The Soul Still Burns

[rossatdi]

Long, long ago, Susan Arendt was a badass lizard.

Wow, brilliant piece - mostly because of a similar experience with the same game - albeit a less romantic one.

I remember Christmas 2000. My parents got me and my brother a Dreamcast (and extra controller) and family friends (traditional Xmas morning visit) got us Soul Calibur.

We barely touched the other games, even got my parents and their friends playing.

Ten years later, whenever me and him are near a console that can play a version of SC we do.

Rules:
1) First to 10 victories wins.
2) Random character ONLY unless (3)
3) When a player has suffered 9 loses he may choose his character.

It would almost always come down to 9-9, me with the mercenary Mitsurugi, him with the noble Kilik. Katana vs Staff will forever be one of the closest bonds me and him share.

There was some experimentations with Hwang and Cervantes. But it always came back to samurai vs monk.

 

[Susan Arendt]

Also am I the only one that read the title in the announcer from Soul Caliber's voice?

I sure hope not.

 

[miasma88]

Mine was the tony hawks games, well after underground 2 i stopped caring. But i could rack up 8 million point combos and my brother would place bets on me against his mates, we made quite a bit of money out of it.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

I was only ever good with Xianghua in the original.

 

[jebussaves88]

Why was it that Astaroth was a workable character when you got to know him, but as soon as you touched Rock, you were pretty much signing your own death warrent for both rounds? Could anyone work that idiot?

 

[Wounded Melody]

I used to beat every guy at Street Fighter 2 in the arcade...ah the good old days...

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

Why was it that Astaroth was a workable character when you got to know him, but as soon as you touched Rock, you were pretty much signing your own death warrent for both rounds? Could anyone work that idiot?

Me and my brother got pissed off at SC because the best time either of us ever beat the Arcade Mode was with Rock, and we could NEVER top it with any other character and neither of us have any fricken idea how it happened.

 

[ZZoMBiE13]

I used to be very proud of my skills with Cervantes. I could play any of the characters, well, but Cervantes and I were unbeatable in my little circle of friends. People would put the controller down if I even hovered over his icon for too long on the character select screen. You're right, it did feel good!

If there is one thing I miss about my younger days as a gamer it's that feeling. Pushing 40 now and my reaction times aren't what they used to be. I can still enjoy a good fighter like SF4, but I'll never have that unbeatable feeling again. Certainly not in a world where the challengers are almost never the same (i.e. online fighters SUCK compared to the old arcade days). Which of course is why I made this: http://zzombiexiii.deviantart.com/art/contest-entry-strip-2-156914586 when the webcomic contest was on. Sigh.

 

[Aptspire]

Before there was the Internet (and when I had a hard time understanding English) I beat Jurrasic Park on the Game Gear. I was just messing around on the level selection map, with 3/4 of the game done, and I pressed '1' on each completed level. I then went to do Brachiosaurus (by then I understood that the more parts you finished, the harder it got, so I finished with the easiest level) finished it, and was really surprised when I didn't get the "The park is now closed" screen. I was on the map, and all four quarters were done. That's when I moved to the center of the island that I saw it: Tyrannosaurus Rex. I just couldn't believe my eyes. That thing wasn't an herbivore like the Brachiosaurus or the Triceratops, or even a small carnivore like the Pteranodon or the Velociraptor. No...that was the REAL challenge. I got through the car chase minigame (the second time I ever got to the boss of it) and moved on to the true game. Confusing doors, multiple climb points and hidden velociraptors were waiting for me there. On my first time, I just barely got to the final boss: The T-Rex...I started with the straight gun, which didn't do any damage. and worse, every time he touched me, it would give me double damage! so, I switched to the upper diagonal gun, and then I saw it: the boxes above would fall on his head! After a few tries, I finally defeated him. And I felt so proud of myself!
Here's the intro: [link]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wslq1hlFGPw[/link]
Also, when I beat the hard road to the Full Andross boss on StarFox on N64. In this one, however, I was slower than everyone I knew by a year or so

 

[Nuke_em_05]

"I ain't as good as I once was, but I'm as good, once, as I ever was"

...sorry.

I got pretty good at... not much. My wife pwns at Grifball, and otherwise has no place in an FPS, though.

 

[Shynobee]

I was the same way with Soul Calibur 2, my first real fighting game. After mastering Yun Seong, I branched out to basically every character. I picked up Soul Calibur 3 as soon as it came out, and I know exactly what your talking about. It felt great to be able to just wreck anyone, even for the few short months that I was really good. Ahhh.. nostalgia.

 

[Keesor]

Ah yes, Soul Calibur, it is still one of my favorite series. Just don't bring up Xianghua's "toe poke" maneuver. It still makes cringe and drop my controller when it performed on me.

 

[DragonsAteMyMarbles]

That brought back memories of when my brother and I would spend hours playing whichever Shoul Calibur game was most readily accessible, beating the hell out of each other with Edgemaster/Charade/Olcadan (since one of us would invariably pick a character the other couldn't beat). Good times.

Then SCIV came out and forgot to bring a "chameleon" character, forcing us to pick "random" - which took a lot longer. And there was no option to make both characters invincible for ringout matches. Damnit!

 

[Pink_Pirate]

It's been exactly like this for playing Blazblue. I've alwyas like fighting games, but never enough to really master one, although i remember sinking hours upon hours on Budokai 3 with my brother, i never really played against anyone else. Blazblue has changed all that for me, im completely addicted to it, it's fun, flashy, complex as fucking hell, but easy to learn as well. Maybe it's the online component, now i actually have other people to play against, i doubt i'd invest as much time in a game if it wasn't to be able to dish out the pain to other people. Either way blazblue is just pure awesome.

 

[Resurrectionist]

Bravo.
Excellent read.

 

[5mj7R7yf4Dwr3gdZyyu9PeGNwYjlNrjzuh3iTXQG]

Ah, memories of the original Soul Calibur. I was quite fond of Ivy's toreador outfit, which never made a reappearance.

Was never good at Lizardman (Aeon Calcos?) but I remember his magic foot which could propel opponents halfway across an arena, often earning a ring-out victory.

Ivy (Isabella Valentine) (who looks suspiciously like Sophia from Toshinden [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Arena_Toshinden]) was fairly easy to play in Soul Calibur and then got crazy hard in II through IV. She had a magic-looking foot, but it didn't have the oomph of Lizardman's.

Rock Adams had a butt-stomp throw. Even if I lost with Rock, the abject humiliation of getting butt-bounced by him was worth the dive.

Hwang Seong-gyeong, similarly, had a *****-slap-kick throw which would get handed over to Assassin in II. Hwang was, however, a well balanced fighter even without the kick/throw/thing.

Taki developed the most common superpower [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MostCommonSuperPower] before everyone else in II. WTF?

And Maxi is secretly Elvis.