Namco Bandai have announced SoulCalibur II HD Online, everything you need to know is already in the title. It’s Namco taking the most generally well liked SoulCalibur game, running it at a higher resolution and throwing in an online mode to boot which is said to feature a brand new online infrastructure overseen by the Project Soul development team. Somewhat strange if you ask me, SoulCalibur V features one of the best online netcodes around, what’s the reason behind the change?
Now that we’ve got the good stuff out of the way, let’s focus on the disappointment and it has to do with the guest characters. SoulCalibur II HD Online has been confirmed for XBLA & PSN but not Wii U meaning we won’t be seeing Link return. Instead both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 owners will be receiving the PlayStation 2 version of the game, basically everyone gets Heihachi since that Spawn license has likely run out.
All of the features seen in SoulCalibur II are set to return in HD Online so unlike SoulCalibur XBLA which dropped Mission Mode, Weapon Master mode will be back. As you can see in the trailer above the game is running in widescreen so again, another big improvement over the rubbish SoulCalibur XBLA port.
SoulCalibur II isn’t my favourite game in the series, I like it more than III & IV but less than I & V. Watching the trailer does bring back some memories and with me being a huge fan of the series, it’s a day one purchase for me. There is something worth noting however, this game obviously isn’t SoulCalibur Lost Swords so it looks like why may still have another SoulCalibur related announcement in the future. Hopefully it’s an update to the criminally under looked SoulCalibur V, that game definitely deserves an expansion.
SoulCalibur II HD Online will be available on XBLA and PSN sometime in fall 2013 as a digital download. Namco stop being dicks and just announce a Wii U version, I’m willing to bet there’s tons of Nintendo fans eager to throw money your way so long as their precious Link is back.
