Greetings and Salutations!

Sorry it's been awhile. Massive gaming. You know how it is.

Anyway, on to the crux of this post....Soul Calibur 4.

Now, I absolutely adore the Soul Calibur franchise. I like it better than any other fighting game, including Tekken. But...

What were they on when they made this installment?

First of all, the whole concept of facing multiple characters back to back seems really cool, and is rather neat in execution, but can lead to totally unexpected ring outs due to the always hard to judge direction of appearence of the next opponent. My next gripe is that it seems that half of every character's move list is designed to be used against a grounded foe. Which will be obvious to anyone who's suffered what would have only been a split secong knockdown, then had their entire energy bar depleted by a constant stream of moves while defenseless.

Then, there is the actual Story. It's gotten to the point where i only use my created characters, because the motivations of a lot of the 'good' guys has become retarded. Destroy Soul Edge? Check, no problem. Destroy Soul Calibur? What in the name of Zues are you thinking?.... Balance? No. As in life, this is Good vs. Evil. Good should v anquish Evil, not 'live in harmony with it.' Crock of poo, that it.

The bright spot to all of that is the Character Maker. There are so many options just in looks, and then when you figure in that armor affects your stats..and then you add in having enough skill points to equip abilities.. It's just immense. Very Satisfying.

What isn't satifying is the 'Tower of Souls'. Although I do like the fact of redoing any set of floors you've passed to unlock armor, I really, really miss the centralised character and story of SC3's extra mode. That, and some of the requirements are absolutely INSANE! Which actually leads to a funny story..

Okay, I'm at the floor that asks you to do a voluntary ring out to get some armor. Should be no problem, right? Wrong! The do-it-yourself death is a lot harder to pull off the some fighting games. Okay, no sweat..just switch to Talim since she's known to have almost lemming like tendencies with the edge of the ring. Three opponents and me doing nothing but TRYING to ring myself out.

I wupped all three with Talim who was only trying to commit suicide.

SC3 was so much better on almost every front. The graphics are better in 4 though, and lord knows, that's all anyone cares about anymore.

Oh, and Darth Vader and the Apprentice? Vader was tough to beat, and is pretty cool to use. His apprentice was an almost impossible Monster to beat, and that was with my best character! Using Vader? Don't make me laugh. So, I cheated the system and just constantly did the 'Emperor Toss' throw on him. Only way to beat him.

I give this game about an 8 to 8.5.

Peace, Love, and Bullfrogs!