EMLCombo has 1 chronicle

1. Soul Calibur 4
   

   Player Chronicle -- Posted on Jul 30 2008

   Hello Everyone,
   First off, thanks for taking the time out to read this. Briefly, I’ll say that I’ve played Soul Edge in the arcades and was very excited when it came to the PS1 with very little loss from its Arcade Brethren. I imported my DC, and my first DC game was an imported version of Soul Calibur, which I bought again about 7 months later when it came out in the states. I had all 3 versions of Soul Calibur 2, but spent the most time with the Xbox version. Soul Calibur 3 will be referred as the Gah-bage from thus point on. I shamefully admit that I bought it, played it, and still own it. Needless to say I’m a fan of the series right? Ok on to the good stuff
   
   Soul Calibur 4 Collectors & System – Took me a while but I finally chased down a collector’s edition version of this game b/c I wanted to rock out the T-shirt. My SC2 Ivy T-shirt is faded from wear and washing over the years. I was and still am a proud owner of SC2. Found the collector’s ed. at my local Best Buy dropped the 69.99 on it. Opened up this rather large tin can with SC4 all over it, got the T, a huge poster, and some kind of tournament roster pad with a mini-marker (strange), naturally the game as well. I bought it on the PS3 after many many debates with friends. But it finally came down to the fact that the D-pad on the 360 controller sux. Have you ever tried to look for a 3rd party controller for the 360? Came down to more serious play would come down to how well me and the controller got along. PS3 it is. However my co-worker (who is not a fighting game person who plays Rock Band for 10+ hours just about every weekend) will be selling me hers on the 360, so I’ll have both looks like.
   
   Soul Calibur 4 Presentation – Packaging was very nice for a $10 upgrade, this is the first Coll. Ed. I’ve bought in a while that I’m completely happy with. I would’ve paid $10 for the T-shirt alone. Vader, Ivy, and Nightmare on a red & black background, was another reason to pick up PS3 version. I didn’t want to risk having a white T-shirt with this new chick, Yoda, and Siegfried. I was instantly attracted to the PS3 cover over the 360.
   
   Soul Calibur 4 Graphics – Even though this is a native 720p game it looks fabulous. I play this on a 100ft screen and it is right on par with Dark Resurrection despite not being 1080p like DR. I love the lightning effects and “Death sequence” effects that they’ve added to the series. The backgrounds are pretty as well. Namco has added heat effects, water effects and breaking ground effects that are welcome additions. Found a few graphic glitches here and there but video games have come a long ways from PS1/N64/Saturn days.
   
   Soul Calibur 4 Gameplay – Over the years my fondness of Soul Calibur 2 has grown stronger and stronger. I have to mention SC2 here. Becaise after the Gah-bage and now the release of 4 I now realize just how fluid 2 really was. SC2 was fast paced and very responsive to button taps and movements. The controls were also very forgiving in 2. That being said, SC4 is not as fluid as SC2, not a responsive as SC2, and not as fast paced as SC2. In no way does that mean that the gameplay suffers, it means just what I said, SC4 is no SC2. SC4 is a bit more “clunky” then it’s worthy predecessor. SC4 is more along the lines of SC1 in gameplay. Again this is not considered a bad thing. Just know what you are in store for if you plan on buying this game. It should go without saying that the difficulty for the game can be turned up or down to provide a contender an appropriate challenge.
   
   Soul Calibur 4 Replay-ability – I love fighting games. Part of being good at a fighting game is learning all the characters, learning their weaknesses. A fighting game isn’t going to be like Gears of War or God of War with some story line worthwhile following. Soul Calibur has been one of the landmark fighting games for incorporating some sort of story mode into a fighting game for unlockables and such. SC4 hasn’t broken away from this with a story mode for a brief history on the character( or what has happened since the last installment), and why they are after the swords for this one. Replay value comes in playing every fighters story mode and finishing it. Now we have Tower of Souls which is basically like a haunted house of Soul Calibur characters. Get to the top of the tower for the harder difficulties and or challenges. With the addition of online play this one will be sitting on the side of the PS3 for a while. Not even mentioning character creation, which leads me to features.
   
