Customer Reviews

Soul Calibur IV

5 star:		(36)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

If you've played any of the other Soul Calibur games, this game plays pretty much the same way. The reason this series is so much better than the other series out there I feel is the ability to, blow-to-blow, attack your opponent with series of attacks that do not involve memorizing a long string of commands like in the Tekken series. That said, this game is basically Soul Calibur III plus some small enhancements (outside of HD graphics) that I personally don't notice that much.

This is a really simple fighting game to pick up for first-timers, and there is almost always a character and a fighting style to suit your desire. Really, the only two very similar characters in the game are Siegfried and Nightmare, apparently for a good reason if you know a bit about the forgettable story.

Some specific notes:

Gameplay: Single player - A- ; Multiplayer (local + online) - A
First off, I don't believe games like these aren't really meant to be bought for single player. Clearly, you'd expect to practice your game in your time so that you can lay down the law against your friends on multiplayer modes.

AI is reasonably intelligent in this game, outside of being very simple in the earlier levels on the Normal difficulty setting. Higher up in difficulty, the AI plays defense very well, and this can get really frustrating, sometimes even forcing you to abandon normal attacks and to go for grapples, which for some reason the AI is pretty bad at countering.

Otherwise, when playing your friends, this is not exactly one of those fighting games that you can button-mash and expect to win. Definitely some skill and practice is involved, and the smoothness of the fights and the transitions from blow to blow make this THE fighting game to get.

Online gameplay is smooth and overall as good as the local multiplayer experience. I have not experienced any issues with lag or skippy gameplay. My only complaint here is how selecting "Quick Match" in ranked has the tendency to just match you with someone who has an open game. As a game creator, you can select the level of players you intend to play against. As a level 1 trying out the online game, I got put into too many matches against level 60+ and got slaughtered.

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Story: C
This is the the only reason I am giving this game four stars. For a game that seems to promote its story about the struggle between an evil sword and a cleansing sword (assuming I even understand it right), especially from the moment the trailers hit TV screens nationwide, this game does a terrible job of incorporating the story into the game. This said, most fighting games that even have storylines do terrible jobs at integrating the story into the game as well.

If you are looking for a fighting game with a pretty nicely integrated storyline, the best that I can think of are the WWE Smackdown series. In this game, the story consists of short cutscenes between fights that hint at the location of the next fight, and maybe short snide remarks that the characters say at each other right as the fight is about to begin (that in most cases don't even seem to make any logical sense together).

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Overall, this is a great fighting game to have. It's purely that and nothing more. Expect to play single player mode quite a bit in order to unlock characters and items. The real fun of this game really comes from multiplayer modes. I think that fronting $60 may be a stretch for this game unless you're really into this series.

Of all the 3D fighters Soul Calibur is pretty high up there. It has only occasionally been outclassed by certain iterations of Tekken by a small margin. Soul Calibur 4 is a "brave attempt" at doing some things better and changing up the formula. I suppose how well it succeeds and how abysmally it fails depends on the tastes of each gamer. Personally shameless "Star Wars marketing" aside I have not been happier with the franchise since Soul calibur 2.

With Soul Calibur 4 you definitely get bang for your buck. There are many characters to unlock and now certain participants are not quite as "cheap" and "broken" this time around. For example I hated Tira in SC 3 but she is oddly endearing in SC 4 both because of her new voice and more balanced less unfair tweaked attack moves. Whereas she is still quick with her lethal metal ring of doom at least she cannot dish out damage on a ludicrous scale.

It would take me a long time to go into each character individually. Rest assured the veterans from the other games return accept perhaps the oddities such as Charade and Necrid. There is a new boss (Isn't there always?) and overall though he is not amazing from a design perspective at least he is not completely unfair and grudgingly unlikable.

Questions you may have

"Does character creation make a return?" Yes it does. As before you can unlock accessories, garments, and gear which will effect the stats of your custom hero. You can even purchase new moves! From what I've seen the "make a character" feature is just as good here as it was in SC 3. You can even re-dress the main heroes, villains, and heroines!

