![]() The aforementioned introspection extended even into the fighting engine where the excessive number of (mostly useless) moves from Soul Calibur II are consolidated into a smaller list. Do the character's outfits look god-awful? Indeedy-do! Now ask me how the game plays. Did Namco skimp on the extra features? Oh, absolutely! Is the story complete and utter nonsensical crap like most other games (especially fighting games) that hit #4 (technically #5) in the series? You bet. I want to play a fighting game that cuts through the crap, cuts through the superficial fluff, cuts through the cheap propaganda I want a fighting game to focus once again on fighting. Especially with how fighting games lately have decided to throw everything at the player (including the kitchen sink) to the point that the core fighting elements feel more and more neglected (Soul Calibur III, MK Armageddon). With a few glaring exceptions (Yoda, Vader, Apprentice, Bonus Characters I'm looking at you), Soul Calibur IV is what I've been waiting for from a fighting game for some time now. The Tutorial would have been nice to keep for newcomers, and an adjustable difficulty would be just dandy in case players get bored of fighting the ridiculously easy AI (I guess this is a step up from SCIII's ridiculously unforgiving AI.) I would trade all the guest and bonus characters for those two features, but whatever. It feels like Soul Calibur did some serious introspection - a line by line audit of all its features - and asked itself, "Do I really need this to be a good fighting game?" A noble, if flawed, effort. Say goodbye to "Versus Team Battle", "Battle Theater" where you could set the computer to fight itself, the Tutorial (?), the extra fighting styles from SCIII's Create a Soul feature, and curiously also missing is the ability to adjust the difficulty in Arcade Mode (?!). Gone is the pointless (not to mention redundant) "Time Attack" mode. Over and over I found myself asking that same question does it really matter? Gone is the "Soul Arena" and the fancy battles where you collect coins, fight a giant statue. The point of the game is the interactive exchange and not watching pretty cinematics. Then after a moment, I thought does it really matter? This is a fighting game. Namco only featured a sparse handful of characters whereas previous entries have showcased all the characters. When I first popped in SCIV and watched the obligatory opening cinematic, I felt a twinge of disappointment. A female character that actually wears armor into a fight. I think my favorite addition would be the new fighter Hilde. Getting the new characters no longer requires you to go through the obscene weapon master or path of souls mode. Character creation is easy and effective. Taki's melon sized chest has been reduced (still well endowed just not back breaking.) And her outfit manages to not be totally offensive. (the star wars one of old is painful to play) There has been a huge jump in graphics. 1st off its the only fighting game where Darth Vader comes off playable. ![]() Perhaps its the next gen system thing, but SC4 is finally the upgrade of the game that we have been waiting for. Its main bonus was the character creation mode. A slight improvement graphically and game playwise over the first. The game was superb and sadly only available on the dead Dreamcast. ![]() 1999 Soul Calibur set a new standard for 1 on 1 weapons fighters.
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