Some times it’s less obvious what it was, other times it’s quite obvious, as fights will often end up with two characters battling each other in their underwear. If you hear a “shattering” sound when fighting, that means something has been broken. Armor can be broken to visual and practical effect making characters more vulnerable to attack (and possibly more embarrassed). There are a few new features in Soul Calibur 4, thankfully. The balance of all of this is beautifully executed and would inspire Sun Tzu to write a sequel. The next is a matter of out-thinking and out-playing the opponent. Mastery of blocking and evasion (not button mashing) is the first key to winning difficult fights. Blocking requires gauging where an attack will land, time it carefully to cause a guard impact (making the attacker recoil and adding even more strategy to the fighting).Ĭharacters moves are easy to learn and understand. Attacks are also broken down into high, mid and low range. Vertical attacks are stronger than horizontal attacks but can be sidestepped, while horizontal attacks cannot. The moves are broken into horizontal and vertical. The true beauty of the game lies within the move types. There are powerful unblockable attacks as well which require a short charge time, making them easy to dodge or interrupt. Strength in one means weakness in another. The balance of these is pretty straight forward. The first thing to notice are the balance speed, range and power which differs depending on the move you perform. The game sports a careful balance in its play style in several ways. Soul Calibur 4 seems less technically tight than previous versions and is missing the weapon demo mode (a side feature in previous games that truly accentuated the weapons skill and styles that went into each character). Release Date: USA J– EUR July 31st, 2008 – AUS July 31st, 2008 – JAP July 31st, 2008 Soul Cailbur 4 is on a 3D platform (meaning you have 360 degrees of movement in any direction while fighting) and focuses on weapons combat in a technical way that few fighting games have matched over the years. So let’s start off by looking at the meat of this game: the mechanics. Given that this is the fourth entry, we are now well into an established and popular fighting game franchise. Soul Calibur earned it’s rightful place due to high marks by both gamers and critics alike thanks to it’s realistic weapons-based fighting that set it apart from the pack. Soul Calbur 4 is the latest installment in the Namco-developed Soul Calibur series which has risen to prominence and popularity over Namco’s OTHER fighting game franchise, Tekken.