Soul Calibur 4

Justin Robinson has a look at the game that still can’t spell its name.

Soul Calibur has long been a mainstay of console gamers. We at Atomic have sunk immeasurable (and probably unhealthy) amounts of time into the games over many years, and naturally we were excited when we got this one in. Then that excitement turned to something much more, as we discovered it had Vader in it. Vader, people!

The story mode of this game, if it can be called that, revolves around two powerful swords. These are called Soul Edge, and Soul Calibur, and are evil and good respectively. Each character has a feebly written introduction story that vaguely describes why they’re after the swords, and then the game thrusts you into a series of five battles in seemingly random locations, until a short victory movie plays and you get two lines of text to placate you until you do it all again with another character. Thankfully this isn’t that much of an issue, because there are plenty of other game modes to be delved into that offer a more substantial experience.

Dredging this same mode up from the very first game, Arcade mode is a series of battles against eight opponents of increasing difficulty. This is timed, giving you about 80 seconds per opponent, with two victories per opponent moving you along. At the end of these battles, you’re rewarded with a new character, as well as money. A significant portion of the singleplayer game is actually spent playing this now ancient mode, but the incredibly detailed fighting arenas and character models keep it from becoming tedious.

The game’s creators have at least introduced something new into this rehashing of older playing modes, in the form of the Tower of Lost Souls. This is similar to both the other modes, but is a series of three or four fights against multiple enemies, using more than one character. The damage in this mode is persistent for each floor, so if you lose a character against one of the enemies you won’t be getting them back until you reach the next floor. We like this mode, as it introduces a breath of fresh air into the stale “press X to win” style gameplay, and forces you to think about character choices and tactics. The Tower also introduces task-specific rewards, such as successfully throwing an opponent out of the ring during a battle, or performing a specific move. This unlocks special armour, weapons and clothing, all of which can be added to your characters to customise and improve them.

All the main characters that were included in the previous games are available to modify, as well as a few new entrants. Sadly, you can’t dress Vader up in a large purple dress with a fighting umbrella (funnily enough one of the characters actually uses one of these), as he is locked into his dark outfit. Changing a character’s clothes not only makes them look better or worse, but also improves their statistics in terms of damage dealt and amount of punishment they can take before succumbing themselves.

There is a lot of action in the singleplayer arena, but it’s let down by the repetitive and predictable computer AI. Multiplayer is where the game really shines, so another controller was given to a Dave at random, and we chose our characters and faced off in battle. The experience was very different, and was almost like a completely different game – one that was unexpected and fun. From throws to punches, kicks and blocks, the real meat of the game can be found in this mode. Either physically or online, multiplayer is the main avenue for showing off your custom characters, fighting prowess, and the impressive amount of hours that you’ve sunk into the game thus far.

You can even participate in online tournaments, with a ranking that goes up and down to show all your friends (or spouse, girlfriend, neighbour, ancestors etc) just how damn impressive you are.

All in all, this is a solid offering that looks very nice and has enough content to keep you playing for a few weeks, but at the same time we have to admit it doesn’t bring enough to the table to really change the game at the core.