sophitia in battle {SOUL CALIBUR}

part one
Sophitia has several advantages that make her a very (cheap, twinkie >3) character; however, the CPU doesn't generally take advantage of these cute little quirks like in most video games (*coffcoffGUILTYGEARcoff*) so it's up to me to point them out for you!

1. First and foremost: Sophitia is SHORT. Characters like Nightmare, Seigfried, Rock, and Astaroth who have attacks in the upper-mid-range have a great deal of difficulty hitting her if she ducks under their attacks.


2. Sophitia has this move that knocks a character dizzy, canceling whatever move they were doing and opening them to attack for several seconds. While the attack may not seem that valuable at first, once you learn to use it, this ability is definitely worth your time to master. If a character like Nightmare or Yoshimitsu or Mitsurugi is performing one of those hyperactive over-and-over attacks that are hard to get through, this attack will mess them up long enough for you to get an attack in.

3. Sophitia may have short weapon range but she has long legs. Use what the gods gave you, Sophitia! Sophitia has two things going for her: blocks and kicks. I like to play a little game called 'hackey sack', try to see how many times you can keep a character up in the air with Sophitia's kicks. My personal record is Kilik in the air for 8 kicks. Sophitia's kicks also seem to do more damage than Lizard Man's (who is a move-clone) kicks, also.

4. The block key will get you places. Most people I play against don't use block unless they're just standing there with their finger on the block key. You need to learn to move and block; also, since Sophitia is able to block and edge toward her target, she can take blows without getting hit and get close enough to her target to attack!

5. I've noticed that when Sophitia is downed she gets up and slashes a lot faster than most characters. She has a lot of crouching to standing moves (a somersault kick, and several really nifty looking slashes), and not only that but she just seems to get up a LOT faster than other characters and recoil from a previous blow with a quick slash. Take advantage of this! You'll need it!

6. Sophitia has two moves that rocket an opponent into the sky or send them across the screen. These two require using the analog to move around to the back of the target and hitting hard slash once. These moves are GREAT, and I LOVE them. They're good for pushing the character off the edge (a cheater tactic :P) or just knocking them around a bit, and generally they're hard to dodge, although sneaking up on an opponent is sometimes rather difficult.

part two
There are some characters in Soul Calibur that you can use, or require specific tactics to fight against when playing the CPU...

Kilik - Kilik tends to be a /very/ annoying opponent. Your best bet for him is almost always just straight kicks, since he has a long range it's going to be hard to get up close enough to perform a throw or get in a decent attack, so kicking is your best bet. Get him down (or up in the air) and keep him there.

Astaroth/Rock/Lizardman - Three incredibly awkward, incredibly slow characters. These three generally fight by using throws on you, best bet is to keep your throw counters quick, or just stay the hell away from them.

Cervantes - Cervantes is one of those characters you fight against where block REALLY comes into play. He hits hard and his moves are similar to Taki's or Maxi's making him a very annoying opponent. Cervantes does this move where he, essentially, corkscrews across the battlefield; there's a trick to dodging this: simply step out of the way (twin ANGEL step out of the way ;D) and/or duck just in time and he'll basically cork screw his pirate ass off the battle field.

Voldo - Just try not to laugh too much, he's a sneaky bugger... even with that paintbrush on his head.