"Is there a quest for souls mode?" No, but there is the tower of souls in which you beat conditions and meet requirements to unlock more stuff. It is a more simplistic mode like the one in SC 2 which I like. Those that liked the complexities in SC3's somewhat strategic conquest mode may feel left out however. Once again it is a matter of taste.

"Are the controls easy to learn?" Yes which is Soul Calibur's biggest draw. Even beginners can jump right in! It should be noted things have been changed a bit. Characters now all have "finishers" though none of these are gory. As before Soul Calibur 4 gets the bad reputation of a button masher but in frank honesty is takes skill and finesse to truly be good at mastering each character. In any fighting game someone can get lucky by exploiting ring outs and button tapping but I find skilled players can more often than not defeat inexperienced players.

"Are there still cheap characters?" In any fighter there are characters that are harder to use or the power houses who seem to have the 1-up. While SC 4 is more balanced than SC 3 Yoda and Raphael's sister Amy are complete Hellions. You also have Rock (returning from Soul Edge, the very first game) who is very slow thus it is hard to be good with him. Let's just say even Asteroth is quicker. But before you lament keep it in perspective every fighter devised under the sun and moon has this problem. Even it Street fighter well rounded characters such as Akuma, Chun Li, and M Bison have an advantage over less conventional more difficult to figure out characters such as Zagnief, Dhalism, and E Honda.

"Is there a story?" Sad to say the branching endings in SC 3 that would unfold in different ways depending on whether or not you would hit the right buttons in time have been cut out. Every character has only 1 signature ending and the quality of each plot progression ranges between mildly decent to plain mediocre. If you have played SC 2 and SC 3 everything makes coherent sense but the game is very unforgiving to newcomers who know nothing about the series including the intricate odd relationship of Knightmare and Siegfried. Still when all is said in done at least a story exists. I've played fighters that completely gutted any semblance of a plot and the end results were usually crappy. (Such as the USA version of Samurai Shodown 5, the first release of Guilty Gear accent core, or Mortal Kombat Armageddon)

"Are the new characters worth while?" Undoubtedly yes! Hildegard is my favorite newcomer because she is a female knight fully decked out in armor who uses a dagger for short range and a halberd for long range. A bundle of neat mythological and anime influenced characters was also done by the artist that worked on the anime series Gantz. Believe it or not their stories were actually well thought out and they did not feel "odd" amongst the regular veterans. Sultry Shura is a guilty pleasure and I also thought the oni ogre girl wearing beads was simply adorable!

"Why do fighting games degrade teh wimmens??" For those of a feminist bent it's true there are bouncy boob physics and scantily clad female protagonists in SC 4. But whereas you can cut up their clothes or armor to reveal more you can do the same to the guy characters. Tell me that a shirtless Raphael or shirtless Mitsurugi do not objectify men as fantasies of desire? Let us also not forget the most kinky hip thrusting cod piece wearing scantily clad super freak is none other than Voldo himself! (a "male" character)

Pros

+ Many characters to purchase and unlock.

+Controls are easy to learn.

+ While not deep at least a story line does exist

+Create a character mode returns

+Each character now has a signature finish move

+Graphics are truly amazing

+Voice acting and music are not great but definitely good enough.

Cons

- A few cheap characters exist despite SC 4's attempt to be better balanced.

-Newcomers entering the arena for the first time are going to be confused unless they wiki the back story.

-The Star Wars gimmick feels like a shallow marketing ploy. Admittedly however playing as Yoda or Darth Vader is rewarding in a guilty sort of way. If you have the 360 version like me you will have to buy vader with X-box points because he is the PS-3 exclusive character. You can however unlock Vader's apprentice.

-Females that detest scantily clad bouncy protagonist girls are likely going to crucify SC 4 without taking into account the men in SC 4 are not portrayed realistically either. All I can say is that it is a game. Have fun with the fantasies provided and do not take it seriously! Besides Hildegard is very respectful as a heroine. It's personal choice to focus on the positive or negative aspects in anything. Always opt for being an optimist!

