Soulcalibur II

Soulcalibur II is a 2002 arcade fighting game and the third installment of the  series. In 2003, the game was ported to the Nintendo GameCube,, and. Link is featured as a playable fighter exclusive to the GameCube version.

Plot
The game takes place in Europe in 1590 A.D., four years after the events of the previous game. Nightmare, the main antagonist of the series, and his army collected enough souls to restore the Osthreinsburg Castle. Before the ceremony is completed, a group of three warriors, led an assault on the castle. The three eventually defeated Nightmare, but his sword Soul Edge released a vortex of hellfire as a last resort. At that moment, the holy sword Soulcalibur reveals itself to the warriors as a counter-measure against Soul Edge. Soulcalibur won the day, but was sucked into the void caused by the collapsed hellfire along with Soul Edge and Nightmare, leaving only his host body, Siegfried Schtauffen. Now freed, Siegfried recognizes the sins he commited and went on a quest of atonement. Still, Nightmare had some control over him, and took over his body every night to collect more souls.

By the time of the main game, Nightmare has returned and seeks out Soul Edge. Also at this time, fragments of Soul Edge have been discovered, which seek to either corrupt or destroy everything around them. Everyone that comes in contact with these fragments goes on a quest to destroy them, while Nightmare attempts to collect these fragments and reassemble them to regain its powers.

Gameplay
Like previous entries, Soulcalibur II is a 3D fighting game similar to its sister series Tekken. The major differences is the emphasis on weapon-based combat and relatively small arena stages with a "Ring Out" system where a fighter that falls out of bounds loses instantly. The original arcade release had 19 fighters, while the console version added the new character Necrid. Each console also had an exclusive character: Heihachi on PlayStation 2, Spawn on Xbox, and Link on GameCube.