Soul Calibur IV Review

Way back in 1996 I got a chance to play an all new arcade game at my local Laser Quest. With quite a large group of people gathered around it I knew it had to be something good. Had they finally got the brand new shiny Tekken 2 that I wanted to play, or even better the much anticipated Virtua Fighter 3? Alas the answer was no. It ended up being a little game called Soul Edge, or as we called it Tekken with swords. And with the game coming from the same team as Tekken it was easy to see why the comparison was made, and being compared to such a classic wasn't a bad thing. The graphics were great and the game played fantastic, even better shortly after playing the game I found out it was due for release on the PlayStation. My love affair with the Soul series had its first seeds planted.

Fast forward to sometime in 1999. I was bored of fighting games now and just started to swap between different gaming genres. The fighting games around just seemed to be updates with a few extra characters and very little changing from one title to the next. This all changed though when I decided to pick up Soul Calibur for my Dreamcast after going round a friend's house and being stunned by what I saw. The game I had forgotten about long ago now had a new name, and looked so much better while playing like a dream. Even the roster had now been changed with the inclusion of Yoshimitsu from the Tekken series and several other new faces. I had found a reason to play fighting games again and that reason was Soul Calibur, a game that is still considered one of the best fighting games of all time. With the inclusion of Mission Mode, gamers finally had a reason to keep on playing the game after beating the Arcade Mode, aside from pulling it off the shelf when your mate popped round to get his ass kicked.

Since then I have played each of the Soul Calibur games in the series even going as far as to buy all 3 versions of Soul Calibur II just so I could play as each one of the unique characters released on each system the game was released on. (Gamecube got Link from Zelda; The PlayStation 2 got Heiachi from Tekken and the Xbox got McFarlane's creation Spawn)



So when Soul Calibur IV was announced it was with little surprise that I was excited to play the game. Even more excited than that fateful morning I woke up early and sat around in my underpants waiting to download Soul Calibur on the XBLA, only to realize that it was 6am and I still had hours left to wait before I could get my hands on it. Yes, the same Soul Calibur game that has sat 10 feet away from me on a shelf for the Dreamcast that I haven't been interested in playing for so long.

So when Soul Calibur IV popped through the letterbox of the Console Heroes UK offices, it was with very little hesitation that I switched the phones off, drew the curtains, and grabbed some snacks before putting the disk in my 360. Who should I play as first, my old favorite Sueng Mina? Or should I go for Mitsurugi or maybe some random character? I ended up picking Yoda. Yes, the same little old green hermit from Star Wars. I will admit I was quite worried about how Yoda would fit in within the Soul Calibur world, and my worst fears were proved to be right. Everyone likes the little green guy, and with good reason as he is a great character in the Star Wars universe, however he should have stayed there and sent Obi-Wan Kenobi or some other hero instead. To say the character just doesn't fit in could be seen as harsh but its true, you will notice this more when you fight against him and all your attacks are sailing over his head, while your low attacks hardly seem to damage him. Heck, shove one of the guys from the films that lives for 2 seconds into the game instead as long as they aren't 2 feet tall and play like crap we won't mind. Sorry to say, but as guest stars in the Soul Calibur series go, this is probably the worst.

The good news is though that one bad Jedi doesn't have the power to ruin the game though even though you have to play through Arcade mode with them to get your hands on the real bad guy. That bad guy is Jacob Nion aka StarKiller, Darth Vader’s Sith Apprentice from the upcoming Star Wars: Force Unleashed game. Well as you all know Jacob is Vader’s secret apprentice, but you probably don't know how it all came about. We all remember the events of Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith when Order 66 was put in effect and the extermination of the Jedi began. During these events, Darth Vader traveled to the Wookie homeworld of Kashyyyk to seek out any Jedi taking refuge there. He hit the jackpot when he stumbled upon Kento Nion and a fight quickly broke out between the two, which resulted in Vader using the Force to choke Kento. Seeing this unfold, Jacob used the force to take Vader's lightsaber. Sensing the potential of the young boy he quickly finished off Kento and killed a group of Imperial Soldiers that had witnessed the events and whisked Jacob away to train in secret as his apprentice to carry out Order 66 and ultimately stand with him to kill Vader's master Darth Sidious.