What's within your soul? Do you have what it takes to defeat the deadliest warriors in the universe in order to possess the awesome power of the Soul Calibur? Are your mental and physical skills up to the challenge of facing other warrior-wannabes in online play?

If so, then I highly recommend that you purchase this game. One play-through and your soul will be changed forever. Complete the missions, and you will be on your way to becoming a TRUE WARRIOR!

Ok, enough of the corny stuff. Soul Calibur IV is an awesome game. For solitary players, it offers the following adventures. Story, Tower of Lost Souls, and Arcade. The Story mode is similar to what we've known over the years. Each fighter goes through his or her unique story, fight battles, and then reach their own unique story ending. Arcade should also be familiar to most soul calibur veterans. Basically, you pick your fighter and fight through stages until you battle The Apprentice. Upon beating The Apprentice, which is easier said than done, you get to fight this strange guy (strange, even by SC standards!) called Algol. Algol reminds me of Necrid from SC2. Tower of Lost Souls is an advanced stage. Basically, you want to be very comfortable with your chosen characters' move sets before you set out for the Tower. I suggest that you play through Story and Arcade modes with your favorite/created characters before going to the Tower. You want to be able to use helpful skills, as well as the best weapons, in order to play through the Tower. The weapons can be expensive to purchase. Hence, the need to play for cash first. Tower of Lost Souls is somewhat similar to Weapon Master from SC2. Basically, you play against the CPU.

Character Creation is back! This time, your model will look like one of the main characters in the game. You can outfit your model with armors, head gear, etc. You can even strip Sophitia and the other ladies down to their bikini, if you want! Bear in mind though that although that's eye candy, leaving your character without armor will lower their stats. In SC4, the armor affects the character stats.

Are the characters "balanced", in terms of fighting effectiveness in versus play? From what I have seen so far, they seem to be. My experience in Versus play is limited though. Does the CPU play fair in single player mode? Ofcourse not, this is Soul Calibur! Fight The Apprentice in Arcade and you will see how this works against you. Even a good Soul fighter will find themselves repeatedly off-axis. A lot of your moves, especially vertical ones, will miss. However, The Apprentice will usually be on-axis. And he can pull together a long string of moves that is very, very hard to interrupt. I found that a character like Amy, with her 4B is much better against this guy than say, Sophitia. But that's just my style of play, perhaps. Using a player with hard to pull combos, like Ivy, required me to use a lot of throws just to beat The Apprentice. But I lost many, many more battles against this guy than I won.

I have always been a fan of Namco-Bandai. They seem to release games that appeal to me. From Xenosaga, Baten Katos, Eternal Sonata, Tekken, and all the way to the Soul Calibur series. They have a way of making even the characters in a fighting game very endearing.

Yoda or Darth Vader? I have the XBox version of the game, so I get Yoda with my edition. Yoda is fun to play, however, I have read other reviews from people who have both PS3 and XB360 versions of the game that say they prefer Darth Vader on the PS3. I do not have the PS3 version, but let me just say that for fighting games, I prefer the playstation controller to the 360 controller. I have SC2 in PS2 and Xbox versions. I much prefer playing the PS2 version due to the design of the PS controller. But that's just a personal preferrence on my part.

To sum up, this is a great game. SC4 is more technical, and the move sets are a lot deeper than in previous versions of the game. I believe you could play this game for a year, and still find ways to improve your game during the second year. And maybe beyond. The replay value is endless. And if you are very technical and enjoy complication, you will just simply love Ivy. If you thought her move list was extensive in SC3, think again. Learning how to pull off Summon Suffering is a major hobby unto itself! Yeah, I love Soul Calibur! I believe you will also.

I've had this game since I bought my Xbox in August of 2008, and it's never really grabbed my attention. I've always been more of a Street Fighter/2-D Fighter guy, and I had only given Soul Calibur 4 one shot way back when. While trying to start selling the majority of my xbox games, I found this, and figured I would try to get as much achievements as I could before I send it off into someone else's hands.

