Introduction
SoulCalibur II is a fighting game released in 2002 by Namco. Like other titles in the Soulcalibur series, the community uses numpad notation.
Game Mechanics
One life bar=240 Health Points
There are three attack heights
Highs
Can be crouched under. Can be Gaurd Impacted by using forward+gaurd.
Mids
Must be stand guarded. Can be Gaurd Impacted by using forward+gaurd or back+gaurd.
Lows
Must be crouch guarded or jumped over. Can be Gaurd Impacted by using forward+gaurd.
Special Mids
Can be guarded standing or crouching. Some can be jumped over.
There are three attack types
A
Horizontal attacks. It is not guaranteed that these moves will track, sometimes they do.
B
Vertical attacks. These will always beat out A attacks. Even some of these moves track.
K
Kicks.
There are 4 counter hit types
Attack
120% damage as well as special properties such as knockdown, stun, or combo state
8 way run
115% and no properties are added, this is different from later Soulcaliburs and the primary reason why this is a better game :)
Sidestep
118% damage
Backdash
140% damage as well as special added properties, movement is generally safe except backdashing
Moving and Guarding
8 way run exists, it's ok, but you primarily want to use this to enable certain moves. You can evade if you time 8WR against a move correctly, making you invincible to that damage instance. If guard is pressed during a step correctly, you will guard during the step. Advancing guard reduces pushback, retreating guard adds pushback. These properties are dependent of the weight classes of the character.
Throws
Throws are teched with either A or B. All throws look the same, so throws are teched based on riskVreward, such as ringout and damage. TER is a mechanic that gives 14 frames to anyone who presses downforward or downback during throw break scenario
There are 3 soul charge levels
Level 1: Yellow Green
Level 2: Green Blue
Level 3: Blue>Grants backdash counter
Characters have gaurd crushes and unblockables granted from soul charge as well as soul charge cancels. Soul charge unblockables can still be GI'ed
Gaurd Impact
Forward GI gives minor advantage while back GI give major advantage. The only way to defend after being GI'ed is to GI back or to 2G, which opens the 2G'er up to throws and lows.
Basic Strategy
Tier List
Feel free to elaborate/clarify/change/debate this tier list. It has been updated based on MoneyMuffin's tier list.
This list only includes characters available on every console. Spawn, Link, and Heihachi are intentionally left out in this list to maintain consistency.
S-
Lizardman (goes here if his throw glitches are left unbanned)
Ivy
A+
Xianghua
Nightmare
A-
Talim
Sophitia
Mitsurugi
Astaroth
Assassin
Voldo
Yoshimitsu
Cassandra
B+
Cervantes
Berserker
B-
Seong Mina
Kilik
Raphael
Maxi
Taxi
C
Yunsung
Necrid