Soul Calibur IV - Dark Publications

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Product Description
Set to finally reveal the origins of this ongoing story, Soul Calibur IV features new and familiar faces from across the galaxy, seeking rival swords for vengeance, honor and salvation. Shown in amazing 720p HD graphics, new and classic characters fight in a revamped battle system to revolutionize the fighting game genre. From character customization to online battles, the features of Soul Calibur IV help propel this venerable franchise into the next generation of gaming. Jedi Master Yoda appears exclusively on the Xbox 360 system. Story - Uncover each character's story line as you battle to reveal their motives Arcade - Take on the challenge in battle after battle in this classic arcade mode Tower of Lost Souls - Fight in special battles to challenge your fighting skills and customizing skills in order to reap the rewards Training - Practice your skills to earn your place as the ultimate weapon master Character creation - Create a character unlike any other, with custom looks and items influencing their skills and abilities, which will affect the outcome of your impending battles Museum View - movies, backgrounds and art that you have unlocked Standard VS - Battle one-on-one in this classic match up for ultimate bragging rights Special VS - Take your customized SC character or newly created character into the world arena and prove if your creation is the best in the world

Amazon.com

The Classic Fighter Returns

Return to witness the epic struggle between the spirit sword, Soul Calibur, and the cursed sword, Soul Edge, in Soul Calibur IV. Warriors from far reaches of the galaxy battle to control the powerful swords and use them for their own goals. Should these fighters succeed, they will face the ultimate judgment. The ongoing story continues with new revelations, exciting new gameplay features and stunning visuals. And perhaps most exciting of all, a character from the Star Wars universe will also make an appearance.

Key Features

Newest addition to the Soul Calibur series features thrilling next-gen graphics brimming with intensity
Continues the struggle between the spirit sword, Soul Calibur, and the cursed sword, Soul Edge
Features the legendary Yoda as a guest character
Expanded customization options let you give your character a personalized look and specific abilities
Take both customized characters and original favorites online for the first time

Exclusive Special Characters

Beloved Star Wars legend Jedi Master Yoda appears as a guest character in the Xbox 360 version of Soul Calibur IV. In addition to that thrilling fact, you'll also discover expanded customization options that let you bestow your character with a personalized look and specific abilities. And, for the first time, you'll be able to take both customized characters and original favorites online to challenge an entire world of fans. Completely reinvented but with the same intensity you've come to know, Soul Calibur IV provides an adventure that never disappoints.

Thrilling Next-Gen Graphics
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Online Challenges!
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Customer Reviews: Read 33 more reviews...

4 out of 5 stars

Solid release from IMHO, the best fighting game series out there, but not worth $60 July 29, 2008
18 out of 22 found this review helpful

If you've played any of the other Soul Calibur games, this game plays pretty much the same way. The reason this series is so much better than the other series out there I feel is the ability to, blow-to-blow, attack your opponent with series of attacks that do not involve memorizing a long string of commands like in the Tekken series. That said, this game is basically Soul Calibur III plus some small enhancements (outside of HD graphics) that I personally don't notice that much.

This is a really simple fighting game to pick up for first-timers, and there is almost always a character and a fighting style to suit your desire. Really, the only two very similar characters in the game are Siegfried and Nightmare, apparently for a good reason if you know a bit about the forgettable story.

Some specific notes:

Gameplay: Single player - A- ; Multiplayer (local + online) - A
First off, I don't believe games like these aren't really meant to be bought for single player. Clearly, you'd expect to practice your game in your time so that you can lay down the law against your friends on multiplayer modes.

AI is reasonably intelligent in this game, outside of being very simple in the earlier levels on the Normal difficulty setting. Higher up in difficulty, the AI plays defense very well, and this can get really frustrating, sometimes even forcing you to abandon normal attacks and to go for grapples, which for some reason the AI is pretty bad at countering.

Otherwise, when playing your friends, this is not exactly one of those fighting games that you can button-mash and expect to win. Definitely some skill and practice is involved, and the smoothness of the fights and the transitions from blow to blow make this THE fighting game to get.

Online gameplay is smooth and overall as good as the local multiplayer experience. I have not experienced any issues with lag or skippy gameplay. My only complaint here is how selecting "Quick Match" in ranked has the tendency to just match you with someone who has an open game. As a game creator, you can select the level of players you intend to play against. As a level 1 trying out the online game, I got put into too many matches against level 60+ and got slaughtered.

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Story: C
This is the the only reason I am giving this game four stars. For a game that seems to promote its story about the struggle between an evil sword and a cleansing sword (assuming I even understand it right), especially from the moment the trailers hit TV screens nationwide, this game does a terrible job of incorporating the story into the game. This said, most fighting games that even have storylines do terrible jobs at integrating the story into the game as well.

If you are looking for a fighting game with a pretty nicely integrated storyline, the best that I can think of are the WWE Smackdown series. In this game, the story consists of short cutscenes between fights that hint at the location of the next fight, and maybe short snide remarks that the characters say at each other right as the fight is about to begin (that in most cases don't even seem to make any logical sense together).

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Overall, this is a great fighting game to have. It's purely that and nothing more. Expect to play single player mode quite a bit in order to unlock characters and items. The real fun of this game really comes from multiplayer modes. I think that fronting $60 may be a stretch for this game unless you're really into this series.

5 out of 5 stars

What's Within Your Soul? August 4, 2008
8 out of 8 found this review helpful

What's within your soul? Do you have what it takes to defeat the deadliest warriors in the universe in order to possess the awesome power of the Soul Calibur? Are your mental and physical skills up to the challenge of facing other warrior-wannabes in online play?

