I played Soul Cal 3, it was fun. I had a custom character, and so did a friend. SO it was usually those 2 versus each other. Or another Nightmare versus Abyss fight.

So he reviewed a game basically geared towards multiplayer gaming, by playing against the A.I?

I know you'll yell at me saying "HUUUR BUT HE HATES MULTIPLAYUH", but seriously, Yahtzee, as much as I loved your old stuff, I find it incredibly hard to even find anything funny recently.

I neither agree or disagree with your review, if I can call it that, as I don't own SC4.

And the mispelling of Calibre/Caliber is intentional.

Soul Calibur is the name of the holy sword, created to battle the evil sword Soul Edge, around which the games' storylines revolve.

Yes, I know, storyline crap, but all the "LOL I LOVE IT HOW YOU SPELLED IT RITE YAHTZEE XDXD" stuff stops, wasn't even funny.

All of a sudden I realise why CAD is so popular.

imo soul blade had one of the best intros ever created, i liked the earlier games better than the more recent boob-fests, thanks a lot tomb raider and dead or alive

To Yahtzee:
would it make you happy if they permanently killed off some characters because the story said so ?
also why do you never ever mention the soundtrack in your reviews ??

I liked the random usage of an AD&D manual page to illustrate needless complexity.

jebussaves88:

Hearthing:

rightwingisgood:
This seems to be another area where Yahtzee and I disagree. Though I understand the fact that if he doesn't get a game he can hardly stretch himself for a review he seems to have a direct hate to fan base ratio in his reviews that shows here. He also seems more arrogant then usual by using his own lack of connection with the genre to claim that it is no fun for anyone where others who actively enjoy the genre have prased it as a complete fighting experience. I will however conceed the point concerning the story in that I've never taken it too seriously where Soul Calibur is concenred and in general it never seems as "serious" a series as Mortal Kombat or Tekken. To finish I say MK V DC looks awesome.

Alrighty then, so we have small Japanese looking teenagers, strange hair do's, big swords no one with that little muscle would ever be able to pick up and added Darth Vader and Yoda into the mix and you're saying it's arrogant to hate it? It's arrogant to defend it...

Any of us big nerds know that a lightsabre can cut off anything and cut through anything, why can't it cut through those small muscleless characters.

Yeah, but you forget that the game might still actually be a laugh. Either it'll be a remake and remodel of the original Soul Calibur on Dreamcast which was pretty much the best of the series and contained none of these weird bonus characters, or it will suffer from being a sequel, and and any attempt at online play will inevitably be ruined by some prick always playing as Yoda. I'm hoping Yahtzee is wrong about the dominance of the throw button, because Soul Calibur 1 and 2 were pretty good, so long as you like fighting games (which most people who take the time to go online and heavily discuss games don't, because for them it is probably too casual)

And let the lightsabre element go will you? It doesn't really matter

So your defence for the game being good is what exactly?

As he pointed out it lacks plot, character development etc so what is it about the game that makes it good?

I've played SC3 and SC4 and although i enjoyed it i only played it for about 1 hour single player and 4/5 matches against my brother who was infinately better because he'd played for x times longer than me. The only good thing about fighting games is the multiplayer against afew friends which is fun but certainly not worth actually buying the game.

Basically its fun but contains about 5/6 hours worth of game play before it gets old and that makes it a bad game since i expect alot more game for my money.

Edit: Also a game when you can beat a player ranked #50 on your first ever go makes me laugh, yay button mash :D

Very well done. The 'Technical Difficulties' bit is a hoot. Om nom nom etc. Also, oblique reference to AD&D 2nd ed is made of win.

What is Captain Bland's real name? I continue seeing his photo in ZP but have yet to unearth the true identity of the monotonous twat.

savandicus:

jebussaves88:

Hearthing:

rightwingisgood:
This seems to be another area where Yahtzee and I disagree. Though I understand the fact that if he doesn't get a game he can hardly stretch himself for a review he seems to have a direct hate to fan base ratio in his reviews that shows here. He also seems more arrogant then usual by using his own lack of connection with the genre to claim that it is no fun for anyone where others who actively enjoy the genre have prased it as a complete fighting experience. I will however conceed the point concerning the story in that I've never taken it too seriously where Soul Calibur is concenred and in general it never seems as "serious" a series as Mortal Kombat or Tekken. To finish I say MK V DC looks awesome.

