Getting into soul calibur: 2 or 5?

[cave hermit]

I wanted to play soul calibur at some point, and I noticed xbox live was having a pretty good sale on namco fighting games; which is considered objectively better, 2 or 5? Also is Tekken tag tournament 2 any good?

[ACSeraph]

TTT2>SC2>Pounding a rusty nail into your dick>SC5

/endthread

[BulletMagnet]

I'm not versed enough in Soul Calibur to address that question, but I do recall Tekken Tag 2 being pretty well-received on the whole; IIRC it's slated to make an appearance at Evo.

[trap15]

Yeah, ACSeraph has it pretty spot on.

[cave hermit]

Tekken tag tournament it is then. I've never actually played Tekken, so I guess this will be fun. Still deciding whether I should "buy" it for $6 on Live or buy it for $20 off Amazon...

[ACSeraph]

Warning on Tekken if you've never played it. It's a good game, but it's hard to get into, and most people don't like it at first. You'll have to be pretty dedicated to get much out of it. One thing SC2 has on Tekken is that it's accessible and it's fun without devoting your life to it. It took me almost a year of arcade play to really "get" Tekken. It's worth it when you do though.

[Aleksei]

SC2 8 on 8 vs. nuff said. But seriously, SC2.

[Specineff]

Any particular reason not to try the DC one?

[Lord Satori]

Soul Calibur 2 is amazing. That being said, if you're the creative type and love to create your own characters, 5 might be worth it as well. (in addition to 2 of course)

[Formless God]

Pounding a rusty nail into your dick>SC5

Can you go into a bit more detail on this?

[cave hermit]

Actually, is DOA 5 Ultimate any better or worse than TTT2? I really haven't played any none crap-com fighting game, so there's lots of stuff for me to look into..

[Blinge]

Oh man, really? I heard SC5 was the best one..

now don't go crazy, it's just the opinions i've seen/heard thus far: i've only ever played 2.

[DQuick]

Soul Calibur V is perfectly fine for casual play, couldn't comment on competitive play as I stopped tracking updates and changes to balance the game out ages ago.

What angle are you coming at this from, are you looking to get to an elite competitive level, a game to play casually with friends, a single player experience?

[cave hermit]

I want a fighter with technical gameplay and a high skill level, but also a game I don't have to dedicate myself exclusively to.

[cave hermit]

At this point I'm just deciding between TTT 2 and DOA 5 ult. Besides the cheesecake, is there anything really better gameplay-wise about DOA?

[Obiwanshinobi]

Not too far into it, but I enjoyed the single player mode of 1 for a while on Dreamcast... until it told me to perform the Unblockable Attack, me being supposed to work out which one of many attacks listed in the menus is The One.
Nevertheless, I still think that oldie's got the best graphics.
Last but not least, the one your people are most willing to play against you locally is the winner. I for one tried to get my 1vs1-fighting pal interested in 1, only to make him ask me to put II on instead, as "more developed". Such is the way with the genre, it would seem.

If - I say "if" - II HD really slows down where II originally didn't, that's one reason not to get it. II may not look amazing on any console, but I read the Xbox version outputs legit 720p (as one of extremely few console games that gen), so the performance issues with the recent port are all the more gash.

[Mortificator]

At this point I'm just deciding between TTT 2 and DOA 5 ult.

Each is one of the best entries in their respective series. Like comparing Street Fighter Alpha 3 to KOF '98, I think which you prefer is ultimately going to come down to personal taste. Watch some videos, go with the one whose fights most make you want to pick up a controller yourself, and don't agonize over it too much.

[cave hermit]

Yeah I've always been incredibly indecisive
Anyway that sounds like the best advice to follow

[cave hermit]

I just decided to download TTT 2 for that $6.79 pricetag; looking forward to bringing the salt with my mediocre skillz

[cave hermit]

Actually watching Joel from Vinesauce (check em out they're awesome: [Vinny's channel: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzORJV8l3FWY4cFO8ot-F2w] [Joel's channel:http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCllm3HivMERwu2x2Sjz5EIg]) livestream TTT 2 is what got me interested in trying out a 3d fighting game.

[cave hermit]

My god is this game unforgiving. I'm losing the tutorial for fucks sake. I can't believe there was a point in my life when I just assumed tekken was a mindless button masher. I'm liking it though. Having trouble doing punishers: I can't figure out if my stick's x button is on the fritz, or if there actually is something I'm missing...

[ACSeraph]

My god is this game unforgiving. I'm losing the tutorial for fucks sake. I can't believe there was a point in my life when I just assumed tekken was a mindless button masher. I'm liking it though. Having trouble doing punishers: I can't figure out if my stick's x button is on the fritz, or if there actually is something I'm missing...

