With new characters and new modes Soul Calibur has never shown so brightlly in this age where darkness threatens all
As soon as you start the game up you are anticipating a world that "Trancends all others" And I am here to tell you why
Game
Intro: The intro has little meaning when you first play it. All you see is a Gladiator standing panting as if he has finished killing many enemies and you see the sword he holds in his hands it is the mighty "Soul Edge" The sword has changed since its made its debut on the Dreamcast. A much sronger looking warrior walks up to the gladiator and he strikes with the sword. The second man grabs onto the sword and forces the Gladiator to his knees. Time is then thrown into the future a little and you see the man standing remorsfully at that very spot he holds up what little of a remnant of Soul Edge that he has as if he is cursing the Gods of his fate and he is cast down into a pit of crystals. Time runs into the future again and you see the same tower with familiar faces battling it out in the canyon below. Instantlly you feel hairs running on the back of your neck as you see the new and improved Nightmare and Seigfred with their even more improved versions of the Soul blades.
As you press the start screen you are excited to see what the modes are and I will explain all of them here in depth
Main Menu: Now the main menu of any fighting game is key you need to know where to go and have it easilly direct you to what mode best suits your needs at that moment
In the background you see Soul Calibur but it appears it is being engulfed in flames chances are from Soul Edge then later transitions into soothing blue light the light from Soul Calibur. On the upper right screen it displays your Gamername and gamerpic plus any Gold you may have aqquirred during your adventures looking for the "Sword of Salvation" This is extremelly useful to know how much funds you have to buy that certain item you've been wondering about.
Single Player Modes:
Story Mode: Story mode takes you in the position of any one of 20+ characters in the Soul Calibur universe and places you in their certain dillema they would be in during that time you fight through 5 stages each of which mayhave you fighting up to 4 people during one stage. The first of which may or may not have a destined battle and the second one may or may not have a destined battle. Your opponenets are mixed with Custom Characters that the game itself has created and puts an interesting spin on say. . . .fighting Seigfried's late father. During the opening exchange of words the two opponents always say something (for the most part) meaningful to eachother. The third stage is facing against a random character that has some story not relating to the "SCIV universe" These characters include the anime looking alien girl "Agnol Fear" who has the same move set as Seong Mi Na. Soon after that you have to face either the Good guys or the Bad guys or maybe both. The final round is against the main baddy or Seigfried/Nightmare. In the end you get a cut scene. . . . .and when I say cut scene. . . . I mean cut scene they sorta leave you with a cliff hanger sometimes the character's story is resolved but other times your left spechless. . . . Another thing that should be added is an addition to SCIII's Story mechanics and that is your Custom Character can now partake on an epic journey throughout story mode!
I give Story Mode a 7.5 out of 10
Tower of Lost Souls: TOLS is a new mode to the SC universe you enter the tower and must fight your way up an endless amount of steps each with their own battle requirments some of which have overlly offensive characters versing you others will have limited amount of time. They just keep on going on and on and on. Aside from the many hours you will spend cursing at your television screen during this mode the game will reward you with gold and if you meet the requirments equipment for your custom characters some of the requirments are gaurd breaking 3 times ect. ect. each floor will give you a hint on what you are supose to do in order to obtain this treasure chest. As soon as you acsend 20 floors you are offered the ability to decend into the depths of the tower and fight against many foes. In the end Tower of Souls is fun yet doesn't stack up against its younger siblings extras "Chronicles of the Sword" and the extra mode in SCII where you acually have to level up.
I give Tower of Lost Souls a 7 out of 10
Arcade Mode: Arcade mode is your standard fighting system. You have 8 stages which you have to pass in a certain amount of time in order to gain extra points and for a final grade at the end. At stage 7 you face off against the Mighty Apprentance of the Dark Sith Lord Darth Vader and for the final battle you fight against the main baddy (no spoilers here folks. . . ) the mode is fun and not stressful it allows you to really sharpen your skills against CPU characters. As you progress the enemies get harder and harder like for example in stage 1 the opponent might attack once. . . . and then stand there for the rest of the battle. On stage 7 they might be a little harder using combos to keep you down. In the end Arcade mode is fun. fast. and entertaining.