2nd time around I got hooked. Now, this is my first ever Soul Calibur game, so I can't compare it to any of it's predecessor's... There are many characters to choose from, and you can customize their appearance with armor, and colors which is a very nice and appreciated touch. The character creation is a lot better than expected, and is definitly one of the biggest pros of the game. Going online with it is even better. Huge Brownie points.

So let's start with what I feel are the pros and cons of this game.

PROS:
Achievements - This game is definitly an obtainable 1000G's. It's not too easy but not too hard, and should be taking you a minimum for 30+ hours. It's definitly a game you should be proud of for maxing it out. The most annoying thing you'll have to do is beat the game with each character (30+ characters) so that you unlock everyone's weapons which is needed for a certain 50G achievement.

Create/Customization - As I said before, one of the biggest pros to this game. Stealing a line from "WWE Raw vs. Smackdown 2010", Soul Calibur 4 "It's your world now". Quite a bit of options for clothes, armor and colors.

Easy to pick up - This could be considered a pro or a con. This game is newbie-friendly, Controls are easy, maybe too easy for those who want a game that can't be won by button mashing.

CONS:

Story Mode - Trash. There is little to no story. Think of somewhere in the midst of Left 4 Dead, and Street Fighter IV. Each character has their own ending cutscene and cutscenes in between fights, that show hints of where the next battle will take place, but that's it. There's your story. There are 5 fights to each character's story and takes about 10 minutes to complete each. I love having the Star Wars characters in the game, but I still have no idea why they are in the game, and why the Lightsabers aren't destroying everythiing in their path.

Ring Out - I despise the dang Ringing out in this game. So many times have I been smacking the CPU around like a rag doll, to have them counter, and then ring me out so that I lose. Online, a lot of people will abuse it, and try to force the ring out. In my personal opinion, the game would be much better without the Ring outs.

Online Leveling system - I personally don't like it. You get points per match, and it'll tell you how much points you have now, and how much to level up. If you have 200/400, you need to max out your points (400/400), and then win a game. If you have 399/400, and win a match, get 200 points, you don't level up. You have to max your points first, and then win. I personally don't like it, it would be much more fair to level up automatically once you obtain the points.

I feel the pros outweight the cons, and it's a fun game if you give it a chance. An obtainable 1000 G's, and I would at least rent the game, or pick it up to keep if you can find for $20 or less.

I thought this game was marvelous at first. The fighting is fun, and if you memorize just a few simple button combos you can play well with any character! The character customization is also top-notch and really does a good job of allowing players to create the character of their dreams... or nightmares. However, I do wish the customization had more face and voice options, that would have made it much better. Darth Vader is also an awesome character and I highly recommend downloading him, though Yoda is a completely useless character as any battle with him ends with either cheapness from Yoda or cheapness from the opponent.

The big problem I had is that, compared to Soul Calibur 2, this game was severely lacking in the game modes department. It has the normal VS battles, an average survival mode, and a bare-bones arcade mode. But in SC2 there were many, many modes for versus, survival, and not to mention an amazingly fun story mode where you actually picked your fights off a map screen. The inclusion of many of the vs and surv modes went unused by myself or perhaps used very rarely, but I really enjoyed the fact that the developers added as much as they could fight onto a little dvd.

As a final note, I would like to say that the online VS mode does add hours of fun competing against random opponents, but the inclusion of those extra VS modes would have made online battling much more fun as well. So if this game had a better story mode(right now you go through an arcade mode-style run), more VS battle modes, and more survival modes, it would have definitely gotten a 5/5 from me... too bad...

I got this game almost a year ago. I've played the game a lot, unlocked all the characters and have played about 100 matches online. I've been a fan of Soul Calibur since Soul Calibur 2, which I purchased on my Gamecube. Soul Calibur 4 is the updated version of the series on the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3. The roster includes about 30 fighters, a dozen stages and a character creator mode.

