Soul Calibur IV (Xbox 360) Review

Posted by Dan Hirsch on 08.29.2008

Yoda isn’t that bad, I swear!



Its baaack! Fans of the Soul series wait no more as the 5th installment in the series slashes its way onto the PS3 and Xbox 360. My colleague Gregory McDougal tackled the PS3 version, so for all you 360 owners, this ones for you! Soul Calibur bursts upon the scene with new features, play modes, and characters, providing a brand new fighting experience. But is the game play that we’ve come to know and love still there despite all these new additions?

Game Play

Soul Calibur 4 has added a few more game modes to flesh out the single player experience. The Story Mode takes players on a journey to battle for one of the sinister Soul blades: Soul Calibur or Soul Edge. Each character’s story mode features a text-based introduction, followed by a series of multi character melees. Once the player defeats the final boss, (Algol or Nightmare depending on the character) they get to watch a sweet little ending clip featuring the player finishing of the boss in their own unique way. I know how text based story has always been a staple in the Soul series, but it feels like these in-game cinematics should have been utilized more through out the story mode. It’s the era of HD and Soul Calibur’s graphics look great, so why not add more cut scenes to flesh out what has always been an issue for the series, story depth.

The classic Arcade mode is back as well, and just like in previous iterations it remains faithful to the formula of its predessors. It’s the basically a best of 3 format going through 8 various characters. This is the same style of play that has been in each addition of Soul Calibur to date, and fills in admirably as a quick play option. Anyone who has played any Soulcalibur game before knows what to expect here.



New to the series is the Tower of Lost Souls game mode. Players fight through various tiers of the Tower, battling against randomly created clones and random variants and a boss at each stage. Players can ascend the Tower to capture it and descend the Tower to see how far they can make it. Plus, as each level is beaten, gold and equipment can be unlocked to add to your coffers and item selection in the character select mode. The character creation features many weapons, clothing, and items. The catch is your fighting abilities have to be cloned from an existing fighter’s moves. There is no choice of moves or mix and matching, gamers are essentially playing as their own custom version of an in game character. Tower of Lost Souls is a fun and challenging distraction that brings unique replay-ability to the game that was sorely lacking. It doesn’t fill the void but helps put a dent in it.

The multiplayer arena provides a lot of fun options to play with a buddy over Live or locally. Live features Player and Ranked modes in which players can duke it out in 2 modes. Standard Versus allows for sword slashing action minus equipment weapon effects while Special Versus keeps the effects in add a extra to combat. Leaderboard support is readily available for those looking to how they stack up against their friends and the best in the world.

As mentioned above, new to the Soul Calibur experience are weapon effects as well as multitude of new features. Weapon effects vary from adding strength, guard breakers, impact healing, and numerous others that have small effects on attacks, counters, and blocks. These help add some depth to the customization process as they can affect characters stats. Also present is the new Soul gauge and Critical finish features. Next to a players health is a colored orb that changes colors when a player attacks or guards. Those who liked to sit back, block, and wait for counters are in trouble, as holding the block button and absorbing blows will weaken your Soul Gauge and leave you open to a critical finish that will end the match.


Graphics

Soul Calibur IV stands out, technically speaking, as a beautiful fighting game. The graphics shine as a high point. As if you couldn’t tell by taking one look at Ivy, character models are gorgeous. Every bit of detail was paid attention to for each individual character. To the individually detailed scales on Lizardman, to the form fitting armor of Hilde, to the demonic glowing mouth in the center of Nightmare, every character is immensely detailed. Arenas are also simply beautiful. The general fighting surfaces look fantastic and react accordingly as players are smashed into the arena's floors, shattering wooden and stone floors. The backgrounds are also vivid and well crafted. If there is a lull in the action, which there never is, take a look to appreciate the immense detail that what into the backgrounds and arenas where your smashing your opponent to dust.




