The launch of the Sega Dreamcast will often be remembered for two things: the absolute ineptitude of Sega Ozisoft, and the mind-blowing Soulcalibur. The sequel to the weapons-based fighter Soul Edge had debuted in arcades several months earlier, but the Dreamcast version was completely rebuilt from the ground up, and it was absolutely gorgeous as a result. Not only did the game blow away everything else from a visual standpoint, but it was also amazingly well balanced and easy to get into. For all intents and purposes, Soulcalibur was the perfect launch title.

Since Soulcalibur’s explosive home console debut, the series has remained one of the most consistent and enjoyable fighting games on the market. The second and third games were generally evolutions of the first, improving the graphics and offering new modes. Soulcalibur IV follows this pattern, introducing features such as online play and the Tower of Souls, while suitably increasing the quality of the game’s visuals and polishing and re-balancing the action. They might have achieved a reasonable balance too, had they not decided to add the Star Wars characters to the equation.

Being the first game in the series to appear on the HD consoles, Soulcalibur IV looks significantly improved over its immediate predecessor. The level of detail in each character is amazing, and the animations are executed with an unmatched level of smoothness; it’s an impressive sight. The game’s fighting environments are also spectacular thanks to amazing levels of detail; you’ll fight in front of jaw-dropping vistas and inside throne rooms with chilling atmosphere and an ever-encroaching row of armoured soldiers. Another superb soundtrack accompanies the action, this time composed by Junichi Nakatsuru and recorded in part by Sydney-based orchestra Eminence. The game’s voice work is pretty cheesy, but a Japanese language option can be activated to make it sound a little more serious.

The majority of Soulcalibur IV’s characters are going to be familiar to anyone who has played any of the previous games. Most of the characters from the third game return (bar Abyss, Night Terror and Olcadan), and are joined by the new characters Algol and Hilde. Also featured are five characters (Angol Fear, Ashlotte, Kamikirimusi, Scheherazade and Shura) designed for the game by renowned Japanese comic writers (or mangaka) and character designers such as Hiroya Oku (Gantz) and Ito Ogure (Air Gear). Then, of course, there are the much publicised guest characters from Star Wars; Yoda for the Xbox 360, Darth Vader on the PlayStation 3, and The Force Unleashed’s Apprentice from the upcoming LucasArts game. Unlocking the game’s full roster is a much less cumbersome task than most fighting games. Most characters can simply be bought with gold made from running through the story and arcade modes; one shouldn’t need to make more than 2-3 runs through these modes to unlock every fighter.

Many of Soulcalibur’s regulars are boasting new costumes, some of which look fantastic (Kilik, Mitsurugi), but others look a bit silly (Nightmare and Astaroth). Variant costumes are available, which are similar to costumes from earlier games. The game’s character designs are certainly very classy, but the new character Hilde is a standout. It’s difficult to ignore Project Soul’s increased sexualisation of the game’s female roster (bar Hilde); it seems like it cheapens the design of many of the characters, which could easily slip back into normality. Even with their skimpy outfits, the ladies fit in better than the Star Wars guest characters, which are completely out of sync with the rest of the game. On top of that, Yoda and The Apprentice are both horribly unbalanced; Yoda’s short stature makes him impossible to throw, while The Apprentice’s speed, reach and force abilities prove to be very frustrating. They are not entirely unbeatable, but there is a distinct advantage there.

Soulcalibur IV is much the same way as its predecessors at the basic once you get into a match. There have been a lot of changes to character move sets in the name of balance; Kilik seems to have been powered down noticeably and Maxi’s moves don’t link together as quickly as they once did, and Amy and Cassandra have also been reworked into more substantial characters than they were before. At the same time, the game has somehow become a lot friendlier towards button-mashing. Many of the more powerful moves are easier to execute than before, but an advanced player should be able to parry and counter. Nevertheless, the move sets are still quite large, and the depth is there for those who want to dedicate time to learning particular characters and strategies. The game’s AI is very inconsistent however, with most contests won with the same moves; as mentioned earlier, only Yoda and The Apprentice offer any sort of real challenge, and they’re completely ridiculous when you first encounter them. One particular combo of Astaroth’s completely devastates almost every AI opponent you will face. That’s at least until you get halfway up the Tower of the Souls, where every character fights like a demigod.