But how does he play? The character may not be your usual Soul Calibur fighter, but he slots in okay as opposed to being another character just wedged in that isn't needed. Both Yoda and StarKiller both use Force powers in the game as well as the standard moves. The Force has a separate small bar underneath the screen, which depletes when the powers are used and refills over time as you'd expect. Some of StarKiller's really cool moves include a throw that if positioned on the edge of the ring facing the middle ends up with your opponent getting flung over the edge. You also have force pulls to drag your opponents closer and lightning to hurl from your fingertips while you’re in mid air. We all know that the inclusion of the Star Wars characters is nothing more than a marketing deal for both Soul Calibur IV and The Force Unleashed to get more attention, but it is great to see that at least with StarKiller they got it right and he fits right in with the Soul Calibur world.

Now that all the Star Wars stuff is out of the way we can get onto the real meat of the game. In this iteration of the game you get everything you would expect to see and a whole lot more. From the Menu screen you see there is a whole host of options to choose from. In the singleplayer tab we have the Story mode which will see your character fight over five stages as they try to get their hands on or destroy Soul Edge or Soul Blade, and also give you the chance to unlock some characters along the way.

Then we have Tower of Lost Souls, which will see you tearing your hair out as you fight to ascend to the top of the tower, unlocking items and weapons along the way. Essentially these are split into groups of 3 stages or so that will require you to meet certain conditions to unlock items and weapons taking breaks in between a set amount of floors to change characters or to just to take a break. Once you have completed the first twenty floors however, the Descend the Tower option will now be open to you. This is basically the survival mode; you get to pick 2 characters and battle your way through as many stages as possible with your health not replenishing. Tower Of Lost Souls is everything you would expect from the mission mode in a Soul Calibur game. In other words challenging, frustrating and fun all at the same time.

There is also the usual Arcade and Training modes, with Arcade seeing you pit your wits and test your reflexes in battle over 8 Stages in the best of two battles. Training is training, as you would expect to see in any other game. You can spend time in training to practice combos and get a better feel for each character against enemies who will perform only the actions you set them to. This can help a lot when you're trying to figure out which combos and attacks are best under specific circumstances.



Returning to the main menu, you'll see the usual Versus modes, where you can choose to compete in Standard or Special Versus, the difference being that Special includes Weapon and Equipment effects. Sadly there is no Team Battle mode which would have been a nice inclusion, but I guess we can't have everything, and you will probably only play this when someone turns up at your door for a game.

The same versus options are available in the Xbox Live section of the menu screen, with the only difference being able to play the games Ranked or in a Player Match. So how is the online side of things? Well depending on whom you ask it’s either really laggy or its fine. I have had mixed experiences with it. My first game against some guy in China was a bit laggy for one round, then it was fine for the next two. The next game I played against someone in America was nearly unplayable and suffered from terrible lag, yet the American I played after that suffered no lag at all. To combat this you should just play with people that have good connections. The best way to find out how good their connection is is to look at the bars at the side of their names when you browse for games. If its a 4 you should have no trouble; even with 3 you will probably be ok. Just avoid the poor connections with 2 bars or lower and your gaming experience should be lag-free. You can also view the usual leaderboards as well and see how your mates are getting on with the game in Arcade and Online as well as viewing their Online fight history. The game will see the usual one move wonders though as all fighting games seem to get, where your opponent will just do the same move over and over again to get a cheap win. That’s not the game's fault though, it's down to the crap gamer you're playing against.

