Reviewer: Diego Hernandez-Calabria

Game Title: Soul Calibur IV

Platform(s) Available: Xbox 360, Playstation 3

Platform(s) played on: Xbox 360

ESRB: T

Genre: Fighting

Concept: Premier of the popular weapon-based fighting game series on the next-generation consoles… with Star Wars characters now thrown into the fray.

Storyline: The never-ending quest to find the mythical uber-swords Soul Edge and Soul Calibur continues. Atop the Tower of Lost Souls, a warrior turned power-hungry maniac named Algol awakens from a slumber that lasted a few centuries long, and controlling the power of both the swords, seeks the power of the universe’s strongest warriors, so that he may become all-powerful… or something along those lines; really, it’s kind of difficult to discern a plot from this game when there seems to be one for EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER, and the fact that the opening movie gives barely any backdrop whatsoever. Its pretty damn convoluted, to be blunt. But as stated earlier, every character has an individual storyline, all of which revolving around the two swords. Some want to claim the swords to become unstoppable, others wish to destroy them to prevent such power from being set upon the world. For example, one of the series’ main protagonists, Siegfried, strives to repent for the sins he committed as Nightmare by destroying Soul Edge, Soul Calibur, and, to complete his repentance, himself. Like Siegfried’s, many of the other characters have a plotline just as clear cut, and some generally bad dialogue just adds to it. To top it all off, the character endings can go from anticlimactic to nonsensical and to just plain crappy. A nonsensical ending would be Lizardman’s, in which he and a couple of other Lizardmen claim Soul Edge, do nothing but babble at each other for about 30 seconds, and then run off in an idiotic fashion… yeah, makes a lot of sense. There are a few good endings, though: the Apprentice’s ending projects him as a substantial badass, and that’s as satisfying as it comes. Really, if Soul Calibur IV is meant to be anything, it’s not entirely story-driven. The fighting system takes full priority in that respect… but more on that later.

Graphics: In moving to the next-generation consoles, SCIV boasts great graphics, which has already been a major part of the series to begin with. The battlefields contain a great amount of detail, clearly visible as you hack and slash away. As well as just looking pretty, they also breathe constant life. Whether it’s a couple of dodos roaming aimlessly, spectral waves coursing through the air, or even a TIE Fighter screeching past at high speeds, the environment around you is, for all intents and purposes, alive. It’s hard not to take notice of the area your first time playing in it, especially since it can also provide tactical advantage in combat: breakable walls, pits of death… a well-organized line of knights slowly advancing with spiked shields… laser walls constantly closing in and then expanding… it makes battles a good deal more interesting.

    Not only do the environments look great, but also so do the characters, which the series has also been very good at capturing. Greatly differentiated appearances make the characters stand out from each other, and detail on the clothing, armor, and weapons makes them exceedingly pleasant to look at, in the CG cutscenes, especially. It’s rare that you see character faces that can look so expressive! Character attacks and movements flow very well, and are still quite over the top; really, it’s NEVER tiring to watch your opponent fly head over heels about 20 feet in the air after a good upward slash. Every executed attack has a movement blur that, in many situations, is unique to the character you’re using. For example, Nightmare’s sword attacks are complemented by a demonic red/black swing effect that makes his attacks look even more badass than they already are, while The Apprentice and Yoda have lightsaber-swing blurs to complement their specific saber colors.

    While I’m not going to overly complain about this next part… why, why, why… why must the women in SC have ridiculously large breasts? Seriously, the devs over at Konami must be extremely perverted, or they look at too many skin magazines than what some would consider “healthy”, because when you look at characters like Ivy and Taki… first of all, how Ivy manages to stay inside her already skimpy main outfit is beyond me. In Taki’s case… I would think that having those things bouncing as rampantly as they do would impede any attempt at stealth that she might have to perform as a ninja. Character customization even allows for unrealistic physical alterations, and because of the armor-break system, the in-game animations for a large-chested female character just border on sinful (more on character customization later). Even as a male, I can’t help but shake my head disapprovingly at just how chauvinistic the devs at Konami are. At this point, though, it’s too late to change anything like that; such design physics will appear in the next game in the series, and the next after that, etc. No sense complaining.

    Either way, the graphics displayed in Soul Calibur IV are simply amazing: great environments that never appear flat and dull that simply bustle with interactivity, and character models that move fluently and overall look amazing, this is one of the better looking games I’ve ever seen, let alone the best-looking fighting game I’ve ever seen.

