Soul Calibur 4. Why are you so awful?

[iFail69]

in SC3 character creation what are those bars at the bottom of the screen (the 2 under your character)??

OT: I liked SC4, but I do miss the classes like Ninja, barbarian, knight etc. Stats on clothing isn't a biggie, at least when your friend defeats you with his OP characters, you can just call bullshit and ragequit

also, AI in SC4 is fairly balanced, try DOA4 against kasumi-X (she's called alpha 152 or something like that). THAT is hard... in fact... DOA4 is just broken in general, therefore SC4 is not impossible

 

[Aura Guardian]

Has anyone hit Yoda yet? I think I might have peck him with my force push, but I didn't have time to check since leaping green blur proceeded to cut me to shreds.
tstg: Yoda's cheap.

I hit him once...When I was Yoda. Oh and Yoda cannot grab Yoda. Smart move..

in SC3 character creation what are those bars at the bottom of the screen (the 2 under your character)??

That was the alignment.

I will quickly mention that I was also rather disappointed in the DLC. We got like a Santa Suit and a couple armor pieces and Yoda?(Vader on XBox) It could have been better.

I'll quote you on the one that angered me the most. Buying Vader(Yoda on PS3). The fact that DLC shouldn't work when you're not signed in as it usually does. But why do they work? There was a blog(I'll try to find it) about NamcoBandai's rip-off DLC. It was about the fact that the content was already in the disk and having to buy it(For example. Buying EXP points). This was before they had to put the fact that it was in the game. And plus, that empty space in the character select screen was for those 2. Meaning that they may have been unlockable already.

 

[reg42]

A fighting game with a bad storyline? You lie!
Seriously, I was going to buy it, but the fact that Yoda and Darth Vader are in it put me off it. It's just a shameless plug.
SC3 was great though.

 

[loremazd]

Console game. That's all.

Hey everyone! Look at the cool kid!

Movie released straight to DVD: garbage.
Fighting game released straight to console: garbage.
Sure, there might be a few exceptions but that is the rule.

What are you talking about? Are you upset that it didn't go to the arcade first? Arcades are dying and have been for awhile. This isn't exactly a shocking development.

If you're talking about the PC then you're just being silly.

I have to admit I couldn't really get into SC4. It just felt like it was a step down from 3. Plus the story mode was a joke, fight three guys in the same levels, then the boss.

 

[Mr. GameBrain]

Soul Calibur 4 was bad, by the series standards, (no weapon master mode for a start. I like the idea of a grand adventure(even though the mode is mostly linear! XD), not a list of challenges!), but 3 wasn't great neither.

The battle system in 3 was okay, and the plot wasn't too bad, but the story mode was slow to get through, and was the main requirement to unlock the characters.
Not only that, but the story was the same too! As well as the choices, which made it even more of a drag.

2 is the best for me, as the user interface is simple and accessable, it has Weapon Master mode, and it wasn't hampered by constant loading.

EDIT: The online in 4 is abysmal as well (on the PS3 that is!), as its really laggy, and due to the fighting systems flaws almost everyone I fight is Cervantes! >:/

 

[Aura Guardian]

EDIT: The online in 4 is abysmal as well (on the PS3 that is!), as its really laggy, and due to the fighting systems flaws almost everyone I fight is Cervantes! >:/

On the Xbox 360 as well. You too!? Get out of here. I love Cervantes and Zasalamel but online...not so much as people were spamming the hell out of his teleport move. I used him a lot because me friends weren't good with him and motivated me to try him out. A couple of local matches, I won a lot with him but not because of spamming granted he's a bit on the cheap side but I try never to use the cheap moves.

Spoiler: Off topic

It seems that I have had less lag on Super Smash Bros Brawl and the Recent Tatsunoko vs Capcom then I had with Street Fighter 4 and Soul Calibur 4 and everyone loves to say that SSBB was laggy. HA! I've have so many smooth matches then laggy ones.

 

[Nutcase]

Console game. That's all.

Hey everyone! Look at the cool kid!

Movie released straight to DVD: garbage.
Fighting game released straight to console: garbage.
Sure, there might be a few exceptions but that is the rule.

What are you talking about? Are you upset that it didn't go to the arcade first? Arcades are dying and have been for awhile. This isn't exactly a shocking development.

What makes you think I'm upset of anything?

Weak games fail to make a profit at the arcade, on one hand because the customer base there is much more skilled and discriminating, and on the other, because the arcade business model enables them to very easily walk away from a bad game.

Whether arcades are "dying" is irrelevant as long as they are "not dying" enough for good fighters to consistently debut there.

How many recent fighting games can you name which 1) have gotten a console-only major release, and 2) are good?

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

I liked SC4...Then again, I used Amy and Seung Mina more than anyone else. And didn't suck at it.

 

[oppp7]

I could never get one of those fatalities critical finishes. You have to hit all the buttons at once when the gem is glowing red right?

 

[Armored Prayer]

I liked SC4, but I agree SC2 was much better.

One thing I like about the games were the special guest characters.

 

[DustyDrB]

SC4 killed my friend's Xbox. I'm scared to play it.

