Soul Calbur 2 Characters
[Gamecube, PS2, Xbox]

Nightmare (Siegried Schtauffen)
Discipline: Any moves memorized by Soul Edge
Weapon: Soul Edge-Zweihander Type (Two Handed Male)

Nightmare was the leader of a group of bandits known as the Schwartzwind (Black Wind). He left the group on a journey to find his father's killer. During his journey, he found Soul Edge, lying next to the body of a dead pirate. When he approached the blade, the body returned to life, to protect the sword. Nightmare defeated him, and claimed Soul Edge as his own. Soul Edge then spoke to him, and told him that if he collected the souls of slain warriors in the sword, he could resurrect his father. After that, he became the most feared knight in Europe. Three years of slaughters passed, and Nightmare crossed paths with a warrior using the Soul Calibur, and was defeated. This released Soul Edge's grip on his mind, and he began to remember his past life, along with the memory that it was him that had murdered his father. He then tried to put a distance between himself and other people, but always woke up to bodies, slain and bloody around him. Soul Edge controlled him as he slept, and killed through him. Four more years passed, and he was now completely under the control of Soul Edge. The sword used him to search for the remaining fragments of itself, so that it may be completely restored.

Nightmare is easily the strongest character in Soul Calibur 2. Several powerful blows can have an opponent reeling back, and cowering, in a feeble attempt to savor what's left of their life bar. Nightmare uses several different stances, each with its own combos and quick strikes. When a player can master and link together these stances, any opponent can be stuck playing defense. While Nightmare is slow in getting started, after a few good hits, he can move rather quickly between strikes in a combo. Master this, and even opponents using the fastest characters can be held down by Nightmare.

Just as his strength is a huge upside to Nightmare's fighting style, his incredibly low speed is a powerful weakness. As I said, get in a few good hits, and the strikes come quickly as Nightmare advances on an enemy. However, these first few blows are incredibly slow in attacking. Even worse than his slow starting attack speed is Nightmare's actual attacks. Some of the characters in the game have attacks that are difficult to see, in that you can't always tell if they'll be high or low attacks. Nightmare's attacks are rather easy to see coming, and from that, easy to block. Mastering Nightmare will take a large amount of practice, but it can be done, leaving opponents lying in the dust.

Nightmare‘s Score: 8.5/10

- Joachim

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