The Best Soul Calibur yet!
First off, I want to say that the graphics are top notch. They are very impressive, and all the characters have new and unique looks that are also impressive. As far as gameplay goes it is also very extraordinary. There are over 30 characters in this game, giving you much variety to play with. The 1 player modes are much improved from Soul Calbur III. While the story mode is short and a little dissapointing it satisfies as a simple mode to play through and get use to te gameplay and characters. The Tower of Lost Souls is definitely the hardest part of this game. To beat it you must ascend 60 floors that have different fighters with certain skills attached to them. Now the first 30 are fairly simple. After that it gets very challenging...i mean VERY challenging. There were times I wanted to throw my controller at the T.V. and I did drop a few choice words when i lost. When you do finally beat the tower you will feel very relieved and realize that it was all worth it. The last 1 player mode is arcade. Which plays like a general arcade game. You fight 8 characters and after beating each one you get points and your final score is totaled at the end.
Now the best part of the game is easily creating your own character. Not only are there hundreds of items to have your fighter wear, you can customize your fighter by giving them extra skills. These skills vastly improve your character, making the trip up the Tower of lost souls a little easier. You could easily spend hours creating certain characters from some of your other favorite games. The customization is endless.
The 360 version obviously has achievements, but the PS3 version has honors which are basically the exact same thing as achievements. Many of them are challenging, but at the same time addicting. The adds tons of extra hours to the game. With 50 honors it will keep you busy for awhile.
This game is near perfect, but with the tower of lost souls being almost imsanely hard and frustrating at times, and with the story mode being downgraded from past entries in the series I cant find it in myself to give it anything higher than a 9.