Who's your favorite Soul Calibur II Character

[Vostok 7]

Man, you guys actually use almost all the characters in SC2! Makes me wanna go see a shrink cuz I only use Taki and Xianghua long time.

I haven't touched some. Heihachi, Nightmare, Ashtaroth, Necrid, etc. etc.

I used Mitsurugi once, but he's a little slow for my tastes. Kilik is nice... I like his reach.

But I don't dig the male characters much. Some of them are a little to... bishonen... for my tastes.

Vostok 7

[areaseven]

Which opponent do you usually pick on practice mode? I usually choose Rock because larger characters are easier to lay the smack down on.

[Abombz!!]

He's basically just like Tekken Heihachi.

Not really that fun to play for me.

The basic rule of thumb between my friends and I is "[Anyone but Heihachi]"

Suggestions-

Inuyasha

Sesshomaru

Sango(Skin for Taki)

assorted Naruto characters who's names I don't know...

Darth Vader

Luke Skywalker

Obi-Wan Kenobi

Yoda

Anyone but Heihachi

Could Strife

Sephiroth

Gundams (DeathScythe etc)

Evangelions (Prog knife, whatever...)

Stikfas(replacement for the lame Charade)

Immortals - Duncan/Connor Macleod/Ramirez/The Kurgan

Nicholas D. Wolfwood

Blade

Anyone but Heihachi

A Giant Bee

Alien

Predator

Batman

Bruce Willis w/ Katana (Pulp Fiction)

Anyone but Heihachi.

See? It really works!

Sesshomaru would kick so much ass in SCII!!

[bandit29]

I like to use Mitsurugi and Taki the most....big surprise lol

Rock, Hwang, Sophitia and Kilik are pretty good. Maxi "seemed" better in Soul Calibur. Bring back Li Long!!!

Heihachi just sucks. Hopefully they'll never be a Tekken VS Soul Calibur game.

[Vostok 7]

I used Mitsurugi yesterday but he's a little too... slow... for my tastes. I prefer fast over slow and heavy. Though Xianghua has a nice mix of speed and damage.

Vostok 7

[David Hingtgen]

Nightmare is far faster than most people think. It's just more fun/flashy to do most of the slower high-power moves (and the computer sure does). But the main thing is just to really nail down what moves are the stance-switching ones. Stances are far more important to Nightmare than to Mitsurugi or Ivy. Nightmare's various inifinite stance-switch combos rock, especially against newbies who've never seen him do more than a 2-hit combo. And with Nightmare, 6 hits is just about instant death... Standard->Knight Behind->Low->Side->Side Reverse is the most useful, but most limited (few variations, predictable). Usually skip Side reverse to go to low or behind again, or go to Behind again right from Low. (Alternating Behind and Side is the fastest, scrubbiest way to get an infinite stance-switching combo, you've probably seen even the CPU do it--useful for a quick short one, but not in the long run, unless you're agaist total scrubs)

I just started playing the US version after taking like a 4-month break from the JP one, so I'm having to re-learn a lot of Nightmare's stuff. (None of the FAQ's seem to play at all like I do, I just go through the move list a lot looking to see what goes into what stance, and build combos from there)

For every fighting game there is, I usually pick one of the faster (but rarely fastEST) characters, but I really like Nightmare. Still, I'm way better with Sueng Mina.

Edited December 18, 2003 by David Hingtgen

[Dat Pinche Haro!]

mitsurugi is one of my favorites. i've played SCII but i don't own it. instead, i have the old dreamcast SC game. it plays very well for an older game. with tons of galleries and missions, it's hard to let it down at first. downside, you don't get a large selection of weapons (only get to use 3), speeds at times are way off, and not all the characters have 3rd outfits

if you'd played SCII you'll also notice a speed difference between all of nightmare's costumes and weapons you use. me and a friend of mine noticed that nightmare in the siegfried outfit was noticably faster than the other two...and this is using the default soul edge sword for all 3

i wish they made siegfried another character instead of just just having him as nightmare but in a different outfit.

[Omni Existence]

Ivy...no quips or qualms about it.

[Druna Skass]

Nightmare...

But I'm fairly decent with Rafael, Mitsurugi, and Sophitia.

I've been good with Siegfried/Nightmare since Soul Blade on PS1, he's the first guy I got good with.

