As I wrote before in the article (Fighting Games (Part 3) - The Authentic Titles), the Soul Calibur series is my favorite one in fighting games. This article certainly comes late since, as I am writing this, Soul Calibur V is about to be released. No doubt that I will pre-order it soon and post a review here. So I will keep the Soul Calibur IV's review short and simple but I will tell you my story with The Soul.

A bit of my story

Soul Blade : in my opinion, still one of the best fighting around !

I became a fan of the Soul Calibur series since.... Soul Blade on the first PlayStation. I did not own a PlayStation, but I loved the game every time I had the chance to play it. The opening song - The Edge of Soul - is one of my favorite and I still listen to it these days. Back in 2001, a friend gave it to me after he got bored of it (I did not know it was even possible). So I could then play it on Bleem!, a PlayStation emulator for PC on a Pentium II 350 MHz with NVidia Riva TNT graphics. Not the best conditions, especially with the controller I had then (Microsoft Sidewinder Freestyle, a great controller except for fighting games), but still I enjoyed the game.

After I finished high school in 2002, I did not have the chance to play the game until 2004. At that time, I discovered the new emulator ePSX, the USB adapter for PS2 controllers and I had a AMD Athlon XP 2400+ sporting a GeForce 4800 SE. I cannot count the hours I then spent with my sister and the grueling Seong Mi-na VS Sophitia battles. We did not get to play much Soul Calibur on Dreamcast/Xbox, but we did play Soul Calibur II at friends' place during parties. Well, we did not play it that much, because a Winner-Stays rule ended up with my sister or myself staying, so our friends would switch to another game pretty quickly (sorry...). No Soul Calibur III for us, directly onto Soul Calibur IV, which I bought for Christmas 2008. However, I did not play it and left it shrink-wrapped. I knew how much I love Soul Calibur, so I preferred waiting until the exams were over... in June 2009 ! 6 months and it was definitely worth the wait !

My favorite character in her Soul Blade years...
... and my sister's favorite in Soul Calibur IV.

Soul Calibur IV : The Review

As I said in the introduction, I will not go into details as Soul Calibur V is coming out soon. Simply put, I cannot express how great I think this game is. Graphics are awesome, the gameplay is excellent and fairly balanced, the music is superb... What else can I ask for ?

Gameplay

Well... Although I do sound dithyrambic about Soul Calibur IV, it actually took me a long time to like it. The gameplay was changed drastically from Soul Calibur III (itself deriving from the previous ones) and that was quite a shock. I could not do the same combos I was doing with Seong Mi-na, so I almost hated the game due to frustration. Then, progressively, I got used to it and realized how great the game is. While a few characters are still a bit (historically) unfair, this is one of the most balanced game I have come across. Also, a noticeble change is the introduction of Critical Finish. Unlike the previous ones, you do not break weapons if you hammer someone constantly blocking. Instead, a Soul Crush occurs, leaving the opponent at your mercy if you get the timing right. Some Critical Finish animations are really cool.



Star Wars

Some will argue that it was out of place. However, as big Star Wars fan, I could not be happier swinging and clashing lightsaber, but hey, that's me ! I loved the presence of the guest characters here : Master Yoda, Darth Vader and his secret apprentice Starkiller. Which side are you on ?

What's within your soul : Damnation, Fear, .....
..... Hope, Redemption !

Character Creation

Within the first 6 months playing this game, I probably spent as much time here as I did actually fighting. In this mode, you customize the look of your characters as well as equipments and skills. These will influence the stats of your creation. I like making characters that look nice. I know, I could make them much more powerful than I did, but I was not satisfied with the look. Some people do not care, I saw some horrible ones when playing on Xbox Live, but these builds were for pure power. If there was one regret I had with this mode apart from the limitation to 50 custom characters, is that it was not possible to create one based on the Star Wars individuals. Yes, you can always say I could be playing Star Wars The Old Republic :).

A recreation of Kasumi from Dead or Alive...

... and my most powerful build based on Seong Mi-na !


Music

I love orchestrated music. Soul Calibur IV comes packed with epic compositions from Junichi Nakatsuru, Hiroyuki Fujita and Keiki Kobayashi. What else can I ask for ?


Practice Mode

If there was one thing I am not happy about Soul Calibur IV, it is something to do with the Practice mode. More specifically, it is the absence of training program where you input moves shown on top of the screen (or bottom depending on games) one after each other. You progress every time you get a move correctly, like in Dead or Alive 4 or Virtua Fighter 5. This forces you to constantly go back and forth between the practice and the special moves menu. It is so irritating that I ended up buying the official guide. I hope this was not done on purpose...

This is how a Practice mode should be done...

Final Thoughts

Is there much to say here ? Not really apart from :

  • It is still my #1 Xbox 360 game (maybe until SC V)
  • I am dying to try Soul Calibur V when it gets released.