Developer: Project Soul (NBGI)
Publisher: Namco Bandai Games
Rating Guide: How I Review Games

Review:

The epic battle between the spirit sword, Soul Calibur, and the cursed sword, Soul Edge, continues in what I call the best fighting game on the Xbox 360!  Nightmare, Cervantes, Mitsurugi, Voldo and the gang are all back with a cast a of new fighters vying to be the master of the sword.

Gameplay, Graphics and Sound

I don’t have to spend much time speaking about the mechanics of Soulcalibur IV.  If you’ve played any fighter in the series, then you’ll be right at home.  The attacks, the 8-Way Run, Ukemi, reverses are all there and for the most part things are the same.  I still haven’t performed a Critical Finish yet but I will.  A Critical Finish is executed right when an opponent is in a state of Soul Crush (watch the Soul Gauge when it’s flashing red).  I just wish they’d make a manual that you don’t have to figure out which button is for what.  I mean seriously why not just say A, B, Y, X instead of K, G, H, M and all the other confusing combinations.

There are a number of unlockables and a few different modes to whet your appetite for hours of fun.  The Tower of Souls, Story Mode, Arcade Mode and Training provide different journeys into the realm of Soulcalibur.  The Tower of Souls is a sixty-floor tower of opponents where you can descend or ascend and the goal is to go as far as you can.  If you ascend, you’ll face a number of enemies in hopes of defeating bosses.  If you descend, you get to see just how many enemies you can defeat.

And naturally the game wouldn’t be complete without being able to fight friends.  You can do that in Versus Modes (Special and Standard).  Special Versus allows you to use all the bells and whistles of your fighters including customized armor, weapons and skills.  Standard Versus strips you of using any customized skills.

The stages are great.  There aren’t that many but they’re easily the best stages in Soulcalibur to date.  I lost some fights just staring at the stages sometimes because they were so well designed.  There’s a bit of destruction in them as well.  You can slam an opponent to the floor and you’ll see the floor tear to pieces. 

The weapons and characters were also very detailed.  I never saw Yoda look so good even in film.  There’s even a guest star in the game; The Apprentice.  So you can at least pit two Star Wars characters against each other.  My favorite character though is Cervantes perhaps because of my pirate interests but who knows really.  I can’t forget to mention that certain pieces of the character’s equipment can also be destroyed with enough strikes to it.

Xbox LIVE Extras

Finally Soulcalibur makes its debut online!  You can find out who’s the best in Soulcalibur IV for the first time across Xbox LIVE.  You can do this with normal characters and even custom ones you’ve created.  There isn’t much to say as the options are pretty straight forward; ranked or unranked matches in Special or Standard Versus.  However, that doesn’t stop this from being a big pile of awesome for the series.

Conclusion

Soulcalibur IV is without a doubt the best looking fighter on the Xbox 360.  The characters are incredibly designed and the environments are so well done that it’s almost like you’re there.  The Story mode was short but then that’s how this franchise has always been.  It’s all about the action and Soulcalibur IV is nothing short of an action junkie’s dream. 

I wish there were more characters and a deeper custom creation tool but what’s there works well.  The replay value on it is high enough that you’ll likely find reason to get back and kick more ass especially across Xbox LIVE.