Fox's First Impression: Soul Calibur IV (360, PS3)

[Fusion]

If the Soul Calibur series has made one thing clear over time, it's that women who should be at the age where they've fully developed can still have their assets change size for some mysterious reason and they can also ditch whatever sensible clothing they wore before in favor of something skimpier and far less defensive.  The game was advertised with words that meant what you bring to battle, yet the feeling doesn't exactly carry over.

As we've heard, two surprise guests have shown up to grace both versions of Soul Calibur IV: Lord Vader himself and Yoda.  Oh, wait, there's a third: The Apprentice from Star Wars: The Force Unleashed makes a cameo appearance in both versions, has his own storyline, too.  But however, much to disappointment you cannot use Yoda's, Vader's or the Apprentice's combat styles as basis for custom characters, nor can you actually customize them.  Not that there'd be much to customize each character with, the only clothing replacement that could be possible for Darth Vader would be the looks of Anakin Skywalker, which, I want to add, would require a completely different voice actor for the situation and maybe an entirely different character altogether.

As far as controls, this one is about as different as Dragonball Z: Burst Limit is to Dragonball Z: Budokai 3.  There's nothing really different aside from a few tweaks.  Not even the A.I seems to have improved.  But why change what already works in a sort of haphazardly way?  The only thing you might have a gripe with is the fact that lightsabers only cut through things at will in cutscenes, otherwise they act like normal blades.  But I'll be happy to tell you that they don't sound anything like normal blades, and you can get your lightsaber fix by having Vader or Yoda fight The Apprentice or Vader or Yoda respectively.

Online-play wise, there's good and bad sides to the game.  While the in-game action is well put together, finding a room can prove a bit difficult, because the automatching will typically throw you at a room that's already full and just tell you that it's full.  But thank the heavens you can create your own game and set up a few rules.  There's a levelling system in place, but from what I can tell, it doesn't affect anything gameplay-wise, which is good because if it did I'd be invariably pissed off.  There aren't a lot of high level players so right now's a good time to button-mash against players who created characters only to slap Mitsurugi's moveset on them.  Get your Kilik game on, in other words.

One major disappointment is the lack of a Chronicles of the Sword mode.  Instead you get a basic story mode which is really just a set of battles with an introduction.  I played through The Apprentice's storyline and I was met with one of the biggest cliffhangers I've ever seen in a video game ever where absolutely nothing happens other than the ending cinematic.  I was at least expecting a Star Destroyer to fly over or something.

Character creation returns as does character customization which lets you make your own alternate costume for almost any character in the game.   I say 'almost' because there are a few characters you sadly cannot customize much to your potential disliking.  But there are a ton of hair styles, and I think it'd be honestly hard to find one you don't like.  You can unlock or buy clothing (in some cases, both) to apply to your characters.  Kind of a collect 'em all deal but I really want to see what all Soul Calibur IV has to bring to the table.  Though just a warning: You don't start off with as many choices as you did in Soul Calibur III.

Well, that's all I have to say for now, expect a full-on review with actual scores and the like soon.