Customer Reviews

Soul Calibur IV

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(46)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I am a huge fan of the Soul series. I remember sinking quarters into the arcade over a decade ago. When Soul Calibur first came out on the home consoles, it was like a dream come true. Many hours were spent playing that game instead of working on papers in college. Soul Calibur 3 was definitely my favorite. I even had the chance to work on the artwork for the UFS card game based on SC3. I think my huge involvement and love of Soul Calibur, especially the SC3, is what ultimately led to some of my disappointment with Soul Calibur 4...

The good:
-- The graphics are incredible! The animations are smooth and the characters move with a beautiful fluidity. The faces in particular look much better with each iteration, and SC4 definitely made leaps and bounds in the character models.
-- Online play at last! Not once did I experience lag. It's fun to practice on the CPU, but far more fun to take on complete strangers. Even if you lose, you get to see how other people play and you start improving so when your friends come over, you can summarily embarrass them.
-- Best character-creation mode EVER. Sure SC4 did not reward you non-stop with character-creation items the way SC3 did, but the depth of the new system is something you have to experience to appreciate. I love the amount of customization you're allowed, though I miss the CC-unique fighting styles.
-- Tower of Lost Souls. They call it that because you will sink hours of your life there.
-- A cool tag-team dynamic that lets you switch characters in the middle of a fight. Definitely useful when you need a variety of styles.
-- Critical Finishes are cool when conditions are right and you can pull them off. I'd rather be beaten with one of those than a Ring Out any day.

The bad:
-- Yoda is cheap. You can't even grab him. In fact, the Star Wars characters seem FAR out of place, but this isn't the first time SC has done crossovers. What bugged me the most is that the Character Creation didn't allow you to make Jedi characters. How utterly unfair to add the license but not allow customized lightsaber wielders.
-- No Team Versus battles. I can't understand why they would remove this, maybe Namco believed if you wanted to play against another human, it's better to do so online in standard/special vs mode?
-- The storyline seems extremely thin, and the character endings are pretty lacking compared to SC3. There's no interactivity in the cutscenes or endings and some of the hidden characters don't even get animated endings.
-- There are no shop girls from SC3!
-- Chronicles of the Sword is gone. It was one of my favorite modes from Soul Calibur 3. It contributes to my overall feeling of a lack of story in this game.

I love most of the additions to the game, including the game modes and some of the new characters. I can't understand why Namco chose to remove some of the modes from the previous game though. They really need to release more downloadable content too. On its own, this is a fantastic game. It has great graphics, a balanced fighting system and enough features to keep you busy for a while. The character creation is something all fighting games should learn from. But ultimately, if compared to past games of the series, you get a sense that this game seems a bit rushed in the substance department. I hope this isn't really supposed to be the last of the Soul Calibur series, because it didn't really tie up a lot of the characters stories in my opinion.

I'm not much of a video game reviewer, and I'm certainly not a "serious gamer" but I do enjoy blowing off an hour or two every once in a while playing games. Up until we rented this on gamefly I had never played a Soul Caliber game before. I enjoy fighting games provided there are some speedy characters involved. My Hubby and I enjoyed this game enough to pay the extra loot to "keep the game" so we are now the proud owners of Soul Caliber IV.

What I liked:
1) I didn't have to hit 40 sequential buttons to get the character to do something cool, in fact my inner button masher was quite happy with the moves that I was able to do right off just by smashing in patterns.

2) The graphics are good, the surrounding areas are cool to look at and you can smash up your surroundings, which is always fun. The playable characters come in a wide variety and all look fairly good (some of the women are ridiculously proportioned but whatever). They have a variety of weapons that are quite fun and all look great.

3) The characters level, meaning the more you play with one, the more options you get with them.

4) The online option is interesting, but for some reason the pairing doesn't seem up to snuff, I mean why would the computer match up a level 1 with a level 41? It seems that it should be a bit more balanced as to who it sets up against who.

5) The tower is a blast, and it's HARD! basically you have to fight different groups of baddies on each level of the tower to ascend to the next one... we're on level 20 or so now and it's no walk in the park! The good thing is that each level has a way for you to unlock another article of clothing to use in your character creation.

6) Character creation, this can be quite fun, and I'm really bad at it. My hubby can spend over an hour tweeking his dude... I just slap some clothes on them and go.

7) The other options are your standard Arcade mode and the story mode, both of which allow you to unlock different playable characters.

What I don't care for:
1) When you are either beating the tar out of someone or they are laying the smack down on you, armor can break... effectively leaving your character almost completely in the nude. Now I'm not sure who gets their jollies from video game semi-naked people, but I'm not one of them.

