not in the in-game movelist, but does not note that it is a Just Frame attack requiring precise timing. Neither movelist includes forward,A,A:A+B+K, an alternative non-offensive followup to the move. In this case, as in many others throughout the guide, Lummis offers detailed information on how to improve your Soul Calibur game for players who aren't used to thinking critically about their character, and improves upon the game's training modes, but is not completely exhaustive.If you're a beginning or intermediate player struggling to beat your button-mashing friends and the master of your local arcade, this guide is great. It provides a lot more information than a simple movelist, and the vast majority of it is quality information. However, don't hesitate to consult other sources.