Sound: The sound in SCIV goes as thus: horrible voice acting, great music, and pretty good sound effects. Let’s start first with the horrible voice acting… it’s a step backwards in the series. Sure, the V.A. work has never really been all that good for the series, but hell, SCII’s voice work was a lot better than what’s presented in SCIV. Probably one of the worst perpetrators is whoever voiced Raphael. Ok, he got some pretty crappy translated dialogue to begin with (at least twice in his final cutscene he’s forced to say, “now I will make a new world for Amy and ME!!! >: D”, which is so grammatically incorrect even I would purposefully suck at acting because of it), but seriously, he could’ve tried. Some of his lines are so badly uttered that I gagged. There is one who is worse, though: the prepubescent annoyance that is the voice actor of Tira. WHO GAVE THIS WOMAN A MIC?! Seriously, Tira is without a doubt one of the most nauseatingly inappropriately voiced characters I have ever heard in my life! It doesn’t help that the character is schizophrenic and has multiple personality issues; she’s basically the Gollum of Soul Calibur, except less decayed and girlier. It’s hard to take her ending cutscene seriously because the clashing of her childlike normal voice and her chain-smoker other voice just makes the scene unintentionally hilarious. Not to mention, her constant yelling in battle gives me such an earache I almost want to quit the fight, regardless of the reward I may receive. She’s not the end of it, though; character creation offers equaling annoying voices, male or female. Such voices make me cringe whenever I hear them. Simply put, listening to a lot of the V.A. work in Japanese is much less painful than the American trash… except in the cases of Yoda and the Apprentice. The same person who voiced The Apprentice in The Force Unleashed voices him here, and Yoda sounds enough like the original to not suck outright. Just take my advice: change the language settings to Japanese; you’ll thank me for it.

    Next we have the music in the game, which has only gotten better and better as the games have gone on. The original score for SCIV is simply epic; the pieces used in each stage complement the stages perfectly, and make fighting in these stages even more fun. I take my hat off to whoever leads the orchestra that performs these songs; they’re damn good, simply put. An awesome addition musically has been the Star Wars music that accompanies the Star Wars-based stages: if Yoda is present on one of these stages, a remix of the “A New Hope” theme will play; it sounds very good, and is reliantly reminiscent of the original. If The Apprentice is on one of the stages, “The Duel of Fates” will play; I absolutely love this track, it was probably the best thing about “The Phantom Menace”, but I digress, it’s fun to fight to. With Darth Vader (those with a PS3 or paid $5 to download Vader) on the field, you get to hear the ever-classic “Imperial March” theme; simply put, “Imperial March” equals epic win, and those who disagree should be burned at the stake. One issue I have with the soundtrack, however, is the unbelievably incessant main screen music: it sounds awesome the first few times, but from that point on, you just want it to stop. Same with the character customization music; it gets grating after a while. Sadly, this is actually the issue with EVERY piece of music: as amazing as they all are, the longevity of them is very thin; you’ll eventually want to listen to your own music rather than the music in the game, which I have done on many occasions. Let’s just say that I’ve played a lot of Muse to this game and leave it at that. Music is awesome, but loses its charm after a while, simply put.

Lastly we have the sound effects, which are standard fare for a game of this type. You’ll hear swords clanging, steel hitting ground, punches and kicks connecting, nothing you really haven’t heard before, especially from this series. From what I could hear, a good amount of the sound effects are recycled from previous; not a major problem, it is a series after all, and you need to have some sense of consistency. It just sounds like too much of the same, though. This isn’t to say that they sound terrible; they aren’t, by any means. Getting in a good strike on an enemy yields a very satisfying reverberation that accompanies the strength of the attack. Force attacks by Yoda and The Apprentice, especially, are extremely gratifying; I never get tired of frying my enemy with Force Lightning as The Apprentice. The SFX are good, but they’re not extraordinary.

Sound, as a whole, is very good: an awesome musical score, as tiring as it gets sometimes, makes up for painful voice acting and the most mediocre of sound effects, but hey, you could do a lot worse. SCIV manages to stay out of that range.

Control: The control scheme in Soul Calibur IV is easy to get used to, but difficult to master. Let us begin with the overall game controls (Xbox 360) which, even though the console has changed, the general location of each action is left relatively unchanged: left control stick and control pad controls your movements while the right stick… kinda has no role whatsoever. A is the guard button, B is a kick/punch attack, Y is a vertical weapon attack, and X is a horizontal weapon attack. The triggers and bumpers get more special functions, however: the left trigger acts a substitute for the A+Y combination, which is an alternate grab attack. The left bumper is a substitute for A+B+X+Y (thank God), which acts as the Soul Crush activator (more on that later). Right trigger substitutes K+G, which is the taunt button, but can sometimes act as an activator for a manual skill if your character has it (later in gameplay). Lastly, the right bumper is your button for switching fighters of your party when you have a party. Simple enough, eh?

