Synopsis: Soul Calibur IV maintains the core gameplay of the Soul Calibur series and features a fun (if unintuitive) character creation system, but misses out on a number of features that would have improved the title overall.
Notes: This review is from a free review copy of the Xbox 360 version.
Gameplay: The fighting and characters are those you’ve come to expect from the Soul Calibur series. Characters can pull off different fighting moves by holding a direction on the joystick and pressing a button or combination of buttons. I’ve always liked the Soul Calibur system best as it seems more intuitive than other fighting game systems, with a range of game play for different skill levels to enjoy from button mashers to expert players who have memorized move lists.
There are several new elements this time around, but their impact on play is minor. There is now a “Soul Gauge” that builds up as blocks happen that allow players to perform “Critical Finishes”, but it doesn’t seem to come up very often. You can destroy opponent’s armor and clothing, which often ends up being more embarrassing for the female characters than the male. There are also small pop-ups that inform you when you’ve countered an attack, performed a combo, etc.
Overall, if you’ve had any experience with the Soul Calibur series and enjoy the fighting, you’ll enjoy the gameplay in this. It has not significantly changed since Soul Calibur II.
Characters: Most of the characters from the previous games show up here, with the very notable addition of Yoda and the Apprentice (from the upcoming Force Unleashed game.) Many characters have gotten a cough “upgrade” which I knew I was going to have a problem with before the game was even out. While many video games have very unrealistic looking characters, this latest round in SC takes things to a whole new level.
As is par for the course now (unfortunately), you start out with a handful of characters, then unlock more as you play. For some odd reason, there are multiple ways to unlock characters: either by playing through certain modes and encountering certain characters, or buying them through gold you earn just by playing. If that’s not weird enough, some characters get overlapped in the same selection spot on the character select screen.
The biggest draw for me is the character creation system. While on its surface it is not as robust as other popular character creation systems, there is a surprising amount of customization in the tools you are given. The different armor and clothing styles ensure that your character will always fit into the SC mileau while still making it your own. The big problem, however, is that it’s not clear at all how you get all the pieces to customize your character. As it turns out, you earn them as you reach certain amounts of Achievements in game, plus some extra ones through playing different modes. From there, you also need to purchase them with gold earned in-game. So you have to find the items, and then purchase them. Very strange. This isn’t explained anywhere, like most things in the game, so someone’s initial impressions on the character generation is not going to have all the options.
And from what I’ve read online, no matter how much you unlock, you can’t create a character wielding a lightsaber. This is very disappointing.
Modes: There are a variety of single player modes, and not much choice in multiplayer. Single player is broken down into:
- Story Mode: Pick a character, and follow their “story.” This can be played in Normal and Hard, though neither are all that challenging, and taking around 20 minutes to complete a character’s entire story. The actual “stories” themselves are fairly pathetic, starting with a long scrolling introduction of why your character is seeking the sword, then you go through a few levels of fighting, with only a barest hint of what’s going on (delivered via pre-game taunts.) No matter who you choose, many of the levels will be the same stages, though who you fight changes. While the Soul Calibur series has never delivered a gripping story, it’s definitely a step down from previous games.
- Tower of Lost Souls: Fight up through a “tower” of batches of levels, progressively getting harder. In each stage, there is a hidden item (for character creation) that can be gained by deciphering a hint at the beginning of each stage then doing something during the match to unlock it (such as defeating an opponent at the last second or break all the walls of the stage.) This is, sadly, the closest the game has to any of the previous awesome quest modes like “Weapon Master Mode” from Soul Calibur 2. Unlike it’s predecessors, it’s entirely linear, so it’s easy to get stuck on one of the levels. You have to keep playing it to move on, which quickly gets frustrating. It’s also the only way to get certain items, and one of the best ways of acquiring gold and achievements for character creation.
- Arcade mode: Fight through 8 battles, get a score on how well you did. The battles get progressively more difficult, but never as hard as some of the later stages of the Tower of Lost Souls. There are some achievements tied to this as well.
- Training: And like most fighting games, there’s a training mode to have your version of the Batman beat up on a comatose Yoda. (OK, that sounds kind of awesome, actually.)
