Review: Soulcalibur IV (PS3)

By Joe Fourhman | August 11, 2008

I think one of the Soulcalibur series’ charms is that it is so inscrutably pompous. From the choose-your-own-adventure story mode to head-scratchingly super-serious dialogue like “Transcending history… and the world,” Soulcalibur is a traditional fighting game that aspires to be a JRPG and nobody ever told it that it’s not. I mean, I’m certainly not going to. Dude’s scary.

I just spent the morning poring over Wikipedia entries trying to get up to date on the Soulcaliverse (I skipped Soulcalibur III in mute protest against Namco not doing a GameCube version despite the GC edition of SCII outselling the other consoles), and even Wiki editors seem confused and vague about things. The best I can come up with is that there are two ancient, powerful swords… the vile Soul Edge and the weapon created to counter it, Soul Calibur. By the time of SCIV, these swords are wielded by Nightmare and Siegfried, respectively, who once shared the same body. SCIV introduces a third boss-level character, Algol, who wields the power of both Soul Edge and Soul Calibur. The rest of the cast is comprised of various good and evil combatants who persue the legendary swords for their own reasons.

And somehow, Darth Vader is involved.

But that’s all gravy. Although Soulcalibur die-hards will swear up and down about the epic nature of the storyline, Soulcalibur IV continues to be all about the fight. Not so much the story. Especially considering that you get different, conflicting endings depending on which character you take through Story Mode. I don’t know how anybody can come up with series canon when that’s going on.

In addition to Story Mode (which is hella easy on Normal difficulty, newbs take note), there’s Versus Mode, the all-new Online Mode, Character Creation Mode, and a Museum of unlockables.

Soulcalibur IV also preserves some well-established series staples… like the weapons-based fighting, 8-way run, customizable characters, and something that only the best fighting games do: the ability to be both a button masher for beginners and a tactical fighter for pros. You can always tell the pro-level fighting gamers, because they use the phrase “button inputs” when talking about the attack moves.

The combat is just as fun as ever, even if it seems largely unchanged since the last time I played SCII. My favorite character in SCII was Talim, and it feels like a welcome return home, despite having to retrain my fingers from a WaveBird to a DualShock3. A new addition to the tete-a-tete is the Critical Finish, which gives each character a Smash Ball-style ultimate finishing move. Although in this case, the Critical Finish ends the battle with an instant kill. But you needn’t worry about the Finishes showing up too often; the conditions to spring a Critical Finish are positively arcane. I have 12 hours on my game clock and I’ve only pulled off a Finish once.

SCIV follows a traditional unlocking sequence: earn money by playing, then spend it as you see fit. In addition to the create-a-character elements and production artwork, you also have to purchase about half the cast of fighters. Strangely, it only costs 4000 per character, and you pull down about 15,000 every time you play Story Mode, so it does not take much to buy everybody. You’d think they would have made that more difficult, as I bought everyone inside of two play sessions.

All of that bonus artwork is found in the Museum, along with a grossly misleading area called Battle Records. Instead of listing actual battle statistics, it is instead an Achievement-derivative list of “Honors,” unlocked as you play. Some are very easy, such as “Beat Story Mode with Darth Vader,” but others get crazy, like “The last two digits of total playtime equal the last two digits left on the clock when a battle ends.” Sheesh. I’d rather just see a genuine stats collection, like in previous Soulcaliburs. There’s no word if these Honors will eventually be turned into PlayStation Network trophies.

Character customization is a strong point, allowing you to create your own fighters and develop versions of the core characters. But not everyone; you can’t make a shirtless, tiara-wearing Vader, for example. We’ve already seen small armies of bizarre customs, from Sailor Moon to Solid Snake, which illustrates the depth of the system. There are hundreds of accessories and clothing options, some unlocked from story progression, some given out as rewards from achieving other unlockables, and some available as DLC (with more to come, I’m sure… the Collector’s Edition set of SCIV came with “exclusive” customization items, and I can’t imagine Namco Bandai not listing those as DLC at some point, especially since the CE included a series hallmark, the joke weapons.)