Told ya

Figuring out how to punish depends on the matchup, and usually requires studying the frame data. Though eventually, you will just start to get a feel for when you have advantage and when you don't. In general good players aren't going to be punishable anyhow since they will be mostly using safe moves, rather, you look for spots that leave you at enough of an advantage to take back the offensive momentum. So basically they attack you for a bit, you block and our eventually left with the advantage so that you can start attacking them instead though they will be able to block. Since they can generally block everything the goal is to use confusing mixups within your pressure to eventually break their defense. You want to be able to land some sort of combo starting move to get off big damage.

Basically Tekken is all about the back and forth advantage-disadvantage dance and the initial pokes that lead into combos. The combos themselves aren't really the game, it's all about figuring out how to get the launcher in the first place. Against smart opponents you won't be bait->block->punishing like you do in SF, instead you will either be infiltrating your way in or bait->whiff->punishing. Intercepting incoming attacks is also a good option for landing your launchers.

At this point I'm just deciding between TTT 2 and DOA 5 ult. Besides the cheesecake, is there anything really better gameplay-wise about DOA?

You've already made your decision, but the games are drastically different. The entire mindset behind them is different, so much so that they seem like different sub genre's of fighting. DOA5 is actually a very good game that deserves more rep than it gets. It flows very quickly and is pretty easy to get into, but due to the way it's designed the superior player (doomsday yomi) will pretty much always win. Even if you just get the free to play version it's worth giving DOA a shot.

Pounding a rusty nail into your dick>SC5

Can you go into a bit more detail on this?

Well it's a bit of an exaggeration of course, but the fact is it's a halfassed unfinished game. Pretty much just that. It could have been good, I liked a lot of the ideas they had for it, and I'd love to see them do a more polished version, but it's never going to happen since Namco dropped support for it almost immediately. There's weird cheesy shit all over the place in it as a result, and it just doesn't feel good to play.

I somewhat agree it's alright for casual single player play, but it's still utter shit compared to the others and shouldn't even be mentioned in the same sentence as SC2 and TTT2. Even the single player is lacking honestly, with no character endings for arcade mode, and very limited character selection all around.

[cave hermit]

Arcade mode seems incredibly easy though: I just chose two characters at random, and easily made it to the final round by button mashing (the final boss actually used combos, so I got fucked).

[ACSeraph]

Playing against people is nothing like playing against the AI, and it will be mostly impossible to learn the "right" way to play and the flow of the game without fighting real people. Arcade mode is basically training mode with moving targets. I honestly wish they put up more of a fight, because it makes me not want to play it at the arcade these days while waiting for a challenger to show up.

That said, for a while just enjoy playing the breezy arcade mode so that you can get a good feel for your characters and combos and build a little muscle memory. You can work on strategy and mind games later.

[Doctor Butler]

SCV isn't terrible, it's just super-momentum based footsies game where walking is too easily punished, making it a non-option!

But, seriously, if they're on sale, pick them all up. Except DoA.

Tekken tag tournament it is then. I've never actually played Tekken, so I guess this will be fun. Still deciding whether I should "buy" it for $6 on Live or buy it for $20 off Amazon...

Hard-copy, hard-copy!

[Formless God]

Why not? DOA5U is a solid game.

Might wanna look into VF5FS as well.

[cave hermit]

The first character I ended up choosing was Lei. I'm guessing this was the worst possible character to choose as a n00b. Still trying to figure him out though. Any good n00b characters?

[okerlo]

The first character I ended up choosing was Lei. I'm guessing this was the worst possible character to choose as a n00b. Still trying to figure him out though. Any good n00b characters?

This comes from someone who had not the opportunity yet to play Tag Tournament 2 so please beware and don't take it too seriously, but in the the past at Tekken 3 I liked to play Eddy Gordo. I always had the feeling that he is quite good for a beginner, his capoeria style allows you to do some nice fluent moves even as a beginner. There is also a female counterpart called Christie Monteiro, and the Tag Team of Christie and Eddy was played at the last Evo-Tournament and boy that was some nice stuff.

But to be honest I'm out of the Tekken-universe for quite some time now due of lack of modern consoles, there are probably tons of new characters now.

Greetings

[DQuick]

The first character I ended up choosing was Lei. I'm guessing this was the worst possible character to choose as a n00b. Still trying to figure him out though. Any good n00b characters?

I've used Paul Phoenix and Asuka in the past without much difficulty. Bear in mind though, if you want to play competitively you are going to need to understand how every character plays. Coming to a Tekken Tag at this stage with the massive accumulated cast is going to be a big time investment.

[Ruldra]

The first character I ended up choosing was Lei. I'm guessing this was the worst possible character to choose as a n00b. Still trying to figure him out though. Any good n00b characters?

Hwoarang and Paul Phoenix is the most beginner-friendly team I can think of. But yeah, you'll want to get familiar with every character eventually and this will take a while.