What Is Weapon Master Mode in SoulCalibur II?

A campaign map wrapped around a weapon shop: the mode that turned a fighting game into a collection.

Most fighting games of the era offered an arcade ladder and little else for a solo player. Weapon Master mode was SoulCalibur II's answer: a full campaign in which a swordsman crosses a map in search of Soul Edge, fighting under changing conditions, gaining ranks, and spending the winnings on the largest unlockable arsenal the genre had seen.

HOW IT WORKS

Map, money, arsenal

The map

The world is divided into regions named after stars. Clearing missions opens paths; the structure runs to ten normal chapters, four sub chapters, and two extra chapters, plus harder Extra Missions that remix the normal ones.

Experience and gold

Fights pay in two currencies: experience, which raises your rank, and gold, which is the mode's real engine. Almost everything in the game is bought, not merely unlocked.

Twelve weapons each

Every character has twelve weapons, from the standard blade to an Ultimate Weapon, a Soul Edge version, and a joke weapon with comic sound effects. Each has attack, defense, and special properties, and a written history in the Weapon Gallery.

The story

You play a swordsman hunting Soul Edge, opposed by Veral, a powerful and mad knight who wants the sword for himself. The plot is thin on purpose; the collection is the story.

Shops within shops

Gold also buys third costumes for much of the cast, artwork, character profiles, and videos for the Museum and Exhibition Theater, so the mode feeds every other extra in the game.

Conditions

Missions fight back with rules: altered gravity, health that drains, opponents who take damage only in the air, and other twists inherited from the series' earlier mission modes.

WHERE IT CAME FROM

Edge Master to Conquest to Weapon Master

The lineage is documented and direct. Soul Edge on PlayStation had Edge Master Mode, a story campaign that paid out in swords. Soulcalibur on Dreamcast answered with Mission Mode. The arcade SoulCalibur II had Conquest Mode, where players joined an army and gained experience as they fought. Weapon Master mode takes Conquest's core system and expands it into the home game's campaign.

That is why the mode feels different from a story mode bolted onto a fighter. It was built from systems Namco had been refining for three games, and its buy your arsenal loop became a template: a generation of fighting games after 2003 shipped with a campaign, a currency, and a shop.

THE GAME ON THE SHELF

SoulCalibur II

SoulCalibur II · America · PlayStation 2

Heihachi and Necrid in the monochrome painting on the American box, for the game whose Weapon Master Mode is detailed here.

The full story: the history of SoulCalibur II →

What Is Weapon Master Mode in SoulCalibur II?

HOW IT WORKS

WHERE IT CAME FROM

THE GAME ON THE SHELF

THE FIRST WORD