If there's a pretentious announcer telling you that "the soul still burns," then you must be playing Soul Calibur IV. After a short three year hiatus, Namco Bandai has finally come out with a Soul Calibur sequel worthy of the name. For whatever reasons the last two iterations haven't blown me away, Soul Calibur III felt unbalanced and the recent Soul Calibur Legends was an unadulterated disaster. Thankfully this sequel (the fourth, believe or not) is no slouch, making up for not just one but two disappointing Soul Calibur titles.
The rules of Soul Calibur haven't changed much since its inception back in 1995. This is still a standard 3D one-on-one fighting game; it's basically Tekken with swords (and better graphics). You take control of characters, most of who feel like they were ripped straight out of some alternate reality Victorian era fight club. Regardless of the characters and the arenas, all you need to know is that this is an arcade style fighting game that is incredibly easy to pick up and extremely difficult to put down.
The Soul Calibur series has always been known for its novice-friendly gameplay, and Soul Calibur IV is no exception. The gameplay consists of two attack buttons and a kick button, outside of that the only thing you need to know is to block and avoid incoming attacks. Unlike Virtua Fighter and other recent 3D fighting games, Soul Calibur manages to be accessible enough to those new to the series and yet deep enough to keep the hardcore fighters satisfied. Best of all, no matter what you do, the game's smooth gameplay and shiny graphics make the whole thing look stunning.
Soul Calibur IV keeps a lot of the old familiar faces (Mitsurugi, Siegfried, Voldo, Maxi, Cervantes, Lizardman, and so on). On top of the returning roster, we also get two brand new characters - Algol (a ferocious boss character that wields both the Soul Calibur and the Soul Edge swords) and Hilde (a heavily armored woman with a long spear). It's also worth mention that there are a few other "new" characters, but they are mostly pallet swaps of other characters, so calling these brand new characters is a tad misleading.
You can't get through a Soul Calibur IV review without mentioning the biggest addition to this franchise: Star Wars. I know, it sounds crazy, but for reasons that confuse and bewilder me Namco Bandai saw fit to include not one, but two different Star Wars characters. Considering the game's emphasis on weaponry these two characters don't feel as out of place as they probably should, however it's still a little jarring to go from old school sword fighting to seeing people with laser swords. Depending on which version of Soul Calibur IV you buy you will get a different well-known Star Wars cast member. The PlayStation 3 owners get the mighty Darth Vader, while the Xbox 360 users make do with the teeny tiny Yoda. It's a shame that it has to be one or the other, I can only imagine that there are a lot of nerdy fanboys that would love to see Yoda battle Darth Vader. I personally couldn't care less, these characters neither improve nor damage the game, they are just there to grab headlines and attract new people to the franchise.
Oh, and did I mention that you can also build your own fighter? Taking what is perhaps the best part of Soul Calibur IV, this new installment allows you to build and customize the character of your dreams. Although it sounds silly, some of the most thrilling moments of this fighting game come from winning new clothes and accessories for your character. They don't just make your character look different; these items actually improve his or her skills and gives them added bonuses. Throw all of this together and you have one of the best character line-ups ever assembled for a fighting game. Heck, even if you hate every single one of the characters Namco has created, you can still come up with your own wacky designs and have just as much fun.
The modes found in Soul Calibur IV range from the mundane to the spectacular, with very little room in between. There are a few obvious modes that greet you from the get-go, including a standard arcade mode (where you fight through a set number of levels and face a boss), a story mode (which is basically the same as arcade mode, only with a couple of cinema scenes thrown in for good measure) and the standard versus mode. These modes aren't bad by any means, but fans of the genre will immediately know what to expect from each and every one of them. These are the same boring modes we see time after time, they are not the reason you turn to a Soul Calibur game.
Thankfully there's the Tower of Lost Souls, a challenge mode that allows you to either ascend or descend the tower. If you choose to ascend the tower you will be thrown into a number of challenging battles, each intended to test your skills in a lot of different ways. Some characters will have more life than others, some will block everything, some will come with three of their toughest friends. At first it just seems like another excuse to fight user created characters, but over time you start to appreciate how much time was spent putting this mode together. And did I mention that it gets hard? Chances are you're going to be spending most of your single-player time fighting through these increasingly difficult floors. This mode will challenge even the best Soul Calibur players.
Unfortunately descending the tower isn't nearly as exciting as ascending it. When you choose to descend you are thrown into what feels like a survival mode, where they keep throwing enemies at you until you finally run out of health. This is certainly a nice challenge from the other modes, but at the same time it feels tacked on and isn't a good substitute for some of the deep adventure modes we've seen in past Soul Calibur titles.
While Soul Calibur IV remains a one-on-one fighting game, it goes one step further and adds some tag team options that are new to the franchise. In some matches (depending on the mode you're playing) you will be able to choose two or three other characters. You can bring these characters in at any time during battle by hitting the right bumper button, allowing your characters to run off screen and regain health. If you've played games like Tekken Tag Tournament or Marvel vs. Capcom 2, then this concept won't sound strange at all. The tag team stuff does add a certain amount of strategy to the game, but I find myself preferring the standard one character vs. one character battles.
The real draw to Soul Calibur IV comes in the way of the online multiplayer mode, which actually manages to get it right. Fans of the genre already know how unreliable fighting games are online, neither Dead or Alive 4 nor Virtua Fighter 5 managed to pull off this feat successfully. Although I've run into a few games plagued by lag issues, by and large the online has worked a lot better than I expected. I've managed to go in and have dozens of rock solid matches; something I never thought was possible before. The game's speed and accuracy does take a slight hit online, but it's nothing you can't overlook in the heat of battle.
Actually, it's easy to overlook a lot of things when Soul Calibur IV looks as good as it does. I know I shouldn't be impressed by so-called "next generation" graphics anymore, but it's hard not to fall in love with this game's look. The characters are large and full of details, and the backgrounds are colorful and full of life. This is without a doubt the single best looking fighting game I have ever seen, a high water mark that will be hard to touch. Best of all, the game looks even better in action. The game's silky smooth animation is to die for; it's really something you have to see to believe.
Unfortunately all this masks the underlying problem - this Soul Calibur game just isn't all that different from all the other Soul Calibur games. Not that this is entirely a bad thing, I'm sure there are a lot of hardcore gamers that have been waiting for a new Soul Calibur game full of new characters and great graphics. For those people this game won't disappoint, it manages to get the balance and look down perfectly. However, those of us expecting something more than an evolution of the series will no doubt be disappointed. That's not to say it's a bad game, but it's not as revolutionary as it could have been.
Still, Soul Calibur IV does manage to offer a different flavor of fighting game to the Xbox 360. This new game isn't perfect, but it's the kind of game that will bring both experienced and novice fighting fans together. With its great graphics and cool line-up of characters Soul Calibur IV is easy to recommend. Part of me hopes that the next time we visit this franchise Namco Bandai will have made some much needed upgrades to the overall concept. Soul Calibur IV is definitely worth your time if you're a fan of great looking fighting games.