In the singleplayer department, you get 3 modes. The first mode is Story Mode. What happens here is that you are shown a written history of the character before you even play. Then you are shown a screen with some odd collections of words such as "A Dark Warrior" and proceed to fight a match. New to the series, is the addition of tag teaming. With a press of a button, you can switch your characters in a match. After you beat the normal enemies you face the boss and are treated to a short cutscene.

Then there is arcade mode. In this mode, you fight enemy after enemy until you get to the end with the same boss. One thing that I think improves on SC2 is that the boss does not always predict your moves and counter it so effectively. Nor does he have some move that takes out half of you life. He's simply a normal fighter, except with twice the amount of health.

Finally, you have a Tower of Souls mode. This mode has two variations. You either "ascend" and fight tough enemies or you can "descend" and fighter hordes of weaker enemies, sort of like survival mode in the old games.

That's about it for the singleplayer modes, other than practice and character creation. Now for character creation, you can change things such as the sex, the weapon, clothes, hair/eye/skin color, name and a few other things. The clothes and items that you use also affect the attributes of your character. You can also take a custom character online.

As for multiplayer mode, you are given two options, normal and special versus. Normal is simply a normal mode, where status effects are not played. So items don't mean anything. Special versus is where the clothes you have chosen have status effects that work. Interestingly, there is no tag-team mode. You can also play online, either casual or ranked. Latency will affect gameplay, making moves much more difficult to time.

So what is my opinion on the game? As the title implies, I'm not completely satisfied. Yes, the graphics are great, the gameplay is still there and you do get more characters, but I think a lot of additions are unnecessary.

The critical finishes that they've worked in the game rarely happen and contribute nothing to the gameplay. It's just extra fluff. The character creation mode is confusing because it's not clearly explained. Choosing gear will take certain slots which is shared with abilities. Also, the equipment looks goofy and silly most of the time. Most players simply make revealing female fighters online.

Speaking of which, the female characters in the game do not need to have implants and revealing outfits. The singleplayer modes don't add new modes such as the conquest mode of SC3. They added tag-teaming in singleplayer, yet fail to include it for multiplayer, which is yet another question. Yoda just doesn't fit in the game. Having a character that can not be grabbed or horizontally attacked is cumbersome.

Online play is painful, especially if you have a slow character. Fast characters can spam their moves and interrupt fighters that operate slowly. Now you are supposed to counter these pokes with guard impacts, but that technique requires timing, which the online latency makes impossible.

The best way to play this game, as with all fighting games is with a competent buddy in your living room. The core game itself is very strategic, where pattern recognition and applying counters is a key part. Soul Calibur sets itself apart form other fighters because it's not execution that wins the game, but strategic decisions that determine the outcome.

Overall, it doesn't reinvent the series and if you have older games, the game only feels like a patch. The online mode is the only significant addition that sets SC4 apart from the older titles. If you can bear some issues with online play, then it's worth a purchase. Otherwise, I would purchase an older copy, save myself $50 or so and still experience 90% of what Soul Calibur 4 is.

I bought this for my husband's birthday. He's enjoyed playing it and convincing other people to battle him in versus battles. He loves the customization options for building his own characters. This is a game that can easily be picked up for a few minutes of play or played for an hour or so to unlock new characters and option and to get the storyline.

Eu sempre acompanhei o crescimento deste jogo desde seu lancamento no PS1.Agora ele ficou maravilhoso e ainda bem que há para xbox 360. Parabéns a Namco e amazon por disponibilizar a venda de jogos para outros países.

Pros: Plenty of character choices, fun strategic fights, customizable characters, solid multiplayer, and pretty graphics.

Cons: Collecting all the items requires a lot of patience and a cool head, difficulty often varies from a walk in the park to impossible, and some of the characters are very questionable or annoying (Voldo particularly).

First things first, I am not a fighting game enthusiast. In fact, I tend to avoid them. This is mostly because I don't like losing, so I get stuck in a perpetual lose-lose scenario. I don't play them because I lose, and I lose because I don't play them... Soul Calibur II was probably the first fighting series I didn't mind losing at. So when it came time to expand my gaming library, I decided to go with something other than a FPS and got Soul Calibur IV... I wasn't able to stop playing for two weeks.

