I seriously love the fourth game. But it does feel lacking. Epsecially in the singleplayer department.
While there isn't a great deal to do apart from fighting. It's the fantastic combat that's easy on the new commers. And the fantastic looking graphics that make the game simply one of the best fighting games in recent years.
The most disapointing aspect of the game is the apparent lack of game modes. Theres only the standard versus and special versus, which you have stats on weapons and armor that can increase your health or give your knockdowns a posion effect that lasts for a few seconds for example. While it sound fun, it's somewhat of a lackluster.
The story mode is a okay as far as fighting games go. You play through five short and easy stages and you get a ending and then its credits. Their okay to watch, but don't be expecting anything special.
Tower of lost souls is a series of challanges that are on 50 or so floors. In these challenges you fight a series of opponens with stats on them and you have to defeat them the way the game tells you to. You can unlock via this mode new item sets and so forth to use in the character creation menu, however you can by default unlock the items over time on the game without ever going onto this mode, so it kinda makes doing these certan challenges kinda pointless.
Character creation is probably the one mode you will find your self comming back to the most. Here you can dress up existing characters or make your own up from scatch, but the armour feels all over the place. And theres no consistansy with it. And often you will make a character that looks like crap because you have stuck a bunch of junk together for the sake of the stats where it matters for the some of the game modes. Future SC games could do with the customization that Tekken 6 offers with it's characers.
Graphicly the game is amazing to look at. Characters look great and so do the levels. The lighting in general on some of the levels is fantastic. Armour design on the characters is great. Sound in the same regard is great too. The game allows you to change to the japanese voicecast in the options menu which is great for japanese fans. And both diologs work fine in the game. BGM for the game is good too with alot of epic songs.
SoulCalibur IV is one of my most played games todate for the 360 console with over 550+ hours spent playing it and counting. And it's all because of the gameplay, and that's only a mark a good game and leave on you. If you have been waiting for a truly good fighting game then wait no longer. SoulCalibur IV is that good of a fighting game and it should be played.