Soul Calibur 2 Official Fighter's Guide

by Michael Lummis and Paul Edwards

BradyGames' SoulCaliburII Official Fighter's Guide provides complete character coverage for all 25 fighters including Heihachi, Link and Todd McFarlane's Spawn. Tips for unlocking all the extra... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0744002567
• ISBN13: 9780744002560
• Release Date: August 2003
• Publisher: Bradygames
• Length: 175 Pages
• Weight: 0.98 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 8.5" x 10.9"

Customer Reviews

Helpful but not necessary

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.

A cut above other strategy guides

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.

Not a bad book but it falls short at times.

The Soul Calibur 2 Official Fighters Guide is a great "hintbook" but that doesn't neccessarily mean it's a "Strategy Guide". Which isn't bad. The guide is after all, a "Fighter's" guide and therefore it helps you to master the combat of Soul Calibur 2 but not the game itself. To begin, the game REALLY helps out for someone who isn't familiar with fighters or the Soul Calibur franchise for that matter. It helps you learn all the basics quite well. Each character has a combo's list and tips on how to use them. Detailing their strentghs and weaknesses and even tells you for some of them which characters are good to match against others. It doesn't mention characters to use all the time, but you get the general idea of who should match who. I also like that when reading this guide, its as if it's speaking to you. Therefore, it really is a good reference. Should you be a master at SCII then it probably won't matter, but let's just assume you actually got the guide to help you improve your game. A master player of Soul Calibur shouldn't need to buy this guide unless you're a collector. I do have a couple of gripes. The guide doesn't go in-depth on the many modes the game has. The Weapon Master Mode does a great job detailing what it is... but how do I go about it? Also, the fact that the combo guide and such is taken straight from the in-game is sad. It DOES tell you combos that aren't in the game itself at least. There's a moves list for all the characters as well. My last gripe is actually a big one. I LOVE that they have every character but for three specific characters (Assassin, Berserker and Lizardman) they give you a command list but they don't give you the strentghs and weaknesses of these characters. It's as if when they got down to those three they got lazy. A list of all the weapons for every charater is included as well as an art gallery. In short, where the guide fails to please is mostly at the fact that it's mostly a "Character" guide. It's great to learn about the games basics but if you want to master the game itself the guide will only get you halfway there. On the positive side+Covers every character+Strentghs and Weaknesses detailed+A great leg up for those wanting to improve their game in combat. +The text speaks to you+The Game Basics are great for those new to fighting games and Soul CaliburThe Bad-It is, sadly, only a "Fighters" guide and not a full blown "Strategy Guide"-Assassin, Berserker and Lizardman aren't detailed enough-Not going to help you master the game

The Magnificent Fighter's Guide

This guide had great information on players, for instance their strenghts and weaknesses. They even have a detailed character bio for each. The weapon gallery is also magnificent. I've already developed skills for Ivy's Alurane. Plus I've beaten Weapon Master Mode. You must get this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A good guide that falls just a little short.

Overall, this book is what you would expect from a guide. Detailed character fighting lists that include each unique character for each system, complete weapons list, etc. Overall, if you need help on mastering the characters, this is definately the way to go. However, this guide does not go into much detail on the Weapons Master mode. Nor does it provide strategies or tips for the different missions as well. Despite this, it is still a fairly decent guide, but if you need help with the weapon masters mode, you might need to consult something else.