Characters
The characters are fun, detailed, and seem very balanced - besides yoda who can't be grabbed and is too short for high attacks. Each of them retained the same moves as the first game, which isn't a bad thing. Well, except when I invited my friends over for a couple matches and was surprised to find that they were at home enough to beat me even though I had two weeks of practice.

Sound
The music in this game is nice. I'm very fond of the character customization music. The rest sets a good mood and it doesn't really get annoying, but seems forgettable. Voices on the other hand can get terribly annoying, the high pitched phrase "JUST KIDDING" sends shivers down my spine. Irritating may come from only a select few characters, but a lot of it doesn't make any since.

Gameplay
You get all your standard combos with additional parrying, grappling, and countering as well as a soul gauge that allows special abilities if full or special finishers against you if you block too often and empty it. Customizable armor is also available for almost all characters, adding quite a bit of interest in the form of character creation. Everything put together makes for some surprisingly strategic and enjoyable battles.

Design
The majority of my play time resided in a mode called Tower of souls. It is by this mode that you gain all the equipment to customize your characters. You ascend the tower battling groups of enemies one at a time, often followed by a boss character at the final stage. Clearing the challenges can be hard when your characters have a health bar that remains damaged from each progressive stage, but this does add a layer of strategy when you can equip your characters with abilities and armor to fit each situation. It starts getting frustrating when you consider items that are only obtained only when you perform a specific task like not taking damage and the probability of ring out\death over 9 fights and you'll find yourself replaying some stages 20 times or more. There is also a lengthy screen that comes up when you fail, making me wish there was a way to open the menu and retry mid-battle.

Overall
Despite some of it's less enjoyable moments, there isn't many fighting games that I've enjoyed as much or spent as long playing as this one. If you like fighters and have a little money to spare for what is now a very cheap game, I say go for it. Just be warned you might go a little crazy if you try to get all the items. I give it a 8.8/10

First off, Id like to state I am a long time fan of the Soul Calibur game line. That is why it hurts me to say that this game really let me down. Let me also say, that while I did hope good things for this game, I did not have my expectations at an insane level. I thought this game would be a good continuation of the series, but I didn't think it'd be the best game ever or anything of the sort.

Let me start with the good. If you are just looking for a fighting game to play with friends, this is a good choice. The graphics have certainly made the jump to next gen in a big way. They are smooth and crisp and yet still retain the look of the other games in this series. The roster is once again large, with a diverse line up of fighters. This is a plus as it keeps the casual player from getting burned out, while letting true fans of the game continue to play as their favorites, letting them build up their ability as one or two characters.

Now for the bad, and sadly, there is a lot.

The biggest problem for me is the new story mode. SC has typically included massive story modes. In SC2, Story Mode took hours to fully explore. I say explore, because the mode involved you moving from point to point on a map. Scattered around were secret ways, dungeons with levels of fighting, and more. In SC3, you had more of a "Pick your own adventure" type deal. But, it was still large, and had replay value so you could see all the different ways. In SC4, you play through five fights. The cuts scenes are nothing more than a look at a landscape(literally, they pan across a background, your character not even in the scene) up until you beat the mode, at which time you get a very short, unsatisfactory video of your character doing something. On top of this, the handling is not nearly as good as the last few games. Instead of skill and practice meaning something, it seems this game is a button masher. People who have never played a Soul Calibur game, can pick this up, and manage to beat vets by simply smashing the horizontal and vertical hit buttons. Response time is slow sometimes to the point of it being frustrating as it seems like the game didn't even notice you pressed anything.

In closing

(+)Large Roster
(+)Great Graphics
(-)Shoddy Controls
(-)Leaves you feeling like the game was rushed
(-)Pitiful Story Mode

Final Say: If you want a good fighting game to keep around that you can play at a party or with a bunch of people, this one isn't that bad. But if you are a die hard Soul Calibur fan, your hopes will be bashed in harder than it is to kill Night Terror on expert.

A very generous 3 out of 5