If I want to be cheap and piss my friends off I like killing them with two combos using either the Soul Calibur or the Complete Soul Edge.

I usualy practice on Talim since she's the complete opposite of Nightmare, and annoying to the point where I can't stop hitting her. Also Charade is another character I beat up on in practice mode.

What's the highest you guys have gotten is extra survival?

I was only able to get up to 60 wins with Nightmare and the Soul Calibur.

[Max Jenius]

Nightmare is faster than most people think...

But he's just so easy to GI. Especially w/ Mitsurugi's easy GI moves. ESPECIALLY with his relic GI, and that does pretty decent damage.

I hate Talim though, he weapons are so short that I can't see her coming really. With Talim, I avoid the GI and just focus on using Miturugi's range to keep her at bay.

[Max Jenius]

Just went back and played Soul Calibur 1 and Soul Edge again... man... we've come a long way. I can't even bear to look at them anymore.

Plus there's more moves!

[gnollman]

Ivy and Astaroth are my principles. Astaroth was an easy change from Rock in Soul Edge and SCI, but I only picked up Ivy in SCII. I'd say she's my best....

But I still can't buffer the CS and SS moves for crap.... my major weakness with Ivy.

[David Hingtgen]

That reminds me:

Who do you hate? I really, really, really hate fighting Voldo. CPU or human, I just hate him.

[gnollman]

Raphael and Voldo. Raphael just covers so much ground so quickly, he can be hard for me to deal with. And Voldo, well, because he's Voldo. No-one around here plays him, so I don't really have a good grasp on his combos and ugly stuff.

[Max Jenius]

I hate Xianghua... I still haven't figured out all of her mixups. I just usually blow it and get caught with my pants down.

Extremely Hard computer opponents are easy if you exploit their weaknesses. If you throw an attack and intentionally miss by a slight margin, they will get stuck in the GI animation and you can combo the bejesus out of them.

Voldo is interestin because he's so weird, but even he has patterns.

My playstyle goes like this:

I never look at my own character.

I never look at my health bar(rather pointless because you're just as dangerous to the opponent with a sliver or a full bar)

I ALWAYS am watching my opponent/ the space between us. The key to the whole game is GI's and memorizing your opponents patterns and animations.

Learn to GI and know when to use them and what moves they cover.

If your opponent isn't doing what you want them to do - MAKE THEM. Often I use my mist kick to get the opponent in the habit of blocking low, then I do a big damage overhead attack. This also comes in handy for using Astaroth's low-throws and/or his spinning throw(Posiedon ... something?)

Finally: Have multiple attack strategies. Doing the same 5 moves over and over may work initially, but people get used to it. So remember to mix it up if your opponent seems to be blocking and guard impacting everything. For GI's I usually switch to a high attack if my lows keep getting GIed.

[Mr March]

That reminds me:

Who do you hate? I really, really, really hate fighting Voldo. CPU or human, I just hate him.

Cervantes. Cheating prick!

[Vostok 7]

Voldo and Cervantes. They're the only ones to get an upper hand against me in Arcade, other than Lizardman. And Voldo is just creepy.

I also hate playing 2p vs. Raphael, Kilik and Maxi.

Weapon master mode is quite fun, but the level where you have to push Charade off the ledge sucked too... I'm playing through Weapon Master with Taki, though I had to use Talim to get Charade off the ledge.

Vostok 7

[NSJ23]

That reminds me: 

Who do you hate?  I really, really, really hate fighting Voldo.  CPU or human, I just hate him.

Cervantes. Cheating prick!

He's one of my favorites to play as, But god I hate fighting against his cheating ass.

[JB0]

That reminds me:

Who do you hate? I really, really, really hate fighting Voldo. CPU or human, I just hate him.

Voldo. And Astaroth(is he back for SC2?).

voldo throws me off with all his wierd motions, and Astaroth is just good at smacking me around like a rag doll.

[Druna Skass]

The character I hate fighting the most has to be Necrid, cheap bastard. I hate when they make characters that have everyone's moves, like both the slow brutal people (like Nightmare) and the fast attackers like Taki.

[Mr March]

That reminds me: 

Who do you hate?  I really, really, really hate fighting Voldo.  CPU or human, I just hate him.

