Soul Caliber IV

This is a short review of the game Soul Caliber IV. The game Soul Caliber IV is one that came out at the end of 2008 and it starting to make its way into the living rooms of fans of the genera. This is a fighting game that has taken parts of its predecessors and tweaked them and imporved upon them to create a fighting game that is great for hardcore and casual gamers alike. There are four major modes when you are talking about Soul Caliber IV, multiplayer which is split into two categories, Social Match and Ranked Match, Story Mode where you choose a character and a difficulty (Normal or Hard) and battle against various enemies until you face the boss Algog. This is  even on hard catered toward more casual fans of the series, it is the easiest part of the game and you will probably beat it for one character on both difficulties in under an hour. When you beat it on Normal Setting you will get “Soul Caliber” for that player. There is a mode where you can customize your character’s gear and the soul caliber is the best and most expensive. Depending on how you do in the story mode you will earn money which can be spent in the character customization feature. Next is the tower of lost souls this is for the more hardcore fan of the series. There are 59 floors in the tower of lost soul that to beast the game completely you have to go up (ascend) or go down (descend) you can only descend once you reach floors 20+. On ascending you meet a series of enemies that gets progressively harder and by around floor 20 the casual fan and the hardcore fan may be struggling to get through without having numerous restarts. While ascending the floors there are groups of 2-5 floors that you go up at once before that mode is over. You can use customized characters or one that are preset. As you go up you get about 1000 money per floor.  As you can see to the right you can earn hidden items by completing the floor with unspecified conditions. After you succeed you will be able to purchase said item in character creation.  And arcade which where you take any character and it is set to parameters of a basic character whether or not it is customized and you face eight enemies trying to get the highest score. You get higher score for consecutive wins, combos, overkill etc. This is the second easiest setting although the 7th and 8th character to fight are reasonably hard.

Pros:

This is a game that is fun for casual fans to hardcore fans of the series, it has good graphics and has enough game modes that if you are really into the series will keep you occupied for a long time. Also the character customization makes it fun to create good characters with styles of fighting you like and good equipment.

Cons:

The cons of the game is if you are a casual fan the lasting appeal will end when you get to a point where you stop being able to advance. The poor voice acting will leave you seething hearing the same catch phrase of a character you cant beat.

Where to buy:

You can pick this game up for $35.00 used at your local Gamestop or EB games.

I would give this game a 7.9 out of 10. It is a good game for the money. It is best if on the Xbox 360 because of Xbox Live you can interact with other people online faster and with less problems. Although if you are choosing one game that is supposed to be the only game you play for an extended period of time choose something with a better campaign and more multiplayer modes.