2) It would be great if the female characters weren't trapsing about with their boobs hanging out wearing thongs... and the closeups of the boobs and booties gets to be rather tiresome... men wonder why more women don't play video games... this is one of the reasons.

3) The commercial showed Darth Vader fighting Yoda... um... you only get Vader on the PS3 version, apparently Yoda is on the Xbox version. It would have been nice to have had both.

4) The loading times from fight to fight get a bit tiresome, especially in the tower when you just got your derrier handed to you and you have to re-fight the same guy for the 15th time and there you are; waiting for 2 minutes or more to reload the battle.

5) In the character creation I should be able to pick some better undergarments for my people just in case all of their clothes get busted off so that they aren't standing there in a bra and thong.

Still, I love the game, it's an absolute blast and well worth a purchase (especially used)

When the mechanics of a game franchise are fundamental to its success it is best not to tinker too much with how it controls and feels overall. The newest SC suffers from this slightly as it does feel like the same old game, but that is also its strength. There isn't anything new that takes away from the core enjoyment of this supreme fighter because other than the new SW characters everything is meshed together for a smooth experience. The new critical finish comes into play so little as to non existent. There is alot under what appears a shallow surface, however. The character creation only gets fun once you master it and unlock the cool equipment and weapons. Ideally the game wants you to take everyone through its 5 chapter story mode offering but the hardcore restart elements of mission mode (my favorite part of the old game(s) are redone in the somehow less fufilling TOWER mode(it is lacking the storyline text& map that made the original missions more fun.) Survival mode is redone as a backward crawl into the dungeon of the tower. The unlockables come easier but it feels right as this is a more challenging SC as well. Changes like these and the customizable skill and equipment set make SCIV VERY replayable. I know this my thumbs still burn especially after taking the unwieldy DARTH VADER through arcade mode which took me longer than I care to admit. Darth V. is tough to control as he should be with his mechanical legs, his forces powers and throws are tougher to use but with practice he can be worth the effort. The story text for each character is enjoyable, and the incredibly deep moves list for each fighter is accessible from the pause menu as always. SCIV is frustratingly hard at the right moments, and addictive in all the right places with an abundance of strategy and configurability, that plus its satisfying catalogue of fighters will have this disc running hot in my PS3 for awhile. BTW The install feature to hard drive doesn't shave as much off the load times as I was hoping for but I like having the option.

This is a great game. I just wish Yoda was included in the PS3 version. I guess I'm going to have to break down and pay the extra 5 bucks to download the Yoda character from the PS3 network.

How can they even think about having Darth Vader and not Yoda... I guess they do that to get you to download the character. I guess if Yoda was included, then they would make you pay 5 bucks for Darth Varder...

For as much as Namco's Soul Calibur series has stayed the same, the more fun the weapons-based fighter has become. Soul Calibur IV is no different, offering up a plethora of fighters that bear familiar faces to fans of the series, as well as even offering Darth Vader (yes, Darth Vader) as a bonus fighter for the Playstation 3 version of the game (while XBox 360 gamers get Yoda), and stands as the best fighter to hit the PS3 yet. Like previous installments in the series, the fighting engine is surprisingly deep yet even more surprisingly accessible for those new to the series, and is rewarding as well. It should also be noted that Soul Calibur IV looks magnificent (especially on the PS3) and fully displays some brilliantly animated graphics that are vibrant and nicely detailed. Even better is the game's online play which is smooth, lag-free, and tons of fun. The only real downside to Soul Calibur IV is that the game's single player mode isn't hard to get through at all, and there's no team battle mode either, which is really disappointing. Despite that though, Soul Calibur IV is a wonderful and incredibly good installment of a great fighting series that deserves your attention, whether or not you're a veteran or newcomer to the Soul Calibur universe.

I had Soul Calibur on Dreamcast and SC2 on Gamecube (never played SC3) but now I bought this one on PS3 as I liked the first 2. I played it for an hour or so and quit it in disgust for what they had done to my beloved franchise. As others have said the story mode is ridiculously short and repetitive between characters (I miss the original SC story mode with different parameters in battle). On top of that they had modified the way my usual character (Siegfried) played with missing combos and different attacks. Even the interface was not as clean and polished as I was used to with the menu options being placed on these ugly swords and the character selection screen having super tiny portraits and "trading card" like blow ups instead of fully rendered characters when you moved over them. To top it off the game only runs in 720p (this is the case for both xbox and ps3 versions despite what some people claim).

