Top Soul Calibur game on reddit , my roster . Only my personnel opinion and experience . What do you think ?
Not unreasonable, although I personally think that one has to qualify that it has to be SCIII: Arcade Edition to get it that far up on the list, seeing as the PS2 version has so many bugs and balance issues in the core gameplay so as to make it cringely broken for any kind of truly enjoyable competitive play. In fact, it is not just the weakest game in the series in that respect, it is one of the most pointless and frustrating fighter sequels of all time, in terms of how disappointing it was for the longterm fans of the high-level play of the previous games in the series, and how damaging it was to the upward trend of series. I know it's a big game among the casual crowd to this day, and there are things I like about even the console version, but since I think it is reasonable to judge a fighting game first and foremost on it's multiplayer/competitive bona fides over its single player content, I have to give SCIII:CE a low over-all score. AE was great though! It's a pity the franchise's popularity is unlikely to ever warrant a rebalanced/combined edition of SCIII with the best of both worlds
SCII is a good candidate for #1, I think almost every longterm fan of the series would agree. I think one thing that doesn't always get ackwnowledged about its popularity is how it managed to balance the expectations of both the casual and the hardcore crowds--something the series has struggled to accomplish again ever since. It also has a unique history in that it had its share of unintended bugs too, but through a combination of said bugs not being too game breaking, being embraced by the competetive community, and selectively patched with the arcade versions before the console release (something that stopped with SCIII and forward), it all just turned into lightning in a bottle.
It's interesting to see where you place SCIV: I know it's somewhat controversial, but I actually think it might be the best or second best game in the series. I think it's kind of a mirror of SCII: it also balanced expectations from different players really well, but because it wasn't so novel and new an approach as SCII was when it launched, it just never reached the same heights of popularity. The package is a little skimpy in some areas, but for just generally stable, well-balanced (minus a doom combo) gameplay, artistic design, style, and performance, it's a great overall package. Massively underrated, imo.
It's a pity you never played the first two games; SCI in particular really set the stage for the series' future.
You can find my own half-specific/half-nebulous ranking in my signature, incidentally.
