Soul Calibur IV (Day one impressions)
By Soap 4 Comments
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So today is August 1st, and today Soul Calibur IV launched here in the UK. I'd like to start by pointing out I'm not a huge Soul Calibur fan, or even a massive fighting games fan (regardless of the fact I currently own Virtua Fighter 5, Tekken 5 Dark Resurrection from the PSN store and now Soul Calibur IV) so I'd like to consider my views to be as unbiased as possible.
Ok, where to start, I thought that unlocking all the characters would take a few hours but I actually managed to unlock every single one within about an hour and a half. The fighting seems pretty solid although sometimes the AI does play a little unfairly (this can be mostly seen when the AI plays as either The Apprentice or LizardMan) when they basically wont let you off the ground, which can be a little infuriating.
The character customization is pretty solid, not only can you create your own original characters from scratch who, when done right, can fit right into the rest of the cast without sticking out to much but you can also edit any of the main cast as well, this seems to be limited to there second costumes and is more focused on full costume changes while a simple idea such as taking of Hilda's helmet isn't actually possible.
One aspect of the character customization I have found not to enjoy is the fact that all different types of armor and individual pieces of clothing affect your attack power, defense and even your HP gauge. In theory this sounds pretty cool, but when you realize that your absolutely amazing Siegfried who looks like a cross between himself and Nightmare has only 65% of a health bar when you take him into combat, it makes the whole idea a little redundant. I tried to recreate him again concentrating only on the stats I was getting and yes, while he ended up being very powerful with a strong defense and a life bar of 160% he looked like a complete idiot, sure it shouldn't matter when the most important thing is the combat, but as a highly visual guy I can't enjoy playing as someone who looks stupid.
The character designs are interesting with a slightly more Anime feel to a lot of the characters, every face is smooth skinned with large eyes and expressions which match the outstandingly bad voice work. While the voice work is absolutely horrible, I must confess to enjoying it as a bit of a guilty pleasure, I doubt Soul Calibur would have half as much personality without it's 3rd rate cast of characters and the narrator who spurts absolute crap at the beginning of every bout.
The locations are pretty varied and while I haven't really played more than 5 or 6 rounds from the previous games I did manage to recognise a few returning locations. There seems to be a lot of locations to play in as well, it wasn't until about 5 hours in that I actually what has so far been my last unique location but I'm sure there could possibly more to see later down the line.
Overall the game is pretty fun, although I'm not sure if I personally should have paid full price for it and only really did to fill the void until the beginning of the holiday season in september.
Also, a final thought... I don't personally think the star wars characters don't fit in at all, they feel really weird to play as against a normal character and barely ever show up in arcade mode (unless your playing as the other star wars character) and still.... a lightsabre could cut through a sword lol.
Maybe more thoughts tomorrow.
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