Soulcalibur IV

(Note: from now on my 'reviews' will be simply what my feelings are on the game rather than a real review or information based article, you can easily find those elsewhere.  I've decided to take these on a personal level, if I ever write more that is)

Living in Hong Kong, Soul Calibur was already out on shelves a couple days ago, but I restrained myself from making the purchase just yet.  Though I'm quite an avid gamer, I pretty much buy all the games I think are worth buying, or even just trying out, I've never touched a fighting game before.  Not even at arcades, not even Mortal Kombat, Tekken, DOA or any of that kind of thing.  For some reason that never appealed to me.  Maybe its just because I know I would suck and be relegated to button mashing because I've never had a chance to dwelve into these fighting games.  However when I started doing research through multiple sites on Soul Calibur (as I do with every game) something about it drew me in.  I decided to brave the learning curve and give this genre a shot.

The very first thing I did when I booted up the game was jump into the versus modes and sample each character and get a feel of the fighting system.  I did hit that wall of confusing like I thought I would with the controls and combos.  The move list consisting of B+K+A+G took a while to get used to since I am totally not familiar with these fighting mechanics and terminology used in the game.  I pretty much button mashed my way through dozens of fights, just to see how the characters perfomed, and to see their various moves and styles.  Eventually I narrowed down to Hilde, Kilik, Siegfried and Yoda.  Yes Yoda.  Despite what people say about the degree of cheapness due to his size, and how he is completely out of place in the Soul Universe, I think he's awesome.  Not being a long time fan of this series, this did not bother me very much, but I do understand that hardcore Soul Calibur fans may feel against this.  There is definetely a certain degree of absurdity fighting a big character like Nightmare with the tiny Yoda hopping around and poking at the freaking beast.  But personally I loved it.  I love Star Wars and Yoda is awesome.  Its not like there are many games (if at all?) that have good combat involving lightsabers anyways.  Closest thing I can think of is Lego Star Wars which put in context is ridiculous because the 'real' Star Wars games sucked ass.  We'll just have to see how Force Unleashed.  Oh bee-tee-dubs the Apprentice seems pretty cool, but I haven't unlocked him yet so haven't really had a feel for him.

Graphically this game looks very good, everything is sharp and lighting effects decent.  (Note: if I write more of these in the future I probably will obsess on graphics because I love them.  I'm planning on studying computer graphics in college.)  The design for the characters are amazing, each with a distinct style.  All their armor and clothes are well crafted and look gorgeous.  There is something about Japanese design that I really like, such as the character designs in Devil May Cry 4.  This game just looks really good.  However some of the effects in the game look a big awkward, especially when parts of the ground seem to shatter in a bajillion pieces even though a character just fell backwards.  It does add to the overall intensity of the combat though, so not much to complain there.  Animations wise, some are quite clunky; most noticibly at times when a character is downed and is attacked again, sometimes the character flashes back to a standing position instantly and the animation of him/her being hit at a standing position then plays out.  It just looks really awkward.  I don't know how previous fighting games have looked when it comes to animations, but I would assume this problem occurs a lot, and is forgivable because the sheer amount of moves make it diffcult to string everything perfectly smoothly.  In all though, aside from a few jerks like this, the moves themselves are silky smooth and look great.  Some moves are just downright awesome. 

In terms of gameplay, there is quite a lot of depth for each character when it comes to moves.  It is accessible for beginners like me to just button mash (this may or may not be a good thing in the perspectives of others, especially those who are good at this game) and can string together moves quite easily.  But better players will have the opportunity to tap into move sets and combos that, as far as I can tell, require much more precise timing and skill to pull off.  So in all the combat system is robust and deep, but most importantly it is FUN.  Even though the AI seems to be uneven, the fighting itself is very satisfying.  Speaking of the AI, this is one of the bigger gripes I have with the game so far.  In the arcade mode, I wanted to got through so I could try out my skills after my initial learning period.  I wanted to play on an easy difficultly, but that doesn't mean I want my opponent to stand around and get hit.  The first few opponents just didn't do anything at all to hit me.  However on the 4th or 5th character, they suddenly became much stronger and I had my ass handed to me.  I found this to be really abrupt and uneven, it left me wondering what the crap happened.  Though as I'm getting better and more used to the game, this is less of a problem.

Two other things this game does well are firstly the Tower of Souls mode, and the Character Creation.  Firstly, the Tower of Souls gives the player an opportunity to go through a progression of battles and rewards victories with various items.  This leads to the Creation mode.  I found it cool that you could not only create your own custom character, but also edit existing ones.  The items you recieve can be added to improve and enhance certain aspects and skills of your character.  In addition, there is a leveling system, where the more you play your character, the more skills there are avaliable for it.  All these put together and you have a very deep customization mode where every piece of your armor and equipment effects your performance potential, and every skill affects your combat ability.  I always love customization, getting to outfit my dude with whatever, and Soul Calibur offers much to discover and experiment with in this department.  Coupled with the Tower of Souls mode, there is more and more incentive to keep going and earning things that can make your character better.

Even though these are just first impressions, (I sat down for about two hours and a half with this game, much of it trying to grasp the control system of the game) I definetly think this an impressive game, especially because it offers greater depth than most other fighting games.  This is the key here, because when I think of these fighting games, I don't see much in it other than battling over and over again for nothing really.  I'm not saying Soul Calibur isn't essentially a series of battles embellished by weak narrative and modes, but the customization and the fact that you can slightly affect the development of your character really helps this game.  But most importantly, this game is fun, and it does what it intends to do very well.  In my opinion, this is why games cannot be compared, because every single game has its own objective and method of expression.  The quality of a game should be judged by how well it evokes its ideas and presents itself to its audience.  And for Soul Calibur, it does what it wants to do superbly.  It will most likely satisfy returning fans, and can attract new comers like me.  In other words not only is this one of the best fighting games I've seen (by that I mean simply through observation, not that I've sampled others), but a good experience for those looking for good combat and action, and though not innovative, is a great game in an of itself in what I see is a declining genre.