I kept forcing myself to return to the game hoping I would find something I liked and I have to say that over time it has started to get better. Yes the menus and the single player are not as good as the first one, and I do miss the stories and detailed endings (as cheesy as they were I still liked watching them), but that was usually the stuff that got me into the first to games not what kept me playing. I later figured out that they split up siegfried's moveset into 2 with nightmare (formerly they were just clones but don't know if that changed in 3). In fact none of the characters are quite as clone-ish as they were in previous iterations even if they do have 'similar' movesets. After time I've been able to find other characters who haven't changed as much as Siegfried like Cervantes (who I was happy to see got his armor costume from SC back so you don't have to be the cheesy pirate like in SC2).

As far as the create a character goes, when you unlock and purchase a lot of the equipment it is quite versatile to make a character you like but there are restrictions as far as I can tell. The gear gives you different attributes so it seems like you can choose to make a character whose appearance you like with otherwise worthless stats, or to max out your stats with a goofy or dull looking character. Would have been nice to make the 2 independent of each other. Maybe there is a way to do this but I have not figured it out yet.

All I can say is if you were horrified like me when you first try the game, give it some time and at least the multiplayer can keep you entertained. Still sad though that it doesn't have the polish or sense of completeness I got with the first two games.

To start I have never played any of the Soul Calibur games, Ive really only played/play the 2D Mortal Kombats & MK: Deception. After getting Tekken 5 DR for PS3 I found I was missing out on a lot of great fighting games over the years. On to the review, I found this game to have a relatively deep combat system, a decent amount of unlocks/custom characters and a short story mode. First off the graphics are crisp & detailed, they did Darth Vader justice and this game is very addicting.

Modes of play: Single Player Modes= Story: It is like the arcade but at the very end you get to see a short cut-scene of your chosen character gaining ultimate power. Tower Of Lost Souls: A series of levels ascending & descending the tower, when you ascend you fight overpowered fighters and unlock the next level & when you descend you fight lots of weaker enemies. There are treasure chests you can obtain by meeting specific conditions during each floor & if you get a treasure chest you unlock a item that can be used for the character creation mode. Arcade: just like the name implies, you fight through increasingly difficult opponents till you get to the final boss. After each match you will be graded on how well you did and after beating the final boss you get an overall grade & score. You can try to beat your time, score and grade by going through the mode again. Training: Just your usual practice mode to learn basic mechanics or learn harder combos.Versus Modes= Standard versus- Regular versus mode without equipment or effects(more on this later). Special Versus with equipment and effects.

Now on to character creation where you can customize existing characters and create your own. You can equip new/special swords, armor and completely change the look of standard characters but there is a catch each item has different attributes and changes your stats. These different stats only apply in specific modes but when they are on your character has special abilities like auto grapple break and increased health. With the amount of abilities that are already there you can make countless versions of classic characters, with a limit of 50 custom characters this adds a lot of replay value. Some characters like Darth Vader limits this to changing the light saber and a gem for special powers, so don't get your hopes up of making a custom Vader. As I said before these stats and powers to apply to certain modes so you can still have your custom clothes on during the restricted modes, just with normal stats. I didn't dip too deep into created characters but as far as I can tell you can make only human characters and all the fighting styles to choose from are standard styles. So if I chose the Yoshimitsu fighting style my character would look different but be an exact clone, with the same special moves and everything. I am kind of disappointed by the create a character mode as I would rather use the actual Yoshimitsu instead of a clone but I take it as nice bonus to this game. Also for every character there is style level and as you fight and get better you level up the style unlocking new special powers in which you can add to that specific character.

The combos in this seem like short bursts and you will have to "make" your own long combos. It is not like Tekken where everyone has a insanely devastating combo(although the final boss sure does). I didn't like the fact that almost every arena has a deathtrap that can end the round instantly or the fact that there is no mode where it is impossible for that to happen, it just feels cheap. Just about every character is balanced except for the final boss(obviously) and the apprentice who has extremely overpowered moves. There is a armor system, when you attack the same spot over and over that specific armor piece will fall off making hits to that area more devastating. Every character has a soul crush move that will instantly defeat the opponent in one move, it is nearly impossible to pull off though. Basically if the opponent blocks too much his/her health bar will start flashing red, when this happens you have two choices- do a unblockable move and land it or parry an incoming attack, when you do that the opponent will be dazed and you can press the finisher button to end the round with a slick finisher. As I said it is near impossible to pull of as you only have a couple of seconds to meet the requirements to pull it off and most characters' unblockable moves are very slow/easily avoidable. There is a Museum mode with concept art and ending but I'm not gonna get into that as its pretty self-explanatory. Overall this is a very good fighting game that is fun for beginners and truly rewards experienced players. I recommend this game to anyone who likes fighting games as it has tons of replay value and extremely fun gameplay. On a side note Banai Namco seem to love micro transactions as they already released a armor pack and music tracks today, they will probably continue to update the game for a fee as they did with Tekken 5 DR. Now I don't agree with their "charge for things that should have/probably are on the disc" business but this is a solid game to begin with so I am not faulting them for that.