Sound

Everyone calm down, the Soul Calibur voice that welcomes us all to the title screen and announces in those Michael Buffer-esque intros is back. Now that that is out of the way, we can get into the meaty bits of sound. The audio department comes off as satisfactory after several play through. The sword clangs and smash effects are all crisp and clean, but lack in overall variety. Character one liners are as cheesy as ever and send me running to change the voice overs to Japanese. I may have no idea what anyone is saying, but they either sound badass or cute and that’s all anyone really needs. Music also falls under the same umbrella where it serves its purpose but doesn’t necessarily make you want to run out and download it onto your I-Pod. Overall, the audible aspects of the game are appropriate when heard and sound fine. Nothing mind blowing, but respectable.

Lasting Appeal

Soul Calibur IV offers more variety and characters than any other previous version of the game and certainly adds some game play depth to the experience. Despite several single player modes, it is essentially just several different ways to lather, rinse, and repeat on game play. The online multiplayer adds to the replay experience, but again its case of same old, same old. The character creation features many weapons, clothing, and items but limits your fighting abilities by making you clone a fighter's moves. There is no choice of moves or mix and matching, you essentially play as your version of your favorite character. Fighting games, for the most part, are limited in their depth because of their game play elements. There can only be so much variety with combos, blocks, throws, and counters .The Soul series doesn’t break this trend, as they haven’t added anything extra worthy of substance, just more flash. With that said, fighting game lovers, this is everything that you have been waiting for. It is an excellent fighting game and an all around enjoyable experience. But those who aren’t in love with the genre or series may question their purchase.



Fun Factor

Star Wars. ‘Nuff said. I’m kidding of course, but who else isn’t excited (and confused!) about the addition of the most badass Jedi and Sith in the Galaxy. Those looking forward to Lucas Arts' next game The Force Unleashed can get a fun sneak peak playing as Darth Vader’s secret Raptor Pilot, Crashdown! Well not really, they just get to play as the Apprentice. Sam Witwer is faithfully reproduced pixel for pixel and even lends his voice to the game. The Apprentice , simply put, is the man. His force powers are easy to use in combat, he’s lighting quick, and very powerful. He is this reviewer’s favorite character in the game and is a great way to cross promote the games.

And then we get to Yoda, poor poor Yoda. Despite what you have heard about Yoda being broken, the awful talk that he is the epitome of all things epic fail, he’s not THAT bad. Yoda is very playable and has the advantage of being unable to be thrown. His attacks are effective enough if strung together. Plus the height issue can be utilized to an advantage as high attacks whip right over his head. He is balanced by his horrible speed, difficult to execute force powers, limited mobility ,and weak attacks. So in all honesty, he’s not that bad, he is just not that good.

Aside from not having to make light saber noises while you play anymore, the game is a lot of fun. It’s an easy to play-balanced fighter that can be enjoyed newcomers and hardcore players alike. Combos, throws, and one-liners are enjoyable and are faithful to the games previous installments. That said, it feels like the new features are very blasé. The Soul Gauge is a negligible addition, critical finishes difficult to execute, and item effects are for the most part unnoticeable. Other than those gripes, the game plays extremely well and is easy enough to pick up, making it accessible to all gaming fans.

The 411

Soul Calibur IV is a fun fighting game and solid overall game. It brings back its core elements of game play while adding a lot of variety in terms of characters, locales, and extras. The addition of the Star Wars universe is a fun addition, though some fans of the both series will argue otherwise. The game suffers from a lack of real depth or development but that is to be expected with fighting games. Overall, it’s a very playable game and has enough variety to peak the interests of any gaming fan. However, its lack of real story and character development, plus the limitations of the nature of its game play, will have some players keeping SCIV in their libraries for the short term.

Graphics	9.0	Best graphics for a fighting game out there.
Gameplay	7.5	Its the classic weapon play of previous series with more variety and chracters. New elements added to enhance game play are limited in their functionality.
Sound	7.0	Satisfactory all around. Quality is good but variety is lacking.
Lasting Appeal	7.5	Limited replay value for those who don't love the fighting genre.
Fun Factor	8.0	A lot of variety availible to meet most gamer's needs. Integrating Star Wars characters is a fun way to cross promote both franchises.
Overall	8.0   [ Very Good ]

Screenshots
All 58 Soul Calibur IV Screenshots