If so, then I highly recommend that you purchase this game. One play-through and your soul will be changed forever. Complete the missions, and you will be on your way to becoming a TRUE WARRIOR!

Ok, enough of the corny stuff. Soul Calibur IV is an awesome game. For solitary players, it offers the following adventures. Story, Tower of Lost Souls, and Arcade. The Story mode is similar to what we've known over the years. Each fighter goes through his or her unique story, fight battles, and then reach their own unique story ending. Arcade should also be familiar to most soul calibur veterans. Basically, you pick your fighter and fight through stages until you battle The Apprentice. Upon beating The Apprentice, which is easier said than done, you get to fight this strange guy (strange, even by SC standards!) called Algol. Algol reminds me of Necrid from SC2. Tower of Lost Souls is an advanced stage. Basically, you want to be very comfortable with your chosen characters' move sets before you set out for the Tower. I suggest that you play through Story and Arcade modes with your favorite/created characters before going to the Tower. You want to be able to use helpful skills, as well as the best weapons, in order to play through the Tower. The weapons can be expensive to purchase. Hence, the need to play for cash first. Tower of Lost Souls is somewhat similar to Weapon Master from SC2. Basically, you play against the CPU.

Character Creation is back! This time, your model will look like one of the main characters in the game. You can outfit your model with armors, head gear, etc. You can even strip Sophitia and the other ladies down to their bikini, if you want! Bear in mind though that although that's eye candy, leaving your character without armor will lower their stats. In SC4, the armor affects the character stats.

Are the characters "balanced", in terms of fighting effectiveness in versus play? From what I have seen so far, they seem to be. My experience in Versus play is limited though. Does the CPU play fair in single player mode? Ofcourse not, this is Soul Calibur! Fight The Apprentice in Arcade and you will see how this works against you. Even a good Soul fighter will find themselves repeatedly off-axis. A lot of your moves, especially vertical ones, will miss. However, The Apprentice will usually be on-axis. And he can pull together a long string of moves that is very, very hard to interrupt. I found that a character like Amy, with her 4B is much better against this guy than say, Sophitia. But that's just my style of play, perhaps. Using a player with hard to pull combos, like Ivy, required me to use a lot of throws just to beat The Apprentice. But I lost many, many more battles against this guy than I won.

I have always been a fan of Namco-Bandai. They seem to release games that appeal to me. From Xenosaga, Baten Katos, Eternal Sonata, Tekken, and all the way to the Soul Calibur series. They have a way of making even the characters in a fighting game very endearing.

Yoda or Darth Vader? I have the XBox version of the game, so I get Yoda with my edition. Yoda is fun to play, however, I have read other reviews from people who have both PS3 and XB360 versions of the game that say they prefer Darth Vader on the PS3. I do not have the PS3 version, but let me just say that for fighting games, I prefer the playstation controller to the 360 controller. I have SC2 in PS2 and Xbox versions. I much prefer playing the PS2 version due to the design of the PS controller. But that's just a personal preferrence on my part.

To sum up, this is a great game. SC4 is more technical, and the move sets are a lot deeper than in previous versions of the game. I believe you could play this game for a year, and still find ways to improve your game during the second year. And maybe beyond. The replay value is endless. And if you are very technical and enjoy complication, you will just simply love Ivy. If you thought her move list was extensive in SC3, think again. Learning how to pull off Summon Suffering is a major hobby unto itself! Yeah, I love Soul Calibur! I believe you will also.

5 out of 5 stars

Awesome!! July 30, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful

I have always been a fan of the Soul Calibur games, and I didn't really know what to think about this one because all of them have been redundant. Suprisingly though, this Soul Calibur is different. There are so many new characters (like Yoda, it's awesome), you have a lot more options for creating players, and the characters that already exist on the game. The graphics are really good, and online play is awesome. The only problem with the game is the story mode, it is short, it is just 5 battles instead of 8 or 9 like in the other games. The controls are a bit hard to master if you haven't played the other games. I would recomend this game to a Soul Calibur fan.
Written by my 13 year old son

5 out of 5 stars

The Soul STILL burns!!!!! July 31, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful

I don't have a lot to write on this game. Why? it's Soul Caliber!!!! If you have followed this franchise you already know what to expect, who is in it and so forth and you already know to purchase this game.

The cutscenes are a welcome improvement over the always wordy storyboard of years past.

The improvements show as this is one of the most beautifully detailed fighters out there. The game modes are excellent. My only minus is that they tried to incorporate a tag mode a la Dead or Alive but it's not as fluid as that game.

But the BIG selling point this time around is the create a character skin mode!

Don't like the skin that you are using? Make a NEW one! Make an original character (mapped over the in game character of course) or make it based on something...and the more you play the more items get unlocked!

Creating skins will suck hrs away just like that and you will find yourself torn between playing and making new skins

I have created characters such as Afro Samurai, Conan and Lara Croft.

I have a few other ideas at work that I won't share suffice to say wait til you see me online.

Speaking of, online handles pretty well and sometimes there is a bit of lag but I am hopeful that this clears up...but nonetheless what Call of Duty did for FPS, this game will do for fighters so, don't read anymore and get the darned game!!!

3 out of 5 stars

Not Worth the wait. August 1, 2008
2 out of 8 found this review helpful

IF your a fan of the series this was kind of a let down especially for all the hype this game was given. Even with Yoda and the apprentice it just wasn't there. $[...] for this? HELL NO! this is a $[...] game at best.

Graphics 8
Game play 6
Online Fighting 9
Replay 5

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