08/18/08 Update- Well after playing this game non-stop for two weeks I decided to play the online matches. It is very basic: ranked & player matches, in the player matches you can play your friends and take turns fighting with up to four people. The ranked matches allow you to raise rank, unlock more items and fight random people. I must say ranked matches are pretty much broken and unfair. First ive had many people quit before the match ends taking away my victory in a very cheap fashion. People have found infinite moves that loop over until the round ends, once caught in one of these your character has no time to respond and your opponent will repeat until the match is over. Its funny because all of the people I played who used this technique were at a very very high rank, its obvious how they got that high. This game clearly favors cheap players and button mashers, nothing angers me more than getting beat by a complete noob because of lag/ring out or rock paper scissor button mashing. I have had my PS3 for a long time and not once did I feel the need to block anybody, that is until I played this game. All I can suggest, if you play someone who is cheap/quits just go into the XMB right after the match and go into Players Met and add the top person to the Block List immediately. The ranking system is very flawed: if I have 98/100 points till rank up I have to win two matches in a row to rank up because it will cap at 100/100 first match then carry over next match. So if I lose then all my extra points are lost, thus I have to win two matches in a row effectively level capping me at whatever rank I'm at. Then the characters, the only way I can describe it is that its like rock paper scissors: Kilik(rock) VS Sigfried(paper)(this is not a *true* example) Kilik is at a disposition to the point that Sigfried can press square the whole match and Kilik would have absolutely no opportunity to fight back. Lag, anyone who's ever played online knows what lag is and universally despises it. When there is lag consider the match lost period, I cannot stress this enough YOU WILL LOSE not to a skilled player no you will lose to lag. Lag is the worst in fighting games and its quite frequent in this game, you press a button a whole second later it registers. The match making system is worthless too, it often sends you to a full/empty match. You are better off hosting a match and waiting for a opponent- DO NOT play with anyone that has less than 3 signal strength, as I learned the hard way. I completely hate the fact that there is a CHUNK of unlocks you can only get playing online as it alienates people without internet connection. I also didn't like the fact that Namco locked the save so I cant use my custom characters over a buddy's house. So at this point I am only playing ranked matches to get unlocks and playing friends in player match, even though I absolutely hate ranked matches.

Overall I'm quite disspointed with this game.

Let's break it down though.

Graphics 5/5: As far my opinion goes, this is the most graphically superior fighting game there is at the moment, the scenes are beautifully rendered and the characters are rich in detail.

Controls 5/5: The controls never change and no exceptions here, the game is easy and can be jumped right into.

Character Creation 1/5: What a HUGE step back here...SC:III had so many innovative things here a "profession" made it feel unique and special. Now it's just "What character do you want to rip off?!" Which is extremely lame and lazy in my opinion. The different combos of clothings/faces are alright not as extravagant was SC:III was.

New Features 2/5: The "Tower" is quite bland and more like just a scenario mode nothing overly special about it.
The online mode I will admit I haven't tried yet but...I imagine it's no different then having someone sitting aside of you playing. I most certainly miss the strategy mode as it gave a real personal feeling to the game.

Main Guts of the Game 2/5: Let me start by saying the Star Wars characters compared to the rest of the group...are ridiculously overpowered. In Arcade mode you go from classic SC scenese to a...space ship? To fight "The Apprentice?" What the @#$@? The Apprentice is ridiculously over powered and if you're playing on medium expect hard diffuculty Hard expect Soul Edge...etc...The first time I went through I spent around 1 min. on each opponent and 9 min. on The Apprentice.

The story mode is VERY dissaspointing as it starts with about a 4-5 paragraph introduction then just like...arcade mode until the last fight. About a 1 minute clip a sentence or two pops up on the screen...that's it. Not a whole lotta point to "Story Mode" if you don't actually make the character have a FREAKIN' STORY!

Overall: I wish I would have rented this game instead of paying salty for it...It's just...not as good as any of it's previous bretheren. I'd be even willing to say a step BACK.

This game is riding the coattails of Soul Calibur II. It's not as well designed or tactical, just more colorful, cracked out, and character overloaded. The women are great, though.

Decent game without any noticeable glitches.

It does get annoying that the only way to increase your power, boost, impact, etc is via clothing. I expected this to happen at level-up (which seems only to allow the use of "better" clothing).

Darth Vader's character is terrible and it sucks that you have to beat Arcade Mode with him to unlock The Apprentice--who has a lot of good moves because they always put him behind or beside you and are thus difficult/impossible to block.

Critical Finishes are cool, but extremely difficult to invoke.

Also, in this sequal, not every character can use Soul Calibur / Soul Edge.