Alrighty then, so we have small Japanese looking teenagers, strange hair do's, big swords no one with that little muscle would ever be able to pick up and added Darth Vader and Yoda into the mix and you're saying it's arrogant to hate it? It's arrogant to defend it...

Any of us big nerds know that a lightsabre can cut off anything and cut through anything, why can't it cut through those small muscleless characters.

Yeah, but you forget that the game might still actually be a laugh. Either it'll be a remake and remodel of the original Soul Calibur on Dreamcast which was pretty much the best of the series and contained none of these weird bonus characters, or it will suffer from being a sequel, and and any attempt at online play will inevitably be ruined by some prick always playing as Yoda. I'm hoping Yahtzee is wrong about the dominance of the throw button, because Soul Calibur 1 and 2 were pretty good, so long as you like fighting games (which most people who take the time to go online and heavily discuss games don't, because for them it is probably too casual)

And let the lightsabre element go will you? It doesn't really matter

So your defence for the game being good is what exactly?

As he pointed out it lacks plot, character development etc so what is it about the game that makes it good?

I've played SC3 and SC4 and although i enjoyed it i only played it for about 1 hour single player and 4/5 matches against my brother who was infinately better because he'd played for x times longer than me. The only good thing about fighting games is the multiplayer against afew friends which is fun but certainly not worth actually buying the game.

Basically its fun but contains about 5/6 hours worth of game play before it gets old and that makes it a bad game since i expect alot more game for my money.

Edit: Also a game when you can beat a player ranked #50 on your first ever go makes me laugh, yay button mash :D

The only good thing about fighting games is the multiplayer?

Where in the name of Zeus have you been the past 15 years?

That was pretty damn funny. I wonder why he has such trouble 'understanding' fighting games. I guess its because he only plays them via the 'easy and pointless' rout, eg the throws or spam attacks in sc4. See people who actually like these games make a point to not use all the cheap moves otherwise yes the games ARE pointless to play.

Fighting games are simple, never make much sense and generally speaking playing them solo is kinda pointless.
The point of them is no different than any random dumb game you'd be doing in reality with your friends. Everyone does the same stupid thing until someone wins/loses, alcohol and snacks are usually involved.

However I've been having a blast for weeks with sc4 playing solo when my buds aren't over because the custom char thing with all the gear and options is, at least for me, actually worth devoting time to. I do get a sense of achievement from it, but then that's the kind of gamer I am. I like games with simple goals, easy playability and general all round fun. SC4 provides, and the 3d tits are just icing on the cake really. ^_^

Yahtzee is mostly right. The biggest problem with Soul Calibur 4 is that it's one hell of an annoying SPAM FEST game. It's FAR too easy to be good with nothing and only using one attack gets you real far. There's also many "noob characters" that are way too simple to be good with on an early state and makes it imbalanced on lower skilled levels. Tekken is beat-em-up in perfection and it's my definite fav. But SC4 is still fun even though it's not 3/10 of what Tekken is.

Hearthing:

rightwingisgood:
This seems to be another area where Yahtzee and I disagree. Though I understand the fact that if he doesn't get a game he can hardly stretch himself for a review he seems to have a direct hate to fan base ratio in his reviews that shows here. He also seems more arrogant then usual by using his own lack of connection with the genre to claim that it is no fun for anyone where others who actively enjoy the genre have prased it as a complete fighting experience. I will however conceed the point concerning the story in that I've never taken it too seriously where Soul Calibur is concenred and in general it never seems as "serious" a series as Mortal Kombat or Tekken. To finish I say MK V DC looks awesome.

Alrighty then, so we have small Japanese looking teenagers, strange hair do's, big swords no one with that little muscle would ever be able to pick up and added Darth Vader and Yoda into the mix and you're saying it's arrogant to hate it? It's arrogant to defend it...

Any of us big nerds know that a lightsabre can cut off anything and cut through anything, why can't it cut through those small muscleless characters.

It's downright despicable to see how much Yahtzee has turned som of you into word - for - word quoting sheep. All these references to "angsty japanese looking teenagers with crazy hair do's and big swords" wouldn't have crossed your mind at all before you started watching Yahtzee's reviews. By the way, how does that even play a role in your overall game experience? Are you telling me that you prefer Ivy wearing a heavily armored mech suit instead?

