Soul Calibur IV

First Glance:

The latest entry in the Soul Calibur franchise gets some “Force” behind it.  HA!  I made with the funny!

The Short Story:

Soul Calibur has always been about the combat physics and the weapons so it’s no surprise that SC IV has plenty to deliver on both fronts.  While the spoken lines are still a bit on the lame side, the voice acting has improved considerably over the previous entries.  And while I’m always down with lightsaber combat, I’m just not sure I’m comfortable with it taking place in the Soul Calibur universe.

The Score:

There’s a lot here for the Busy Gamer to enjoy.  Unlockable content is easy to obtain in short play sessions with repeated sessions yielding more “gold” to buy those items that require purchases.  Controls are intuitive and make it easy to learn each character’s moves for the majority of the characters with veterans of the series having the easiest time.  While online play can yield varied and often frustrating results (more on this in the body of the review) quick matches are there to be had if you look for them.  Gorgeous backgrounds, realistic physics, and ease of play net Soul Calibur IV a 5 on the Busy Gamer Scale.

Body of review:

Sadly, which each new generation of gaming console, we see fewer brawlers.  Perhaps it’s just me showing my age but I fondly remember a time when the brawler was the staple of the arcade.  But each year we see fewer entries in the genre.  Considering the last one I was really good at was Killer Instinct 2, perhaps I should be celebrating their decline…

The reason I bring up the old school arcade is that Soul Calibur IV’s online multiplayer offering has something of that feel to it.  You “wait in line” for your shot at the winner while watching two players duke it out.  And in my case, your turn is over much too soon, your victories celebrated much too loudly, and your losses blamed on everything but your lack of skill.

You’ll run into the usual oddball arcade antics as well.  Players will establish matches and then choose to play one character over and over, using very little variety in their attacks to establish dominance and then quitting out when someone comes in and shows them how miserable their “one trick pwn-y” truly is.  It’s a sad thing and you can’t help but laugh or heckle when it happens to someone who just kicked your butt eight times in a row using Sophitia’s low sword attack.

Of course, for me, the new character creation option was a nice addition.  You can choose any of the “basic” characters to base your custom character on, basically making the character’s fighting style a clone of one of the game’s included characters.  But that’s where the similarities end.  You’ll trick out you character with new duds which will increase or decrease your stats based on what you choose.  The gear you choose also determines how many points you can spend on additional skills for your character.  The choices for skills are limited at first but as you level up a particular character’s “base” fighting style (meaning you can level it with either your new character or the default character by using either one in any mode) you are able to choose from more powerful skills.  A few of the choices include things like making your attacks harder to block, a skill that allows you to do damage even when your attacks are blocked, etc.

Aside from being able to change what your character is wearing, you can change how muscular they are, what they look like, skin tone, hair style and color, and even change the voice of your character.  The voice you choose will determine what your character will say during special attacks, when they get hit, and when they lose or win a match.  And while there’s a limited amount to choose from, you can tweak the pitch higher or lower to your taste.  Want a muscle bound, club wielding, barbarian with a sweet falsetto voice?  You can do it.

One of the modes available in single player is a story mode where you’ll find yourself wading through five levels of combat.  Each level has a differing amount of enemies; on a couple you’ll face one opponent while on the other three you’ll face more than one.  The catch is that you start each round with the multiple opponents with whatever health you had after defeating the previous opponent.  You only get full health when you reach a new level.  On normal mode, this isn’t such a big deal but if you crank up the difficulty to Hard, you’ll find yourself cursing at your television.  I did at least.  Victory in story mode allows you to see a short ending movie for the character you just played.  It also unlocks the movie in the game’s “museum” where you can view it as often as you like.

There’s also an arcade mode which let’s you play the game… well, arcade style.  This allows you to play a bit longer than the story mode and for those times when you’re looking to level up a character, spend a bit longer doing so.  It’s a handy means to level and allows you to have your friends join in at any time so long as they’re in the room with you.

Of course, unlocking characters is always a big part of any brawler and SC IV is no different.  Surprisingly, Yoda was available from the very beginning on the Xbox 360 version with The Apprentice from the upcoming “Force Unleashed” game easily unlocked in Arcade mode by playing Yoda through it and beating him.  As I stated earlier, I’m not sure how thrilled I am to see the universes cross in this fashion but I do have to admit to a certain thrill when beating up Cervantes with Yoda.  It just sets my geek sense to tingling.

Soul Calibur IV does a lot of things right.  The graphics are gorgeous, the fights are well paced without being ridiculously fast, and the sounds and voices are superb in this entry.  The story has always been a bit of a weak point in the series but it’s been beefed up a bit in this iteration.  The lines, while a bit on the lame side at points, are delivered with some believable talent from the voice actors making it just a bit easier to listen to.  Oh, and Yoda sounds like Yoda if you were wondering.

If you’re not a brawler fan, there’s very little here to peak your interest but if you are a fan of the genre or a fan of the Soul Calibur series, there’s a considerable amount here to grab your attention.  And, of course, if you’re a Busy Gamer looking for a good fighting game, you could do a lot worse than to pick up a copy of Soul Calibur IV.

Gritskrieg – End of Line