Things get a little more complex when you start to develop an understanding of Soulcalibur IV’s new gameplay elements. Most of these new elements serve as a deterrent to heavy blocking. Each character now bears protection in the form of three pieces of armour, responding to high, mid and low attacks. Blocking too many attacks at each respective level will result in the armour breaking, and extra damage to that particular area. The Soul Gauge is a new mechanic which lets a player unleash a one hit kill on their opponent; too much time spent blocking will put a player into a “Soul Crush”, allowing the opponent to unleash a critical hit to end the match. It takes a long time to charge the Soul Gauge up, so it doesn’t serve to unbalance the game, but it encourages players to do more than stand around blocking.

On top of the game’s base roster, players can use the character creator to make their own fighters or edit the costumes of the existing fighters and enhance their abilities. Rather than re-use the somewhat lacking creation system from Soulcalibur III, Project Soul completely revamped the process. The fighting style, which is selected from on one of the game’s regular characters, determines the character’s basic abilities and weapon class. From there, you add what pieces of armour you want to wear, the basic clothes and so on. In Arcade Mode, the equipment on your fighter is just for looks, but in Story, Versus and Tower of the Soul, your equipment will affect numerous factors. Every item will have some effect on health, attack style and damage, but there are also effects determined by skill points, spread across power, impact, boost, gauge and special. Some items will give significant health and defence increases at the expense of attack points, while others will grant you a special ability such as temporary invisibility for a small hit against your skill points. The advanced moves and equipment are locked until the fighting style is levelled up through playing matches with the base character, but that doesn’t take long. The system is pretty well balanced, but it does take a bit of patience to unlock the best equipment.

Soulcalibur IV follows a fairly typical fighting game structure, with the standard Arcade Mode, Story Mode, Time Attack, Survival, Training and the lengthy Tower of the Souls mode. Arcade Mode and Time Attack follow similar structures, throwing the player into a gauntlet of eight fights which finish up with a fight against a linked character, followed by the game’s boss, Algol. Story Mode deals with each character’s quest to destroy one of the two Soul swords, depending on that character’s disposition (Edge is evil, Calibur is good). Each story contains a set of around five levels; within each level, you’ll generally fight a few non-descript baddies (associated with an evil character) before colliding with one of the game’s regular characters. You’ve only got one life bar to make it through each chapter, but in some situations another character will join you, allowing for a second chance in the event of defeat. The length of story mode is disappointing, but the no-frills presentation is the most frustrating part; excluding a real-time end sequence, all story developments are delivered by scrolling text. A couple of hand-drawn art pieces would have gone a long way.

The Tower of the Souls mode is the most significant single player mode. It works much the same way as the mission modes in the previous games, where you have to fight numerous enemies with random stipulations, such as decreasing health, super damage, or no armour. Each set of battles has a treasure tied to it, awarded after you fulfil specific conditions (e.g. throwing an opponent three times). These treasures are generally equipment for customisation, but occasionally you might unlock something special. The equipment customisation really comes into play around the middle of the tower ascension when the AI really steps up and becomes rather brutal. When you finally make it to the top of the tower, you gain the ability to descend underground, which essentially means more challenges.

Online play makes an appearance for the first time in the series’ history, and Project Soul has done a pretty impressive job of ensuring latency and lag are minimised, preserving the fast-paced nature of the game. During our online testing, the game was very stable, with only a single hint of lag over a couple of hours. You can participated in ranked and unranked fights, and choose to play with enhanced/customised equipment or just the vanilla characters. Only one-on-one bouts can be fought, however; the tag battle system seen in Tower of the Souls and Story Mode does not appear, which is a tad disappointing. Guest characters aside, the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game are essentially the same - one’s controller preference should be the deciding factor. Personally I prefer the PlayStation 3 version; Vader is a better fit with the rest of the roster, the controller is better and the optional installation seriously improves load times, though the achievements have resulted in a lot of my single player matches being played on the Xbox 360.

Soulcalibur IV holds up the series’ tradition of high quality fighting action. The game is easy to get into, but takes commitment to see its true depth. However, the latest additions to the game, outside of online play, are not really substantial, the guest characters are silly and very unbalanced, and the AI is extremely inconsistent – yet it is still a very enjoyable experience. Project Soul will need to try a bit harder to impress with any future sequel; more modes, better AI and some balance tweaks would go a long way. Still, Soulcalibur IV should satisfy anyone looking for a good one on one fighter.