    Anybody can go into a fight pressing random buttons or using the same button combinations to win a fight. However, it takes a virtuoso to be able to counter these attacks and essentially screw the n00b over. By using certain controls in conjunction (for example, pressing forward and A simultaneously), your character can execute actions that could easily change the tide of an entire battle (the previous example being an Impact, which breaks an enemy’s attack and leaves them open for a pounding; a great game changer when used correctly). Complex attack chains can unleash massive damage on the opponent when performed fully. Actions like these, however, are sometimes very difficult, if not nearly impossible, to pull off because of the control settings; I don’t think anybody would have an easy time switching quickly and consistently from X+B to X, X, XY, and Y. Although that probably was not an actual button combination, so moves require you to contort your hand into doing such strenuous motions. When in the middle of a fight, this sucks to try to pull off for the first time, especially if it is a powerful combo/attack. The game does allow for customization of the control scheme (mapping certain actions to certain controls), but there seems to be a delay in the time that you press a button and the time it is executed, and if you press too quickly or too slowly, then your combo is as good as gone. Frustrating as this is, it’s not much of a major problem if you can effectively use simpler moves, but for more complex actions, not so much.

    There’s always room for improvement, but Soul Calibur IV, for switching to the next-gen consoles, seems to be going in the right direction control-wise. At least they tried.

Gameplay: I shall begin with the basics of the game. You have 4 modes of play: Arcade Mode (battle through seven stages of enemies and be graded based on each fight; final score gets placed on the leaderboards), Story Mode (play through five stages with a very loose storyline shoved in to the mix; begins with LONG narrative of your character’s background and ends with a CG cutscene), Tower of Lost Souls (upper floors present repeated challenges with which you can earn more money and items to use in customization by fulfilling certain conditions within each fight; lower floors are a survival game, in which you fight until you finally lose), and Practice (get used to everything). Each mode uses the same fighting engine: traditional viewpoint of two characters facing each other on different sides of the arena in their respective fighting stances, and the entire fight plays out like this, with slight camera changes based on the movements made by each combatant. The loser is the combatant whose health bar is either depleted or is the least of the two if time is called. As far as fighting itself goes, each attack has a different purpose: horizontal attacks are especially effective on standing or jumping enemies and are usually starters for combos; if an enemy is sidestepping, this is the perfect attack to hit them with to cut them off. Vertical attacks are effective on crouching enemies and can break through the guards of crouching enemies; if the vertical attack is a thrust, it works well on retreating enemies; these are also the more powerful weapon attacks, and usually finish off combos. Melee attacks like punches and kicks are primarily very short range attacks and can transition into combos for certain combatants; many of them are good knockdown attacks as well. Any of these attacks, however, are susceptible to a special action performable by any and all characters: the Impact. When an Impact is performed, the attack is repelled and the original attacker is left open to a counterattack. There is the middle Impact (useful for middle and high attacks, and simply repels the force of the attack back at the opponent, leaving them susceptible to attacks) and the low Impact (useful for middle or low attacks, and repels the force of the attack to the defender’s side, knocking the attacker to the ground next to the defender; if an enemy is in this position, they’re very much screwed, as their backs are wide open to attacks). There is a very rare type of Impact that is very hard to execute (I don’t even know how one does it; it just happens): the True Impact, signified by a red clash effect, that damages the enemy’s health as it repels the damage done to them. A True Impact in battle can be a lifesaver or a life-ender. Attacks that can sometimes escape Impacts are Crippling attacks and Unblockable attacks. Crippling attacks are signified by a blue, electrical aura around your character’s weapon, and stun the opponent upon impact (after a small charge period), leaving them open to more attacks; if they block the attack, their block is either broken or weakened, once again leaving them open. Unblockable attacks, easily noticed by the presence of flames around the character’s weapon and the blackening of the screen, take longer to charge than Crippling attacks, but immediately pass an enemy’s defense and damage them extensively; if one of these attacks hit, he who was stricken will be in a very bad position health-wise.

