Soulcalibur IV

"It COULD have been a very good game"

Soul Calibur IV, Namcos fourth installment in its famous, weapons based franchise is finally here. I myself am a big fan of the series, I played SCII to death, and completed SCIII with great enjoyment as well. This installment however felt a little under done. Whilst the gameplay mechanics that make this game great are still present, the horrible back of game modes, sub par custom character system and very underdone online system leaves me with a bitter sweet feeling. I knew I should have bought MGS4 instead.

Design
A severe step back from previous Soul Caliburs. The standard modes are available to play as always, such as arcade and training. A story mode has also been put in although its so god awful it makes me weep (more below under story).

But most surprisingly Chronicles of the Sword (or weapon master mode), the games campaign mode in previous installments has been scrapped entirely and replaced with the Tower of Lost Souls mode. Big mistake in my eyes, nothing quite compares to SCII campaign mode, THAT was fun to play. Basically, in Tower of Lost souls mode you will be climbing a tower (duh!) thats around 60 levels. Beating anywhere from 1-3 people per floor with 1-3 of your own characters. Problem is, most of them are the exact same, bar a few floors where the enemy will block a bit more or you will have a bit less time than usual. Its bland, boring and repetitive. The only reason to trudge through it is to unlock parts for your custom character.

CaS, or create a soul is another semi-new feature in the Soul Calibur series (started in SCIII). It lets you create your own character from scratch and give him/her the weapon of one of the main characters. Many things can be customized, eyes, hair colour, tattoos, voice pitch, all sort of clothing and so on. The bad thing is that the clothes your CaS has on reflects their stats. You could make a really cool character, then find out that outfit he/she has on cripples their HP or defence, making them useless. Some features are also a bit lacking, you cant customize lips, or even facial features, you have to pick from pre-designed faces. But not surprisingly, physique can now be adjusted meaning you can have a slim character with a small cup size (if your making a female). Or a fairly solid CaS with boobs that put Tifa's to shame (and jiggle like water balloons). However, despite the lacking amount of clothing, some beautiful designs can be made, its a shame their too few and far between.

Story
Theirs a story? Could have fooled me. As mention above there is “technically” a story mode but its so poorly done it makes me wonder how is got past beta testing. Basically you get to fight 5 battles, no individual cut scenes, nothing. Just five plain battles with a very crappy ending. Not much else to say here, its just very poorly done and very lazy on Namcos part.

Gameplay
The same tried and true system makes a return to SCIV with a few minor changes. All the attack types from previous games are present; high, mid, low, guard break and unblockable attacks, as well as guard impacts of course.

This time round however critical finishes have been added to the mix. If your opponent keeps blocking attacks constantly then their defense will shatter, leaving them exposed to a “critical finish”, a feature not unlike Mortal Kombats fatality system. The good thing about these critical finishes is that they are extremely rare, it takes a lot of successive blocks to get the opportunity to pull one off and when it does happen, its a mighty sweet sight.

The game itself, playing against the CPU of course flows very nicely, the range of attacks makes fighting in arcade mode very entertaining, its not too slow or too fast and is very responsive. The good thing about the gameplay is that each character has their own strengths and weaknesses. Some characters excel at mid range attacks, others with low ones, whilst others have good high attacks, low attacks, good guard break moves or unblockables. Its a chess type battle system that always keeps you thinking and planning, especially when your playing a slow character, and your opponents playing a quick, agile one.

The thing I dislike about the battle system is that its a bit cheapish. Most attacks will hit high and when a low attacks comes, it very difficult to see coming and when you do, its far too late. I would have liked to see a bit more "lag" if you will with low attacks to at least give players a decent chance to counter them.

Online
It was a good attempt at doing something innovative, I myself haven't heard of too many online one on one fighting games. However, Namcos attempt at online gaming could have been a lot better had it been more functional.

When you enter the online menu you have 2 options. Ranked or Unranked. Ranked wins and losses will go on your profile for others to see, unranked games do not. Once you've made your choice you can go into a “quick match”, “custom match” or “create a session”. The problem is that all these options are severely broken. Quick match will often return the error “this game session is full” and instead of finding another game for you like in Resistance, it just boots you back to the options screen where you can try again. Meaning you have to constantly mash X SEVERAL times (anywhere from 1-20) before you can find a game.

Custom match is the same as above only you get to “chose” which game you will get the “this game session is full” error. “Create a session” works a bit better in that you can create a game and wait for people to come to you. It works, most of the time, except for some reason it can take anywhere from 30 seconds to 10 minutes for someone to come to you for a game, from my experiences anyway.

However, once you do find a game the pain doesn't stop there. Lag, yes we all know what it is, rears its ugly head here. In an online FPS its tolerable, here its just plain unplayable. When your about to enter a match with someone you can see what the speed of you connection is with theirs. 5 bars means hardly any lag, 1 means up to 1 second delays on attacks (doesn't sound like much but it is). In this day and age, I would like to think most people have cable, but with ADSL or god forbid dial up the game just doesnt work. For example once a opponent launches and unblockable attack you cant get out of the way quick enough.

Graphics
Not the best this gen but very well done for my tastes. Everything looks fantastic, lighting, weapons, faces, armor, everything. All the backgrounds and fight locations are fairly unique and very deep. Some can be interacted with, other cant but still, its a very gorgeous looking game.

Sound
Very well done, the adjustable voices all sound great and the music is a bit plain but it fits in very well. Everything from characters moving around to the grunts they exert are all done well for my tastes. Nothing much else to say, Namco did a good job here.

Conclusion
It had potential it really did, a few more CaS outfits and features would have gone a long way. A minor tweak to some of the move sets would have made gameplay just that bit more fun. A better campaign mode would have been wonderful, as well as a complete overhaul of the online system. In the end though the tried and true combat system is still there, I would recommend a rental, or wait until a substantial price drop.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 08/21/08, Updated 08/22/08

Game Release: Soulcalibur IV (AU, 07/31/08)