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The Premium edition of SoulCalibur IV is a must own for all the extra stuff. You get the game of course, a tournament kit, a cool poster, a comic and art book made by DC comics, and a nice T-Shirt, as well as a redemtion card for exclusive downloadable content to make a schoolboy, schoolgirl, or sexy maids, all in a very nice collectors tin. The overall game is very solid, with a robust character roster, very deep character customization, and online play. While I personally think it didn't quite live up to the quality of the second installment in the series, it still is one the best fighters this generation and is a worthy purchase, especially the very rare Premium Edition. If you love fighting games, or just like to throw down with friends or random people online, this game is for you.
I have always loved the Soul Calibur series. I have played Soul Calibur 2 for the xbox but I skipped the third one. From what I hear, III and IV are pretty similar so I don't regret missing out on it. Soul Calibur IV is a great game, the graphics are gorgeous, the sound is brilliant, and the modes are many. This game remains true to its formula. It is a fun single-player game but it really shins when you have someone else to beat up on. The beauty of this game, unlike Tekken or Street Fighter, is that it is very button-smash-friendly. You don't need to know the specific button order to pull off a really flashy combo. Having said that, someone who takes the time to learn the move list can be extreme tough and frustrating to play against. There is the standard story mode, arcade, versus, special versus, and other modes common to the SC serie. What is different now is that they took out the long and arduous 'campaign' mode and put in a fun/addictive Tower of the Lost Souls. In this mode, the player ascend and descend a series of levels. Either way, the player goes through a series of straight-up battles. In certain levels, the players are allowed to use a total of 3 characters and can tag each character in and out accordingly. This also applies to the CPU and they can pull some nasty 20 hit air juggles...In other levels, the player only have one character to try to fight 9 CPU consequently. Although the goal is to beat each level, the thing that makes it so addictive is the fact that by accomplishing a certain requirement, players can unlock items to be used in Create-A-Character mode. Let me say this right now: it is definitely worth it! Okay, so why is it worth spend hours and hours playing through the Tower mode? Well, the game developers definitely added on an amazing Create-A-Character mode. The players is limited to choose a certain set of moves based on an already existing character. This may seem very limiting, and to be honest, it is. But this really is not the point though. The thing that really separates a good character and a bad character is the armor, weapon, and powers that the characters have. Each piece of armor will contribute certain attributes, health, defense, attack, power, gauge, etc. The higher each attribute it, the better abilities are made available. For example, with high enough gauge, you character is able to steal health from opponents. Or with high enough health, your character will essentially have two bars of health. And it is this aspect that will draw you back to Tower and Character Creation over and over again. As you ascend/descend higher/lower, the CPU becomes GODLY! This almost forces the players to create a character with specialized roles just to take down one out of 12 CPUs. There are accomplishment that require you to do a 300 dmg combo. Just to be clear, the average health for a character is around 400-500. Now this may seem difficult, but with a created character, the damage output can easily exceed 400 damage. I know, crazy! For those who don't like to use special characters, you can also put in some time and learn the common combos. Personally, this way was significantly more rewarding. Overall, this was a great game and I give it a 5 star. I can't say that it's a perfect game purely because it is a game in a series that has been so successful over the years. There really isn't too much new modes, but that is by no means a bad thing. Do yourself a favor and pick this one up.Read full review
In a nutshell, this is a game to buy if you're a fan of the Soul series, and a hard core player. Firstly the general: This is the first I've played that didn't have an adventure mode. The map crawling missions were removed, replaced with an "ascend/descend the tower" thing. In SC3, you had control of several characters who moved across a map, playing against the cpu trying to seize each other's base. There were great strategy elements to this, the ability to pile up your characters, retreat to heal, and bonuses based on the part of the map you're in. This is completely done away with in SC4, replaced with Ascend, in which you choose a floor, get 1-4 (usually 2) characters and must fight against up to 3 waves of strong enemies. Each floor has a "theme" like "Enemies who can't be ringed-out" or "Enemies who impact all attacks". I think this is a major downgrade, as it feels incredibly thrown together and not fun. Descend is more of a joke, it's just a rename of "Survival mode" and nothing more. For the actual gameplay there was one nice addition that came at a price. The skills and stats feature is pretty fun, being able to create a custom character that automatically impacts, or can steal health. But the price of this is you must put together clothing of certain stats to get enough points to equip the skills. This leads to needing the most ridiculous equipment to get the skills you want, guys in bondage drag, girls in weird pirate samurai knight outfits, as most of the "Oh that's awesome!" armor gives points towards "Boost" and "Special" skills (Which I personally don't like... over the power, impact and guage skills) Customization is further limited in that the custom classes are gone or unavailable for customizing, Vader, Apprentice, Yoda, and the custom girls's style can only be used by themselves, not your own create a souls, and styles like tambourine and foot are completely gone. In addition, all of the 1player hairstyles, voices, and outfits are unavailable, for whatever reason it was decided they didn't want you to dress up your incredible hulk Create a Soul in ivy's bondage gear. The downloadable content was really weak, other than holiday themed sets, they try and get you to pay for things that are easily unlockable in game. The handling of the ai is a major improvement over soul calibur 3, which at times would be ridiculous. The new ai provides an at times controller-throwing level of difficulty, but you don't feel like you're being cheated by a prophetic ai like in SC3, instead it will beat you through sheer skill. Part of this is from the use of the Soul Gauge, a secondary "bar" (it's shown as an orb next to the hp) that goes down when you block attacks, and goes up when you land attacks or get hit. This gauge is designed to prevent "turtling" where the player/cpu relies on guards and grapple breaks to waste time, and is a great addition. Along with the soul gauge comes the critical finishes, a One hit kill against someone who was turtling until their soul gauge went empty. SC4 is an average game, it removed a lot of good and bad things that were in SC3, making some major improvements and downgrades. The trade-off was not worth the sixty dollars, but used or heavily discounted would be worth it. Also be warned that the special edition has a one-time use card for bonus content, this card is usually not included when you buy used or on ebay, so check the description carefully before buying it!Read full review
¡This is an incredible game! Any fan of the serie will be very impressed not only with the grafic engine and the gameplay. Also the characters and their movements have improved a lot. Thus, it is always very funny to play against some friends and to complete the missions and extra stuff. If I have to mention the premium edition as a whole I have to say It is a Must for every fighting games lover. This giant piece of thing with everything inside have to be own as soon as you can get it. Conclusion: An AWESOME experience!!
The game looks great and now with online play, it is a beast. Online play is smooth with the exception of the occasional guy who has lag. I own the PS3 copy and I have no glitches. Story mode will leave you wanting. They really cut it short in this game. You can get through story mode in about 10-15 min if you know what you are doing. If you like fighting games and you have an good internet connection, I highly recommend.
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