    While all of this is going on, there is an ongoing event that some people may not notice: a colored orb next to the health meter may be changing colors as attacks are landed and blocked. This orb is the Soul Gauge, and shows the power of your character’s Soul. As you land attacks or Impact enemy attacks, your Soul Gauge will gradually change to a dark blue color, meaning your Soul Gauge is charged, allowing for special abilities (if applicable) to be unleashed; when fully charged, the Gauge is blue and flashing white. If you block attacks or have your attacks Impacted, your Soul Gauge will begin to deplete to black; when fully depleted, the Gauge is black and flashing red. If your Soul Gauge is depleted, you had best start attacking; if vice versa, be ruthless in your attack. If one too many attacks are blocked or Impacted, the combatant’s guard will entirely break, signified by a loud breaking sound and knockback animation called a Soul Crush. If you experience a Soul Crush but are lucky, nothing will happen and your Soul Gauge will instantly recharge to half. However, if you aren’t so lucky, the enemy will take immediate advantage of this, and what happens next is a little thing called the Critical Finish. In the same style as the Mortal Kombat Fatality, the Critical Finish is an instant K.O. cinematic that flashily ends the fight in the favor of the character who used it. It’s these attacks that show just how great the animations in SCIV really are, allowing characters to perform actions you couldn’t otherwise perform in battle, and, overall, show their badass side. These attacks can be anywhere from awesome (The Apprentice: uses Force to knock opponent into the air, stunning them, then leaps into the air and uses Force Repulse as the killing blow, unleashing a large shockwave that sends the opponent flying) to brutal (Yoda: re-enacts scene from Episode III, in which Yoda throws his lightsaber through the opponent, and as they crouch, leaps on top of them and pulls his saber out) to ridiculous (Cassandra: beats her opponent into submission… with her buttocks… I could not make this up). Either way, these moves are always very fun to watch, whether you’re receiving or delivering.

    Arcade Mode and Story Mode are pretty self-explanatory, and play out generally the same: just fight the enemies ahead of you until you reach the final enemy (in Arcade, Algol, and in Story Mode, Algol, Siegfried, or Nightmare). Tower of Souls, however, takes a different route… by making you choose a route when you open it: you can take the ascend the Tower, which basically involves challenges with set conditions to receive bonuses, or descend the Tower, and basically fight until you’re finally taken down. Every mode is easy enough to play, but here’s where one of the game’s biggest problems comes into play: disjointed A.I. For Arcade Mode, this becomes prevalent around stage 4; every enemy up until this point is weak sauce that either uses weak attacks or doesn’t attack at all, and then stage 4 comes along, usually involving Taki or Astaroth, and wipes your ass up and down the floor… WHAT?! When did the A.I. actually decide to fight… and with a strategy?! Trust me, it gets worse… although stage 5, which usually involves Siegfried or rarely Nightmare, is an odd break, as the enemy will either not attack or up and beat you down. If you thought that was difficult, here comes the spectacle of the broken difficulty heightening: The Apprentice. If you’re playing as The Apprentice, you fight Yoda (or in the PS3 version, Vader) here, but otherwise, you’ll always fight The Apprentice… and this jerk is CHEAP! Usually the moment the round starts, he’ll already be juggling your character through the air with ridiculous Force combos you would dream of using on him! To make things worse, he grabs you as your attacks start to get through, does his damndest to make sure you’ll never stay standing, and will stun you into submission. He especially loves using Force Grip to stop any attack you may dare to use on him, and can easily Impact ANY attack you throw at him if you get overzealous. Without a doubt, this is one of the most annoyingly unfair enemies I have ever fought in any fighting game… EVER! HE’S WORSE THAN JINPACHI IN TEKKEN: DARK RESSURECTION… AND HE HAD INSTANT KILL ATTACKS! If you manage to scrape by The Apprentice, you’ll either be faced with your easiest battle yet or a battle more frustrating than The Apprentice: Algol. He can teleport around the arena, hit you with range attacks, and do major damage to you with unblockable grab attacks that last as long as 5 seconds! If you get past him, congratulations: YOU JUST SPENT OVER 10 MINUTES BEATING WHAT SHOULD’VE BEEN A MUCH EASIER ARCADE MODE! What’s worse is you can’t adjust the difficulty specifically for this mode, meaning that The Apprentice will always be your record killer when you play!

