Soul Calibur IV
by Namco
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Video Game Reviews of Soul Calibur IV
Customer Review: An OK Game But With Many Flaws
Summary: 4 Stars
Soul Calibur IV
Soul Calibur IV is a pretty good fighter, but once again, the flaws hurt the overall experience.
Graphics: 9/10
The graphics are truly stunning and realistic. I especially love the design of the armor and how it can break off during a battle if it takes too much damage. It's similar to Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe, where, as the battle goes on, you start to see wounds on the character. I think it's pretty cool.
Sound: 9/10
The music in this game is just beautiful. The orchestra is nice, and it's also cool to hear some tracks from the Star Wars films. The voice acting in this game is top-notch. With guest voices like Wendee Lee. It's also cool that you can actually hear the game's dialogue in Japanese. Yoda's Japanese voice is pretty cool!
Control: 7/10
The controls in this game are okay. But sometimes, the combos don't really respond, and the attacks are delayed. I'd pretty much recommend the Hori EX2 Fighting Stick for these controls. They work a lot better. But I like the blocking controls better in Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe because you can just press the L2/R2 Buttons.
Story: 6/10
The story is okay, but I don't like how they removed the Destined Battles from Arcade Mode. I loved the Destined Battles because they contributed to the story and got you pumped. In this game, the Destined Battle is replaced with a frustrating battle with The Apprentice, but I'll get to that in a moment. The Story Mode is good, but it's a little short, and there isn't much story except during the battles and at the end. However, some of the characters' Story Mode endings are actually pretty good, except that the credit at the end that tells you the aftermath of the battle disappears way too quickly and gives you little time to read it. It's a ridiculous flaw that needs to be fixed.
Gameplay: 7/10
The Arcade Mode is quite disappointing. Most of it is good, but instead of giving you an eventful climax like in Soul Calibur II #I never played Soul Calibur III, and probably never will#, it seems to just place Algol, the final boss, right in front of you without warning. Also, The Apprentice, the second-to-last boss, is almost impossible to defeat. He's even harder than Algol! This shouldn't happen in video games. Looking back at Kingdom Hearts II, the final boss had four phases. The first three phases were quite easy, but the last phase was just plain hard, but I kept trying because I was pumped. But with the battle with The Apprentice, I just felt like quitting. It took me approximately ten consecutive tries to defeat The Apprentice, and only four consecutive tries to defeat Algol. I hope the two difficulties are switched around in the next game. As for Story Mode, it's okay, except for the length and that there aren't too many cut scenes. The Tower of Lost Souls can sometimes be fun, but most of the time very frustrating. The Character Creation, though, is very fun and addicting. I love fighting as Michael Jackson!
Overall: 7.75/10
This is an okay game for people who love fighters and Star Wars, but prepare for great frustration beyond your belief. Character Creation will not disappoint, though,
PROS:
+Stunning Graphics
+Great Voice Acting
+Fun Character Creation
+Star Wars!
CONS:
-Disappointing Arcade Mode
-Short Story Mode
-Frustrating Difficulty
-Deven D'Addario
Customer Review: Great Game
Summary: 5 Stars
I really enjoy this game. I have always been a fan of the "Soul" series, so I can say that this game was totally worth it for me. It has the same basic game play that I loved from the old ones, but highly improved graphics and a few extra features that the design team threw in to make game play a bit more fun, like the soul crush, which apparently they tossed in to make constant blocking less advantageous and make the game more aggressive. The Star Wars characters are fun to play, with special force abilities, and for the first time ever you can go online and play people from around the world on x-box live. If you don't like the old ones, you may not like this one either. But if you are a fan of the "Soul" series, then this game will not disappoint. Customer Review: You never get tired of it
Summary: 5 Stars
soulcalibur 4 is perfect.
Perfect Grafics
Perfect gameplay
and adding Yoda, Vader, and The Aprentice just makes it better!
Customer Review: excellent game, great for multiplayer.