I'm not bashing Yahtzee by the way; it's his hard core fans that really get on my nerves, trying to mimic his style by the book. Your INDIVIDUALS, speak for yourselves dammit!

Don't have the money for it but I rented it. My guy, who pretty much hates fighting games with every fiber of his being, enjoyed playing it with me. It was an alarming discovery! The game is a lot of fun. My guy was instantly wrapped up in character customization, putting on armor that looked hideous just for good stat bonuses, while I just wanted to make someone pretty. (Eventually I did actually look at the effects of what I put on..)

We both had a great time leveling our respective styles and unlocking armor to get more useful skills. Yahtzee is half right about the skill system, as half of them are extremely unappealing and dysfunctional. But some of them I really liked. Like the health regeneration skill, or the one that made your attacks hit as if your weapon was soaked in poison.

It really didn't feel like every other fighting game. I mean, in lots of games no matter which character you play, they all kind of feel the same with only slightly different moves and degrees of usefulness. In Soul Calibur, playing with the custom created characters, it was different. HP ranged a great deal, the power, the speed. Playing my own character vs. my guy's character was actually quite a different experience.

And! Playing together! My guy and I look for co-op games all the time. We're tired of co-op being limited to shooting each other or others in the face. We were happily surprised to learn that we could tweak ascending and descending the tower (which was actually quite hard for us at times) to be a cooperative affair. I would select my character as the first, his as the second, and we'd agree on a third or fourth, depending on the floor level. When my health got low, or I got KO'd, I'd toss the controller to him and he'd jump in.

It was the most fun we'd both had with a fighting game. Go SC4!

One of the best ones for a while

It is odd how the last game which had more text boxes had a better story than this one. It feels like that the makers of the game thought they could slack off because they had included online play. While good as it is, it is not an excuse to screw the story.

Well, at least Yahtzee is given to truthfulness this week. He doesn't 'get' fighting games. Because he didn't mention what fighting games, all of them, Soul Calibur no exception, are about. Beating Up Your Mates. Seriously, no-one buys a fighting game for any other reason than to play it against other human beings in order to twat them in the face by proxy.

Actually, you would be wrong on this

The name comes from Excalibur

Maybe Yahtzee missed SC2 (my first foray into the series) where each system had its own additional character. I rather enjoyed watching Link swing around the Megaton Hammer like it was a wooden stick... Anyway, considering his comments about Lucas from previous ZP reviews, it hardly surprises me that this installment in the series features Star Wars characters. What's next for SC? Transformers?

Gotta love these reviews. I laughed out loud in "nope, same results" but that wasn't a good thing coz i have a cold and my throat is sore.
I don't believe This was the right game for yahtzee who likes to play his games in a dark solitary room with all lights out and doors locked. All fighting games are meant to be played with friends, and presumably retard buttonmashing friends who don't play games and therefore don't know any better. You can practically see that from the way they milk the Star Wars joke.

I learned long ago, Noon on wendesdays is Yahtzee time. Also, DC v MK. This is news to me.

IridRadiant:
Maybe Yahtzee missed SC3 (my first foray into the series) where each system had its own additional character. I rather enjoyed watching Link swing around the Megaton Hammer like it was a wooden stick... Anyway, considering his comments about Lucas from previous ZP reviews, it hardly surprises me that this installment in the series features Star Wars characters. What's next for SC? Transformers?

All Soul Calibur games, as far as I know, have cameo characters.

* Heihachi Mishima from the Tekken series (Soulcalibur II; PS2 version)
* Link from The Legend of Zelda series (Soulcalibur II; GameCube version)
* Spawn from the Todd McFarlane comic of the same name (Soulcalibur II; Xbox version only)

* Gilgamesh from the Tower of Druaga game (Can be created as a Custom Character in Soulcalibur III by wearing certain items including the Hyper Helm, and using the "Sword & Shield" discipline while equipping Excalibur)
* KOS-MOS from the Xenosaga series (Can be created as a Custom Character in Soulcalibur III after unlocking and purchasing all the Type X items from the Armor Shop)

* Lloyd Irving from Tales of Symphonia (Soulcalibur Legends)

* Darth Vader from Star Wars (Soulcalibur IV; represents the PS3 version)
* Yoda from Star Wars (Soulcalibur IV; represents the Xbox 360 version)
* The Apprentice from Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (Soul Calibur IV) [8]

rightwingisgood:
This seems to be another area where Yahtzee and I disagree. Though I understand the fact that if he doesn't get a game he can hardly stretch himself for a review he seems to have a direct hate to fan base ratio in his reviews that shows here. He also seems more arrogant then usual by using his own lack of connection with the genre to claim that it is no fun for anyone where others who actively enjoy the genre have prased it as a complete fighting experience. I will however conceed the point concerning the story in that I've never taken it too seriously where Soul Calibur is concenred and in general it never seems as "serious" a series as Mortal Kombat or Tekken. To finish I say MK V DC looks awesome.

