Soulcalibur IV

"This game survives on the lifeblood of previous Soul Calibur titles."

I became a Soul Calibur junkie after the release of Soul Calibur II. That game was an example of how a sequel to a well renowned game could be great by doing something other than rehashing the same old song and dance. Soul Calibur II was fun, it was replayable, it could kick your butt, and the multiplayer was obviously endless fun. Soul Calibur III upped the quality even further, by adding fun new modes and a create a character function that added endless new characters.

And now Soul Calibur IV is here.

I'll start out by saying this: It's not bad. All the stuff that made the previous Soul games so great is back, such as the diverse and simplistic weapon-based combat and the fast paced action. But this installment fails to introduce any interesting new features, and so it is a fun game to play with your friends but not when you're home alone.

Let's begin with the single player modes: Story, Tower of Lost Souls, Arcade, and Training.

Arcade and Training have not changed much. Training is still very useful to build up your skills, and arcade is fun for those people who enjoy the "Insert Coin" feeling in their fighting games.

Story has turned from the engaging, choice-based yarn of Soul Calibur III into a complete joke. Each character has only five stages in their entire story mode, and there are no special missions or conditional paths at all. Just five stages, and you're done. I wish I was kidding. To make matters worse, the second, third and fifth stages always take place in the same stage, so each story mode has only two unique stages. Upon beating story mode, you are treated to a single, boring cutscene. The quick time events in the SCIII cutscenes are gone, so there is absolutely no variability at all. Beating a characters story unlocks all of their weapons, making me wonder why the intermediate weapons even exist in the first place.

It's a shame story mode is so bad, because the new "Tower of Lost Souls" mode is not up to snuff either. It replaces SCII's Weapon Master Mode and SCIII's Chronicles of the Sword as the main single player attraction, but this time, there's not even an attempt at a story. You can choose to climb up or down a large, 100+ floor tower. Descending is essentially a fluffed up survival mode, entertaining for anyone who wants a challenge but not a source of nonstop entertainment. Ascending will get you a continuing stream of battles against opponents with varying skills, such as a skill to prevent ringouts, one to strengthen the power of guard impacts, one to make the user invisible, and many more. The skills are nice, and vary things up somewhat. Unfortunately, the tower is plagued by poor level design. You can cut through several floors of enemies only to run into a tough enemy, sending you tumbling back a couple floors. This would be OK if not for the excruciating load times on every floor that you have to sit through every time you bite the dust. On some levels, you'll spend as much time loading as playing! Nonetheless, the tower is entertaining to a point, even if it has major flaws.

Luckily, the fun multiplayer saves the tepid singleplayer. There are several new characters and a few new features. Darth Vader and his apprentice leap onto the PS3, along with newcomers Hilde and Algol. The new characters are well fleshed out and have some very interesting, useful, and flashy techniques. Yoda appears on the Xbox 360 in Vader's place, but I have not had a chance to play him. The Star Wars characters integrate well and don't seem as awkwardly placed as Heihachi, Link, and Spawn were in SCII. Amy, Raphael's adopted daughter, has also joined the cast of characters as more than just a generic create-a-character.

A new system was introduced to stop turtlers: When a player blocks a lot, their armor will deteriorate and fall off. Eventually, their guard will be broken and the other player will have a chance to do a "critical finish". These super cool attacks will instantly kill an opponent. It is a nice addition, but since armor will slowly regenerate, one player is usually dead by the time a critical finish is near usable. Though it stops the worst of turtlers, it's not like there weren't ways to stop constant blockers in the past.

In the single player mode, a tag system was introduced. Tagging is an interesting concept, as a skilled player will be able to use multiple characters to make fearsome combos (For instance, a player can use Ivy to trip up their opponent, quickly switch to Siegfried, and bash his/her opponent while they lie prone on the ground). However, since it's not available in local multiplayer, the concept is not used as well as it could be an interesting way to add an additional element to the gameplay.

On a side note, the game is very pretty and makes the jump to next gen without any visible flaws. We see a host of cool new stages like an evil Merry go Round and a Star Wars battleship.

There's also online play added, and it's fun, but can be laggy at times. It's a good addition to the game's multiplayer landscape.

The create-a-character system has basically been shot to hell. Now, certain clothes have attributes, so you can choose to either have a cool looking, weak character or a strong, well-rounded fighter who looks like a total doofus. Why not just let us edit the stats manually? I don't know, but this system is too complicated and hampers creativity. Also, the unique Create-a-Character classes from SCIII are gone, and I have no idea why. They were quirky and fun, and now created characters just adopt a character's style, making them boring clones. It's fun to create your dream warrior, but using him is not as fun as it could be.

Soul Calibur IV is playable, thanks to the greatness of its predecessors, but does not bring anything new to the series. Buy it if you enjoyed previous titles in the series, but otherwise you can pass and wait for Tekken 6 to hit shelves.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 08/06/08

Game Release: Soulcalibur IV (US, 07/29/08)