For me, I never was huge on fighting games. I had a good love for alternative forms of the genre like Anime fighters, WWE games, or Smash Bros. But when I played the second Soulcalibur game, that changed a little. I really liked Soulcalibur II, and it’s one of my current favorites for the Gamecube. And for my sixteenth birthday, I bought along with a couple other games, Soulcalibur IV. And many Soulcalibur games include some bonus characters. They aren’t part their brand, they’re just Easter egg characters, but they are included in story mode, and are as much apart of the roster as everyone else. And this was the Star Wars featured one. I’m not a Star Wars fan boy, but I do really like the movies, and I think this is really awesome. Especially when Yoda, my favorite character, is on the cover. As far as the other characters, there is Vader and his Apprentice from the Force Unleashed. But of course the 360 version made them DL fucking C, so no Vader or Apprentice for me, I get Yoda, and Yoda alone. Thanks Xbox. But on that topic, let’s first cover the roster. I didn’t memorize the roster from the second game or anything, but I’m pretty sure all the big characters are back, and there are some new ones. The roster is solid, and fills out enough for a good fighting game. But there is one thing making the roster really good, and that is the create a fighter mode. Some characters who even have a story mode already are made, and they’re all good. Some look really cool, and could even be a little unusual, like one looks straight ripped from an anime. Also many times you’ll fight randomly created characters, and this makes it not feel like you’re fighting the same people over and over again, although you technically are, they just look different. And this is one of the best character creation modes I have ever played. I made I thin six guys, so that’s about three times more than I ever make with these modes. But you can make a bad ass looking dude in five minutes, it’s really that easy. And I feel like I made characters that look as detailed and fleshed out as the characters in the game, that’s how good I think they are, and maybe that’s how everyone feels, but that’s how they should feel. You get tons of weapons, tons of outfits, and about as many fighting styles as there are characters. It is probably the best part of this game to be honest aside from the whole fighting thing. And now the arcade and story. Arcade is your usual arcade. You’ll get money, and with that money more clothes and weapons and even small little things like pictures and whatnot. (I’d like more things like that in my opinion) Overall, arcade mode is arcade mode, not much else besides it. As for story mode, you’ve seen things like it before. Each character has their own, and each is equipped with their own intro and outro. And with the lore of the series with choosing a good sword or a bad sword (or something else) the story mode can be interesting. There is even a big ass chart showing you how each character is related to the other, showing lots of arrows, and enough happens to kind of feel like there is story. But to be honest I’d like other fighting games, it’s like they don’t care. They don’t want a story mode, it really doesn’t seem like it. They want fighting after fighting, and as a person who likes story modes, that’s a disappointment, even if it’s normal for fighting games. To me games are a narrative form of entertainment, and the entertainment is more focused on the fighting, as well it should be. But I’m not going to master the fighting system, I’m not going to learn all the combos with every character. I go from game to game, book to book, movie to movie. I feel like that’s a waste of time, and I don’t want to get good to play competitively, I don’t even like to play multiplayer besides with my friends and family, and they sure as hell aren’t going to get good at the game. I did play a good amount of matches with other people, but like me, they aren’t going to play much. And that’s why I think it’s hard for me to love a fighting game. But how is the game-play? It is really fun. A quick arcade run through, going up and down the tower, going through story mode, it is all doable from the fun fighting system. It’s really fun to land big moves, and you do feel like you are in control of those big moves than when you are doing something like a dumb quick time event in an action game. I’ll even say it’s better than Soulcalibur II, but I still don’t know if it’s a better game. (Maybe I’ll review Soulcalibur II one day) But it is definitely a fun game, it’s really good. But I can’t say I love it, and so a seven is as high as I’ll go. But it is definitely a really good fighting game.