P.S If anyone has a problem with the inclusion of Yoda, Darth Vader or the Apprentice it can be solved with two very easy words "non cannon"

This is pretty much what I had in mind to say. Nicely put.

Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting, Street Fighter III Third Strike and Street Fighter Alpha 3. Don't bother w/ any other fighting game unless you just want eye candy.

GloatingSwine:
Well, at least Yahtzee is given to truthfulness this week. He doesn't 'get' fighting games. Because he didn't mention what fighting games, all of them, Soul Calibur no exception, are about. Beating Up Your Mates. Seriously, no-one buys a fighting game for any other reason than to play it against other human beings in order to twat them in the face by proxy.

I'd have to raise my hand and claim the name nobody then. Nobody I play games with often enough enjoys fighting games at all. I play them by myself and I have a lot of fun. Lately fighting games have included little goals I enjoy working on and a wider variety of characters. SC4 is a gift to all solo fighting game players. You have achievements to unlock, the tower to ascend and descend, every story mode to complete, characters to customize almost endlessly, and the neat extra 'missions' of the tower to complete in order to get better equipment.

And to everyone agreeing with Yahtzee about the throw button.. Please. I understand that if you don't 'get' fighting games you wouldn't get this about them. In my house we call that chicken fighting. Backing the opponent into a wall and performing the same move or repeatedly doing any move over and over again just because it works, vs. human or cpu, is just plain wrong in the true fighting game player's book of morals. If you chicken fight, it sucks the fun and the sense of accomplishment out of everything.

I'm in general agreement with your viewpoint on the single player modes. They're all typically lackluster, and yes, throw has always been absurdly overpowered in Soul Calibur. However, I can't help but find your choice to judge the game entirely on it's single player aspects instead of it's multiplayer aspects rather baffling. The entire goal of a good fighting game is to allow a constant game of prediction to be going on between the two human players. The ability to execute more complex combinations is present too, but to be frank, most of SC's combos barely go beyond 4 or 5 inputs, nothing compared to jugglefests like Tekken.

For example, this is why there are "delayed" move input commands for various techniques, that are intended to be used to trick your opponent into believing you're not following up on your last attack, and make them stop blocking (thus allowing you to get a hit confirm). This could also be seen in the use of changing between high and low attacks frequently to cause a blocking opponent to have to guess constantly at.

Some people call this "luck", but frankly, it's present in practically any competitive sort of game, video game or not, and there IS a large degree of skill devoted into it. Varying your strategies, figuring out the holes in your opponent's, etc, it burns down to a very basic concept present in practically any multiplayer game.

Ultimately, it's like trying to judge a game of Chess when you're playing against yourself instead of another person. You're throwing a very large and important factor of a game completely out the window.

Paul The Best:
Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting, Street Fighter III Third Strike and Street Fighter Alpha 3. Don't bother w/ any other fighting game unless you just want eye candy.

Guilty Gear and Melty Blood (newest versions for both ofc) equally deserve mentions.

Ionait:
And to everyone agreeing with Yahtzee about the throw button.. Please. I understand that if you don't 'get' fighting games you wouldn't get this about them. In my house we call that chicken fighting. Backing the opponent into a wall and performing the same move or repeatedly doing any move over and over again just because it works, vs. human or cpu, is just plain wrong in the true fighting game player's book of morals. If you chicken fight, it sucks the fun and the sense of accomplishment out of everything.

Whilst I can agree to this somewhat, countering throws in Soul Calibur is really not that hard if someone is repeatedly spamming them (the same should go for any properly designed fighter for spamming any move) My real problem with them is the absurd damage that they do for an unblockable, something which I have never been content with for the series.

lol i love how there is only one mention of yoda in the whole review lol!

All Soul Calibur games, as far as I know, have cameo characters.