    Next we have Story Mode. After choosing a character, you’re given a long and in-depth background of your character and their path through the Soul Calibur universe to this point. It’s unnecessary and you can just skip right over it; it lasts over 2-3 minutes on average, too, so you might as well. Story differs from Arcade in that many of your battles will be against two parties rather than two opponents; you may begin with a full party or have to grow it through the course of each battle; some people will join you or leave you. They’re generally scripted events, although in the case of custom characters, player parties can be randomized. You play through five stages, and then you’re done. You receive less money than from Arcade, but you can unlock more characters only through Story Mode. It’s still not much fun to play however, the reason tying back to the disjointed A.I. thing: THE TWO DIFFICULTIES SUCK! You can go through a Normal difficulty, which is so easy it’s a joke, and a Hard difficulty, which makes you feel like you’re fighting a dozen Apprentices each stage! Thankfully, there’s no detriment to losing battles here, rather than in Arcade, but your score becomes considerably less if party members are KO’d or lose a lot of health. It’s extremely difficulty to attain a decent rating on Hard because of it!

    Ok, lastly there’s the Tower of Lost Souls mode. Let’s start by ascending the tower. You start with the first three floors of the Tower, all under a single option. You choose a character (or party), and then proceed with the battle. The first time you play the particular floor, the battle starts as normal and progresses as normal. If you win, you move to the next floor; if you lose, you restart FROM THE BEGINNING FLOOR! Early on, this isn’t too bad, but when battles become increasingly more IMPOSSIBLE, this gets excruciatingly tedious. So you complete the set of floors and unlock the next one, but you discover that you’ve unlocked only one chest from all three floors and are missing two! So you go back to play through them again and the game gives you a message stating a condition that will give you the chest, and thus, an item for use in customization. This would be all well and good, except for the conditions are sometimes extremely cryptic and stupid: for example, “unleash your most powerful attack” basically tells you to use a critical finish, or “master the art of the never-ending attack” (I think that’s what it says) implies to use combos that hit 5-10 times. These are the easy ones, even; some of the conditions are so vague I had to look them up on GameFaqs to find out what the frak they meant! Even so, some of the conditions are just RIDICULOUS! There are several conditions that tell you to jump off a ledge AND KILL YOURSELF! I AM DEAD SERIOUS! Konami… YOU DON’T ASK A PLAYER TO KILL THEMSELVES WHEN THEY’RE ON THE LAST FLOOR OF THE SET! As the conditions get more demanding, the enemies begin to border on invincible; I’m stuck on a room right now where attacks barely take off a millimeter of health from an enemy, and they have skills that keep them from being knocked off the edge! Way to make a mode unbeatable, Team Soul! Ok, let’s descend the Tower now, and enter in the throngs of a survival test. You choose a pair of characters and then fight round after round of enemies without any chance to heal yourself. Every 5 rounds is a special enemy that can beat you down without a problem, while everyone up until then basically stands around and looks pretty; it’s probably worth mentioning that most everyone you fight in this mode (as well as in Story Mode and Tower: Ascend) is a character made by the game, but that’s extraneous to an extent. On the fifth round you will fight… a girl wearing a giant cat suit. Yes, a girl wearing a giant cat suit, using the joke weapon of whatever style she uses. However, these cat-girls (who appear in later rounds divisible by 5) will take you down in seconds if you let them; it’s because of these characters that your run will end quickly. Once again, this goes back to broken A.I.: you spend 4 rounds fighting enemies who would much rather stand around and pick their noses than throw a punch at you, and then you fight some kitty cosplayer holding a giant paint brush who shoves it painfully up your arse in an instant! IS THERE NO END TO THIS CRAP?! The highest I’ve gotten on this mode is round 35; getting farther is possible… but fighting fairly is most certainly not the way to do it; you have to spam attack and load your characters with cheap skills.

