Soul Calibur is among the more famous traditional fighting games in recent gaming generations. Soul Calibur is a series that has been around since the fifth generation, and has since gained a lot of popularity. The series has evolved since its debut, and now Soul Calibur IV makes its way to the Xbox 360 and PS3. How does the most supposedly evolved Soul Calibur game fair?

Soul Calibur IV makes a more than solid effort. The game still contains flaws, although some of it are flaws with fighters in general. Main reason you’ll be getting Soul Calibur is the gameplay. The gameplay is based around choosing characters with different weapons, ranging from a katana to a lance-and-sword style, and then fighting in a small battlefield. Among the characters included are an exclusive Star Wars character (depending on console) and an unlockable one, albeit they are practically gimmicks. You execute attacks using various button combinations. The attacks can be divided into various categories. You have standard melee attacks, your unblockable attack (basically, a quick attack you may execute that a guard cannot impede), and your Critical Finish (a potent attack you may execute rarely pending on special conditions). Your standard melee attacks can be sub-divided into kicks, horizontal attacks, and vertical attacks. And there are more subdivisions than that. Unless you want to do become competitive at this game, you can really just get by with button mashing. Anyways…

The game executes itself just fine. The combat may feel repetitive, but that is the flair of fighting games anyways, but it’s fun IMO. Perhaps one of the most superlative aspects of the gameplay is character creation aspect. Although you are subjected to using a preset moveset based on one of the standard characters, you can customize the looks and passive effects (ala HP drain) of your character to your liking. Be warned though, the character creation is limited in design. Chances you are won’t be able to create a character you like without an obvious flaw. Still though, you can get close enough and have fun playing as a character you like. Or by all means create an original character; it’s your choice.

However, there are some flaws about the gameplay I would like to address. First one is guarding. Guarding, at least among the AI, seems to be abused a lot. It’s not too difficult to counter, but it can get annoying having to switch attacks just to deal with a guard. More annoying though is that your guard is hardly as effective. AI are quick to counter guards quite a bit, and if you are against a heavy-hitting characters, your guard will likely do next to nothing. The guarding just doesn’t to be useful to the player but guarding helps the AI quite a bit.



Another area that annoys the hell out of me is achievements. In order to unlock all equipment for character creation, you must gain thirty (out of fifty) achievements (equipment is also achieved through other means). Since I am not very good at this game, I am satisfactory at best, and I love screwing around with character creation and then have battles that appease my fanboyism, I therefore need all the equipment to do so. But I need to get thirty achievements first. The problem is that I cannot get thirty achievements without serious dedication, which I sadly lack. As soon as I get thirty achievements I am not going to bother with them anymore and just continue to screw around with the game. Some achievements are hard or monotonous to get, ala 100 Critical Finishes (CFs can’t be executed that often, at least from my experience). Others require online, and half of those require you to be good at online. Others are just annoying to get without another human player (and humans only count online, not offline).

My final complaint comes with the balancing of the characters. The balancing in Soul Calibur… is all over the place. A character like Rock, who is basically a reptile-skinned giant with a mace, probably won’t be able to execute even a single attack. I don’t recall specifics right now, but the balancing is just all over the place.

Enough ranting about gameplay, and onto graphics. I will just make this quick-the graphics are great. High production values, nice color, realistic-looking models (well, the famales’ special area may be exaggerated but that is about it), and are really great graphics. I may be able to nit-pick here and there, but I won’t. The graphics are great and really that is about it.

The audio is also good. The production values are again high. The songs themselves are… good. They’re leaning a bit on generic at least not memorable, taking away from the audio. The soundtrack is also limited compared to other games I have played, having maybe thirty or so songs I would guess (I could be way off though). The sound effects are excellent though. Overall, good audio although the score may be a little weak.

Overall Soul Calibur IV is a solid effort for the 360. The game is a fun fighter that has many high-marks, although flaws are definitely present, but satisfies my ego for fighters nonetheless. I am not sure of SCIV is the best fighter on the 360, since it is the only one I have played. However, I recommend trying Soul Calibur IV out for the 360 if you have not yet, and find that may satisfy your gaming ego. Or, if you are an adolescent straight male, more than just your gaming ego may be satisfied…



After the review tourney I will have no obligation to write review, thus I probably won't be writing for a long time. Too much focused on life, particularly depression, and my fanfic (which is why my recent reviews have been very mediocre, if not just flat out terrible).

This post has been edited by Colonel Jade Curtiss: Oct 5 2008, 08:30 PM

my bad posted it twice

This post has been edited by General Diddy™: Oct 12 2008, 07:38 PM

ivy lol

Ivy is the extreme. Nearly every female is at least 70% naked in some way, shape, or form. I personally found it to be absolutely disgusting.

Well, that's where character creator can come into play.

pervs will make them more naked while people who don't like it will cover them up more.

This post has been edited by General Diddy™: Oct 12 2008, 10:14 PM

Which is precisely what I do. I HATE fanservice. Hell, the first thing I do in character creation is bring their breast side done to the smallest (that is -50 physic and -50 muscularity), and then give them the chain mail so I don't need to see their skin outside of feet and head.

It seems to be a solid game. I personally haven't played Soul Calibur since the the days of the Gamecube version.

On the topic of Ivy, she disgusts me, and I'm straight!

Soul calibur 4 is the best I've ever played since SC2 for gamecube

I kinda like the SC4 nightmare better than SC2's Version

I've noticed that most of the thread is about Ivy's huge well... I think you know what should come next. But I totally agree with the arguement of it being unnessarily disgusting and vulgar and the saddest part is that it's actually becoming a part of the video game culture when most of us hate the idea of vulgarity in our games. It makes for a great laugh at first but a growing problem there after.