Next up is Character Creation, where you can purchase characters, give new weapons and items to the ones currently available, or create your own character. Your created characters do have to have one of the normal character's move sets so you can't mix your favorite moves. There is more than enough options to modify your character though to make them stand out from others you will see on Xbox Live, especially since different items have different effects on weapons, and you can also set up different skills to use in battle. The only way to get gold to pay for the items is to play the game, and lets face it that is what you got the game for in the first place, so if you don't have enough money for that eye patch you always wanted keep playing. One thing you can't do is customize Star Killer or Yoda apart from giving them a gem and a different Light Saber that looks exactly the same, this is a missed opportunity but Lucas Arts didn't want people making their own Jedi for some reason.

Next up we have Museum, and let me just start by saying that it's great to see how much work has gone into this. First up we have the Chain of Souls which contains Character Profiles, relationships between characters, and also who is after which sword. The character profiles are pretty detailed to say the least and a lot of thought has gone into them that you will want to read half of them at least.



Then we have the Art Gallery which contains everything from Illustrations, Character art, Promo Items and more. You can view any items you purchase in a slide show as well, but you will probably be saving all that gold for the Eye Patch mentioned earlier rather than dropping it on some concept art.

Next up is the Event Theater, which shows all the Opening and Ending movies for any character's story you have finished. Along with a few other bits and bats thrown in for good measure.

Lastly we have Battle Records, which is just a fancy way of saying "Achievements you have unlocked", as there is nothing more than that under this tab. It would have been nice to see a list of your wins and losses and a few other details but they are all missing unfortunately, but this was probably tacked on for the Playstation 3 players so they can compare what they have done with their 360 owning mates.

Well that’s all the boring crap out of the way, now its time to tell you how this thing plays. To put it simply, friggin' excellent. I put the game in and ended up just playing through the game until about 3am when I finally realized what time it was, while trying to avoid things like eating, bathroom breaks, and all the other things I should have been doing instead of playing this game. Some characters could do with a bit more balancing, as some are a lot stronger than they need to be, while others seem to have been slowed down a touch and had the damage they do reduced.

The sword and armor effects work great, with some characters playing much better with the right set up, and can make a weaker player more balanced against an opponent on live or against the CPU. With over 30 characters to mess about with and customize, the only thing stopping you is the amount of items you have unlocked and the gold you have in the game. The characters for the most part play differently to each other with only a few being similar to each other. It would have been nice to see some of the old characters that were dropped from previous games make a return, but there is still a character for everyone to play as. From the speedy Sueng Mina, to the weird Voldo, to the brute power of Astaroth, there will be ones that you loathe and like, just as you would expect in any fighting game. It's all about finding which character is best for you and the most fun to play as.

The gameplay is tight, the controls are great, and this is what you expect and want to see in a Soul Calibur game. Heck it's what you want to see in any game. The story mode is pretty short with only 5 stages, but when you consider that you are sometimes fighting against 4 enemies per stage then you can understand why there are only 5 stages.

A lot of people in the past have said can you imagine what Mortal Kombat would be like if the game play was as good as the fatalities. Well imagine no longer as in Soul Calibur IV you get to see Namco’s take on fatalities called Critical Finishes. In this game you get to do something called a Soul Crush by repeatedly attacking and having your attack blocked. Sort of like the armor break system but on a more spiritual level. Eventually you will hear a crack sound which will leave your opponent open for a moment when this happens you just tap your LB button and you will initiate a Critical Finish. Unlike in Mortal Kombat you won't see any blood and guts but they are still pretty entertaining to say the least but without the 20 million button inputs.

So to wrap things up Yoda was a bad idea, but other than that the gameplay is everything you would expect. The graphics are as shiny as you would expect them to be, the sound is great and there is more than enough here to keep you entertained for quite sometime. Am I a bit biased towards Soul Calibur? Maybe, maybe not. I like good games and this is one of them, and it's worth a try at least even if you’re only a bit of a fighting game fan. Take the gamble, you will be glad you did.