Summary: 5 Stars
This game is stunning, visually, and a lot of fun to play. Loads of fun for versus matches, but with a lot of unlockables, and decent replay value for single player.Customer Review: Blood, Steel, Good, Evil... And The Force
Summary: 5 Stars
A most anticipated release for the new generation systems, and thankfully not a disappointment, Soul Calibur IV is far from disappointing actually, this game is freakin awesome! Namco definitly utilized that next generation console technology properly, beefing up the graphics and gameplay to match the ever-rising standards of today's gamers.
First, a review for the game in general. Soul Calibur is renowned for its intensive weapon based fighting engine, and for its pretty in depth story line. Ever since Soul Edge (PS1) we've seen these characters grow and progress as the story of the evil sword Soul Edge made its way from owner to owner, leaving devastation and death in its wake. That being said, having a few new characters added to the roster is always a welcomed thing for two reasons: new fighting styles to try out, and new stories to be told. SC4 actually has quite a few new characters added, although unlike SC3 where a new character had his/her own fighting style, a bulk of these new characters are carbon copies of original characters in terms of fighting style. Furthermore disappointing, most of these new characters you cant customize like the primary ones, but I'll come back to that in a second. SC4's storyline, while informative to an extent, is severely lacking. Clearly, a bulk of the production of this game went into the online portion, but unfortunately the story suffers severely. Many endings are left with lots of unanswered questions, plot holes, and are all around disappointing. But hey, at least the graphics are good right?
Where the storyline fails, the online play is fantastic. This, combined with the Character Creation are what makes the replay value of this game so high. The Character Creation is moderately complex system that allows you to build the perfect character for you, or as close as you can get to perfect. You can either create your own new character, or re-dress and re-arm an existing SC character, which is equally fun. It takes some practice, but once you get it, taking your character(s) to any battlefield is a satisfying experience.
To make up for the lack of single player options that SC3 had, SC4 has a mode called Tower of Souls, a survival type mode where you "climb" a tower, pitting your players against waves of characters with various status effects and advantages over you. Obviously as you go higher, the stages are harder, but some of them get downright ridiculously hard around floor 40. If you get bored with "ascending" the tower, you can "decend" it, which is basically the traditional Survival mode. This one is more fun in my opinion, and a quick way to make money in the game.
The difficulty in this game is pretty standard. Easy, medium difficult, although medium can get a bit hard on story and arcade modes, especially towards the end when fighting Angol and The Apprentice. For those who dont know already, Angol is this game's final boss, and the Apprentice is "Starkiller" from Force Unleashed. Angol is interesting and at times difficult, but in my opinion, The Apprentice is the true boss of this game in terms of difficulty. He is a monster one on one, even against the cheesiest characters with long range weapons like Kilik or Sigfried. He's fast, strong, and has the force, so he can easily become your worst nightmare. He's even hard to learn how to USE!
Finally, the online portion of the game is done pretty well. Thus far, the only complaints I have with it are that there is no distinguishing the skill levels of different players, so you as a beginner can get paired with someone who's a true pro and get the crap kicked out of you in 30 seconds. Secondly, there is a strange lag sometimes when you play online, and your characters don't move when you command them. I've lost many battles to this little flaw, and it is infuriating. So best of luck to anyone who faces such a challenge.
360 Review:
Thus far, the 360 version of SC4 is just as impressive to me as the PS3 version. To be honest, I havnt played the PS3 one in depth, so the diferences between the two are unknown to me, but here's what i know about the 360. Firstly, you get to play as Yoda, and yes, it is cool. For those of you who are not Star Wars buffs, this is no big thing, but for those of us who know Yoda is the friggin man, he's got a lot to offer if you learn to use him. Like all characters in this game, you have to actually take the time to study moves in order to get the best of your opponent (especially online). Yoda's move are a bit tricky to get used to because of his height, but it can also be an advantage. Basically, all high attacks and grapples cant hurt you.
Secondly, as with all 360 games, there are the achievements, so those are always fun to try and get, but other then that, nothing special about those. Thirdly, the controls. I've never been a big fan of fighting games on the 360, so this has taken some getting used to. I still prefer the PS3 control over these, but whatever, this does just fine when you get used to it.
Overall, this is a very solid game, great fun for years to come. Now if they just made a SC that combined elements from this game and those of SC3, it would be perfect. Until then, this should do pretty nicely.