Cervantes. Cheating prick!

He's one of my favorites to play as, But god I hate fighting against his cheating ass.

I sympathize my friend. Only good thing about fighting Cervantes, he's very vulnerable to the upper guard impact. Still, he is one cheating bastard

[Druna Skass]

I've noticed with Cervantes he's nowhere near as cheap as he was in Soul Edge. I've never really had that hard of a time with him as long as I didn't hit the ground.

[Solscud007]

Cervantes all the way always my all time fave.

[Max Jenius]

Cerv is a piece of cake. Well, for me... Xianghua... is a little more difficult.

[myk]

Ivy, if only for the reason that she's a hot chick...

[Vostok 7]

Ivy, if only for the reason that she's a hot chick...

Most honest answer, ever!

Vostok 7

[Max Jenius]

Ivy, if only for the reason that she's a hot chick...

Yeah, I use pink Ivy. The "I'm a whore" outfit is too distracting.

[Vostok 7]

My friends saw her in her pirate outfit and said "that's a guy."

Vostok 7

[Jolly Rogers]

Well, I finally caved and bought mine last night for $32 + tax (got Best Buy to match Target's price, then used the $5.00-off coupon that came with the gift card). Didn't like the aesthetics of the character designs, especially the "facelift" they gave Mitsurugi. Heihachi turned out to be a lot of fun to play. Even without a weapon he's still deadly. My favorite newcomer has to be Raphael. Range, speed, he's got it all. Can't believe they neutered Maxi. He used to have decent range in the previous game.

The stages were definitely improved, but I prefer the character models from the original Soul Calibur better.

[David Hingtgen]

I think it's pretty universal that nobody likes Ivy's 2nd outfit, but the 3rd more than makes up for it.

Strange, her red "pirate" outfit in SC1 is so much better than the blue one in SC2. If they'd just "tweaked" the red one for SC2 like they did for her "default" costume, it would have been great.

This threads pic-less so far, so hopefully this attachment's OK:

See, her red one rocks.

[Druna Skass]

The thing I don't like about Ivy's second outfit is that it makes her shaped kind of weird with big-ass shoulders and a thick chest. Doesn't really look femenin. I wish they had gone with her consept design for the second one, she had a black military style outfit with a matchin beret and it was all form fitting.

[Vostok 7]

I think it's pretty universal that nobody likes Ivy's 2nd outfit, but the 3rd more than makes up for it.

Strange, her red "pirate" outfit in SC1 is so much better than the blue one in SC2. If they'd just "tweaked" the red one for SC2 like they did for her "default" costume, it would have been great.

This threads pic-less so far, so hopefully this attachment's OK:

See, her red one rocks.

Yeah... Now that's much better.

Vostok 7

[Southpaw Samurai]

Perhaps obviously (okay, my avatar has been photoshopped a bit), but Mitsurugi was probably my favorite character when I first played Soul Blade. I would also alternate with Taki and Voldo because they were so different and their styles often through my friends off. Over the newer versions, I've grown less enamored with good old Mitsurugi. Not sure why...perhaps it's the 'makeover' as has been mentioned, but I think it's just because there's so many fun characters to play I've become less focused. Still enjoy and do well using him, Taki, and Voldo (I think Voldo's creepiness distracts others more than Ivy's voluptuousness). I very much dig Xianghua and Rafael (what can I say, I like the swordsmen (er...swordspeople, I guess), whether it be kenjutsu, tai chi, or fencing (well, video game representations of the arts, at least)...I even liked Sigfreid back before he back Knightmare...still hope one day for at least a partial redemption, although the Sigmeister wasn't really ever a 'good' guy).

In my usual circle of friends, I'm virtually unbeatable as Rafael or Mitsurugi (maybe that's my declining love for the M-man...because I've been practically banned from playing him) with the one exception of one friend and Kilik (he used to be as deadly with Li Long, so it's no surprise he adopted a new character, even if it's not the Li Long wannbe Maxi).

I'll have to agree those that had said it's difficult to pick out a definite favorite. the Soul Edge series has some very fun characters, both in design and the way they play.

[Druna Skass]

I like these two concepts of Ivy better, than the final designs.

[gnollman]

What book are you guys getting these SC pictures from? Very nice....