A tale of Souls and Swords, eternally retold….

Welcome back to the stage of history!

The next entry in the Soul series is here. After a rather mediocre third installment and surprise guest stars from everyone’s favorite galaxy far, far away, has Soulcalibur IV found its way back to the ever-elusive Good Sequel Bay, or is this another crash landing on Bad Game Rock?

(This review is based on the Xbox 360 version. PS3 users’ mileage may vary.)

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Now those bonus characters right there most definitely an upgrade from Soul Calibur II’s Heihachi and Spawn. I’d love to know how much Namco Bandai had to pay Lucas arts to include Yoda and Vader, because George would not whore those characters out for cheap.

Oddly enough Yoda actually looks like he fits in. Darth Vader, not so much. You can bet that Yoda is going to be as cheap as hell though. Not only will he be the smallest character in the game meaning that most horizontal attacks will go straight over his head, but he’ll probably be the fastest of the bunch and be able to use the force to push characters back and lob his lightsaber as a projectile. It’d be cool of Yoda and Vader both got their own stages too; something the bonus characters were denied in Soul Calibur II. They wouldn’t fit in with the look of the game whatsoever (unless Yoda’s stage was set on the planet of Dagobah), but it’d be cool none the less. Fitting in sometimes goes out of the window during fan service. Vader most definitely needs to have a stage set on top of a Star destoyer with lots of tie fighters and X-wings battling it out in the background as the Death stars looms in the distance. And of course it wouldn’t be complete without “The imperial march” as the stage’s theme song. Awww yeah!

There is no hope for this game. None at all. It’s like Britney Spears. A lost cause. It looks crappy, boring, bland and plain shit. And not including 2 player online co-op was a big mistake. I actually would’ve considered buying this game if it had included it.

And could somebody tell me why Namco keep insisting on including Sophitia in Soul Calibur games? Do Namco not understand she is a boring and uninspired character? I say they have Nightmare stab her with Soul edge and kill her off. We don’t even need her for the titty factor because Ivy and Taki can hold that end up between ‘em. Just have Cassandra replace her and be done with it. We don’t need two blonde haired Athenian bitches in the game. We don’t even need one. They’re both boring.

Soul Calibur Legends released in North America yesterday, though I doubt anybody knew or even cared. I cannot see this game selling huge numbers. If I was the manager of a video game store I wouldn’t even put it out on the shelf. I’d just send all copies of the game back to the supplier and just put out more copies of Super Mario galaxy. I’m sure the more hardcore Soul Calibur fans itching for some beat ‘em up action on Wii will check this game out. But speaking as a Soul Calibur fan who is itching for some beat ‘em up action on Wii, I won’t be checking it out. I would’ve much preferred a Soul Calibur anthology or even a re-release of the original Soul Calibur with Soul Calibur III’s graphics and some online play.

Soul Calibur Legends, the much discussed Soul Calibur spinoff headed for the Wii just announced the inclusion of a new character from the Namco universe. Yes, your eyes do not deceive you, that is indeed Lloyd from Tales of Symphonia.

Apparently Lloyd learned about the legendary soul calibur sword and is now looking to acquire it, whoop dee doo! Original excuse! Information and pictures of a couple of new bosses were also released, but given that this title is still very much in a hype vacuum only Lloyds appearance seems of interest right now.

Expect to hear “Demon Fang” enough time to drive you nuts come December 03… in Japan.

[Game Watch Impress / Via The Tanooki]

The latest Soul Calibur IV trailer courtesy of Namco Bandai. Unlike previous videos we actually get a good look at the game in action. Check it out!

This trailer didn’t really do much for me. Maybe if they showed Ivy’s titties in slow motion like the first trailer I would’ve thought better of it. It looks like all of the other Soul Calibur games really doesn’t it? The SAME animation frames, the SAME stages, the SAME moves, the SAME snazzy light show when a character gets hit. The only thing that seems to have received a major overhaul are the graphics, which look stunning. I bet Nintendo are wishing they’d actually made an effort with the Wii’s graphical capabilities now. Especially given how shitty Soul Calibur legends looks.

Soul Calibur fans have probably already gathered that the new armour clad chick is a new character. Her name is ‘Hildegard Von Krone’ and she looks pretty crap in my opinion. She lacks impact. No where near as original and as eye catching as Ivy was when she was first introduced in Soul Calibur 1. If you use Soul Calibur 3’s character creator you can make a fighter who looks just like her. The same armour, same weapon and everything. I am pretty surprised Namco designed a female character whose breasts aren’t out on display. Usually they’re all about the skimpy, fitted outfits and maximum jiggling for the ladies. She’ll probably have a P2 outfit which has her with her titties out looking like a ho though.

Despite showing ‘2008′ at the end of the trailer, Soul Calibur IV is rumoured to release in Japan at the end of 2007 and every where else some time in 2008.

Reading our latest “A look Back @. . .” post, I have thought of one thing: “Damn, the Dreamcast was an awesome console” and Bam! Soul Calibur comes to mind. A 3D fighting game like no other; it was the first game able to conquer successfully the bulkiness of past 3D games like Virtua Fighter or Tekken (and its predecessor, Soul Edge) and gave us the fluidity of fast sprite games like Street Fighter Alpha 3. Adding to that a very balanced parrying movement and different attack techniques and and the infamous Ring Out scenarios and you have a nearly invincible game (graphics play a role, but even when comparing past generation games, graphics won’t beat gameplay. . .ever).

Add to this game some nice characters like Nightmare, Xianghua, Voldo, and Sophitia and you have all fan bases covered. Along the way we’ve seen Soul Calibur, then the near perfected Soul Calibur II (with Link on the Gamecube, version! How cool is that?!); advancing with some let-downs in SCIII, and preparing for the next two games of the franchise: Soul Calibur IV on “power” consoles, and SC Legends on the Wii. And even as we of the DDN community have discussed the comparative issues of these two games, it would’ve been nice to have seen SC IV on our Wii’s.

To your viewing pleasure, Alexfung23 shows us a great compilation of the game for the DC, with brief clips of its characters and fighting styles.

Great, now I want to play a Soul Calibur I don’t have because my brother lost it. ;_;

This trailer confirms what many of us thought when we first saw the game. It will be lackluster. Nothing about this game looks all that interesting does it? Perhaps if Namco boosted Ivy’s breast size or had Taki camel toe, then I would’ve taken more of an interest. As it is though, the game looks pretty standard. The lighting effects are non-existent, the areas look like slightly altered stages from Soul Calibur 1 & 2 and the game looks like it’s running on the DreamCast. The co-op mode looks cool, but I’m not keen on the split screen set up. Hopefully this game will allow co-op play online so both players can enjoy playing on a full screen. Voice chat wouldn’t go amiss neither.

You’d think Namco would give up on these kinds of games after the bore fests that where Tekken Force, Devil within and the horrendous Death by degrees. But hopefully Namco will surprise us. Because it actually would be cool if this game didn’t suck balls. I’d still rather have Soul Calibur IV though.

Gamers in the US will be able to get their hands on this game November 6, 2007.