A good game, but falls short of greatness.
What it really boils down to, though, is the variety of modes that the game provides, and how Namco Bandai handled each of them. In some of these modes the game simply shines, and other modes fall so flat you almost wonder why they even bothered.
For all of the modes, most of the basics have been handled well. The characters and backgrounds are beautiful, the background music is your standard SoulCalibur fare (which is not a bad thing), and the controls are not only responsive, but can be altered (re-mapped) to fit your fighting style. So while you're fighting your opponents, you won't be fighting these distractions. However, with the exception of the Star Wars characters, the voice acting is incredibly cheesy and loaded with coined phrases, and this is magnified by the character's lips not staying in sync with what they're saying. The game's narrator is even worse, and doesn't do a good job of portraying the strength and epic feel the game is supposed to have.
While the addition of the Star Wars characters is a bit odd, they don't feel as strange as you would suspect. This is mostly thanks to how well each character in the game is balanced against the others, as there aren't any "super-characters" in the game. Even the lesser characters such as Tira, Lizardman, and Rock can take out characters the likes of Algol and Cervantes. The only problem character is Yoda in the 360 version of the game as he's small, hard to hit, and almost impossible to grab because of his small stature. He can be defeated, but it's not as fair of a fight as it is with the other characters.
If you're not happy with the choices available, you can create your own fighters in the "Character Creation" mode. And you'll be surprised by how far you can really go in building your own personal warrior. Don't get me wrong…not everything is customizable, so give up any thoughts about putting Darth Vader in a bikini. What it does do is give you several choices of faces, clothing, and weapons, as well as the colors for each. You can also choose your voice (and its pitch), and change your physique to be larger or smaller. The best part is that, in battle, your creations look just as smooth and play just as well as any of the stock fighters, and are fully playable in just about all the modes.
"Versus" mode is, of course, battling another opponent until one of you has lost a certain number of bouts, and is the basis of any solid fighter. I will tell you that whether you're dueling with a friend in your living room, or smashing it out on-line, you will have fun with this game. Both the ranked and unranked matches over the Playstation Network gave me very little trouble with lag or wait times, and enhanced the overall game experience tremendously.
"Arcade" mode has you battle eight different characters, and then scores your performance appropriately, while "The Tower" mode is the game's survival mode that throws wave after wave of enemies at you to see if you have what it takes. The upside to both of these modes, besides the battles themselves, is they encourage you to play to unlock additional equipment to be used in Character Creation, and the downside is that these modes suffer from one of SoulCalibur's trademark flaws: difficulty extremes. You'll fight several characters in a row that are a cakewalk, and then suddenly fight a character that is almost impossible to take down. The most extreme example of this is when you face The Apprentice in "Arcade" mode for the first time. He uses excessive amounts of the force, keeps his distance, and then comes in and pounds you mercilessly to a pulp. The character after him, however, goes back to being a cakewalk. It just makes no sense, and there's no excuse for it seeing as properly adjusted difficulty goes all the way back to the original Mortal Kombat.
The final mode that needs to be discussed is also this game's weakest: "Story" mode. This mode allows you to follow the legend of each character throughout a series of five battles. While obtaining this background information could be fun, certain flaws simply ruin it such as the poor lip-syncing I mentioned earlier. It is also way too easy to play through at its default difficulty setting. As an experiment I simply mashed one button through all five battles, and actually won all five battles on my first try. They also give you the introduction narrative to each character in written form on the screen, as opposed to a cut-scene, which feels very cheap given the hardware this game is running on. A proper adventure mode for even one of the major characters, given the rich history of the SoulCalibur series, could have helped take this game right over the top.
Don't let the gripes, however, dissuade you from purchasing the game, especially if you're looking for some excellent combat action. I've only spent the time I have on the downsides of this title to explain why it's only a good game, and not an outstanding one. If more time had been spent on polishing the game's weak points, we'd be talking about its glory for years to come.
So if you can see past the issues I've mentioned above, it's worth paying the full price tag and picking this title up. If these issues are more than you're willing to tolerate, wait until the price hits around $40.00, as it's easily worth that much. SoulCalibur IV may not have lived up to its potential, but it's still worth playing nonetheless.