Soulcalibur II

Soulcalibur II (ソウルキャリバーII, Sōrukyaribā Tsū) is a 2002 video game developed by Project Soul and published by Namco and the third installment in the Soul series of weapon-based fighting games. It was originally released for the arcades, before being ported to the GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox in 2003. The game's plot revolves around an assortment of characters, each with the goal of either destroying Soul Edge or obtaining it to achieve personal goals. Compared to Soulcalibur, Soulcalibur II had improvements in graphics and the game system and introduced several new and guest characters.

The game was a major critical and commercial success. Its high-definition port, titled Soulcalibur II HD Online, was released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2013.

Gameplay

Key game system improvements include an easier "step" and "avoid" systems, arena walls (rather than ring-out ability on all sides) and wall-specific moves, a three-step Soul Charge system, a clash system that is used when two attacks would hit each other resulting in a white flash, Guard Break attacks which put a blocking player into a post guard-impact state, just frame moves awarding additional hits to players who could time their command inputs well, and a revised Guard Impact system that removed height-based Impact moves and instead used a more unified system (high and mid attacks are countered using Repels, mid and low attacks are countered using Parries).