"With our combined strength, we can end this destructive"... hang on, am I reading the right character here?
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| Source // PlayStation |
The second fighter in quick succession is Tekken with swords 4, or SoulCalibur IV as it is properly known to the wider world. It was SoulCalibur II that was my introduction to the series, thanks to this 1001 list, and I came out of my time with it liking it a fair bit.
A console generation later and high definition graphics allow for character models to be insanely detailed (for 2008, remember) so that you can see all of Ivy's curve...d blade whip slicing through the air. Ahem.
Will I find this one as appealing as the earlier titles in the series? I hope so, I know that much.
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| Source // PlayStation |
Frustrations
Uhhhh... you what, mate? Darth Vader? You want - well, no, actually got - a Star Wars crossover? It's one thing to have Tekken's Heihachi make an appearance - at least that's a fighting game character - but Darth Vader is something else. Is he here as part of a Masters of Teräs Käsi crossover? Is that our tenuous fighting game link, or are we just going to go with "You can fight as Darth Vader!"
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| Source // PlayStation |
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| Source // PlayStation |
He's not actually that bad. Doesn't use the Force too much though, not when I'm playing at least. Still, this is bonkers. This makes SoulCalibur IV look a little silly, doesn't it?
It was never a serious tale to begin with, what with talking swords that devour souls, but this is a step too far for me. This is cheapening the brand. This is marketing getting in the way, but we'll not judge SoulCalibur IV on the inclusion of Darth Vader. How's the gameplay?
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| Source // PlayStation |
I headed into the story mode with Ivy and was met with a wall of text setting up her story, something about her soul not being pure enough to wield a sword that'll destroy another sword and lift a curse and bollocks like that. You're not playing as Ivy for her backstory.
That wall of text is all you get, as the story then turns into five matches against a bunch of randomers, sometimes one right after the other, like a tag team.
I got ready for Tekken-like combat, but that wasn't what I got. SoulCalibur IV has a button for horizontal attacks, a button for vertical attacks, a kick and a guard button, and that is its core. That's what you need to get your head around as the basics.
I couldn't. Not with Ivy, at least. With a stupid-cool sword-whip that hardly ever turned into a whip, I was left flailing more often than looking awesome. Attacks weren't interesting to watch, mostly because they were too basic to be looked at in any showy fashion. I wasn't able to pull off anything fancier than the odd grab attack.
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| Source // PlayStation |
Fun Times
The final fight kicked my arse so quickly that things were looking bad for SoulCalibur IV, so I switched characters to Kilik, with his pole that I knew would give me some range to work with, and things started looking rosier.
Fights were still on the somewhat dull side of things, but the animations and the feeling of control that I had here that I didn't have in BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger were welcome, no matter how amateur my inputs were.
Eventually, I was getting some kind of idea of how SoulCalibur IV did things, but after defeating the big bad evil guy in what must have been fifteen minutes since setting off to defeat the big bad evil guy, I was wondering what the point of this game was.
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| Source // PlayStation |
Like most fighting games, it's not the story mode. That's forgettable. It's clearly fighting against human opponents, either online or off, that has people returning to SoulCalibur IV, but for as polished as all the characters look, the moves I'm able to do with them don't sell me on sticking around for a long time to come.
There are bound to be some cool animations buried in these extensive movesets somewhere, but the average newcomer like me has very little chance of ever pulling them off. I looked into one move with so many movement inputs required that I have to wonder just what fighting developers must be thinking about when making their games.
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| Source // PlayStation |
Final Word
Clearly, they make inputs for the dedicated players to make use of, the kind of players who will gladly spend hours plugging away at the timing to make their favourite character pull off some ridiculous move, and it'll probably feel awesome when it happens.
But it'll likely happen in a game where the announcer talks over the character's end of the round quip, and your next opponent will be Darth bloody Vader.
SoulCalibur has a lot of fans and continues to pull in characters from other IPs to entice players to try it out, the latest I'm aware of being The Witcher's Geralt, another character that makes sense, I suppose, but still boggles the mind. Darth Vader, by the way, found a portal to the SoulCalibur universe that called to him and then he proceeded to just walk off with the Soul Edge or Soul Blade or both, whatever the MacGuffin's of this series are, ruling the galaxy with two ridiculous looking swords.
I liked SoulCalibur II for how similar I thought it felt to Tekken. Some of the characters were great, others less so, and the story doesn't matter. SoulCalibur IV looks great if you don't care about the environments you're fighting in, but I'm not getting the same results out of it, at least not as quickly.
Obviously, there's going to be a learning curve, but hitting the ground running, even if it's not pretty, is usually a nice feeling. Finishing two story modes, one with Darth Vader, without knowing anything fancier than a throw isn't interesting to me. It's not selling me on the idea of mastering SoulCalibur IV.
I'm sure it's deep enough and rewarding for those who put time into really getting to know these characters, but I'm not feeling this one. It's not coming across as the fighting game to really pay attention to - it's just a nice looking sequel. With Darth Vader.
Fun Facts
If you don't like Darth Vader, you could play the Xbox 360 version instead, where you'll find Yoda. You've got to cough up some cash to unlock the other character on your system of choice, though. I don't know who you are if you need to do that...
SoulCalibur IV, developed by Project Soul, first released in 2008.
Version Played: PlayStation 3, 2008.