I give Arcade Mode an 8 out of 10
Training Mode: Training Mode allows you to sharpen your skills even further with a dummy of your choice to take a few whacks at you can look at control input moves and see how that certain move you get annoyed about so much is done or just find out new ways how you can utilize all that you've learned so your not countinuaslly mashing one button (. . . . .*cough*) This mode offers alot to newcomers to the SC universe and allows you to veiw how combos are going to be played out upon execution of input a very usefull tool that is in all fighters.
I give Training Mode a 10 out of 10
Versus Modes: NOTE: Versus mode lacks a CPU vs CPU option so this entire section of the reveiw will be hurt for that account.
Standard Versus: Simple, You can have either a local player with you or a CPU and battle it out in any amount of rounds/time limit you desire. Also since this is standard battle upgrades wont effect how well your characters perform in battle so mix it up! Make your character look as badass as possible (or if your playing as a story character then well. . . . dont worry about it) All and all this mode is a mess of fun with none of the consequence if you want a clean match then go for the standard.
I give Standard Vs. Mode a 9 out of 10
Special Versus: Well it is much similiar to standard with the execption that you need to now worry about special power ups that your character has equipt to them. This can get difficult since well you could be lost in the dark (much how I am) about these whole entire "upgrades" and your opponent could be master of them. This tips the odds in other's favours but if your skills are good enough you should be fine.
I give Special Vs. Mode an 8 out of 10
Xbox Live: Here it is!!! The moment most SCIV fans have been waiting for! Now a chance to finally test how well I do against the world!!!!
Ok so here the jist of it. There are 4 modes in total and here they all are stay with me because I do beleive my memory is fuzzy I will be marking all retorical things with this sign "---" which simply means "I've already explained it in the Versus part." Enjoy!
Ranked: Well in ranked matches you are only allowed 3 choices. Find a quick match, Find a custom match and Create your own session. Finding matches on XBL is fast and painfree and the lvling up system is easy and friendly to use. You start off as lvl 1 and work your way up. When you finally fill your soul bar (I like to call it that) all the way up your next match will be a "Meeting of Destiny" this simply means if you win you level up! If you lose you are brought down a little bit to claw your way up the food chain more. Setting up a session is simple since well. . . . they dont really give you session to set up. All you do is choose your time thats it not much fun but fair and thats what counts in the end
Ranked Match (Standard): ---
Ranked Match (Special): ---
Player: Player is just for Casual gamers who dont need to be stressed out by the pressure that rank puts on you. You are able to go further into creating your dream session setting up how many players will be joining, The time, number of matches, and Reserved slots you can have up to 4 people join one session a good way to keep online playing fun and interesting. Also allowing players to invite friend's to play against eachother is an easy to use system.
Player Match (Standard): ---
Player Match (Special): ---
In general: I have yet to see a laggy session on live. Normally that proves difficult to rely on your opponent the person who has sworn to destroy you to have a good connection, but I have found SCIV a very surprising set up with their online, good job on that. A more pressing matter about this game is the lack of keeping players within the certain range. When I just started out playing XBL I was lvl 1 and had to face a lvl 13 (I won though). This allows for skilled players to go into a session with a completelly outmatched opponent. This isn't that fair and I wish they fixed that problem to keep people on the same page.
I gave Xbox Live an 8.5 out of 10
Character Creation: In this mode you can do TONS of things. It should take up most of your gameplay time just building your character up imagining the possiblities is endless! Bandai Namco has definatlly ported a jewl from the SCIII saga.
