There goes without saying that everyone has something they are bad at, be it rugby, astrophysics, or bringing a woman to orgasm. In my case, this single flaw in my skill set is Fighting Games. I suck at fighting games, never having gotten too much into them due to the lack of plot, the closed arena combat, and the overly complicated movesets. That said, I shelled out 50+ dollars for Soul Calibur 4 in order to please my roommates who wanted me to purchase something besides a game involving bug-eyed adolescents saving the world using swords bigger than their entire bodies, so here's a review for Soul Calibur 2.
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Soul Calibur 4 is the fourth iteration in the critically acclaimed Soul Calibur franchise, the fighting game series that radically spins around the convention of "wacky martial artists punching each other" that has dominated the genre since Street Fighter shat itself out of Capcom's still luscious, eager and tight asshole by giving each character a WEAPON. Yes, that's right, instead of punching each other, we get to cut into each other with oversized swords, axes and nunchucks that all do the exact same amount of damage as somebody's fists might do in any other fighting game.
First nitpick right off the back--why bother with weapons if the whole point of having a bladed weapon is thoroughly tossed out the window? If you have somebody swinging an axe into somebody else, the axe is going to CUT THEIR HEAD OFF, but this game seems to think that axes or spears or other deadly objects can, at most, just knock you down, which is why even the most scantily clad, unarmored and hardly protected characters (I.E. all of the girls) are capable of receiving an entirely-too-suggestive impalement on Mitsurugi's shiny, blade-like shaft and just get back up again. On the flipside, the armored tank Siegfried takes as much damage from a little dagger as most other people do from his GIGANTIC SWORD. The only feasible use for the weapons component is the addition of longer ranges for your attacks, which is the only reason I don't just burn this game right now for being ridiculous.
Look, let's compare it to another weapons-based fighter: Bushido Blade. Yes, Squaresoft's rather poor attempt at a fighting game, Bushido Blade utilized weapons in a fighting game context quite interestingly--in this game, you slice somebody with your katana, you will CHOP THEM IN HALF. Instead of relying on brute-force, knock your enemy's health bar to zero, Bushido Blade gave you the option of side-stepping an attack and decapitating your attacker. It was no-nonsense, all-skills based and thoroughly satisfying, because the gouts of blood spraying from your severed limbs numbed the annoyance at having been defeated again by your smarmy, non-game-playing friends.
But, Soul Calibur. Aside from the idiocy of its non-effective weapons, Soul Calibur is actually immensely fun to play, providing you actually take the time to learn the different attacks. The combos are easily executed, there are a variety of throws, every character is different, but balanced enough that only a few (Siegfried, Lizardman, Amy) really break the game in any particular way, so you can put two different characters in an arena together and the fight will lay out differently from any other combination. Yes, as Yahtzee mentioned, you can spam throws, but any decent human opponent will utterly decimate you should you try, and it is much more effective to only use throws strategically, usually to knock somebody out of the arena and score an instant win.
There is a paltry single-player element, one I never understood much of because I've only played a little bit of Soul Calibur 2 and am totally out of sync with what new plot twists have been added to the utterly arbitrary and idiotic storyline the games actually follow. There is a Soul Edge, and it is evil and bad, but everyone wants it because it gives you power, so you have two types of character--somebody who wants to destroy Soul Edge adn somebody who wants to wield it and inflict stabby death upon the world. Its all fine, except that the entirety of the plot is actually told in a VERY long little Star Wars style text scrawl at the beginning of each new single player game, and with Star Wars now mentioned, let's briefly mention the Star Wars characters.
Yeah, there are Star Wars characters. I'm certain it wouldn't make sense had the other characters not included a walking lizard, an undead pirate, Siegfried the male lover of Fabio with a huge sword to compensate for his tiny penis, and a few gothic-lolita chicks. Stop bitching about the Star Wars characters--all they amount to is a few different stats and Yoda being a chip little whore.
So, what then? The game is pretty, as fighting games go it plays fine enough for me, but I'm certain some fan of Virtua Fighter or something is going to rag on about how shallow or unrefined the game's mechanics are, but that really doesn't matter unless you're anal retentive. What you, average joe, need to know is this--this is a game that you can and should play with a few of your friends, preferably after drinking. It is a party game, and so long as nobody picks Siegfried, you'll have a grand old time of it. But, like every Fighting Game ever made, I just get bored of it after awhile. I long for something more, a fighting game whose storyline isn't a pasted on wall of text before every match, a fighting game where if you use a sword against somebody, they'll actually BLEED, a fighting game where...