   Soul Calibur 4 Features – SC4 has a new feature. You can edit characters from a base format. So, you can take a current fighters, body style, fighting style, etc. and edit the clothes, hair, colors (to an extent) and even the voice. Think Ivy sounds too much like a dude at times? You can change your characters voice to sound almost chipmunk-ish. Namco has pulled away from CG scenes and has started using in game graphics to tell the stories. In game graphics works out really well when you’re playing with a created character. You get to see your created character in scenes with the other characters playing out their interactions. Seems like they didn’t pull any punches with the create a character mode. It can get really involved with adjusting for the benefits of certain weapon’s bonuses over another, in addition to bonuses that clothing and accessories offer. So if you’re online and you see a character fully clothed and not really matching or whatever, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are a poor character designer, they may be tweaking out the stats of their fighter. Online, what fighting game doesn’t want to have online playability? Now, I haven’t had the best experience with this yet. My first night I started up the game not realizing that I needed to update the firmware on my PS3. With the new in game XMB I was able to sign in to my account but when it came to finding a match online it kept failing to connect. Before I went to bed I decided to log into the PSN to see what downloadable content was available. That’s when I found out that I needed an update to my system. Updated (I see they have a new feature to update the system and turn itself off after the update) logged in the next morning and found a match almost instantly. Unfortunately this wasn’t the best experience for the first time. The lag was really bad! I’m talking bad as in a 3-4 second delay between my button presses and what was going on on the screen. Not only a delay but at times the game ran really choppy. In a fighting game this is unacceptable. I hope to have a better experience in future gamming. Last but not least is the inclusion of a few Star Wars greats. The Dark Apprentice on both consoles from The Force Unleashed (not out yet), Yoda for the Xbox 360, and Darth Vader for the PS3. Vader seems a bit thrown together. I’ve read that Yoda is terribly broken. Still not a minus to the series, both characters make great cameos in the intro’s.
   
   Final Thoughts and ratings – I am VERY comfortable with my purchase of SC4. So comfortable I’m considering buying my co-workers copy on the 360. It was well worth the $70 I dropped on it or the $64 prospective buyers are considering dropping on it. Soul Calibur 4 is a worthy Sequel to the franchise and Soul Calibur 2. Soul Calibur 4 is an apology from Namco for everyone whom fell victim to the gah-bage. It’s a fighting game people. This is a game that you throw in when your buddies come over and you have some duels. Hopefully your buds haven’t been practicing more than you and don’t demolish you every time you pick up the controller. With online play you should always have someone to swing swords with for a good quick competition and a chance to improve your skills. Some reviews want a GTA-esque fighting game (A.K.A. sandbox). Fighting game enthusiasts want a decent looking, well balanced, fun to play game that they can get some competition on, Soul Calibur 4 seems to answer that call. SC4 looks sharp and attractive. Those who don’t like fighting games should enjoy watching two people battle. Dark Apprentice appears to be over-powered, but so was Spawn and he didn’t ruin Soul Calibur 2. The only thing that I would say that was missing for sure from the game, is the ability to make your own backgrounds. Hey we can’t have everything in one swoop right, then what would they do for the sequel? The new characters are very well done. Hilde is an excellent addition to the cast. I was afraid she was going to be a Seung-mi-na/Killik clone but she wasn’t. The game has enough single player and multi-player modes to keep me satisfied. Soul Calibur 4 has definitely established itself as a good fix for the lost fighting game genre.
   Scale Rankings 1 -10. 1 being a, “OMG WTF is this bull!” 10 being a “OMG I luv this, this is perfect!”
   
   Collectors and System = 9.0 – I’m used to the PS controller at least the D-pad works. Great collectors!
   Presentation = 9.0 – Collectors ed. is great. Great cover, instruction booklet, and in-game help.
   Graphics = 8.5 – Clothes still occasionally go through body parts. No reason the game shouldn’t have been native 1080p
   Gameplay = 8.5 – Not as fluid as the prequel, but still good. I imagine it may have needed to be slowed down a bit to incorporate online game play. Over all still good.
   Replay-ability = 8.5 – Fighting games don’t really score extremely high in this area for me. Even with story mode the premise is still fighting. I started to give it an 8 b/c I really wouldn’t give a fighting game much more, the .5 came from the customization with the create a character. What you put into it is what you get out of it.
   
   Features = 9.5 – create a character, star wars, and online. Nice!
   
   Overall - 8.8 Solid Purchase! “Mommy look I have a cool game you! Wanna play?”

   
   

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EMLCombo has 1 comment on this chronicle.

1. RyuBlitz
   Posted On Jul 31 2008

   Great Review! That's an impressive amount of detail in there... Sucks to hear about the laggy online, though.
   
   One question I've got to ask though... 100ft screen??? If that's not a typo, then WOW.