Reviewed by Megan Parker
Soul Calibur is one of the few fighting games that I actually enjoy quite a bit; from the cheesy announcer, to the cheesy dialogue, to the kick ass moves. It’s kind of a guilty pleasure for me.
Soul Calibur IV has several new features to it, and many improved ones, making the game all around better than many of its predecessors. It’s certainly not perfect, though, as it seems to have lost its accessibility for a wider group of players in the process. More on that later.
The “story” continues after Soul Calibur III, as the usual cast continues to try and find Soul Edge and Soul Calibur, and run into others searching for the same thing. The stories vary so much from character to character that it’s not really much of a story; nor does most of it make sense.
Each character’s “story” can, obviously, be played in the Story Mode; the only single player mode to actually have a difficulty setting (if you disregard the training). Once you get the hang of the moves and such, the story mode isn?’t really much of a challenge, and you can go through them pretty quickly with all of the characters. Once you beat each mode, all of the weapons for that character are unlocked for you to buy in the character creation mode. Playing the story mode will also unlock the bonus characters and some of the locations. In story mode, each character has special abilities that she or he can use in the fight, from invisibility, to heal, to increased stats; how you set up each character can be important.
The Tower of Lost Souls is kind of similar to Weapon Master mode in Soul Calibur II, but considerably more frustrating; which is saying a lot considering Weapon Master mode had many of the “You’re poisoned and dying; take out three opponents before dying” thing. In Tower of Lost Souls (TLS for short), you can either ascend the tower or descend it, once you’ve ascended 20 levels. Ascending is the easier of the two as it’s done in spurts, first two levels at a time, then three. Unfortunately, you’re also stuck doing those sets of levels at once; which means if you do two levels out of the set without any trouble, then get your ass kicked in the third, you have to do all three over again to be able to move on.
Most floors you do get at least one other character to fight with, so you can switch between the two depending on health, opponent, or strategy. The computer will do the same, sometimes stringing amazing combinations of characters and moves that leave you in awe and absolutely irritated and the near impossibility of it at the same time.
Each level ascending has a treasure that you can win if you do a particular task during the fight, such as swapping out allies so many times, ringing out an opponent, or even just “exploring” the ring. The treasures in the game book are listed as “unlockables”, but many of them are actually available to purchase in the character creation screen. For the most part, this just enables you to get items for “free” rather than spending money on them. There are a few that seem to be unlockable, only, however, so it’s not entirely without merit. Once again, though, the clumping of levels can make it a pain, if you need to do two levels to even attempt to get a certain item in the third level; especially if the task in the third level is difficult. It’s one of several areas where the game shows to be more oriented to the hard core side of gaming than casual.
The descending part of the game is even more difficult, as you have to do it all in one sitting to be able to finish it. There’s no saving, no returning to a specific level. If you fail, you start all over again. I can only imagine how absolutely frustrating it would be to get to the “higher” levels (lower, actually) and then lose a match and have to start over again. At each level that is a multiple of five, you have to fight a strange character that has absolutely insane moves; all considerably beyond the four matches before it. This makes descending the tower even more difficult and beyond the casual player. Once you beat that “boss” character, you unlock a new item; again some can just be bought, some will unlock.
The Arcade mode is a step up in difficulty from Story mode, but for the most part, a step down from TLS; unfortunately, you can’t adjust the difficulty if it’s beyond your skill range. In each stage, you fight a character best two out of three to be able to move on to the next stage. This isn’t really anything new, and the arcade mode itself isn’t really anything new either. It does, however, allow you to unlock at least one character, the Apprentice from the upcoming game Star Wars: Force Unleashed. In the arcade mode, the Apprentice and Algol (the final boss) can both be extremely difficult to beat, especially with certain characters. Unlike Story Mode and Tower of Lost Souls, the Arcade mode doesn’t allow you to use special abilities, so you’re left with just your skills at either button mashing or remembering decent combos.
There is a Versus mode that is technically outside of single player mode, but it can be done by a single player, or two if you’d like. Its settings are quite malleable, as you can change the difficulty, adjust the amount of rounds and pick which location you want. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to count toward any achievements and certainly don’t unlock anything; it’s mainly there to challenge friends in your own home. You can choose if special abilities are on or not, but surprisingly it doesn’t have some customizations such as tag teams.
The Xbox Live aspect of the game is new, and very much wanted by many of the fans. In it, you can play basic matches (similar to Versus mode) with friends or someone you meet online; adjusting time, location, and number of matches. You can also choose whether or not special abilities are available. It can be very fun to play with your friends, but as in most online games; playing with a random person online can be quite a pain. However, in ranked matches, you’re stuck with whichever random person the system puts you with. It’s not a surprise, since it’s a ranked match, but it can leave you with some unfriendly opponents. For casual players, however, the Live aspect of the game will be what keeps them the most interested after the Story mode.; as long as they have friends to play with.
