| Soulcalibur IV Review (Xbox 360) |
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| Written by GamingBits | ||||
| Sunday, 10 August 2008 | ||||
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Soulcalibur IV, available for the Xbox 360 and PLAYSTATION 3 (PS3) Review summary: Read the full Soulcalibur IV review below. *note: we have removed the rating scale from GamingBits.com. Read below for a complete picture and judge for yourself!
Soulcalibur IV Review (Xbox 360)
Soulcalibur finally makes its way to the HD era of gaming with Soulcalibur IV. The Soulcalibur series brings variety to the fighting genre by centering gameplay around weapon based combat, which evolves further this time around. Besides the expected graphical upgrade, there are more characters, arenas, gameplay modes, rules of engagement and deeper character customization. Read on and find out why the soul still burns. There are over 30 varied characters to select from, mainly divided along good (Soul Blade) or evil (Soul Edge) alignment. Long-time Soulcalibur regulars are included. Sophita, Mitsurugi, Siegfried, Ivy, Cervantes, Voldo and Yoshimitsu to name a few. I personally liked the goth group (or gothic lolitas), like Tira, Amy and Ashlotte. There's also Raphael, who has a similar outfit to Castlevania's Alucard. Character designs are great and the outfits are highly detailed. Among the best seen in a fighting game. Weapons are also unique, although sometimes shared with different genders. The guest characters that appear in Soulcalibur IV are the much highlighted Star Wars set: Yoda, Darth Vader (on PS3, but rumored to be coming to Xbox 360 via the Xbox Marketplace) and The Secret Apprentice (from the upcoming game, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed). Yoda is fun to play, but tough to fight. You cannot throw Yoda and he's tough to hit, thanks to his size. The Secret Apprentice is sometimes tougher than Algol in the Arcade Mode. Even if those Star Wars characters weren't included, Soulcalibur IV still holds it's own for the series' awesome cast of characters. The Star Wars characters are a nice addition. How they get into the Soulcalibur universe is explained in their respective story modes. When you do tire of the provided characters, make your own in Character Creation mode. If you love to accessorize your gaming personas, you'll have a field day with this mode. There are many accessories, armor and weapons to chose from. The combinations are nearly endless. You won't be able to mess with Star Wars characters clothing and accessories, other than some minor color modifications. Besides boosting up a character's level by repeated play, you can adjust skill settings. Each weapon can have several Power, Impact, Boost, Gauge and Special skills applied to it. Maxing them up will be essential in advancing in the Tower of Lost Souls Mode gameplay, as well as fighting others online in Special Versus mode. Soulcalibur has always delivered some of the best visuals, and Soulcalibur IV is no exception. Stained glass windows reflect on armor brilliantly. There's fine details in all aspects of accessories, and there are many of them. From deer heads to loincloths, it's an eclectic mix. All those options are great, but some combinations lead to graphical tearing. A minor detail, but it does detract from otherwise polished visuals. Gameplay is, of course, where you'll experience the meat of Soulcalibur IV. There are many different moves for each character. You can move around the play area in Soulcalibur's 8-Way directional area. There's jump, guard and side step techniques. Throwing is always fun to execute, and it drops a few bars of hit points (HP) from your opponent, but you won't be highly rewarded for those. There's lots of varying moves to learn, some that may be harder to execute on the Xbox 360 controller. If you prefer an arcade stick, there's the Fighting Stick EX 2 Attacks can be directed high, mid, or low range. Repeated attacks to one of those areas will break equipment. A three bar indicator below the HP Gauge at the top of the screen shows the status of a player's armor. You won't be able to hide behind blocking moves for too long in Soulcalibur IV. A new element of play is the "Soul Gauge," a colored indicator next to the HP Gauge. This introduces another layer to the fighting game. Initially it's green, and it changes to red after repeated strikes. That opens the threat of a Critical Finish move being unleashed on you. It's a fatal ending blow. Each character has their own, like Mortal Kombat's fatalities (but not as gruesome). If you've managed to get an opponent's Soul Gauge and HP Gauge flashing red, you'll have the chance to land a Critical Finish. Tip: watch your opponent's bar and see if it is flashing red, but listen for an audio cue of breaking glass. Keep your finger on the LB button, because you'll have a second's time to hit it once you hear the sound. That'll perform the Critical Finish and show you a slick finishing move animation. There is another Gauge that is used by Star Wars characters. That's the "Force Gauge", which is a recharging meter of special Force moves. There are various gameplay modes to select from. Here's how they break down, as seen in the game's main menu: Single Player Modes: Versus Modes: Xbox LIVE: In Story Mode, you fight through five stages against varying amounts of characters in each stage. You can select between Normal or Hard mode, although it felt like Hard mode wasn't as tough as previous higher difficulty modes in the Soulcalibur series. It won't take long to get to the ending credits screen. About 15 minutes or so. But this is Soulcalibur, so the credits screen is just the beginning. Each character has their own ending and weapons to unlock once you beat Algol, the final boss. Plus you'll want to collect plenty of gold points to unlock more characters, get more items in the Character Creation mode, or unlock artwork content in the Museum. For Tower of Lost Souls, you'll face opponents on different levels. Here's where you can unlock various items for performing conditional techniques. Once you complete a level, your progress will be saved, so you can continue where you left off. You may have to repeat a level if you miss performing a specific move. In the beginning, the only option is to Ascend the tower, attempting to beat the boss character of the tower. After 20 levels ascending, you can choose Descend where you'll take on waves of enemies. This mode is where you'll face your toughest challenges. Arcade Mode lets you fight in a series of matches. It's a few more rounds longer than Story Mode. Completing Arcade Mode will land you 10,000 gold, and unlock a few achievements along the way. Unlimited continues are provided, so just forge ahead and you'll eventually complete it. Online versus matches is something new to the Soulcalibur series with Soulcalibur IV. Here's where you can have some fun with your character creation. One of the funnier, and at the same time disturbing, characters I came across online was "Powder", from the film with the same name. He was white like the film character and just in underwear. Expect a lot of freaks online. That's where you'll want to showcase your character creation and unleash your upgraded skills. The soundtrack is great, and Namco Bandai knows it, since it's selling the audio tracks online via Xbox LIVE (and PS3's PSN). That's too bad a soundtrack playback mode wasn't included. You'll have to purchase them either individually (80 MS Points, $1) or in a pack (1200 MS Points, $15) for them to appear in the Stage Music Settings. Let's hope this doesn't become a trend. There are some memorable tracks. I had "Halcyon Harbor" in my head for days, and of course Star Wars ones too (Qui Gon's Noble End). As for the voice acting, you'll love it or hate it. If they really start to bug you, just switch the voice-over to japanese with english subtitles. But it's part of the ambiance of Soulcalibur, right? If anything, just do it to hear Yoda speaking in japanese. Replay value in this game is very high. Although the matches may not take that long, especially with Ring Outs and Critical Finishes, there's much variety and things to unlock. It wouldn't be Soulcalibur without an extensive artwork gallery (Museum) where you can enjoy plenty of rich character illustrations in HD. Soulcalibur IV delivers a solid fighting experience and another worthy addition to the series. If you only have one fighting game in your Xbox 360 library, make this it. It's simple enough to get into with friends who may pop in for a visit and provides plenty of depth to master and take on the hardcore online.
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. Learn some of the basic block, evade and attack moves first, then go for some more advanced techniques. Don't worry about getting overwhelmed with the variety of each character's moves list and button combos. You'll want to eventually master the moves and get impact moves down, such as Guard Impact (repel an attack) and Just Impact (counter hit). | < Prev | Next > |
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