A few of my custom characters.

Your custom and altered characters can be used throughout the game, except in Arcade Mode and in some specific multiplayer modes that forbid it. As you play, the characters increase in level… but this is not in the RPG sense where they get automatic stat increases, it’s more of a threshold indicator that determines how many additional skills you can slot to your custom characters. Most of the clothing and accessories also will increase and decrease abilities and stats, giving this paper doll dress-up some meat.

Note that your armor and clothing can be knocked off during a battle, so choose your underwear carefully!

You can take your creations online, as Soulcalibur IV brings online play to the series for the first time. I had a few battles fail to connect, but overall it seemed okay. What I really liked was the ability to enter a room with other players and watch them play until it was my turn up to bat. In fact, I’d rather have a genuine spectator mode, so I could see other play styles and custom characters without having to take my shot at getting my ass kicked.

As of this writing, Soulcalibur IV on PS3 has already been patched twice, although I couldn’t tell you what the patches actually did. A few DLC purchases have been made available, a $1.50 pack of additional helmets and whatnot, and about $17 worth of background music tracks from the original Soulcalibur game.

And let’s stop lying to each other: at some point Namco Bandai is going to offer 360-exclusive Yoda to PS3 owners for a DLC price and vice versa. They’ve denied it repeatedly, but the character select screen has a suspiciously empty square, right beside Vader and Mr. Product Placement Secret Apprentice. Do they think we’re stupid?

About the Star Wars infiltration… it’s barely noticeable, honestly. It’s not a Skywalker Ranch hijacking, regardless of what the pre-release hype and box art would lead you to believe. I don’t think any of the standard SC characters encounter Vader or the Apprentice in Story Mode, so if this sort of thing bugs you, it’s easy to avoid. Secret Apprentice shows up in Arcade Mode (in fact, that’s how you unlock him) and is a pain in the ass to defeat. Playing Vader’s story spins some Expanded Universe crap about him finding a rift in space-time after sensing the incredible power of the soul swords. It’s actually better implemented - as far as fanboy continuity is concerned - than the famous trio of console-exclusive guests back in SCII. That game seemed to presume that Link, Spawn and/or Tekken’s Heihachi just happened to exist in the Soulcalibur world.

The much-vaunted Force powers are just a set of character-exclusive attacks, connected to a separate Force Gauge so you can’t abuse them. In my unprofessional estimation, they’re all really hard to pull off. Just call it what it is: this is advance promotion for The Force Unleashed and nothing more.

To me, what’s more interesting is the non-hyped guest characters, five female fighters designed by famous manga artists and anime directors. At least one of the characters, the moon staff-wielding Angol Fear, is directly related to the guest artist’s own creation, the Sgt. Frog manga. This quintet is rather intriguingly selectable via a submenu on the character select screen, which may indicate a preplanned method for downloading new characters (that are not Yoda) into the game.

Despite the Critical Finishes, the amazing create-a-fighter, the online mode, the gorgeous graphics that I haven’t even touched on, and the other bits and bobs that make this a next-gen effort, there’s some glaring holes in the package. Why can’t we get a full match replay, with the ability to pause and rewind and move the camera around? Why can’t the English voiceover get a fresh lip sync? What about the ability to save screenshots? An online spectator mode? Other fighting games have had these features for years… and Soulcalibur is going to start looking shabby if it doesn’t move in those directions, despite having the best (only?) create-a-fighter system in town.

Still, this is a game with serious legs (and other physical assets) that will see a lot of gameplay in your PS3.

For beautiful graphics, incredible replay value, and just generally being a game worthy of the legendary Soulcalibur name… but missing a few amenities… Soulcalibur IV on PS3 gets a soul-burning 4 out of 5 Aeropausonauts.

Soulcalibur IV was released July 2008 (NA) for PS3 and 360.
Rated T