The Character Customization mode is significantly overhauled since Soul Calibur III; allowing for more customizations in pretty much everything. It’s not the most customizable game, but it has quite a bit to do. Existing characters can be modified in abilities, weapons, and costumes; allowing you to give each character your own personal touch. You can also create your own characters with almost every existing character as a base. For example, you can create a female character with the abilities of Cervantes or a male character with the skills of Ivy. When making the look of the character, the armor will determine health, defense and attack abilities, as well as give you points to use to pick skills for the character. While this can be very cool in setting up your character, it can also be disappointing as a perfect outfit may leave you with only half of your normal starting health. On the other hand, the perfect costume could leave you with over 100% health and some pretty wicked abilities.
You have fifty slots for customizable characters, which is significantly more than you got in Soul Calibur III, but that number can be surprisingly small once you take into account it also is for customizing existing characters, even if it’s just to give them a different weapon. You cannot save over existing characters, but you can essentially make a copy of them to change their weapon or skills. Unfortunately, you can’t change the color of their existing costumes, you have to make entirely new ones if you want to customize that.
My only real complaint about the Character Customization is that there aren’t enough varieties of costumes yet for either gender. The guys mainly have heavy armor looking stuff, while the women mainly have lighter armor. Unsurprisingly, the women’s armor can be quite sexual, but then, the men’s can be too. Just not with the heavy armor. There already has been one bit of downloadable content for armor and likely there will be more; but I was expecting a higher amount for just the basic game. Again, there’s quite a bit, just not as much as I expected.
Faces seem to be pretty limited, as are what the characters say. However, you can adjust the pitch of the voices, which give you a fair amount of variety there. Each piece of their armor is also customizable in color; so even if the armor is the same, the colors can be different. There’s also a variety of hair, but surprisingly, no makeup or tattoos for any of the characters. Once you’ve made your character, you can actually try them out in the character creation mode to see if they look and fight like you want. This takes you to what is basically the practice mode, and you can exit and return to the character creation screen at any time.
However, the Character Creation mode is also based on your skill level. Equipment is unlocked by how many achievements you have in the game, and to be able to have access to pretty much all of the equipment, you have to have 30 achievements or more. However at the moment, the final set of armor unlocked isn’t that great looking, especially for the women. Still, getting to 30 takes quite a bit of playing, help from friends, and some luck; so it can end up kind of inhibiting for casual players. The mode also allows for a variety of opponents, as you aren’t always fighting the same group of existing characters; the game has a variety of secondary characters you that have the abilities of the existing characters. So you may just end up fighting the woman with Cervantes’ swords or the man with Ivy’s whip-sword.
Many have commented on Star Wars characters being in this game, some love it, some hate it. Whichever your view, it doesn’t matter too much outside of the Arcade mode. If you’re not fond of Yoda (or Vader for the PS3) and the Apprentice being in the game, you don’t have to use them. You may fight them online, but for the most part, you can avoid the characters if you like, or use them to your heart’s content if you prefer. Unfortunately, you can’t really customize the Star Wars characters beyond the weapon they use (the saber always looks the same, it’s just the abilities it comes with that change), and the skills that each character has.
I was also disappointed that you can’t create your own custom Jedi or Sith. Hopefully this will be unlocked with some DLC, but at the moment, you’re stuck with the ones it comes with.
Overall the gameplay is pretty straightforward, and it depends on how lucky you are as a button masher or how good your memory is for moves to play the game. Blocking all the time won’t always win you the match, as pieces of your armor can break at any time, and blocking too much can leave you extremely vulnerable.
Certain moves, like the new Critical Finish, can be difficult to figure out for the first time. The game makes it sound as if the opponent’s soul bar is flashing, hitting a button will do a Critical Finish. What it doesn’t spell out is that the character needs to be in a state of “soul crush” which is shown either by a reddish electrical charge around them after an attack or in other cases, the sound of armor shattering while their bar is flashing red. It can take awhile, but even a casual player can likely get a hold of the Critical Finish; it’s just getting to the point where it’s available to use can be a pain. Once you do one, though, it can be quite satisfying; though some characters have better ones than others. Yoda, I think, has the best and Cassandra has probably the strangest.
The music is typical Soul Calibur music, and the voices are pretty much the same. Some of the more annoying characters’ voices are less annoying, but not greatly so. Then again, it’s part of the charm of the game. The graphics are fantastic, and between semi-destructible rings and moving parts, it definitely gives the arena a livelier feel.
It’s a long review, and I know some probably have skipped over most of the review to this point to get the gist of it all. I see how it is; I slave all day writing this and you just read the last paragraph. Sigh…
Soul Calibur IV is a fantastically fun and incredibly frustrating game simultaneously. Fans of the series will love it, but the casual player may want to try it out first. If you’re a fan of fighting games, it’s also up your alley. There is more to do if you’re a hardcore gamer (or just stubborn like me) as many of the modes can be frustratingly difficult; but there’s enough for everyone to do to make it worthwhile in the end. Then again, all the Soul Calibur games can be frustratingly difficult in their own ways. The character customization adds so much more to the game, allowing for a significant variety of opponents and plenty of things for you to do; and quite a bit of replay value.