Soul Calibur’s earliest appearance was on the PlayStation titled Soul Edge. The game sold well enough to warrant a sequel, however with the enormous influx of fighting games during that era on the PlayStation the next iteration was on the first 128 bit system, Sega’s own Dreamcast. This game was what Halo was to the original Xbox, selling the system like a chilled glass of lemonade on a blistering sunny day.
Soul Calibur II made the grade on the PS2 and Xbox only to give the fighting games on those platforms a serious run for their money. One of the shock and awe moments of last generation was related to Soul Calibur III being a PS2 exclusive, given its massive fanbase and every crusader who swore by Sony, the game was to annihilate the already dead Xbox.
Things however did not go according to plan and the third iteration was just a mediocre pump into the franchise. It lacked an arcade mode and was severely unbalanced, Namco was crucified by the hardcore gamers and critics for ruining the game that kick started a revolution with its rings out and weapon gameplay, and thus the Soul went back to the drawing board to fix a lot of issues that had plagued the series.
Soul Calibur IV is a great entrant in rejuvenating the series. I don’t hold a PhD in street Fighter or Mortal Kombat or any fighting game like most of our readers so I was a bit skeptical when I first rummaged through this title.
Soul Calibur IV does not do things starkly different from its predecessors, it is still a weapon based fighting with a healthy dose of opponents who are just lunging for your “soul”, but the plethora of tweaks that the game offers makes it almost like a deadly habit that needs rehabilitation.
Soul Calibur IV comes with 4 modes of joy, a single player mode which includes the banal and redundant story, the Tower of Lost souls, which is one of the best additions I have seen in a fighting game, the lost Arcade mode and the training mode.
There is not too much to describe about the story mode which can be completed in under 7 minutes, depending on the loading time between stages, although each character has a story to follow through. It hardly makes any sense and so we have an important lesson in game development, never let interns write a plot on their first day.
The Tower of Lost Souls is an addiction hard to overcome, this is the beauty of the single player mode. Its core components have been seen in numerous fighting games but there is a twist, the player can choose to ascend or descend.
Ascending requires players to play through a stage which consists of a number of battles and a boss at the end. The player can choose his roster of characters depending on the stage, and is outnumbered most of the times, so he needs to carefully move around in battle and utilize his choice of characters according to the pitch of the battle.
Descending the tower allows players to choose any two characters in the roster and fight a tag team battle in stages defeating scores of opponents. The player is required to stick through these choices throughout the game, so it better be a wise decision. Each stage has hidden goodies or pieces of armor that the player receives on fulfilling certain conditions. Thus, making every single battle in the game, an unique affair.
The Versus mode is your regular fight with another human opponent either locally or online. Given the abundance of online play in this generation, this is the first fighter that comes up with a stable online play. Virtua Fighter 5 may have set the tone for online fighters this generation and Soul Calibur takes this forward with a considerable amount of respect and dignity.
Character creation introduced in the third iteration finds its legs grown in different shapes and sizes in this version. Almost all the 30 characters are customizable right upto their underwear using the points gained in the single player mode. Due to this immense flexibility the community has already flipped its lid in producing some of the finest characters from other games into Soul Calibur IV, these include Solid Snake, Altair, Ryu and list stretches onto the imagination of all our creative gamers spanned all across the globe.
This also forms a huge part of the gameplay, points earned in all the modes allow players to unlock abilities and transform their character into a wreaking machine.
All your favorite characters (Kilik, Nightmare, Mitsurugi, Voldo, Ivy) return in the game and they seem bigger better and more badass with the new generation pumping out a billion plus polygon count. Each of the characters is seemingly well designed and the environments look gorgeous. This is coupled with an adequate soothing yet deadly music score which keeps the game pumped on all the time.
The Tale of Havok.
Jiggling mammary glands have always been a part of 3D fighting games, and more the jiggle the better are the chances of teens who have hit puberty picking up the game. The latest version of Havok in the game has solely been utilized for this purpose, once the players have stripped their female opponents off their deadly body armor, they can now witness the perfect jiggle of beauties of Soul Calibur IV and salivate to their hearts content.
Is the force with this one?
Soul Calibur IV has console specific special characters, the Xbox 360 version, on which the game has been reviewed, has Yoda the ancient Jedi Master from a galaxy far far away. Most reviews have criticized Yoda for being too lopsided which is true but it does not compare against the Apprentice from the upcoming Force Unleashed. The basic problem with Yoda is that he is too small a character to garb.
He quite skillfully uses his tiny height to evade numerous powerful attacks, but he does have his weaknesses, for each attack he requires to jump in midair to grab his opponent which can be quite successfully blocked, and there are a number of opponents (The Lizard) who can crawl can feast on Yoda’s skull. I once found myself pitched against another Yoda and it was perhaps the most second most exhilarating fight in my entire playthrough.
Both the computer and I ended up using the same attacks on numerous occasions and I could not even get the AI to score on the account of a ring out. The most devastating fight was against The Apprentice, I used to think the Emperor was a dandy Sith Lord but the Apprentice just blows him to smithereens.
This guy is perhaps the most powerful Sith you’ll ever encounter and is practically unstoppable with his unlimited barrage of force powers and powerful light saber. This guy practically mashes up everything that moves on screen.
Like I mentioned earlier in my review, I don’t hold a PhD in the beat’em up genre, but most of my friends do. There is this one guy who can plays Tekken 5 on the PS2 with a blindfold because he is so damn good, when we started guzzling through Soul Calibur he pointed out a very peculiar thing, button mashing will get you pretty far in the game.
It’s probably the industry’s worst secret that button mashing helps only a few times, but Soul Calibur IV might spell otherwise since even the most basic player may thrash you up completely when he is in his moment of fury.
The Final Word: I would not go to the extent of describing Soul Calibur IV as a gem in today’s generation for there have been better fighters than this in the space of videogame history, but it is certainly a worthy buy that is going to keep you engrossed for hours to come. So if you do have a bunch of friends and are practically tired of Guitar Hero and Rock Band and need some violence to let out that frustration, Soul Calibur IV is the game for you.
Graphics: 9
Gameplay: 9
Sound: 9
Budget pocket: 9
Overall: 9/10
- By Neelesh Mukherjee