Soulcalibur IV

"It looks like the soul has finally burned out...."

Soul Calibur IV is the fourth (fifth if you count Soul Blade) game in the once-popular Soul Calibur series. But it seems that this time not even the force could hide that the once-blazing soul is starting to go out.

I'm going to start this review with the two most important parts of a fighting game, the roster and the game balance, starting with the roster. The roster this time around has only two new original characters, being Hilde and Algol. The first, Hilde, is some kind of German Battle-Maiden I guess. She wields a spear and a short sword, making her fairly decent character being able to keep her opponents at a distance with the spear and having the short sword encase they get to close. The latter, Algol, is the creator of Soul Calibur and Soul Edge, who created them for... some reason (this isn't very well explained, I'll go onto the story later). The best way to discribe Algol is like a cross between something out of Dragonball Z and Inuasha. But on a game-play perspective, he's cheep. He's the only character who can fire projectiles, and he has powerful melee attacks to back it up. Oh, and on top of that he can teleport. Next, we have two unoriginal characters, Darth Vader and The Apprentice from Star War the Force Unleashed. Darth Vader is the only balanced Star Wars character (I hear that Yoda on the 360 is made of raw cheapness). His moves are good, do fair damage and he has some powerful, slow-but-worth-it moves to back time up. But the Apprentice is just down-right overpowered. His force attacks are nuts and his melee attacks are just as bad (if not worse). Now, I'll willing to bet that you heard that this game has custom characters in it. Well, that is true but most of the equipment is only okay, nothing worth pointing out. You'll notice that most of the men's armor looks either silly or just dumb, while the women's armor is either skimpy or only so-so. While the dept of customization is fair (beyond being able to choose the skin, eye, hair, ect. color you can adjust your character's body to be muscular, flabby, ect.) the move sets are just the moves of the characters already in the game mapped onto your character's model. And getting new armor for your characters is a pain also. Rather than have the perfectly-acceptable shop that was in Soul Calibur III they put in Tower of Lost souls. A mode in which you fight a series of bad guys and if you hit them in the right way or KO properly you'll get armor but this mode is more frustrating than entertaining. But overall, the problem with having custom characters (and this goes for any fighting game with them) is that they kind of take the point of having other characters in altogether. Why would anyone want to play as anyone other than the characters that they made themselves? The original characters in the game look kind of silly too as well. Ivy's costume is as skimpy as it's ever been (hard to believe that this game got a "Teen" rating, huh?), Taki's costume is red again, just like it was in Soul Calibur 2, Maxi still looks like Elvis, and Song-Mina, who's out fits were notorious for showing her panties, now show them all the time. I could be here for hours talking about the poor costume designs. The skimpy clothes and obvious sex appeal reeks of desperate sales if you ask me.

Now onto game balance, over all it could be greatly improved. The Apprentice needs his attack power chopped clean in half, Maxi's combos still continually loop just so long as the player wants to press the buttons to make that happen, Algol's ability to fire projectiles needs to be taken out of the game... it seems like Namco was in such a hurry to get the game out that they overlooked some major problems in balance. Although I do applaud their inventive system to help prevent turtling (that being guarding for the entire fight). In Soul Calibur IV, each character has three types of armor that can be broken. Head, body, legs, if you are hit too much while guarding one of these will break off depending on where you were hit while guarding too much. When your armor is broken, you'll take more damage than usual from attacks. And if your opponent hits L1 at the right time after your armor breaks, s/he will be able to use a super-finisher attack that ends the round. While this is an effective system, it also makes one notice that Namco didn't do anything to help grabs. Now grabs are easier than ever to pull off (now grabs are also mapped to L2) and you can beat the toughest opponents but grabbing them, over and over and over again.

A new thing introduced into Soul Calibur here is the addition of weapon and armor effect that range from giving you addition health to preventing you from getting knocked out the ring. I actually really disliked this system because most of the items that give good effects look really ridiculous and are something I would rather not put on my character. It's also incredibly unfair in multi-player because unless your opponent is incredibly good at the game you're always going to win because your favorite character is maxed out in stats while your buddy's is weak beyond comparison.

Another new addition is online play, which like most other fighting games does a horrible job at matching you up with someone of your skill level. More often than not I'm matched up with that guy, you know, the guy who doesn't nothing but play one game all day and is therefor better than everyone else at it. Also, the online is very lag at times, often making matches a pain to play.

Story, which is the least important part of a fighting game is what I'll be talking about next. Okay, there is no such thing as continuum in the Soul Calibur games. The only event that has "officially" happened that occurred in Soul Calibur III was Nightmare and Siegfried fighting in the cathedral. The whole thing with Abyss and such doesn't seem to have happened at all. But onto the actually story. in the fourth installment of Soul Calibur there is a story mode in which first you choose your character then you play through his or her individual quest to find the swords. But the whole "choose your path" board game-ish story mode that was in Soul Calibur II and III (I don't remember what was in the first one) is gone. Now you get a big wall of text (kind of like this review) which reads like a page out of a fantasy epic. Too bad it couldn't stay epic. All of the stories end in the same way. Who ever you choose to play as gets his/her hands on the swords then does what ever it is that s/he wanted to do with them. Plus the stories are so short that you can go through one of them in 10-15 minuets. The only ending that worth mentioning is Zasalamel's, which will make anyone who has seen the Matrix start laughing.

Now don't get me wrong, Soul Calibur 4 is still fun to play. I'm probably going to go play it some more once I'm done reviewing it but there's no way I would ever even bother with the game had I not won it in a bet. Anyway, back onto if you should get it or not. If you're a hard-core Soul Calibur Fanboy/girl then go get it, it's your favorite game series anyway. If you're a fighting game enthusiast then this is one that I recommend that you don't bother with. But if your a normal gamer who's curious about the Soul Calibur series then pick up Soul Calibur II. I can guarantee that you'll probably enjoy it more.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 01/05/09

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