Intellectual Gamer

I’ve been thinking of exactly how I felt about this game for a while now and have very recently come to my conclusion about it. But first how about a general introduction to the game.

Soul Caliber IV is a 3D fighter, it is fifth in the fighting series if you include its family member Soul Blade. The game involves you choosing a character and engaging in one on one combat with an opponent (with the exclusion of the single player tag mode). The series is known for its wonderful graphics and its depth of characters (in terms of combat not story).

I truly have a love hate relationship for Soul Caliber IV.  The game has some amazing elements and some big pitfalls. Lets start with the games strengths.
Strengths:

• Great Combat: One of the things that makes this game so wonderful is the huge variety of characters and their variety of move lists. This makes the online experience very enjoyable, as most people have a different twist in terms of how they want to fight. In such a manner your personality really seems to shine through how you play your character.
• Character Customization: Similar to SCIII and Virtua Fighter 5 you can customize your character with various items (as well as edit the items colour scheme), and choose your custom characters fighting style. As so there are a diverse amount of creation and customization options (to name a few of the characters I’ve seen online: Naruto, Setsuke, Sephiroth, Cloud, Mystique, Moon Knight, M. Bison, Sagat, etc…).
• Online Play: In terms of consistent game play online, Soul Caliber IV has hands down the best online experience of any 3d fighter I’ve played.
• Fun with freinds: This game is great to play with people, online or not. If you’re in the mood for some fun lighthearted matches player mathes will fit perfectly.

Now to what I find very frustrating about the game, onto the weaknesses.

Weaknesses:

• Character Customization: Although there are various customization options, it sincerely feels like Soul Caliber IV falls short of what you’d expect of the franchise. The items are limited to sex, and this cuts the options right in half. On top of this it doesn’t seem like there are that many items!
• Online Play: Although the online is the most consistent I’ve ever played, it is still not consistent enough for accurate parrying (guard impacting) which is a huge element of the game.
• Lack of incorporated features: A major dissapointmet is the fact that the tag feature is only available offline in Single Player. There is no multiplayer tag feature.
• Feels incomplete: Features like Art Gallery, Theater, Tag are just half ass. They don’t fill the game out more but rather make something feel absent.

I seem to contradict myself, and thats just where the love hate relationship stems from. Soul Caliber IV kicks itself in its own ass.

I believe that Soul Caliber IV is an amazing ‘fighting’ game, as the core is extremely solid. The problem is many features such as art gallery, video replay, and tag mode are lacking. It feels as if an incomplete game has been shipped. For example, if you have ever played a previous Soul Caliber you will know they have been loaded with character art. I believe the total amount of artwork included is under 40 pictures. With what Soul Caliber did in the past this falls very short of its predecessor. For another example if you remember and liked the old Quest Modes of Soul Caliber 1-3, you will find that Soul Caliber 4’s equivalent is minimalistic, yet attempts to make this up with a very steep difficulty. You will be playing it for the same length as the past modes, but only because it takes you 4 times the amount of tries.

On the positive some of the new features are great. The critical finish concept which seemed very risky at first (as it would have turned Soul Caliber into Mortal Kombat) was very intelligentily integrated. Rather than what would be considered a fatality like finishing move (ie it happens at the end of battle), it is a feature that is integrated into regular gameplay ensuring players don’t turtle. It is very hard to pull off against tappers and experienced players alike. However when you do it is deserved. To summarize it quickly; you have a gauge, the more you block the lower it goes, when it breaks the opposing player has a second to press A+B+K+G, it does a finisher which kills them and gives the player a round win not a match win).

I find this to be a hard review, because I feel that if the game was just released without any of the half ass features it would be perfect. But due to the fact they attempted to include them and included them so poorly, I deem this as a strike against the game.

Have you heard the expression death by 1000 cuts? Soul Caliber IV has about 200 self inflicted cuts, not enough to kill it but enough to hamper its ultimate potential. As so in conclusion if you want a solid 3D fighter Soul Caliber IV is a buy, but expect to play it and wonder why they didn’t aspire for more with what they have. I believe the game developers have achieved what they wanted to mostly, but fall short slightly of their own aspirations (here’s hoping for more DLC to fix these minor problematic tidbits!).

Rating: Buy this game.

Love: The combat is wonderful, the characters are so deep, and there is a great variety of them.

Detest: No last hit replays online, no last hit replay after every round offline (only on last), and no option to save match replays.

360-PS3 Distinction: The Xbox 360 comes with Yoda as a bonus character, whereas PS3 comes with Darth Vader (although it is rumoured the systems will get the other’s characters through DLC eventually). In terms of gameplay PS3 has faster loading time but has slowdown more often (through my experience).

Bonus: Hilde, one of the new characters, has 2 unlisted level 4 charge moves. Hold A or B for 30 in game seconds and release to see one of two badass attacks.

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