The top fighters of this generation, Part 2
Fight Club.
Missed Part 1? Read it here.
The fighting game is not dead. It might seem like it sometimes, given the relatively small lineup of fighters available for current-gen systems, but quality stands for far more than quantity in a fighting game. True, the halcyon days of the 2D and 3D fighters on the PSone and Saturn are long behind us, but do we really miss the Toh Shin Dens, the Bloody Roars, The Psychic Forces and World Heroes that permeated the lineup of fighters? Not really, because whilst the herd has thinned, the strongest have survived. And so we present our list of the best fighters of this generation; the best of an increasingly breed, perhaps, but still the best.
4. Soul Calibur IV
Namco’s Project Soul might have begun in the same year as Dead or Alive, but went in a very different direction. The original Soul Edge (Soul Blade on PSone) was one of the first 3D fighters to incorporate a variety of weapons into the fighting styles of the game, though by the time Soul Calibur IV was released in 2008 the ten-strong roster of the original game had risen to over 30, the majority of whom had their own unique weapon sets and moves.
Combat was as fast and furious as ever for the series, which uses its own unusual control system- buttons for horizontal and vertical attacks with weapons, a button for kicks, and a button to block. It’s a system that works, certainly, and the simple command structure means that newcomers can pick up the game and look like an expert within minutes, much to the chargrin of experienced players.
The hugely impressive Create a Soul mode make a welcome return from Soul Calibur III, now allowing for a ridiculous level of character customisation, though limiting move lists to the weapon styles of existing characters (and removing the older fighting styles such as assassin and priest). As for new characters, Namco gave us Hilde and Algol, four characters designed by manga artists, and three Star Wars cameos in the forms of Darth Vader, Yoda, and the Force Apprentice from Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. The latter three served little purpose other than to inbalance the game even more, and the PS3 and Xbox 360 had one of the characters locked out initially, later obtainable through downloadable content.
A couple of new additions were added to the gameplay, in the form of the Soul Gauge system. Each character had a bar under their health that increased when they attacked and decreased when hurt. Hammer a character enough and you could inflict a Soul Crush, breaking off some of their armour and enabling a Critical Finish- an instant-kill move that just needed you to press the face buttons. There’s also the item system which gives characters various skills and boosts depending on what items you outfit them with in the Create a Soul mode.
And yet, whilst Soul Calibur IV was a fun and entertaining title, it isn’t the strongest of the Soul series. That merit still rests with Soul Calibur III for me, which offered vast amounts of additional content. SCIV might boast arcade and story modes, but these pale in comparison to the Tales of Souls mode of SCIII. IV might have more items in Create a Soul, but there isn’t as much to do with your custom character- you can use them in special vs matches and in the Tower of Souls challenge mode, but that’s it. SCIII, meanwhile, bolted on the hugely enjoyable Chronicles of Souls mode, a Real-Time Strategy game where battles were fought as bouts of Soul Calibur, with dozens of characters and items to unlock.
Soul Calibur IV might be unbalanced, lacking in content compared to its predecessors, and even broken at times, but its also outrageously good fun.
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