* Heihachi Mishima from the Tekken series (Soulcalibur II; PS2 version)
* Link from The Legend of Zelda series (Soulcalibur II; GameCube version)
* Spawn from the Todd McFarlane comic of the same name (Soulcalibur II; Xbox version only)

* Gilgamesh from the Tower of Druaga game (Can be created as a Custom Character in Soulcalibur III by wearing certain items including the Hyper Helm, and using the "Sword & Shield" discipline while equipping Excalibur)
* KOS-MOS from the Xenosaga series (Can be created as a Custom Character in Soulcalibur III after unlocking and purchasing all the Type X items from the Armor Shop)

* Lloyd Irving from Tales of Symphonia (Soulcalibur Legends)

* Darth Vader from Star Wars (Soulcalibur IV; represents the PS3 version)
* Yoda from Star Wars (Soulcalibur IV; represents the Xbox 360 version)
* The Apprentice from Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (Soul Calibur IV) [8]

My biggest disappointment with the cameo characters in this game was the fact that i thought they could have chosen a lot better custom characters than Jedi. At least with the other cameos they could have kind of made sense in the game. You could expect Link to have a fairly equal chance against any other character in a match, same thing with Spawn and Heihachi.

I for one found believe that including Jedi in a game one of two things happen.
1. They have to make Jedi weak (this is what normally happens because the fact that light sabers should be able to overpower most of the weapons in any fighting game)
2. Make them overpowered because that's what Jedi are supposed to be.

It was ironic after playing the game that I felt that they did both. They felt weak for Jedi, but were more powerful than most characters to the point of basically being cheap.

My last thought about it is they didn't really give us a choice of a special character to choose from. Yes if you have both consoles you could choose between Vader or Yoda, but in SC2 if you had at least two of the three consoles you could at least choose a different character from a completely different series.

FILTHGRINDER:

i would try emailing yahtzee, and asking him if he has them. i would be surprised if he didnt write out the review on some word processing doc. in the medal of honor review it actually shows a screen shot of it written out now that i think about it. word of advice tho, if you email him or PM him on the message board id make your subject title very clear, cause im sure he just got spammed with 100 emails in the last hour. so as to sift thru them and actually get to yours.

Only three comments posted by people who didn't even watch the review?

Weird.

KasaiAisu:
Heh, ive been hoping you would do Soul Calibur 4...

Emphasis on the do part, he really screwed with the game, hehe

I have yet to play a fighting game with a good plot...DoA, not even close; Soul Calibur, the same; SSB Brawl, good game but seriously, what the hell?

Fighting games have always seemed like nothing more than niche appeal to me. And that niche consists entirely of people who can memorize move sets in a heartbeat and have the reaction times of a fly. Neither of which am I, and therefore I find fighting games to be crap. Can't follow the story so single player is out, and can't block or counter to save my life so I'm screwed in multiplayer. Game - single player - multiplayer = no game.

Seriously though, Mortal Kombat vs. DC...where have I heard this before...oh right, Marvel vs. Capcom. This oughta be a laugh.

Haha, once I saw it was a fighting game I knew it was going to have its balls eaten alive. Good episode Yahtzee

I like Soul Calibur/er but I can't defend it.

I can defend the general fighting genre, though.

They're only just behind FPS games when it comes to a pure match of skill, so those who like actual competition are the ones most drawn to it. Soul Calibur isn't the best example because it is probably the single most button-masher happy fighting game in the entire world, but there IS a certain skill level you can get to where you wouldn't lose to a button masher.

In your case it would be the person who knows that throws can be broken by pressing the right button, and I'm pretty sure you can still Guard Impact them.

Or someone who is using someone like Kilik who has a very fast and low move while on the ground.

Anyway, my point is, you've probably beaten everyone you've come up against with button mashing because Australia sucks for gamers, and the few 'good' gamers it DOES have are just weeaboos who know all the cookiecutter combos and strategies from looking them up off message boards.

My argument can be summed up thusly: If you can find a copy of Guilty Gear and beat me in it, I will get a megaphone and personally announce at a Japanese arcade that fighting games are shit, then rip off my shirt to bare my chest to all incoming sharp objects.

Anyway. Your point is valid for someone who isn't a fighting game fan and you're as funny as always so I can't hold shit against you.

Pretty funny review. Best part was the picture when he was going to try hard mode.
And agreed, compared to SC3 this storyline is a joke.