Soul Calibur 4 Review

Despite the obvious misspelling of the word calibre in the series' title (just because it's intentional doesn't make it okay) the Soul Calibur games have always been my favourites within the beat-em-up genre. No other games within the same premise offer the same accessible depth as the Soul Calibur games do, no other games within the same genre have produced such a mastery of story-telling and customisation moving hand in hand and no other games in the genre where fists reign have given you the option to wield a giant sausage whip.

Soul Calibur 4 is set... somewhere within the Soul Calibur universe, at... some point in time and this is sadly the games main flaw. As a player you should always have a want, nay a need of motivation (even within a beat-em-up) and the fact that SC4 (I feel sickened about the fact that I just abbreviated) fails, from the beginning of the game, to give you as a gamer any context or character development in order to justify, or even motivate you to play the game from beginning until end, makes the entire experience a rather lacklustre one.

The plot advances from this seemingly empty void that the developers had dared to call a beginning, by the manner of text screens which mean nothing. No, seriously these text screens literally mean nothing. They give you no details about your next fight, you characters background or even the world surrounding you (for that matter, WHERE IS SOUL CALIBUR SET?). In fact the game reduces it's entire experience to one simple phrase, “beat the shit out of the other guy”.

Now because of the genre it could be argued that this simple ethos is perfectly valid way in which to develop the game and in some ways it is. The actual gameplay is some of the most stream-lined seen in the beat-em-up world in recent years. Controls are simplified as to keep the game accessible for new players, as per usual one button is allocated to a horizontal attack, one to a vertical attack, one to a kick, and one to a block. Whilst this might seem overly simple at first you'll soon realise that depending on your characters speed, direction and previous moves, these simplistic controls can be changed and utilised to devastating effect.

The graphics on show here are spectacular, even for a current generation game. Literally everything is eye-candy from character models to backgrounds everything is beautiful. It's not until you realise that environments can break, that can fully appreciate just how beautiful this game is. Sound is also amazing with battle sounds always capturing the moment in it's utmost and background music setting the tone majestically.

To sum up, Soul Calibur 4 is an excellent game which only suffers because of it's complete lack of disregard for the storyline. If your a die-hare Soul Calibur fan you'll be mildly disappointed. Otherwise this is an excellent fighting game which simply must be tried.

9/10