Fan Service: Link in Smash Bros. vs. Link in Soul Calibur

There weren’t very many great non-Nintendo games I played as a kid. I wasn’t as open-minded as I wish I had been, and that resulted in missing entire generations of fantastic experiences. I was content to stick with series such as Super Smash Bros., Pokemon, Mario, etc. At the time, I still hadn’t discovered the greatness of Zelda games. Despite failing repeatedly at the only Zelda title I owned, A Link to the Past, I never really understood what the series was all about.

Take the jump to find out what I have to say about Link’s roles in two great fighting games!

Thankfully, one of the few non-Nintendo games I did play was Soul Calibur II on GameCube. For those who may be unfamiliar, Soul Calibur II is the third entry in the Soul series, right after Soul Blade and Soul Calibur. The series has a reputation for guest fighters, many of which are console-exclusive. The Xbox version of Soul Calibur II got Spawn, while the PlayStation 2 version got Heihachi Mishima from the Tekken series. Guest fighters in later games include Yoda, Darth Vader, and Ezio Auditore. Lucky for us, the GameCube exclusively featured Link as its Soul Calibur II guest fighter. In fact, Link’s appearances in Soul Calibur II and the Super Smash Bros. series taught me practically all I knew of Zelda back in the day.

Now that I have many Zelda games under my belt, I can go back and appreciate these appearances more greatly. I recognize familiar items and attacks, as well as better understand how Link’s fighting style was adapted for these games. It’s easy for a developer to slap a new skin onto an existing fighter and call it a special character, but neither Super Smash Bros. Brawl nor Soul Calibur II did this. Both games put in an honest effort to make Link look and feel just like any Zelda fan would expect him to. They both also threw in nice little references that most fans should be able to identify. But which game did it better? That’s the question I hope to answer.

To be clear, I do not intend to analyze each Link’s fighting style to determine which makes for a more balanced, skill-based fighter. I am by no means a hardcore competitive player. My only intention is to find out which of these two iterations of Link pays the best homage to our favorite series. For this purpose, I will only take Link, the weapons he uses, his fighting style, etc. into consideration. That means I will not factor stages or other Zelda characters into my final verdict. Toon Link will also not be taken into account. The only Smash Bros. version of Link I will be looking at is Twilight Princess Link from Brawl.

When you boil it down to basic attacks, both games do a great job of emulating Link’s signature wide swings and thrusts. They each take some creative license, especially Soul Calibur II, though all but a few attacks feel natural for Link. I’d say they’re about even in this regard. However, some of Link’s combo attacks in Soul Calibur II are hard to imagine coming from Hyrule’s hero. It’s also worth noting that a few of Soul Calibur II Link’s moves are in fact based on attacks found only in Smash Bros. at the time. Grapples are also somewhat strange for Link in Soul Calibur II, especially a very unusual piggyback one. In Brawl, Link grabs enemies with the Clawshot. Not only is this a cool use for an item found in Twilight Princess, but it shows the care that developers took to be sure that a Twilight Princess item was used instead of the Hookshot like previous Smash Bros. titles.

Speaking of items taken from the Zelda series, both games feature some of the most iconic in Link’s moveset. Link wields the Bow, Bombs, and Boomerang in each game, with Brawl also featuring the Clawshot as mentioned before. The Boomerang used in Brawl is actually the Gale Boomerang, another item from Twilight Princess. All of these items are used just fine in the context of both games, so I can’t really fault either one for their usage.

Weapons are a whole different story, because Soul Calibur II truly excels in this area. Of course Link wields his famous Hylian Shield and Master Sword combination in both games but Soul Calibur II goes beyond that. Soul Calibur II includes many extra unlockable weapons for most of its fighters. Despite being a guest fighter, Link has a full set of extra weapons. These extra weapons are all very cool, because nearly every one comes from an actual Zelda game. Link can battle using the Megaton Hammer, the Great Fairy’s Sword, or even the Bug-Catching Net! A few of the weapons also display a great attention to detail. Personally, I think the best example of this is the Razor Sword from Majora’s Mask. In Soul Calibur II, the Razor Sword has penetrable defense thanks to its tendency to chip. This is actually a somewhat obscure reference to Majora’s Mask. In that game, the Razor Sword was an upgrade for the Kokiri Sword that would revert to normal after 100 hits because it was prone to chipping.

One more thing to consider is that both games have a small story for Link. In Brawl, Link pulls the Master Sword from a pedestal in a forest. That forest may or may not be the Lost Woods, but he meets up with Yoshi there, making for an odd duo. Soul Calibur II has Link travelling from Hyrule to defeat Soul Edge and prevent the destruction of his homeland. It’s a nice little addition to his in-game profile. It doesn’t feel too far-fetched, because far-off lands and parallel worlds aren’t anything new for Zelda.

Both these versions of Link are great services for fans. Neither one takes the easy way out by settling for being a character skin or unlockable costume. Both make entertaining references to Zelda, like Link’s taunts in Brawl, or the many extra weapons in Soul Calibur II. As a Zelda fan, discovering the extra weapons was a great treat that really solidified Link as my favorite Soul Calibur II fighter. I’ll always love Smash Bros. games, but I simply appreciate Link in Soul Calibur II better. What are your thoughts about Link in these two games? Do you feel like they do justice to Zelda? Which one, if either, do you prefer? Be sure to comment, and thanks for reading!