 

[Diligent]

I've been a fan of soul calibur since the dreamcast, and this is the first game in the series that (for me) landed with a big "meh..."
I tried getting into online play, but it was a bad experience. Long times for a match to set up, if it could at all. When it finally did it puts you in a 4 player lobby where you take turns watching until the connection drops. If you do get to play you quickly find that people use the same 3 moves and its basically rock/paper/scissors.
I won my first online game after about 30 matches. The guy I beat PM'd me seconds later saying "learn to play with a real character ******". Because I played as nightmare (always select random). Maybe online has gotten better, but I don't care enough to check it out again.

This is why the game has been more or less shelved for me, but its still a fun one to break out when you have a group of friends on one console.

 

[EscapeGoat_v1legacy]

Soul Calibur IV was not as good as previous games because they saw Soul Calibur III and thought they'd take away all the stuff that made it awesome and replace it with sub-standard systems. Also, I love Star Wars but Vader, Yoda and Galen were disappointing.

Here's hoping for Soul Calibur V they just mix II and [/i]III[/i] together.

 

[Aura Guardian]

I could never get one of those fatalities critical finishes. You have to hit all the buttons at once when the gem is glowing red right?

Correct. But if you have it on default settings, You press LB Xbox 360(L1 PS3).

SC4 killed my friend's Xbox. I'm scared to play it.

Now that's a reason.

 

[Sixties Spidey]

Console game. That's all.

Hey everyone! Look at the cool kid!

Movie released straight to DVD: garbage.
Fighting game released straight to console: garbage.
Sure, there might be a few exceptions but that is the rule.

And playing it on a PC is any better? If that's what you're trying to say, your standards, my friend, are fucked up.

 

[Loop Stricken]

They changed Tira's outfit, now it sucks. Also they made her less about the moodswings and more into two completely separate personalities, but I only liked the 'gloomy' one.

 

[loremazd]

Console game. That's all.

Hey everyone! Look at the cool kid!

Movie released straight to DVD: garbage.
Fighting game released straight to console: garbage.
Sure, there might be a few exceptions but that is the rule.

What are you talking about? Are you upset that it didn't go to the arcade first? Arcades are dying and have been for awhile. This isn't exactly a shocking development.

What makes you think I'm upset of anything?

Weak games fail to make a profit at the arcade, on one hand because the customer base there is much more skilled and discriminating, and on the other, because the arcade business model enables them to very easily walk away from a bad game.

Whether arcades are "dying" is irrelevant as long as they are "not dying" enough for good fighters to consistently debut there.

How many recent fighting games can you name which 1) have gotten a console-only major release, and 2) are good?

Thats not exactly a good point considering there's only 4 total recent fighting games. Soul Caliber 4, Tekken 6, Tsunako vs Capcom, and Street fighter 4. Soul Caliber was the only one of those that wasn't executed very well, true, but it's largely due to the fact that it had less content than it's console only predecessor.

But to answer your question, Soul Caliber 3 and DoA 4 were both excellent titles released only on consoles.

 

[SnootyEnglishman]

Soul Cal was okay it wasn't great but i enjoyed my time with it..i still could kick ass with Voldo and Cervantes though..in 2 i found greatness with Necrid.

 

[Nutcase]

Weak games fail to make a profit at the arcade, on one hand because the customer base there is much more skilled and discriminating, and on the other, because the arcade business model enables them to very easily walk away from a bad game.

Whether arcades are "dying" is irrelevant as long as they are "not dying" enough for good fighters to consistently debut there.

How many recent fighting games can you name which 1) have gotten a console-only major release, and 2) are good?

Thats not exactly a good point considering there's only 3 total recent fighting games. Soul Caliber 4, Tekken 6, and Street fighter 4.

But to answer your question, Soul Caliber 3 was an excellent title released only on consoles.

Well, no. SCIII is (AFAIK) completely unique in that it was console-first but not console-only - normally a fighter bad enough to go console-first would not be considered worth an arcade release. But in this case, after console release Namco spent many months completely rebalancing the game until they deemed it good enough for arcade. Which supports my point.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soulcalibur_III#Soulcalibur_III:_Arcade_Edition

Furthermore, regarding the notion that Namco would have released Soulcalibur IV console-only because "arcades are dying" - they had no problem releasing Tekken 6: Bloodline Rebellion at the arcade after SCIV was out. Fact is, they didn't consider SCIV good enough to salvage like they did with SCIII. What makes the matter even clearer is that Namco manufactures arcade hardware, so if anything, they would be more inclined to release at the arcade than the bulk of their competitors who are strictly software houses and release everything arcade-first.

To answer my own question: Soulcalibur (starting from IV), Dead or Alive (starting from 3) - here are the major console-only fighters.
Obviously both of these come from an arcade background, meaning earlier installments were arcade first. Titles on consoles that have no arcade background are invariably bad enough to not even be on the map. (The Melee series is a special case, and irrelevant in this context since where they are released is completely dictated by Nintendo's position as a hardware vendor.)

Arcade-first fighters, on the other hand?
Street Fighter, Tekken, Virtua Fighter, Blazblue, King of Fighters, Arcana Heart, Tatsunoko vs Capcom, basically everything worth of note.