Custom Character: Here you may choose gender, Fighting style (from any of the story characters), Battle trait, Skill focus, and allignment. Once you have the skeleton of your newest member of the SCIV crew its time to stat customizing! Each gender has their own set of clothing with some common things about them. you can change head gear, eye wear, shoulders, neck everything a person can imagine!!! I personally have found the DLC for this game quite enjoyable featuring a special Blazer/Uniform/Formal Pants/Leather shoes to make your fighter in the SCIV universe the most outdressed one. After your done selecting what you want your person to have you then can change the colors and the brightness of the characer's clothing to however you like. Each amount of clothing has a certain layer of color to it some are the trim others are the whole thing so dont just stop at one thing mess around!!! After your done with clothing color you can then go to hair, Face, Voice, and Body Apperance. The hair is very interesiting but some originals like the "Styled back" have faded back to the old version of SCIII this was a little dissapointing seeing how that was the hair I used the most but who knows what else XBLM has in store for us. After your done with your hair you can change the face. Faces range from kiddish school boy/girl to old hermit/granny and everything inbetween. As soon as you've made your choice you can then go into the voice section. In SCIII they made you have one set voice you were either good. . . . or evil. . . .maybe even in the middle, but in SCIV they allow you to change the pitch of the voice allowing for you to have tons of voices to outfit your characters with! Its a definate step towards the right direction for that. Does your character sound evil/friendly enough? Good lets move to Body Apperance now. A new mode in SC Character Creation this allows you to change your warrior to be (in the guys case) a little overweight, to a skinny minnie and you can also change how much muscle they have on them (in the girls case) you may change how big and dare I say this? How big the women's chest size is and how muscluler they are as well. As soon as your done doing that you then must choose colors for your characters hair, eye brows, and eyes themselves. You can even go as far into it as to change the color of their undergarmets and skin tone! Once you've finalized your character's look its time to outfit them with a weapon of your choice choose a weapon then move to the final screen. On the final screen you can choose their pose that they are in while you customize them and their name. While in the previous SC you could not use fowl launguage such as calling a character "Damn" but in this it has been corrected as I have a character named that now this is definatlly an improvement!
Another new found ablity that the game offers is the ablity to acually fully customize any of the story characters Seigfried, Nightmare, Taki you name it! you can change their clothes just like how you can make your own character in the game they will just have their own voice set. A truley awesome step up from the last game's customization
In General: Well I should also mention that characters like Yoda and the Apprentice cannot be outfitted with things but they can equip certain "accesories" to them this will boost health or the soul gauge and make your Yoda a bigger threat to the empire. For normal characters we have special items that you can epuipt to your person how these works is during certain activation you will release what the peice of equipment has titled it were to do wheather this be HP drain or HP Recovery its all up to what your character has on them but remember certain customized equipment can and will lower or raise your Power/Speed/Soul/Will so bear that in mind and stay vigilant. Finally they have gotten rid of the shop option from the game's main menu you now must purchase it through the customization parts directlly from Character Creation.
I give Character Creation a 10 out of 10 nice job Bandai Namco
Museum: Museum is a place where you can veiw concept art and even check up on how your achievments are going throughout the game this mode is useful mainly to keep track of what you've done throughout the game and to know how much further you have to go.
I give Museum mode a 7 out of 10 even though its cool its just extra stuff.
Options: I can't really go into depth about "Options" but basiclly change the volume match length so on and so forth the coolest part about options is that you can change the voices to Japanesse which is always a nice change from the ordinary.
I really cant give options mode a score so its N/A
Gameplay:
Gameplay offers some new goodies in the world of this fighter, in this section of the reveiw I'll break down the dynamics of the controls and some of the new additions to gameplay.
Controls: the controls are pretty much the same. . .
X to attack horizontally
Y to attack Vertically
B to Kick
A to block
these buttons can be combined in certain ways to execute combos for example Siegfred's X,X,Y is a combo commonlly used with him. Buttons can also be pressed simutaniouslly for example X+Y allows you to do a powerful attack sometimes weakening your opponents gaurd. One of the biggest stradegies in the game is to know when your combos end so you can map out your next move so you'll become a flurry of attacks!
Offense isn't the only thing. Defense plays a very important role in Soul Calibur IV. The old technique makes another apperance in this game. Gaurd impacting is acheived by timing your impact with your opponents attack. This method is executed by pressing simutaniouslly left + X or right + X this will make you assume a deffensive stance that will repel most of your opponents attacks. Having your timing the exact same as your opponents attack will allow you to execute a "Just Impact" this will have you knock your opponent back in a daze you can then follow up with an attack of any kind.
Taunting has come back to the game. I personally find taunting a good part of any game expecially fighters. taunting can be executed by pressing simutaniouslly A+Y+B+X taunting varies from each character so its interesting to check em all out.
Actions: Gameplay actions are split into a whole mess of categories so I'll go in depth into what they all are.
The different types of attacks there are in SCIV
M - Middle
L - Low
H - High
SP - Special
UBL - Unblockable
TH - Throw
GB - Gaurd Breaker
By combining these types of moves you can deliver powerful and agile attacks keeping your opponent not knowing whats coming for them.
All and all Soul Calibur IV is a fun and furious fighter that can be considered both a serious fighter and a family and friend combatant.
I give Soul Calibur IV an 8.5 out of 10 you go soul.