Well, I fucking hate fighting games, so. For what it is, Soul Calibur 4 is a very good one, to the degree that I enjoyed playing it when I did. Pick it up if you like the genre, if you want a good fighting game, or if you get raging erections watching Yoda suggestively smack a 12-year old girl with a Nerf lightsaber.
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Soul Calibur 4 is the fourth iteration in the critically acclaimed Soul Calibur franchise, the fighting game series that radically spins around the convention of "wacky martial artists punching each other" that has dominated the genre since Street Fighter shat itself out of Capcom's still luscious, eager and tight asshole by giving each character a WEAPON. Yes, that's right, instead of punching each other, we get to cut into each other with oversized swords, axes and nunchucks that all do the exact same amount of damage as somebody's fists might do in any other fighting game.
First nitpick right off the back--why bother with weapons if the whole point of having a bladed weapon is thoroughly tossed out the window? If you have somebody swinging an axe into somebody else, the axe is going to CUT THEIR HEAD OFF, but this game seems to think that axes or spears or other deadly objects can, at most, just knock you down, which is why even the most scantily clad, unarmored and hardly protected characters (I.E. all of the girls) are capable of receiving an entirely-too-suggestive impalement on Mitsurugi's shiny, blade-like shaft and just get back up again. On the flipside, the armored tank Siegfried takes as much damage from a little dagger as most other people do from his GIGANTIC SWORD. The only feasible use for the weapons component is the addition of longer ranges for your attacks, which is the only reason I don't just burn this game right now for being ridiculous.
Look, let's compare it to another weapons-based fighter: Bushido Blade. Yes, Squaresoft's rather poor attempt at a fighting game, Bushido Blade utilized weapons in a fighting game context quite interestingly--in this game, you slice somebody with your katana, you will CHOP THEM IN HALF. Instead of relying on brute-force, knock your enemy's health bar to zero, Bushido Blade gave you the option of side-stepping an attack and decapitating your attacker. It was no-nonsense, all-skills based and thoroughly satisfying, because the gouts of blood spraying from your severed limbs numbed the annoyance at having been defeated again by your smarmy, non-game-playing friends.
But, Soul Calibur. Aside from the idiocy of its non-effective weapons, Soul Calibur is actually immensely fun to play, providing you actually take the time to learn the different attacks. The combos are easily executed, there are a variety of throws, every character is different, but balanced enough that only a few (Siegfried, Lizardman, Amy) really break the game in any particular way, so you can put two different characters in an arena together and the fight will lay out differently from any other combination. Yes, as Yahtzee mentioned, you can spam throws, but any decent human opponent will utterly decimate you should you try, and it is much more effective to only use throws strategically, usually to knock somebody out of the arena and score an instant win.
There is a paltry single-player element, one I never understood much of because I've only played a little bit of Soul Calibur 2 and am totally out of sync with what new plot twists have been added to the utterly arbitrary and idiotic storyline the games actually follow. There is a Soul Edge, and it is evil and bad, but everyone wants it because it gives you power, so you have two types of character--somebody who wants to destroy Soul Edge adn somebody who wants to wield it and inflict stabby death upon the world. Its all fine, except that the entirety of the plot is actually told in a VERY long little Star Wars style text scrawl at the beginning of each new single player game, and with Star Wars now mentioned, let's briefly mention the Star Wars characters.
Yeah, there are Star Wars characters. I'm certain it wouldn't make sense had the other characters not included a walking lizard, an undead pirate, Siegfried the male lover of Fabio with a huge sword to compensate for his tiny penis, and a few gothic-lolita chicks. Stop bitching about the Star Wars characters--all they amount to is a few different stats and Yoda being a chip little whore.
So, what then? The game is pretty, as fighting games go it plays fine enough for me, but I'm certain some fan of Virtua Fighter or something is going to rag on about how shallow or unrefined the game's mechanics are, but that really doesn't matter unless you're anal retentive. What you, average joe, need to know is this--this is a game that you can and should play with a few of your friends, preferably after drinking. It is a party game, and so long as nobody picks Siegfried, you'll have a grand old time of it. But, like every Fighting Game ever made, I just get bored of it after awhile. I long for something more, a fighting game whose storyline isn't a pasted on wall of text before every match, a fighting game where if you use a sword against somebody, they'll actually BLEED, a fighting game where...
Well, I fucking hate fighting games, so. For what it is, Soul Calibur 4 is a very good one, to the degree that I enjoyed playing it when I did. Pick it up if you like the genre, if you want a good fighting game, or if you get raging erections watching Yoda suggestively smack a 12-year old girl with a Nerf lightsaber.
