Soul Calibur 09/09/09

[retroborg]

I still remember as if it was yesterday, when exactly 10 years ago Soul Calibur was released for the SEGA Dreamcast. The ads / commercial even emphasized on the iconic date: 09/09/99

My all time favorite was Soul Blade on the good ol’ PSX, especially its music and the Story Mode which were epic!

Sadly I didn’t enjoy Soul Calibur 2 as much on the PS-2 and never bothered to play SC III. Now I see that even SC IV was released!
So how well do they compare to the 1st two in the gameplay department?

[steve threlfall]

This is still one of the best fighters available. SC2 was a fail imo and I didn't bother with SC3 either. The demo I played of Soul Calibur 4 was promising though. I'm still waiting until its cheap enough to be worthwhile buying.

[Terbinator]

The legend will never die

[TooNice]

I'm still waiting until its cheap enough to be worthwhile buying.

Umm, how cheap? It's under £12 for the Xbox360 version at here. And under £15 for the PS3 version. If you don't mind second hand, both could be bought for under £10.

Anyway, I am a big SC fan, though I didn't spend too much time on it due to not owning my own console until this year (only played at friend's or arcade). And since it's been a long time, I can't make a good side by side comparison.

I definitely enjoy SC IV. One of the new thing from a gameplay perspective is Soul Gauge, which depletes as you block strong hits. Once it's fully depleted, you become stunned, and become vulnerable to a critical finish. It's not too cheap as I don't think that it's that easy to completely deplete it (as it replenishes over time), though it does discourage continuous blocking. Oh yeah, you can also deplete someone's gauge using Guard Impact techniques encouraging their use. Anyway, it's still one of the better fighting games IMO.

[Yorkieshaman]

Soul Calibur IV on 360 is great: good character roster, plenty of modes, character customisation (basically change any character or build your own from scratch).

The only thing that really broke it for me was the god-awful matchmaking when playing online. I'd do a 'Quick Match' and it would match me with somone... and then tell me the session was full. Again and again and again. Maybe one time in five I'd get an actual session I could join, but it would be a crazy mis-match, like a level 26 player when I was level 9 (at first I thought this was because everyone playing online was incredibly good and I'd been left behind, but some of the time I was level 9 matching with level 2s, so that can't be the case. Either players quickly divided into two camps: the awful and the l33t, or the matchmaking is plain broken. Not just a launch issue, either: I tried it months after release and it was just the same).

Not a problem if you just play with people you know, but if you want to do ranked matches then it's a pain. Otherwise a great game: even the Star Wars crossover stuff (play as 'The Apprentice' and Yoda on 360, The Apprentice and Darth on PS3) works fairly well.

[retroborg]

Crazy mis-matches are not uncommon these days. It has happened to me too in C&C3. It would seem as if game software companies do a very sloppy job in the online part of their games.

[SirCanealot]

I never had much SC experience till I was playing SC1 on a friend's Dream Cast to play SC2 when it first came out in the arcades. I was surprised how AWESOME the DC version of SC both looked and played. RIP DC and RIP SC, whose titles just get worse and worse. Wake up, Namco