Soulcalibur IV

Once Upon a Time (in the late 90’s) they say, there was a Segalicious little machine: the Dreamcast, okay? This poor little console had but three big games to its name… there may have been more, but they weren’t the same. Shenmooie was part one of a trilogy that was never to be, the second was Crazy Taxi, fun but silly. But the third, oh the third… how Soulcalibur shined! For in the late 90’s it was an incomparable find. This game was different, a curious prize, it was quite clearly a time traveler from future Sega supplies. Nothing, and I mean nothing came close to Soulcalibur at the time… it was a bright graphical wonder, it was quite frankly sublime. Now in the future we have Soulcalibur Four, a game quite good enough to leave us asking for more.

First Impressions by Tanx
Video Game Reviews by a Very Busy Math Teacher

Game: Soulcalibur 4
Platform: XBOX 360
Played For: about 30 hours

Why can’t every game have characters as good looking as those in Soulcalibur 4? We’ve finally reached the point where cut scene and in-game characters are the same entities… where clothing can be swapped and worn (or not, apparently) without clipping issues or action figure plastic rigidity. Soulcalibur 4 is a fighting game that allows you to pit giant eagle-headed pirate ninjas against Yoda or Darth Vader, for crying out loud… this is a game with style and beauty, and just the detail work in each character’s clothes, weapons, faces and moves makes it a modern day success, if not quite the shocking science fiction oddity that the original Soulcalibur was in 1998

The people responsible for Soulcalibur deserve some credit for trying to give the game a plot. As a branching set of alternate futures where any one of the, like, thirty characters could come out on top in the end, the story of Soulcalibur continues to be mostly unintelligible… but it might make more sense if you actually take the time to read each character’s background stories. I really tried… really… but I just couldn’t muster the patience to wait before I had my next bout against my personal nemesis, Ellie the fuzzy cat suit warrior from the fifth sublevel of the tower of doom. Yeah, I know, she’s probably supposed to be pretty easy, but fighting games have never been my forte.

But that’s another part of the appeal of Soulcalibur 4. You don’t have to be an amazing master of fighting games to derive satisfaction or enjoyment from this title… I’m talking to YOU, Arcana Hearts. Soulcalibur has always managed a careful balance between deep strategy and powerful random button mashing. If you can remember what the four primary buttons do, and you have a good sense of timing, you can have quite satisfying matches against all but the most ridiculous 20th level Cervantes-worshippers that lurch around online. Tons of easy to perform moves, lots of characters (including vaguely creepy guest characters designed by famous manga artists in Japan as well as some Darth Vader’s apprentice dude who is apparently a walking billboard advertisement for another upcoming video game but who is way more fun to play with and against than he deserves to be) and endless customized or random opponents make Soulcalibur a fighting game with lasting appeal, even for a button masher like me.

While the character customization system is the best ever, there are a few things I miss from previous incarnations of Soulcalibur. The first game had a picaresque charm to its fighting arenas that this one doesn’t achieve… too many dungeons and blasted landscapes leave me fondly recalling the cherry blossom trees and bright Chinese castles of Soulcaliburs past. I also really miss the character martial arts demonstrations, where each hero performed a set of practice moves for your benefit. Soulcalibur 2 had an extensive fan art gallery that was great to unlock, and while I’m happy the strategy game of Soulcalibur 3 was done away with, it would have been nice to have mission mode a little more developed than going up and down the tower of power or whatever it’s called.

But with new enjoyable finishing moves and the tactical additions of equipment destruction and strategically revealing clothing fraying, Soulcalibur can continue to claim innovations in game play and design.