    … So now, I think, is the perfect time to talk about character customization/creation, which is easily the best part about Soul Calibur IV! You immediately have the option to customize the 30+ characters at your disposal (all but Yoda, Algol, The Apprentice, Vader, and the bonus characters can have their alternate clothes changed), but if you choose to, you can make up to 50 custom characters (the 50 includes customized main characters) using the surprisingly in-depth system! When you first choose a slot to make a character, you’re given the choice of what fighting style you wish the character to have (all but Yoda, Algol, The Apprentice, and Vader styles may be used). Then you are to choose their specifications: do you want an offensive character or a defensive character? Do you want them to have a lot of health over the damage they can dole or vice-versa? However, you don’t have to abide by these specs; it’s just so the game can make you a base character based off what you chose. If you like the stats of the character the game made you, you can keep it, then name it and save. However, if you’re like me, you think that what the game made could be a lot better… and then you change it completely. This is where the most fun comes out of the system, primarily from its complexity. At the far right of the screen you have a box. In descending order, the box states: the amount of money you have; the style being edited; the level of the style (style level determines what strength skills you can use; you can increase your style level by playing as the specific style in the Story and Tower of Lost Souls modes); the specific weapon the style has equipped at the moment; the character’s current percentages on attack, defense, and HP; the skill points open and remaining for each attribute: Power (refers to attack-based skills), Impact (offers guard-based skills), Boost (refers to stat-based skills), Gauge (refers to Soul Gauge/health-based skills), and Special (extra skills that can provide a special advantage in battle). Every weapon and piece of equipment offers a specific amount of attack, defense, and HP (it can sometimes lower it, even), and points to any of the above listed attributes; this leads to an almost endless amount of equipment combinations to satisfy how you would like the character to look and for what attribute they would major (have the most available points) in. The next tab allows you to change the individual colors of all of your equipment, or the color scheme of every piece at once. Weapon color, however, cannot be changed. The next step is editing the physical appearance of your character: here you may choose the gender of your character, the face of the character, the height or depth of their voice, the kind of voice they will have, their physical stature (muscularity, physique [on a woman, physique can affect the size of her… yeah), skin color, eye color, hairstyle and hair color. Yes, there is that many options based just on how your characters themselves look! When all of your equipment is chosen, you may then choose skills for your character: if you have achieved the needed style level and have enough skill points in the attributes needed for the skill, you may set the skill to be used in Story Mode, Tower of Lost Souls, and Versus modes. Some weapons come automatically with skills; so plan out your other skills accordingly, or you may suffer in the end! Lastly, you can test play your character to make sure they’re exactly how you want them, and if you like them, then you can save. And then you can repeat the process to attain different results every time! Out of the 50 possible, I’ve made over 40 characters, each different and unique… and I still wish I could make more! I’ve almost spent more time creating and testing new characters than I have been fighting! THAT’S HOW MUCH FUN IT IS! If Team Soul did anything perfectly, it’s the character customization system!

    That’s really it with gameplay: an amazing customization system and extremely disjointed A.I… thankfully, the customization more than makes up for the broken difficulty, if only slightly. It’s still enough to have caused me major anger issues at the game, and therefore majorly affect my final score.

My Say: I’m caught at an impasse with this game. The character creation mode is easily some of the most fun I’ve had with the game, but the unmercifully disjointed A.I. has at many times killed that fun. Being the small-tempered sod I frequently am, this game has made me yell and scream obscenities at my TV and almost caused me to throw my controller at it (I had to restrain myself by throwing the controller at the couch, instead). Never have I been so mad at a game since Tekken: Dark Resurrection… something I find miraculous in itself! If I may conclude something, Konami really has a way with pissing people off, whether it’s programming unmercifully difficult A.I. or, if I may reference a more recent failure of a release, attempting to murder a genre entirely! *Cough* Rock Revolution *cough*… where was I? Oh yes, the verdict…

Overall Score [0-100%]: 80%. No matter how well the fighting engine runs or the character creation is, having A.I. than can totally abuse that engine is just unforgivable. I still enjoy playing this game, and it’s fast-paced and fun online (with minor lag issues every now and then), but otherwise it just angers me too much for me to give it a higher rating, as much as I really want to. If somehow somebody from Konami reads this: FIX THE BLOODY A.I.!!! It’s kind of difficult to play a game when you don’t get a chance to do anything because someone in a full suit of armor with fruity blond long hair has you up against a small corner and is perpetually raping you with their 7-foot tall two-handed magical broadsword!!!

But aside from that… keep the guest appearances coming: I greatly enjoyed Link in Soul Calibur II, and The Apprentice and Yoda were pretty fun here in IV. But on that subject, don’t be such cheap-asses: if Darth Vader and an extra stage are already in the 360 version (vice-versa with Yoda on the PS3), WHY THE HELL DO WE HAVE TO PAY 5 DOLLARS TO UNLOCK THEM!? I believe that the purpose of “console-exclusive characters” is totally butchered if they’re already inserted in both versions of the game! Konami, if you’re going to swindle your fan-base out of their money, at least TRY to cover it up; seriously, you can play the buyable stage IN YODA’S CHARACTER CREATION MODE… AND IT’S NOT EVEN THAT GOOD A STAGE! Every Star Wars stage takes place in the EXACT SAME STAR DESTROYER, just different sections of it! TRY FOR SOME CREATIVITY, WHY DON’T YOU!?

But now I’m getting further off track… I’m ending this review now. Hope you all enjoyed; look forward to more from me!

-- Diego