The Shrine

The whole game just feels longer for no good reason. Playing computer seems to be even more finding the magic moves that they don't happen to block than the last two games. Every character with even a slight pause in their speech uses the '...' which seems annoying. I also don't like how they tried to add story to each stages with most of them ending up as, "You decided to see if X will give you a clue, but you were assaulted by Y, and you found nothing anyway." The Chronicle of the Swords mode seems needlessly long and I got bored with it after chapter 2. They also assumed certain things happen in the last game (Siegfried won, Raphael got cursed, etc) but they never tell you that and just expect you to know when you run into Raphael. Of course if you check his bio you'd know, but I don't think you have to do that.

On the plus side, Siegfried is cool, and the game is still as pretty as it alway has been. Music, as always, is top notch too.

Don Wang wrote:The whole game just feels longer for no good reason. Playing computer seems to be even more finding the magic moves that they don't happen to block than the last two games. Every character with even a slight pause in their speech uses the '...' which seems annoying. I also don't like how they tried to add story to each stages with most of them ending up as, "You decided to see if X will give you a clue, but you were assaulted by Y, and you found nothing anyway." The Chronicle of the Swords mode seems needlessly long and I got bored with it after chapter 2. They also assumed certain things happen in the last game (Siegfried won, Raphael got cursed, etc) but they never tell you that and just expect you to know when you run into Raphael. Of course if you check his bio you'd know, but I don't think you have to do that.

On the plus side, Siegfried is cool, and the game is still as pretty as it alway has been. Music, as always, is top notch too.

I have the game as well, though I have had little time to play it since I got it. I love the series, and will get all the games. In truth though, I know I will never play any of the sequels nearly as much as I did the original on Dreamcast (must have played single/multiplayer for somewhere between 150 and 350 hours total, that is more than all other fighting games I have ever played combined in my lifetime).

dreamcast is still the best version and the souls mode has a problem with corrupting memory cards

I just picked it up today.

The standard mode feels uneven to me...I also don't know why they had to go and switch playing styles around. Ivy feels totally different to me in particular (no surprise - some of her moves are gone and others are completely different button combos, I believe other characters may be similar), and I don't like the change much. Battles with Ivy feel like a race to get into whip state quickly, and stay there, now. Also, I almost could have done without the story mode part of the game - just leave out the damn load time.

That being said, it's fucking beautiful, probably the most visually impressive title I've seen on the PS2, and the new characters are fun. (I like the hula-hoop girl...what's her name again?) The character creator is interesting as well, and I've been playing with that; I'm hoping that later one is allowed to make custom characters using the weapons the main characters use. That would be rather bad-ass, since I'd like to have a custom hula-hoop guy character to use for matches against other people.

I'm going to be working on unlocking things over the next few weeks. Once I have it all unlocked, I'll reevaluate it. If the custom characters are as powerful a feature as I think they may be - if custom characters can learn any weapon style in the game - I'll have a lot of fun with it.

On one final note, I think of myself as a pretty tolerant guy...but did anyone else find the male dancer's default "tambourine" stance to be less reminiscent of an epic fantasy battle, and more reminiscent of, say, a gay nightclub in South Miami Beach? I have this awesome character, and I'm almost ashamed to fight other people with him. Jumping around from side to side with tambourines in hand is not my idea of an imposing fighting stance...

Ivy did used to be one of my favourite characters..... It was actually during Soul Calibur 2 that I started using her significantly less though.