Multiplayer is much weaker compared to previous games. You get:
- Standard Versus: Your standard fight someone else battle.
- Special Versus: Allows you to use any extra powers or skills you added to your characters via character creation.
- Xbox Live Versus and Special Versus: Same as above, but on Xbox Live.
…Yeah, that’s it. No tournament modes, no tag team. Though the inclusion of Xbox Live play is a must, the implementation of the whole system definitely leads something to be desired. There are achievements tied to playing on Xbox Live as well, which normally I wouldn’t care about except for the equipment that comes with it.
Being Soul Calibur, there’s an extra Museum menu for extras about the game world.
- Chain of Souls: A confusing and difficult to use map of how characters are related to each other. Soul Calibur is one of the few games that I’ll bother to look through this stuff on, because I’m such a fan of the series, but this was almost impossible to use easily.
- Art Gallery: View illustrations, models, etc. from the game. Except… you have to purchase it all with gold earned in game. Which you’re much more likely to use buying character creation equipment and characters. Urgh.
- Event Theater: Watch various cutscenes from the game, after they’ve been viewed in game once.
- Battle Records: See what achievements you’ve gained, then try vainly to count them across multiple screens to see how many more you need to unlock more equipment. Sense a theme?
Conclusion: All the flaws only add up to being a disappointing game, yet one that’s still fun for those of us who enjoy the Soul Calibur series. It just seems like there was a lot of thought put into making the breast size of characters larger that could have gone into making modes of play that already existed in previous games. There’s some attempts to make the game more replayable by forcing you into frustrating modes, which is the wrong way to go about it. Still, all that said, it is still a lot of fun once you’re actually fighting. And any game that lets you play Yoda fighting a team of pirates can’t be all bad.
So is the dark side versus light side meant to further inflame the console fanboys? I mention this because I notice that the 360 version is light and the ps3 version is dark. Bill Gates always struck me more as the emperor then other CEOs…
joshx0rfz’s last post: Review: “Soul Calibur IV”
Well, but the PS3 is black, and the base Xbox 360 is white. Still, Yoda seems to be a much more powerful character than Vader in the games.
I’ve played a lot of Soul Caliber IV recently, and what I’ve found is that, at least when starting out, character creation is a real turn-off: You have to unlock pieces, and unlike SC3 equipment changes your stats. Thus, while it’s possible to create FANTASTIC-looking characters from the get-go, they’re often significantly weaker than standard or unlockable characters.
This was a major problem for my wife and our friends, many of whom do clothing and costume design work: They could either have a good-looking character or a powerful character, but not both. The problem is somewhat migitated as you unlock items, but if the right piece has poor stats, you’re still stuck.
The rest of the game is quite good, and it’s all VERY pretty, but do keep that in mind.
Thanks Saragon, I had forgotten that the different pieces also had different game stats. And then there’s the whole “skill points” thing that I still haven’t figured out how to use.
Skill points aren’t actually that bad once you understand where they’re coming from.
As you level up weapon styles in Story and Tower modes, new skills become available to characters of that weapon style (and I believe that’s all that’s unlocked by increasing weapon skills.) Equipment on your character may give ‘space’ for adding these skills to your character – so if you have unlocked a skill that requires 100 Impact points, you’ll need at least 100 total Impact points on your equipment. Some skills require two types of points, so keep that in mind – usually a lot from one category and fewer from a second. (When I was playing around with it, I found it best to pick just one to three skill groups to worry about. That way I’d have room for good skills without losing too much elsewhere, and the odd points in the other categories would often be just enough for the two-group skills.)
This goes back to the earlier “equipment modifies stats” complaint, of course, since equipment you unlock as you progress will often grant more skill points. It’s not as big a deal, though, since without leveling up weapon styles (and getting equipment along the way) you can’t use those expensive skills anyway.
I like the game, but it´s more graphics than fun… something that its happening in all consoles games…
leandropug’s last post: Nóticias da Wizards – GenCon 2008 e Lista de Livros ( Parte II )
Really? I usually tune out graphics (unlike most of the video game buying population, it seems) but SC4 totally failed to impress me in the graphics department.